All eyes in the inn went to the entrance where the two newcors stood. Night air blew in from the open door, spilling over and around the pair to cloak them in cold.
The first, the woman in the red dress, stepped up to the edge of the fire pit at the sa ti I did, so we faced each other from opposite sides of the crackling depression. She was old — ancient even — with a bent back and ghastly long neck, her features withered into an ashen map of age lines and crooked edges. Her eyes were deeply sunken and ghoulish, with bloodshot sclera surrounding irises the color of mud. Her lips peeled back from black gums and flat teeth as she smiled.
“It is you!” The crone exclaid. “You were the one at Orson’s castle that night. The dhampir harlot’s plaything. To think you were the Headsman of Seydis himself, sitting at table with , and I had no idea…”
“Lillian,” I greeted the red witch. “I wasn’t as well dressed back then, so don’t feel too bad for not realizing.”
I hadn’t been decked out in black armor then, hadn’t shorn my hair short to show the molten gold in my eyes and the demon scars on my cheek, but I made no effort to hide any of it in that mont. Caleb and Maryanne drew up behind , though most of the guests seed to sense trouble and were keeping out of the way and in their seats. I sensed my lance at the top of the stairs, and hoped they would stay back and let handle this.
My attention drifted to the second of the pair. He wore dark armor like , and over his steel he’d adorned himself with countless trophies. So were crude things, hunting effigies of bone and keratin, but he also wore a lattice of clinking dallions. Knights Marks, each taken from a defeated foe, and he’d hunted many champions across the centuries. The Hobgoblin of Yrrk swept his long cape back, causing the trophy dals hung from it to clink like bells, and flashed his own mocking grin. He had a green head, swollen and asymtrical, his swollen neck ringed by a frilly collar like so carnivorous flower. His eyes shone the yellow-green of a hunter’s moon.
“Ah, you live!” Count Ildeban’s voice was a warbling, brass thing. If monstrous toads were given words, then they would sound like that creature. “I had worried the Lion devoured you at Tol, Alder Knight.”
“Hewer…” Caleb muttered behind .
“They aren’t going to respect this place’s rules,” I whispered back without turning. “Be ready for anything.”
Lillian threw her mad eyes around the inn once more and sniffed. “So this is the hovel Catrin of Ergoth spread her legs in. Fitting! Ah, and you must be the famous Keeper!”
Falstaff had walked out of the back rooms. Sans and Saska were both with him. Despite the fact they were surrounded by so many dangerous beings, however, the red crone and the hobgoblin looked unconcerned.
“Our inn is open to travelers.” The Keeper spoke in what would have seed to anyone who didn’t know him better to be his usual sour disregard, though I sensed a note of tension there. “If you’d like a table, drinks, company, then I am happy to oblige. But any business you have cannot involve the inn without my blessing.”
“I need none of your swill or your whores,” Lillian pointed a crooked finger set with a ruby ring at . “I am here for him.”
“He’s one of my guests,” the Keeper told the crone. If you’ve got business, then you can discuss it over a drink… or outside.”
Lillian turned her ghastly smile to the innkeeper. She didn’t blink, didn’t so much as twitch, like she were a living doll with a powdered face who had to flip so internal chanism to alter her expression.
“I have not forgotten the insult you gave us at Caelfall, Keeper!” Her voice was high and fey. “Sending your strumpet when it was you we invited… There are debts owed and sides to be taken. Sha you took the wrong one.”
Her pointing finger drifted to the old devil. My instincts muttered a warning.
Saska stepped between them and spoke in her smooth, liquid voice. “If you bring any violence to this place, Lillian Rue, then you shall answer to . To all of us. This is a place of rest and refuge against the cold and the dark. I will brook no disquietude.”
The power I sensed gathering around Lillian abated, and the crimson glow of aura on the ruby ring faded. “Ah, what an interesting pet you have there, Keeper! Tell how he’s bound you, dear, and I will break it and let you turn this place to ash.”
“You cannot break my bindings, mortal.” Saska’s lips twitched into a cold smile. “You are small and weak, not even Magi. Strut all you wish, but you are outmatched here.”
The mada’s shadow had changed. The flas in the pit were crackling high and hot, yet the edges of the hall were darker, full of twisted and unsettling shapes. They seed to coil around Saska, and it was then I recalled a glimpse I’d gotten once of her true form — a massive, many-limbed thing strong enough to brawl with an angel of the Choir Concilium. I’d believed so kind of demon, a hellspawn escaped from the Pits with Falstaff’s help, but still wasn’t entirely sure.
Her girls were also watching, many of them from the gallery above. In the shadows cast by the pit and by Saska, they were a congregation of bright-eyed things, sharp and indistinct, like night-predators watching from the edges of a clearing.
Lillian’s only reply was to purse her painted lips. Ildeban watched the Keeper’s partner with new interest.
“Why are you here?” I asked.
Lillian glanced at and her ghastly smile reappeared. “You interfered in our business with House Ark.”
“So it was you she intended to et there,” I said. “You know she planned to kill you? That place was a death trap.”
“She is afraid of us,” Lillian corrected sharply. “And took wise precautions.”
”You’re letting out my heat,” the Keeper snapped.
Lillian ignored him, keeping her unblinking eyes on . “We want you to leave Evangeline Ark alone. Our business with her is none of your concern, Headsman. If you have so order of execution on the Queen of the Banner, then abstain. Go near her again, and you shall die. We have grown tired of your ddling.”
I was about to laugh in her face — did she really think threatening to kill would change anything? But managed to fight the impulse down. “Do you think she’ll protect you from ? Another Hasur Vyke, a Recusant throne for you to hide behind?”
These were the last of the group I’d sworn to destroy two years before. I could slay them both here, end this…
Ildeban seed to sense my bloodlust, and his lopsided grin widened to reveal green fangs. “Do you wish to fight, Alder Knight? We never finished our duel in Tol.”
“If I recall,” Lillian crooned, “Ser Ildeban bested you there! Do you really wish to be thrashed twice, oaf?”
“You’d have to fight all of us.” This ca from Hendry, who stepped up to my side with a clink of armor and the dull drumbeat of his weight settling on the floorboards. The others were with him.
“I could take all of you,” Ildeban said with absolute surety. “Especially you, Hendry Hunting. I have marked you for my hunt for allowing our clan to fall into disgrace.”
Hendry stared blankly at the hobgoblin. I spoke before the the pair could confuse him further. “He’s one of your ancient ancestors, the founder of House Hunting, but it doesn’t an anything. He’s an apostate and a monster cursed by the Choir, and he has no claim to you.”
Hendry nodded and took a deep breath. “In that case, Ser Ildeban, I’d be happy to et your challenge. Maybe I’ll be the one to wipe your stain from my legacy?”
Ildeban only croaked with laughter.
“You can’t have expected I would just give up because you ca in here and asked?” I addressed the question to Lillian, who turned her attention back to .
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“I wanted to see you for myself, Headsman.” The sorceress adjusted her winged sleeves and adopted a calr deanor. “You have interfered in our business so often, and I needed to know if you were truly the man I t at Orson’s castle. It is wise to know one’s enemy.”
She’s lying, I thought. There was another sche here, an ulterior motive. Their attitudes were hostile, but if their intentions were to fight then they wouldn’t have wasted the ti.
So long as they don’t attack, I realized, the inn’s neutrality remains in place. That creature inside the Keeper’s hearth will attack whoever tries to spill blood first. Do they know how this place functions?
They must, to be so confident about themselves. Or were they both just that strong?
At that mont, Emma stepped out from behind and also squared up to the trespassers, haughty and confident as always. When Lillian saw my squire, her eyes bugged so wide I thought they’d pop out of her head. She took a single lurching step forward, her hands outstretched, and she croaked out two words in a breathless question.
“My lady?”
Emma recoiled from the witch. To my mild horror, the crone’s bloodshot eyes were starting to brim with tears.
“My lady,” Lillian gasped, “I thought I’d never see your face again!”
“I am nothing to you, hag!” Emma spat the words.
Lillian froze, and her smile returned edged with glass. “Oh, but you are everything to ! You are her very image, the spitting reflection! Ah, but you look just like her! Those sa eyes, that sa face, that sa scorn! Blessed day, oh, I am blessed!”
Lillian paced around the fire pit, stumbled towards Emma, and stopped only when Penric and Hendry interposed themselves. She fell to her knees, heedless of her layered skirts, and reached out to my squire like the girl were so holy shrine and the old woman a desperate pilgrim approaching the end of an odyssey.
“I have done it, my lady! Ildeban told the rumor that your scion was alive, but I did not believe him, forgive ! I have found her, the heir of House Carreon! Oh, dear girl, let look at you!”
Emma looked horrified, stepping back from the ghoulish woman’s tear-stricken face. “I don’t know you.”
“No… You don’t, do you? I can see it in your face. You aren’t…” Lillian narrowed her eyes as she trailed off, then glanced at the two n who’d stepped into her path. Her expression returned to that calculating malice from before. She stood, wobbling a bit on unsteady legs, then steadied.
“I am Lillian Rue. I was handmaiden to your great-grandmother, my lady Astraea… I was her most loyal attendant, her most faithful servant, and over this past century I have waited for my service to be vindicated.”
Lillian pointed at Emma’s face. “And there you are, her very image! Leave these knights and knaves, girl, and co with . I have so much to show you, so much to teach you! I will restore you to your throne and make you Queen of Shrikes, as was your destiny before this wretched land stole it from us.”
Emma’s expression was one of shock. For a long minute, she said nothing. Hendry glared at the old woman warily, and Penric had his eyes on Ildeban, who’d stepped close and seed ready to interfere if things ca to violence. The Hobgoblin of Yrrk looked eager for it.
I prepared an Art quietly from behind the hearth, willing the angry ghosts inside to reshape themselves into an appropriate weapon. But I stayed my hand, catching Saska shaking her head at . Not yet, that gesture told . They have to act first.
My squire steadied, took a long breath, and spoke to the old woman with the haughty coldness of a frozen mountain’s peak, sharp and untouchable. “You know, I keep hearing about my dark destiny. I’ve had devils insist on it, ghosts, elves, great lords, even angels. It seems like fate’s getting a bit tired of the sa refrain, if it’s resorted to old hags delivering the sa ssage.”
The rapture on Lillian’s face cracked. She opened her mouth to speak, but Emma spoke over her.
“I am Emma Orley, not Carreon, and I shall be the greatest knight of this age. Urn will rember my na, yes, but they will rember the na of my great-grandfather. They will speak of my chivalry, my honor. They will make songs about that cause hearts to flutter and kings to weep.”
She leant forward, her black cape spilling down her left shoulder like a funeral shroud, and spoke her next words through her teeth. “That will be my vengeance against your whore mistress for leaving an orphan at the rcy of small n. Astraea Carreon will be forgotten, just another of history’s losers, and the na Orley shall be recalled with adoration. Crawl back into the shadows, grub. You have nothing to offer .”
“Orley?” Lillian blinked for the first ti since she’d walked through the door. Her voice rose into a screech. “ORLEY!?”
Her crooked fingers flexed into claws, painted-black nails stretching towards Emma’s throat, but before anyone could react Ildeban grabbed his companion by the shoulder. She stiffened, and for a mont I thought she’d turn and slash the Huntsman with those talons. Instead she relaxed, her brittle smile returning. “I see… How interesting.”
“I think that’s enough,” Caleb drawled. “Why don’t you both piss off, if you’re not ordering anything?”
There were murmurs of agreent from all around. Lillian’s gaze road across the taproom until it fixed on the bouncer’s face.
“Caleb Garou!” Lillian let out a peal of laughter. “Oh, is this a day for strange alliances! You would side with him? After what happened to your little brother?”
Caleb’s brow furrowed. “Keep Will’s na off your tongue, viper. He’s dead because of you and your friends, don’t think I’ve forgotten that.”
Lillian glanced at , and I saw the malicious look in her gaze and knew what she intended. She spoke before I could stop her.
“I see, you don’t know… We didn’t kill William Garou, Caleb. The Headsman did.”
Caleb went perfectly still. He didn’t look at , didn’t react other than that pause, but Lillian wasn’t done.
“Such an ugly sight that was, that poor boy.” She turned and started walking back around to other side of the fire. “We found him dead in a church, if you can believe it. Disemboweled, his guts spilled all over, his skull split by the blade of an axe.”
Caleb said nothing.
Lillian turned and started walking towards the door. “The air of this shack offends . We will leave it here for now, Headsman, but know that should you push this matter you shall not survive it. Ildeban is eager to finish your duel, and you can hardly fight so many foes. You will lose soone, perhaps everyone.”
“Hasur Vyke is dead,” I said, causing Lillian to pause halfway to the door. “Issachar is dead by my hand, as is Hyperia. Karog is on our side now, and Calerus Vyke reins in Talsyn, surrendered to the Emperor of the Accorded Realms. It’s just you two left from Orson’s gathering. Once I’ve killed you both, that business will be done once and for all.
I let my voice go quiet. “You should have stayed in the shadows, and not let see you.”
Lillian turned to regard with her maddened eyes. “Hasur’s plans survive with us. If only you knew the beauty of his vision, you would weep… But you will all see it before the end.”
She left then, followed by a grinning Ildeban, his dal-lined cape clinking as he followed the witch out into the night.
Hendry glanced at uncertainly. “Aren’t we going to go after them?”
“No,” I said.
“And why not?” Emma spat. She was angry, her cool disdain having faded as soon as the pair left.
“Because that whole conversation was a trap. They were trying to bait us into attacking them. If we’d struck first, then the inn’s protections would have turned on us. And if the Keeper or his people helped us, then it would have destroyed their neutrality and broken the inn’s threshold, which would allow that pair to flood us with their reinforcents. Isn’t that right?”
I turned to Saska and Falstaff, who also hadn’t moved from where they stood.
“There are ghouls outside,” Saska agreed. “Mistwalker rcenaries, I think, and other things. I sense Evangeline is close, as well. Perhaps they even coordinated this.”
It would have been a bloodbath. Ildeban alone was stronger than anything in the inn save for perhaps and Saska, and if she’d let loose it would endanger her own people. Evangeline and a pack of vampires added to the mix, as well… I didn’t like the odds. Even if we won, people who weren’t involved in this conflict would die.
“They want rid of us,” I continued. “They wanted a fight. If we’d given it to them, it would have wrecked the inn.”
“Thank you for leaving us out of it,” Saska said and squeezed my arm in gratitude. “I know you wanted to kill them.”
“That’s the deal isn’t it?” I said and looked to the Keeper. “I’m one of the Backroad’s patrons now. You have my protection, just as promised last winter.”
He scowled and turned his back on . “The mont you’re more trouble than you’re worth, Hewer, our business ends. Rember that.”
Saska only smiled at and said, “He may grumble, but if you weren’t here they might have done worse. I told him this might happen when he snubbed the council at Caelfall.”
I nodded and turned to my group. “We’re in so shit. The Mistwalkers can co out in day.”
“I thought they were destroyed?” Lisette asked.
“Most of them,” I agreed. “These are probably stragglers, but they’ll still be dangerous.”
“Why reveal themselves?” Emma asked. “Why boast about their strength like that? They gave up awful easy.”
I opened my mouth to speak, but paused. Emma was chewing on her lip, her gaze drifting toward the still-open door. It was a good question, and I suspected I knew the answer. That red sorceress, Lillian Rue, hadn’t expected to see the long-lost heir of House Carreon here. Sothing told the revelation changed her plans, redirected her from forcing a confrontation with to so other end. It wasn't necessarily a good thing for us.
“I need to move the inn,” Falstaff told . Then, raising his voice he said, “We’re moving! If you want off, the door’s open.”
He waved to the night outside. Those few guests who’d been watching the drama unfold shifted uncomfortably, and I got the sense none of them wanted to go out into that darkness where worse monsters than themselves waited. He turned to his guard.
“Caleb, help take stock of our guests. Caleb!”
The man, previously still and staring after the departed duo, snapped out of his reverie. “Right, boss, right.”
He moved off without a backward glance, but I knew he was thinking about what Lillian had said.
A sha.
“Well, Hewer?” The Keeper asked . “You leaving?”
My group watched as I considered my next move, waiting for my decision. Evangeline Ark and the remnants of Hasur’s allies were cooperating. It could not be coincidence. A suspicion began to form in my mind, and it led to a singular conclusion.
Olliard had been right. Our hunts were the sa.
Turning to the Keeper, I asked him, “Can you take us north?”
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