Both Emma and I took a step back as the pool of black ichor grew. It rose, a shapeless bubble perhaps six feet high, not unlike blood welling from a fresh wound. With a suddenness that was perhaps more disturbing in its silence, the pustule deflated. Liquid the color of deepest night shrank against a humanoid form, silhouetting the shape of armored shoulders, a head, a long neck and lithe limbs.
The ichor sloughed away to reveal the dripping form of an elf. He was one of the more human-presenting ones, a handso youth with black hair trimd short and hanging limp and wet against his brow. He wore fine armor of blue-black steel along with bright yellow cloth, a surcoat and sweeping cape with a high collar. His skin was corpse pale, his pupils glinting dots of light in spheres of deep green, and over his youthful features he wore a chainmail coif. The pointed toes of the faerie knight’s delicate sabatons poisoned on the remnants of the liquid he’d erged from, dancer-like, as he regarded us. He carried a large sword, a flamberge with an undulating blade from which thin spikes of tal protruded all the way from hilt to tip. Very much like the stem of a poisonous rose.
The elf studied both of us a mont, resting the tip of his sword on the ground and using it like a cane. In the poor light of the mutant forest, the bright dots of color at the center of his eyes looked toxic, tiny flas in the depths of a gaseous swamp.
“A Brother of the Briar,” Vicar whispered to . “Cautious, Alken. This is a dangerous one.”
A Paladin of the Qliphoth. My counterpart, in many regards. I swallowed, forced my nerves into submission and addressed the faerie. “Greetings, Thorn Brother. We seek audience with your lords.”
“You may have audience with ,” the elf said lightly. He had a soft voice, lodic and pleasant. “You have so gall to try and summon us, mortal, after your coward seraphim declared war and sent an assassin after our king.”
“Which is what I wish to speak to your people about,” I told him.
Instead of answering , his Wil-O’ Wisp eyes drifted to Emma and he dipped into an elegant bow. “Lady Carreon-Orley. Tis’ an honor to et the godchild of Nath. I am Sham Dulaan.”
Emma’s nerves were iron. She only sniffed at this introduction and replied in a steady voice. “Chard.”
He hasn’t attacked us, I noted. We’re off to a good start, all told.
The forest continued to whisper and writhe with that monstrous life. Vicar had said they drew us into their domain… were we not then in the woodlands bordering Banner country anymore? Had we been brought into a Burrow of the Wending Roads, so pocket space recessed into the cracks of waking reality? Or worse, into Briarland itself?
I stepped forward to stand between my squire and the Briar Brother. “You know who I am, I presu?”
Ser Sham tilted his head in acknowledgent. “The Headsman of Seydis, bearer of Faen Orgis. Bloody Al, so call thee, and Blackbough, and Alder Knight, and Hewer… Impressive nas. What doth thou desire from us, mortal?”
“Knowledge.” I’d given many hours of thought into what I should say here, and for once felt prepared with my questions. “I know my counterpart, the Doomsman of Draubard, was dispatched to slay your king… but it’s also my understanding that the Briar King isn’t quite to you what our monarchs are to us.”
“Is he not?” Sham’s blue lips twitched into a smirk. “A champion. A servant. A sacrifice.”
“Rysanthe Miresgal is not an assassin,” I said in a harder voice. “She is, like , an executioner who carries out the will of Heavensreach and the Underworld. The Choir commanded the death of your lord.”
He gave no reaction, but the ambience of liquid movent around us seed to grow more fervent. Every root and branch writhed like a tendril, and in the spaces between them there were watching eyes. Things peeked out from burrows in the ground, from hollows in the trees. I could make out tall, gaunt shapes in my peripheral vision. There was light, but it was inconsistent and sourceless, adding a surreal bend to the space. Very similar to the Fortress of Edvard Agrion, where Queen Maerlys had placed her court.
Best be out with it, I decided. Ask the most important question first. Like with all other kindreds of the Sidhe, the briarfae could not lie. This sa geas was why Alder Knights couldn’t, because we’d been made more like them as a result of our oaths.
“Is Rysanthe Miresgal in the custody of the Briar?” I asked. “Did you capture her, or kill her?”
Sham Dulaan stared at through lidded eyes, silent for a lasting mont. The insectile whispers erging from around us ceased, the threatening air growing closer, more focused on where we stood.
Sham’s smirk returned. “You know I don’t have to answer? Being forced to truth does not bind my tongue to your will.”
“Is that so?” I said lightly. Sham’s swamp-gas eyes narrowed further.
“Alken,” Emma muttered from behind . “What are you doing?”
I’d intended to do with this with a lesser representative of the briarfae in more controlled circumstances. This was riskier and more dangerous, but I’d lost my patience with gas and misdirection. This had been my plan all along. After all, I was still an Alder Knight. Corrupted perhaps, darkened, whatever words one might want to use for it.
But no less powerful. My commands carried no less weight.
So I locked my eyes with his, drew on the angry, ghost-eaten strength within , and spoke again with the weight of aura in my words.
Answer , Briar Elf.
Where is Rysanthe Miresgal?
Answer.
During the conversation thus far, I’d been drawing on the necromantic energies tied to my being. Not fully part of it, more like a cloak I wore most of the ti, but ever-present all the sa. It was the very sa presence I’d so feared in that tent with my queen, when she’d held her infant son and I’d fretted at the idea I might hurt him.
Because of this. But I hadn’t taken this cursed strength for nothing. I proved that then.
Sham opened his mouth, his deanor one of haughty reprisal, only to freeze as whatever he’d been about to say died before it could leave his throat. My shadow had grown massive, reaching across the space between us and enveloping his. He lifted his arm, a spiked bracer poising over his collarbone, and clutched at his own throat.
“She…” His eyes flashed with sothing that looked very much like panic. “She—”
In that mont, the ground rumbled, split beneath the elf, and swallowed him. I saw a brief flash of teeth, purplish organs, a huge throat sinking into deep blackness. The Briar Brother fell, and then the maw snapped closed and he was gone.
“Damn it!” I cursed, stepping forward foolishly despite knowing it was too late.
“What was that?!” Emma exclaid.
“His kindred transposed him before he gave the ga away,” Vicar mused. “This is probably why they brought us here rather than send an emissary. He is alive, and will guard himself better should you find him again.”
“Sothing here will answer ,” I snapped, seething. I’d been so close to sothing useful.
“Beware,” Vicar rumbled in a more serious tone. “You have angered them.”
The malford trees groaned as the whole mass bent, the source of the motion lost within their depths. I turned to face the most open patch of darkness, tightening my grip on my axe. Emma drifted a step away from to give both our weapons more space.
“What now?” Emma drawled. “You’ve upset them and the fop is gone.”
The trees were starting to close in, their roots churning through soft soil. To crush us in a mass of flesh and bark, no doubt, so all the hidden creatures in that blighted growth could feast on our pulp.
“Alken!” Emma snapped when I didn’t answer and the mutant wilderness drew steadily closer. Her voice held an edge of tension. “What do we do? We’re trapped!”
“Not quite,” I said. They had brought us into their realm, true, but soone in this blighted dominion of wicked faeries knew sothing useful, that was already obvious by this reaction.
And by trapping in here with them, they’d also trapped themselves in here with . The Briar was, and had never been, allies to humanity. Perhaps there were monsters who deserved the benefit of the doubt, but these did not include them.
I was done playing nice.
As a whole cluster of grasping roots shot towards us from the nearest group of transford trees — they’d grown mouths — I swung my axe single-handed. Power broiled along my limb, bright and hot enough it made Vicar growl with discomfort. White-gold aurefla erupted from the point of impact as I struck the nearest limb, and I shouted out a warning.
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“Cover your eyes!”
No ti to see if Emma complied. There was a brief pause, and then the smite detonated like a dying star within the enclosing confines of the fiendish woods. It was almost noiseless, just a dull beat of hot air and the brief rumble of thunder quickly passing.
I did not close my eyes, did not need to. This sa light was already in them. The limb of the demon tree splintered from point to root, its whole length burning away in a sudden cascade. As the hateful light reached the tree’s trunk, it continued its path of destruction, scouring the creature and ripping into it.
The blast of flas from the impact scattered out, setting more of the mutant forest alight and causing the whole horde to balk. Pained shrieks and deep, basso wails ford an almost elental wave of sound as it all recoiled from like one body.
When the light faded monts later, the forest burned. Golden flas crawled across many of the trees, spreading to others. The ones that’d been directly in front of us had shattered to blasted wrecks, so of them still writhing in pain even as they were charred black.
“Iron Wheels!” Emma cursed when she’d recovered. “Did you always plan to wage war on them?”
“Asking people nicely for things hasn’t worked so well,” I said. My voice still slightly echoed with auratic power. “Clock’s ticking.”
“How do we get out?” Emma asked. She glanced back, and when I followed her gaze I realized the cave that’d acted as the catalyst for the forest’s transformation was gone. There was just an ugly scar with the impression of teeth marks in a hill the color of petrified bone.
“I’m not interested in getting out,” I said as I turned forward again. I’d opened a path ahead, the epicenter of the smite forcing the woods back and creating a narrow corridor through which we could move deeper into this place. “Not until soone answers my goddamn questions. You coming?”
She lifted her sword in the air and inspected the blade idly, letting out a weary sigh. “I suppose I must.”
Despite her airy indifference, I sensed an eagerness in my squire. This was what she wanted, after all, to be able to fight at my side even when I decided to drop the pretenses and let loose.
“Then let’s go. We’ve already kicked the door down, no reason to wait for an invitation.”
She followed as I stepped deeper into the domain of the Briar, our weapons ready and hungering soulfire crawling across the pitifully moaning trees.
“Where are we?” Emma asked as we went deeper into the forest. We hadn’t hit another barricade yet, but the path wound and twisted in unsettling and unnatural ways. So far, nothing else had attacked us.
“A particularly blighted corner of the Wend,” Vicar answered the girl. “Briarland, if my eyes do not mistake .”
Emma frowned, keeping close as we moved over mossy ground that shifted as though the greenery were made of millions of tiny worms. The sound of movent was omnipresent, and the air stank of decay and stagnant water. “Briarland? I thought that was in the deep south, hundreds of miles away.”
“Briarland was a human kingdom once,” I agreed even as I kept my attention forward. “One of the first settled after the Exodus. Back then, the Sidhe of Briar and Bane were scattered tribes of elves who didn’t fall in line with the Archon when he made peace with our kingdoms. They defied the God-Queen’s will, but back then She still walked the lands in the flesh and no one could defy Her power.”
“But She departed eventually,” Emma observed. “At least, that’s what the preosts say.”
“That’s right. After the God-Queen departed this world to reclaim Heaven, Her handmaiden, Nath, rebelled against the angels who remained here to watch over the human kingdoms. She brought together all the wicked faeries into one faction, and that beca the Briar we know today. After that, Nath offered power to the lords of Briarland.”
“It had another na back then,” Vicar told us. “Harrodale.”
I hadn’t known that, but took in the new information and continued as we walked. “The knights of that country beca the first Brothers of the Briar. With Nath as their dark patron, they challenged the Knights of the Alder Table and waged many wars with them across the centuries. Before the Recusant Houses ca into power, the Briar Brothers were the greatest threat our peoples faced. They’ve declined since then, fallen in number, but they’re still dangerous. The Sidhe behind them are even more so.”
Emma frowned as a thought struck her. “That Brother earlier was an elf, not a man.”
“Many elves were mortal once,” Vicar told her. “Just as many lesser devils were. Once one gains immortality, whatever the ans, the centuries strip away humanity and the difference becos purely aesthetic. It is true for many of the Brothers. It is true for many of the Alder Knights, as well.”
I didn’t react to that not-so-subtle dig. We reached the end of the twisting corridor of fleshy trees and found a bridge. It was gray stone, with tall posts from which lanterns hung. They swayed in a breeze that carried the reek of rotting flowers, and produced a cold blue light. Beneath the bridge flowed fast black water, and in the open sky above rose a ghastly sun that looked more green than yellow, its light wan and providing little warmth. Beyond the scene stretched a grim looking valley, more twisted woods and high cliffs abundant. In the distance, I could make out the crumbled towers of a castle. Not a large one, but it was conspicuous in what had been unbroken wilderness.
“Well,” Emma drawled as she studied the narrow bridge. “That looks safe.”
I inspected the scene and tapped my axe against my right pauldron. “I don’t think we’re in Briarland, not the actual kingdom in the south… but I think it’s like Falstaff’s inn. It’s not just in one place. It exists half in the real world and half in the Wend, growing beyond its original borders.”
“Like the root of a cancer,” Vicar observed. “Spreading itself through the body of the world. Alken is correct. We are not in the original Briarland, but we have been drawn into a region of its larger mass that exists in the Wend.”
“Like that vampire’s mansion,” Emma said thoughtfully. “The one in the forest of organ pipes.”
Laerte’s Manse had also been an extra dinsional space, one we’d accessed through the Backroad. I nodded in agreent. “Keep on your toes. Just like Maerlys’s court, this place will be full of phantasm.”
That was a double edged sword. The environnt was untrustworthy, but it also ant my powers were more potent here, more real. I probably couldn’t have delivered such an effective blast of power like I had earlier if we were still outside.
“It’s worse than I imagined,” Vicar muttered. “This place will be riddled with qliphoth.”
Emma frowned. “I keep hearing that word. What is it?”
“It’s…” How did I explain that? “It’s a sickness that exists only inside the Wend. One of the duties the Alder Table saw to was patrolling the Wending Roads and clearing it out where we could, but it always grows back. It’s like a weed, only… Well. You’ll know it if we see it.”
There was no one to trim it after the Alder disbanded. I recalled the region of the Wend I’d traveled through with Delphine before finding Lias’s hiding place. There’d been qliphoth there too, a lot of it.
“What about the others?” Emma asked.
I’d been worried about that too. “Hopefully they didn’t get caught in it,” I said. “If they did… then they’re tough. We’ll regroup with them and get out together.”
She only pursed her lips, whatever worry she might have felt hidden behind a mask of calm indifference. She glanced past and nodded. “He’s back.”
I followed her gaze, and saw a figure in blue-and-yellow waiting for us at the far end of the bridge. Sham Dulaan looked little worse for wear, and adopted the sa confident pose he had during our first eting. His thorned sword was in his hand, poised to the side and ready.
I stepped to the edge of the bridge and nodded to him. “If you just tell what I want to know, then we can have done with this before I burn this whole place to ash.”
“I will admit,” the faerie knight said grudgingly, “that you are stronger than I was inford you would be. But there is nothing for you here but the slow death of a billion thorns. You shall not cross this river.”
“Careful,” I warned him. “You’ll be punished for lying. I know how much it can sting for one of us.”
Ser Sham’s smile was cold and cruel. “You and I are not the sa, Alken Hewer. I have never broken my oath.”
I’ll admit, that stung a bit. Feeling my jaw clench, I stepped forward and started to gather power. But Emma stepped past , slapping the front of my hauberk with the flat of her sword.
“Let fight him,” she insisted, her amber eyes fixed on the knight.
“Emma…” I started to protest, but she threw a hard look.
“I asked you to let show you what I’m capable of,” she hissed. “I can take this ink-haired fop. Besides, the bridge is too narrow for both of us to go at once, and I’m the better fencer.”
“He’s a True Knight,” I argued. “He’s strong, Em. Stronger than anyone you’ve faced before, and that’s a fact.”
“Is he stronger than you?” She shot back.
I hesitated. Emma’s glare was even sharper than usual, her avian eyes severe.
“Well?” She demanded.
I could lie, suffer a mild burn and put us right back where we’d been a few hours ago. It would keep her safe and keep us moving, but…
“No,” I admitted. “I’m fairly certain I’m stronger.”
Sham Dulaan was dangerous, and I had no doubt he had tricks. He could wound , exhaust , perhaps even kill . Combat is never certain, and he had the advantage of ho ground. That gave him power.
But I was stronger. I’d felt that earlier when he’d almost submitted to my auratic command.
“Then I can beat him,” Emma insisted. “Let show you.”
Still I hesitated. Vicar provided no help, letting make the decision.
She needs this. Both of us do. If I denied her this chance, then our bond might never recover from it. And besides… I wanted to see it, what she had to show .
I nodded. “Alright.”
Turning to the patiently waiting knight at the end of the bridge, I spoke louder so he could hear. “I apologize, Ser Sham, but my squire has requested the honor of dueling you. Will you oblige? She is not a full knight, but I assure you that she is stronger than most I’ve known.”
Sham cast a thoughtful glance to the girl. He considered a mont, then dipped his chin in a nod of acknowledgent. “It would be an honor to test my steel against Thorned Nath’s godchild. I will accept the challenge. Your terms?”
“I wouldn’t mind my question from earlier being answered,” I said in a dry voice.
“I will not speak of the drow,” the Briar Brother said. “My tongue has been sealed on that matter since our last conversation.”
To demonstrate, he opened his mouth wide and showed us his gray tongue. There was a thorn stuck in it, right at the epicenter of an ugly bruise the color of an oil spill. The briarfae had taken precautions before sending him back, it seed.
But that ant they wanted him to stall us. Whatever was beyond this bridge, they didn’t want us reaching it. We’d do this the hard way, then.
“She wins, and you get the fuck out of our way.” I pointed past him with my axe. “We’ll go on, ask your masters directly, and you will not impede us again. They’re behind you, aren’t they?”
He hesitated only a mont, then nodded. “The answers you seek are further on, Headsman.”
“Then those are my terms. Emma?”
In response, she reached up and unpinned her cape. The black cloth tumbled in a whisper to the writhing moss, and she stepped forward clad only in her crimson armor, looking for all the world like a walking anatomical model, armored in red muscle and white fiber. Mara’s Talon glinted in the corpse-sun that hung over that eldritch place. She walked about a fourth of the way down the bridge — it was narrow, with no barriers on the sides, and it also had an arch to it. That would be tricky footing.
I paced to the edge of the forest, slamd my axe down into a stump, and folded my arms as I watched. Keep your nerves under control, I ordered myself. She needs your confidence, not your fear.
“Are you sure about this?” Vicar asked .
“I need to be,” I answered. The devil fell quiet.
Sham padded onto the bridge from his own end. He didn’t remove his own sweeping cape, letting the yellow cloth spill out behind him to slide along the edges of the bridge like a train. His heavy sword glinted in the not-sun, far larger and more brutal looking than Emma’s more elegant weapon. They both took their stances, my squire adopting a fencer’s style with her blade aid point down at an angle, the fingers of her off-hand curling behind her hip where they would be out of sight.
Sham adopted no guard I recognized, only sweeping his flamberge out to the side. His glowing eyes flashed with anticipation.
“Alright then, Emma.” I let out a long breath and settled in to watch. “Show .”
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