Way of the Wicked Chapter Thirteen
Services in the chapel were always inspirational, especially when Father Donnagin found some excuse to work a bit of choral music in there at the appropriate moments. Franz Mott didn't usually consider himself a particularly pious man, but even he had to admit that the sound of the priest and his supporting acolytes raising their voices in blessed hymns could bring a man a sense of peace and fulfillment he might find nowhere else. The way that the stone statues all around the chapel seemed to join in on the hymns, adding their own refrains and harmonic counterparts to the priest's singing in tones like crystal bells... well, that only enhanced the experience.
He'd asked the father once about those statues, the 'Singing Saints of Balentyne' that were famous throughout the borderlands for their musical gift, wondering if they had any connection to the divine magic that he'd seen the priest work a time or two before. Althus - and it was always Althas when speaking to the man privately, never the more formal 'Father Donnagin' - had just smiled at him in a way that left him feeling vaguely chastised, before commenting that not all of Mitra's miracles needed a human conduit to manifest themselves in the world of man. It was a sobering reminder in some ways, for it was all too easy to forget that the miracles worked by the priests of Mitra were not entirely their own, but at the same time it was reassuring to know that something so kind and powerful stood watch over their home just as they stood guard over the homes of others.
The garrison, it seemed, had evidently decided they could use a bit of reassurance today. The services in Balentyne's chapel were usually well attended, the soldiers motivated by their love for the garrulous priest as much as their own piety, but today it seemed that just about everyone who wasn't on active duty had flocked to the small building to listen to the songs and the sermon. Some sixty men filled the pews and lifted their voices in praise to the Shining Lord, resplendent in their pristine uniforms and shining armour. Weapons tended to be left outside rather than brought into the church, but today just about everyone was carrying a blade of some kind, if only as a reassuring gesture against whatever menace stalked the halls of their fortress.
Shaking his head, Franz turned his attention back to the front of the chapel and allowed his eyes to rest on the large alter there. It was carved from a single block of white stone, possibly marble cut from the heart of the Ansgarian mountains far to the south, and bore minimal decoration save for a single inscription across the front - There is no darkness so deep that a single candle cannot defeat it. He'd always found that layout an appropriate choice for a watch fortress, though he was aware that not everyone shared his views. Still, a relatively plain and functional design appealed to his sensibilities and resonated with the bluntly practical nature of the castle itself, while the inscription was one that he had often repeated to himself during the long hours of duty, staring out into the endless wastes to the north. And, lately, at the shadows that gathered within Balentyne itself.
Somewhere, lurking in the depths of the fortress or possibly creeping in from beyond the walls, there was a saboteur. Not an obvious or particularly straightforward one, for none of the castle's siege engines had been disabled and all of the guards were still in full health, but one that evidently had some kind of goal in mind and the skills required to pursue that goal. Too much had gone wrong recently for there to be any other explanation, at least to Franz's suspicious mind. It had begun with the rookery, where the collection of trained messenger ravens that the fort used to communicate with the rest of the kingdom had been kept. Somehow, the meat that had been used for their daily meal had become diseased or rotten in some fashion, a fact not discovered until the vast majority of them had perished. Martin, the strange little man that kept and looked after them, had been utterly distraught at the disaster, promptly secluding himself away in the tower to care for the few that had managed to survive. The last Franz had heard, those small handful would not be fit for duty again for a few weeks, if they survived at all, and that meant that Balentyne had been effectively cut off from the world at large.
Then it had been the arrow stores, where the supplies for the garrison's archers had been stored in case of dire need. The place was normally abandoned for the majority of the day, only visited when the shifts changed and the new soldiers needed to secure an adequate supply of ammunition for their bows, but it seemed that had been a mistake. The evidence so far seemed to indicate that a wild bird had managed to get in through one of the narrow windows and promptly knocked one of the torches that illuminated the place out of its holder. Poor luck had seen the burning torch land in one of the barrels of arrows, which itself had been overloaded and thus toppled over at the impact, and before anyone had been able to realize what was happening and put a stop to it the entire room had been consumed in the blaze. The Lord-Commander had immediately commissioned the VonKraig smithy in Aldencross to produce a replacement stockpile, but until that happened the garrison would be reduced to just the ammunition carried by those guards on-duty when the disaster had occurred.
Those unfortunate events, Franz would have been content to dismiss as coincidence, but when the dwarf engineer Eisenbach had made an inspection of the rest of the castle's defenses as part of his work and found the ropes in the mechanism behind the Seal to have been chewed apart by a small colony of termites... well, if twice was a coincidence, three times had to be enemy action. Just like the others, the problems with the Seal were not a particularly crippling blow to the security of the fortress, for it was something of a backup plan - in the case of an absolute disaster, such as the castle somehow falling to an enemy attack, the great Seal of Talingarde could be lowered from its position on the outer wall and positioned to block the main thoroughfare that ran the length of the fortress's lower floor. The giant stone shield wouldn't completely prevent an attacking force from moving through the fortress, but it would deny them a clear path and force them to make use of the narrow stairwells and alternate exits elsewhere in the castle. With it disabled, an attacking force could theoretically cross the old stone bridge that Balentyne was guarding, march straight through the fortress and leave out the far side.
Still, all of these could be dismissed as accidental and no-one had died yet, so the Lord-Commander had not seen fit to respond in any serious fashion. Franz glanced along the pews to the position near the front where the Lord-Commander was standing, his armour gleaming with magical enchantment and his bearded head bowed in reverence to the altar in front of him, biting back a curse. He knew he was being unfair, for until there was some sign of precisely how the saboteur was infiltrating their position there was little that Lord Havelyn could really do to discourage them. Extra guards had been posted in all of the more vital areas and the sentries warned to be as vigilant as possible, but short of pulling everyone away from their immediate duties and mounting a top to bottom search of the entire fortress for some indefinable threat there was little more that could be done.
Especially not when some of the evidence seemed to indicate that whoever was behind this might very well be a member of the garrison itself. How else were they able to accomplish such tasks without inside knowledge? Certainly there was nothing about the Seal to indicate it had more than a purely decorative purpose unless you knew about it already...
Tearing his mind away from such troubling thoughts, Franz bowed his head as the hymnal came to an end and Father Donnagin once again took his position behind the altar. In many ways the priest was a walking stereotype - a large man with the faintly rounded face and considerable bulk of someone who enjoyed a bit too much good food, his brown hair was shaved in a monk's tonsure and his blue eyes always seemed to be shining with amusement and kindly wisdom. In the depths of his soul Franz knew he was vaguely jealous of the priest, for though he had always done his best to uphold his duty to the best of his abilities and lead his men as well as he knew how, he simply didn't have the same kind of natural charisma and warmth as the friendly priest did. His soldiers might respect him and obey whatever orders he gave them, but they liked the priest, and that was a sensation that had been absent from his life for far too long.
"Thank you all for being here." The priest was saying, his warm tones washing over the congregation in a gentle wave and reaching even to the very back of the chapel. "It does my heart good to know that Talingarde can still count on such brave and pious men to guard its borders. Now, we've already covered most of the relevant topics for today's sermon, and you all know where the next one is, so I'll just add that I am still available for consultations and advice throughout the week. If you need anything, large or small, please come and find me. All issues will be dealt with in the strictest confidence."
His head bowed, Franz had to stifle a small smile at that particular pronouncement. It was a quiet understanding among the garrison that many of the young men and women would visit Aldencross on their off hours for some 'recreation', and that such indulgences occasionally ended up with one of the soldiers needing some way to discretely cleanse the pox from their bodies before returning to duty. Father Donnagin had always been willing to provide such services, off the record and with the minimum of fuss or lecturing, and that had gone quite some way to securing his popularity among the garrison. It had always struck Hanz as vaguely blasphemous to put the gifts of Mitra towards such base ends, but he supposed that the priest was better qualified than he to decide on such matters.
"Still, with that said I think I've chattered on long enough. May the light of Mitra go with you as you carry out your duties, and may He watch over our friends and family in the days and weeks to come. 'Till all is light."
"'Till all is light." Franz murmured in response, his voice lost among the general swell of noise that accompanied it from all of the other worshippers. Then, the sermon over, he turned with them and joined the general tide of men and women heading for the exits and the rest of their days. Some would be heading for the barracks, others for Aldencross or their duty stations, ready to relieve the standing shift and take over the endless duty of watching the frontier for any sign of trouble. As for Franz himself, well, he'd finished his shift for the day, and was therefore going home.
Ahead of him, there was a faint stir in the soldiers as one particular man moved past them towards the exit. Tacitus of Morimun was a tall, slender man dressed in robes of dark blue with orange highlights, whose hair was little more than a wild mess of dark red strands and who watched the world with beady eyes from behind a set of gold-rimmed spectacles. His official position was Magister of Balentyne, a semi-formal rank that put him roughly on par with Franz and the other captains, and aside from the Lord-Commander there was no-one in the entire fortress who was realistically even half as dangerous in a fight.
If the Wizard noticed the strange and almost hostile looks he was getting as he made his way through the crowd, he didn't allow any reaction to show upon his face. Oh, he occasionally shot a disdainful glance in the direction of one of the soldiers when they drew too near to him in the crowd, but the garrison at large was perfectly used to his unfriendly demeanor by this point and had long since stopped expecting anything different. Maybe if Tacitus spent more time alongside them some of that strange and distant reputation would start to diminish, but aside from these weekly services and the odd meetings with the Lord-Commander and the other officers the Magister barely ever left his tower. Even his meals were brought directly to him by the servants, rather than being taken in the mess hall like everyone else had to, a fact that had not done the man many favours in the eyes of the rank and file.
Some of those soldiers were probably already inclined towards blaming him for the spate of misfortune that seemed to have befallen them of late. Wizards had never been popular in Talingarde, seen as arrogant and dangerous at the best of times and one step short of outright heresy at others, and it was all too easy to start blaming them whenever anything went wrong. Franz doubted that anyone seriously thought Tacitus might be deliberately sabotaging the defenses - he'd never shown himself to be anything other than a loyal son of Talingarde - but that didn't mean he couldn't have afflicted Balentyne with some kind of curse of ill luck by accident. Mitra knew the man conducted enough strange and esoteric experiments in that tower of his to create any number of side effects. Still, short of banishing him from the tower and seeing if that improved things there was no way to prove such suspicions, so Franz pushed the matter out of his mind and moved on.
The chapel was located in the heart of Balentyne, pressed up against the inside of the main fortress wall, so when Franz emerged with the rest of the soldiers it was into the open courtyard that served as a crossroads for the rest of the fortress. Gravel paths were arranged in straight lines to and from the various doors built into the surrounding wall, and the grass lawns and flower beds between them were well cared for by the acolytes in their spare time. The only real decoration beyond that was a small fountain and the statue of a large and powerfully built knight in full plate - King Markaddian the First, called the Victor, the man who had ordered Balentyne built in the first place.
Driven by a long-standing habit that was almost a tradition, Franz touched his brow in a quick salute to the statue of the first and greatest of the Darian kings, before turning away and making for the exit towards Aldencross. He crossed the courtyard at a quick march, the shadow of the main keep falling across him as he passed beneath it, and nodded to the soldiers standing watch on either side of the doors. They saluted him promptly, then turned to open the gates, and without further fuss Franz left the castle and began making his way towards Aldencross.
Like all of the officers he had quarters in the fortress, a small room on the lower levels situated near to the main thoroughfare, but as with many men of such rank throughout the years he also maintained a home in Aldencross proper. The property was technically maintained by his family, an old and powerful mercantile house based out of Daveryn, but since none of his relatives cared to live so far north it was his in all but name. Well, his and his wife's.
Despite himself, Franz felt a small scowl creep its way onto his features when he thought about Kaitlyn. They'd married five years ago, an arranged match orchestrated as a way of tying their two families closer together, but despite the high hopes that everyone had held going in the arrangement simply hadn't worked out very well. He'd certainly never expected to fall in love at first sight or anything quite so trite, but it would have been nice if some positive feelings had managed to grow between the two of them over the past few years of living together. She was certainly beautiful enough, with her long red hair and flawless skin, but while that was enough of a basis for physical attraction it had certainly never bloomed into any kind of real romance. They were simply too different in personality and desires to find any kind of real common ground.
Why couldn't she understand? Service on the Watch Wall was an important and respected duty, one of the most well regarded positions it was possible to have in the Talirean military. He would have been made to turn the appointment down, never mind the fact that a successful career as a Watch Captain would all but guarantee him an appointment as commander of one of the other fortresses in a few years, and that in turn came with an almost automatic promotion into the ranks of the minor aristocracy for him and his immediate family. It wasn't as if Aldencross was a particularly terrible place to live either; something of a backwater, perhaps, but a nice enough town all the same and far from the worst location she could have ended up with. But no, she had to continue treating the whole affair as some kind of terrible exile, complaining about every little detail at every possible opportunity, ignoring every attempt he made to address her concerns.
Sighing, he once again considered the possibility of reaching out to his family for help. Kaitlyn was a smart and educated woman, so there had to be something productive she could do elsewhere to help support the family's mercantile concerns. He'd held off so far because he was aware of how bad such a move might look to his family and neighbours, but if something didn't change soon it might be worth going through with it anyway and damn the consequences. He didn't want to live his life in utter misery just because fate had inflicted a poor marriage on him, and he'd been spending more time in his quarters in the castle of late as it was.
He got a few waves and friendly greetings on his way into Aldencross, which he generally returned with a brusque nod or a simple platitude. He'd been here long enough by now that all of the townsfolk recognized him on sight, for his armour and the halberd he had strapped to his back if not for his rather plain and undistinguished looks. The sun had just dipped below the western horizon when he arrived back at his house, the lamplight shining out through the windows and illuminating the garden as he walked up to the door. He took a moment to brace himself on the porch, just in case Kaitlyn turned out to be in a particularly bad mood tonight, then opened the door and strode inside.
He found her in the dining room, seated at the far end of the long table and reading a book. She looked up as he entered, her emerald eyes sharp and critical, then rose to her feet. He was already bracing himself for whatever new complaint she was about to make when he saw her eyes move to look at something just over his shoulder and widen in surprise.
It was instinct that saved him then, reflexes built up over years of service that propelled him into motion even before he could start to seriously process what was going on. He turned, one hand reaching back for the haft of his weapon, and as a result the short sword in the attacker's hand struck the side of his breastplate and skittered off rather than punching through the weak joints and into the vulnerable flesh of his back. Without thinking he lashed out with his free hand, swinging the mailed fist around in a sharp motion that threatened to cave in the face of whoever it hit. His attacker stepped backwards out of reach, dodging the blow but in turn allowing Franz enough breathing room that his mind finally caught up with what his eyes were seeing.
His attacker was an elf, a fact so utterly surprising that it took a moment before he could actually accept it. Still, there was no denying what he was seeing, for though he had never laid eyes on one before there was little else that could explain the unusually slender build or the pointed ears that stuck out from under the head of dark brown hair. The elf's eyes, which were slightly wider than those of any human and coloured a vivid purple, were regarding him with the kind of icy disdain he recognized from the most veteran killers amongst his own soldiers. It held a short and viciously sharp sword in one hand and a slender dagger in the other, both gripped with the kind of casual ease that told of extensive training and experience.
"Franz, what..." He heard Kaitlyn say behind him, her voice surprisingly calm and level considering what was going on. Perhaps she simply hadn't processed it yet, or perhaps she had a clearer head under pressure than he had previously realized, but either way he needed to get her out of here.
"Kaitlyn, run. Get help." He growled, not daring to take his eyes off of his opponent for a second. His hand was still on the haft of his halberd, but drawing it was not something that could be done quickly, and if he left himself vulnerable for any length of time there was no telling what might happen. Still, the assassin had botched the initial strike, and now he was facing a trained soldier with a full martial weapon on his home ground. This was a fight that Franz knew he could win on his own, but it would be easier with help and if he didn't have to worry about exposing Kaitlyn to danger, and if they could take the elf prisoner he knew that the Lord-Commander would have a great many questions to ask.
The elf's hand blurred into motion, a sudden throw that sent the dagger flying through the air towards his face, and despite himself Franz flinched. Threats aimed at the face and especially the eyes were among the most likely to draw an involuntary response, and that was something that the elf was evidently intending to capitalize on, for it was already moving forwards in a lunge with the sword as the knife left its hand. Still, Franz was experienced enough to know how to deal with such danger even if he couldn't entirely control his reaction to it, and he raised one hand to protect his face even as he dragged his halberd free with the other. The blade clattered off his vambrace and spun away to land in some distant corner of the room, but before he could bring his own weapon around the elf's sword found its mark in the meat of his left thigh, the assassin ducking beneath his guard in a lunge so low it was almost a dive.
Roaring in pain and anger, Franz finally managed to get his halberd free of its position on his back, taking it in a two handed grip and swinging it down towards the elf in a mighty arc. The assassin didn't hesitate, throwing himself sideways with a graceful move that took him under the table and out the other side in a single liquid motion, leaving the blade of the halberd to bite deep into the floorboards with a deep thunk.
Gritting his teeth at the pain in his leg, Franz didn't give his would-be murderer time to react. Leaving one hand on the haft of his weapon to steady himself, he reached out with the other and grabbed the edge of the table. Muscles burning, he hauled upwards and sent the heavy wooden furniture tumbling over, the table's sheer bulk pinning the assassin against the far wall and leaving him no room to maneuver. Wrenching the halberd free of the floor with a grunt, Franz took the weapon in a two-handed grip, estimated where the assassin was likely to be on the far side of the table, and thrust.
His halberd was a family heirloom, passed down to him by his father on the day he had received his first commission, and like many such weapons it was enchanted. The steel blade never needed to be polished or sharpened, and the small runes carved into the edge bestowed it with greater strength and cutting power than any mundane blade. It carved through the wood of the table like a hot knife through butter, biting deep into the wall beyond. Judging by the lack of any pained yelling, though, it had missed the assassin, so Franz scowled and prepared to pull it back out.
A sword, razor edged and swung with incredible force, swung down just in front of his nose with a faint humming noise. It bit into the wooden haft of his weapon and cut straight through without stopping, leaving the blade of the halberd embedded in the table and Franz with nothing more than a useless length of wood in his hands. Cursing, the captain flung himself sideways, turning to size up this second aggressor with a professional's eyes.
Kaitlyn. It was Kaitlyn, her green eyes intent on him and her slender hand clutching the hilt of the sword with a practiced ease. But Kaitlyn had never received any military training, he was sure of that, certainly not enough to wield a sword with so much confidence. He didn't have time to question things beyond that, as the woman that could not possibly be his wife stepped forwards and slammed the heavy shield in her other hand (where the hell had she been hiding that?) into his face with brutal strength.
He staggered backwards, the world spinning before his eyes and blood running out his face. His nose was evidently broken, and the burning pain that seemed to be radiating from that section of his face contrasted sharply with the icy feeling spreading out from his thigh. It seemed that earlier wound the elf had inflicted was rather more serious than he had expected. Was he using a poisoned blade? If so, then the fight needed to end quickly, so he could find help before the venom had a chance to cripple him entirely.
Roaring a wordless oath, Franz dropped the now-useless length of wood he held and tore his secondary weapon free from the sheathe on his belt. It was a short sword, more of an oversized dagger than a military weapon, and as expected the flash of light on the cold steel was enough to catch his opponent's attention, emerald eyes flickering down to take note of it for the briefest instant. Baring his teeth, Franz reached out with his other hand and snatched up one of the chairs that had previously been sitting next to the dining room table, bringing it around in a move than was halfway between a strike and a throw. The attack was one more suited for a bar-room brawl than a serious fight, but it accomplished what he wanted it to and sent the woman wearing his wife's face staggering backwards with a foul curse.
Seizing the advantage, he flung himself forwards into a tackle, using the superior mass afforded by his build and the armour he wore to overbear his opponent and send both of them crashing to the ground. The woman's sword was flung away by the force of the impact, her shield trapped between them, and with an animal growl Franz raised the knife and brought it stabbing down towards her exposed throat.
She caught his arm in her sword hand with a grip like iron, halting the descent of the blade perhaps half an inch from the pale flesh of her vulnerable neck. There was far too much strength in her arm for someone of his wife's build, but the superior position he held still gave him the advantage, and as he leaned forwards and put his weight behind the knife it began to sink slowly down towards his enemy.
"What did you do to my wife?" He growled out, surprised to realize that he actually cared what the answer was. He might not get along with Kaitlyn, but she was still his wife, and if this murderous bitch had harmed so much as a hair on her head...
"You're far too predictable." The false-Kaitlyn said with a fierce smile, even as her arm shook with the effort of keeping the blade away from her jugular. "Captain Varning was the same way. Did you know that no matter what patrol route he took, he always stopped at the same camp-site on the third night?"
A feeling like ice water settled in Franz's gut. "What do you mean 'was'?"
The murderer's smile only grew wider in response. Now it was fury that flooded Mott's veins, a white hot sense of vengeful anger that surged along his muscles and demanded violent retribution. He hadn't known Ryan Varning very well, but the man was a brother in arms and a good son, and this bitch had killed him. Roaring with anger, he put all of his force behind the dagger...
A gloved hand seized him by the hair and yanked his head up. Franz Mott had just enough time to realize his error, to recognize how the sense of anger and betrayal at the second attacker wearing Kaitlyn's face had led him to momentarily forget the first one, before the cold steel of the elf's sword bit deep into his flesh and slashed open his throat.