Chapter 28
When the road forked and the caravan veered east, Raiya and Azreth parted ways with them to continue north to Frosthaven.
Raiya wasn’t particularly surprised when Jai insisted on accompanying them, and Madira insisted on accompanying Jai. Raiya told them they should have stayed with the caravan where they would be safe, but privately, she was pleased. She enjoyed their company. Even Azreth seemed to brighten a little when he saw them following.
Clouds moved in as the day went on, darkening the sky and hastening the oncoming night. At this time of year, as fall came on, the sun set in late afternoon. When it became too dark to see well, Azreth conjured a ball of mage light to float above them as they walked. Raiya hugged herself to ward off the chill.
“I spy something that begins with S,” Jai said after there had been silence for a while.
Madira sighed. “Not this again.”
“It’s not like there’s anything else to do.”
“Sword,” Madira guessed impatiently. “Steel. Sparrow. Stream.”
“Snow,” Azreth said.
Everyone looked up. It had indeed begun to snow. Tiny flakes fell here and there. Azreth held out his hand to catch one and then lifted his hand to peer at it, only to find it had instantly melted on his skin. He looked disappointed.
“Back home in Kuda Varai, snowfall is said to be a sign of bad things to come,” Madira said. No one replied, but the tension in the group was obvious. Everyone grew quiet.
Raiya was the first one to spot Frosthaven on the horizon. Dark shapes of walls and roofs rose up in the distance. It looked darker than she remembered, with only a few scattered lights dotting the town.
She reflexively gripped the handle of her baton beneath her cloak. It was filled to the brim with power, so much that it felt hot to the touch. They were as ready for this as they could be, but that didn’t stop her heart from drumming an anxious beat in her chest.
She glanced up at Azreth. Finally, something good had happened to her, and she couldn’t help but fear that the universe was conspiring to take it away.
As if he’d sensed her unease, he looked down at her, reaching over to put his hand on her shoulder.
She just nodded reassuringly, not trusting the steadiness of her voice enough to speak. Azreth bent to kiss her cheek, and warmth flooded through her. He must have noticed the bloom of emotion, because he smirked conspiratorially at her before he straightened.
As they entered the town, a new chill came over her, quelling any warm feelings she’d had. The town was silent. Eerily so. Normally, there would have been people bustling about even after dark, but today, the streets were empty. Still-burning lanterns swung in the wind, snow swirling around the soft, golden balls of light. With no one to disturb the snow, untouched drifts were gathering in doorways.
She’d half expected to find it overrun by screeching hellspawn. She was relieved that was not the case yet, but she was not particularly comforted by the odd quiet. Even less so by the smears of what looked like blood that she occasionally saw beneath the thin layer of snow, and the torn awning here and broken lamp post there.
She spotted a face in a dark window of a house before the curtains quickly closed. A while later, she saw another. So everyone was not gone, just hiding. At least they were not all dead.
“This is your home?” Jai asked, gazing around at the empty streets. Her voice was low but clear. The snow dampened any echo that might have otherwise carried through the stone streets and buildings.
“It was,” Raiya replied.
“Not anymore?”
“I’m… not sure.”
“Home is where your friends are,” Jai said, looking up at her encouragingly. “A real home is wherever you choose to make it.”
“That’s not true,” Madira said. “Kuda Varai will always be our home, no matter how long we spend away from it.”
“Well, maybe Raiya doesn’t want this to be her home anymore,” Jai pointed out. “The place where you were born isn’t always the place that feels like home. Especially not when you’re no longer safe or welcome there.”
“You’re both right,” Raiya said, glancing up at Azreth.
The sound of flapping wings drew her attention. Down the street was a group of the same large black birds they’d seen on the road. They were gathered around a misshapen form that, after a few moments of scrutinizing, Raiya realized was a corpse. The birds were pecking at cold bits of flesh.
They passed the corpse and the demonic birds without comment. The birds never looked up from their morbid meal.
Raiya led them to the northeast, where she could just see the dark outline of the castle on its hill outside of town, illuminated by the half-hidden moons and shrouded by snowfall.
She blinked rapidly at it. Through the haze of snow and darkness, she could see a red glow suffusing the castle, almost like a magical fire burning the stone.
“What do you want to bet that’s where they’re coming from?” Raiya said, nodding toward the castle.
“I wouldn’t take that bet,” Jai said.
A distant screech split the air, and Raiya stopped short. They all waited, listening, and another screech followed.
“What’s that?” Raiya asked, looking up at Azreth.
He’d cocked his head toward the sound. “A thresher, or a winged nyra. Stay close.”
When they reached an intersection of paths, the source of the sound became clear. Down the street, armored men were battling a nightmarish creature that scrambled around with alarming quickness. Raiya recalled the baker’s daughter describing this thing—like a pale human on all fours. Long, needle-like teeth protruded from its jaws, dripping with saliva.
It lunged at one of the armored men, sinking its teeth into the man’s throat.
Raiya drew her baton, but she didn’t know if she could hit something that moved that fast.
“Thresher,” Azreth confirmed absently. He held out his hand, and a length of magenta light appeared in his palm. A spear. In one quick, powerful motion, he raised the spear and hurled it, looking like a champion gladiator. It flew at blinding speed and tore through the thresher’s neck, stopping its movement abruptly. The spear disappeared, and the thresher dropped to the ground.
All the men spun toward Azreth. It was only then that Raiya saw their red cloaks and the sword emblems. Paladins. They raised their swords as they moved their attention to their next threat: Azreth.
“Wait!” someone shouted. “Stop, damn you!” Adamus pushed his way to the front of the group. He was wearing his armor again, but it looked like he’d scraped the Paladin emblem off the breast of the cuirass—certainly a statement, though Raiya questioned whether it made any real difference.
The other men hesitated. They looked less eager to attack Azreth than they had last time. This time, they had other enemies to deal with, and they seemed exhausted already. If they could barely handle that thing Azreth had just killed, it was doubtful that they wanted to try their luck against a demon.
“Lady Han-gal,” Adamus said, a note of relief in his voice. He glanced up at Azreth as if he was considering greeting him too, but he didn’t.
“You’re with the Paladins again, I see,” Raiya observed.
“They needed my help.” He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Have you come to help, too?”
“Obviously,” Madira said.
Raiya gave Adamus a sympathetic look. “We’re going to the castle. I’m going to fix this.”
As a few of the Paladins went to tend the dead man’s body, one of them looked suspiciously at Raiya. “You must be joking. You expect us to trust a demon?”
“Whether you trust us is of no importance to me,” she said. “Just don’t get in our way.”
“The castle is where the beasts are coming from, as far as we can tell,” Adamus cut in. “I don’t know how or why. We’ve been too busy fighting the ones already loose in town to investigate it.”
“I thought you were all working with Lord Han-gal. Now you’re working against him?” Raiya asked. To her surprise, the Paladins looked a little sheepish.
“There was a… misunderstanding,” one of them said.
She realized she recognized the man who’d spoken. He’d been there in Ontag-ul when Nirlan had attacked her. “It didn’t seem like a misunderstanding when you all were mashing my face in the dirt.”
The man’s face reddened. “Your husband told us you were a witch. It looked like he might not have been wrong.” He jerked his head at Azreth. “That monster of yours killed half our team.”
“After you attacked us!”
There was another distant screech. Some of the Paladins broke off from the group to hunt the source of the sound, swords and torches raised. The rest of the Paladins began murmuring to each other behind Adamus. They were eyeing Azreth as if they were still formulating a plan of attack.
“Right now, we both want the same thing,” Raiya said. “Can we make a truce? Don’t stab us in the backs, and we’ll return the favor.”
“I didn’t agree to that,” Madira said under his breath. Jai elbowed him.
There was some murmured discussion between the Paladins before one of them turned to Raiya. “We’ll honor your request for the sake of overcoming this greater evil. For now.”
“How generous of you,” she said, unable to hold back the sarcasm. Azreth could have killed all of them. Their cooperation was merely a convenience. “Keep yourselves safe. We’re going to the castle.”
“I’m coming with you,” Adamus said. “We have to stop whatever is bringing them here if we want to finish this. Otherwise, they’ll just keep coming.”
Raiya glanced up at Azreth to see if he would object. He frowned deeply, but said nothing.
“Very well,” Raiya said, starting toward the castle. “We could use the help.”
“What is your plan?” Adamus asked.
“There isn”t one, other than to find Nirlan, find out how he’s done this, and see if we can undo it,” Raiya said. “We can’t be sure what we’ll find when we get there.”
“Ah. Good,” Adamus said. “Walking into a den of demons with no plan and only three swords. Again.” She shot him a look, and he gave her a wan smile. “Kidding. Sort of.”
“Not just three swords,” Raiya said. “I have a weapon. And Azreth has…” She waved to all of him demonstratively.
“Raiya knows the layout of the castle,” Azreth said. “She knows the rune magic used for this kind of summoning, and she knows our enemy. She will lead us to victory.”
Raiya blushed, not certain she deserved his confidence. She could imagine Nirlan’s voice very clearly, suddenly. You? You couldn’t be relied on to lead a household, let alone to lead anyone into battle.
Adamus nodded. “I’ll do whatever you think is best.”
She took a few deep breaths as they started up the path out of the town, up the slope to the castle. “I am grateful to have you with us.” She turned to Madira and Jai, too. “All of you.”
She could not have done this without them. The thought of seeing Nirlan again, even now, made her want to turn back. Facing demons was one thing. Facing him was another.
The iron portcullis on the outer wall was up. They passed beneath it and stepped into the bailey. An awful, rotting scent hit Raiya’s nose, and she covered her face with her hands to try to block it out. Adamus put his hand over his heart in the way that worshipers of Paladius did, murmuring a prayer.
There were bodies lying here and there on the ground, half covered in snow. Some of them were new, but the source of the smell was likely the ones that had been there longer—the guards Azreth had killed when they’d escaped. Nirlan had been in such a hurry to chase after her that he’d left them here to decay. Raiya stopped to stare at them.
“Raiya?” Azreth said quietly.
“What kind of person just leaves the corpses of their own men to rot in their garden?” she asked.
It was not even the lack of respect that bothered her, although that was also concerning. It was the bizarre decision to prioritize chasing her over cleaning dead, rotting flesh out of his own home.
“There’s something wrong with him,” she said. “He’s not normal.”
“Did you just realize this?”
Perhaps she had.
Maybe madness was harder to see when it was wrapped in a clean-cut, well-mannered package. With someone as calm and confident and well-dressed as Nirlan, someone who knew how to flatter and charm and use clever words… People assumed that someone like that knew what they were doing. Someone like that couldn’t be wrong. Even Raiya had believed it. She’d believed the illusion of his competence over her own.
She turned to Azreth. “Let’s go.”
He put a hand on her cheek. “We will succeed. Don’t worry.”
His little sweet touches always surprised and pleased her. “Are you so certain?” she asked.
He hesitated, betraying his own fear. “I am certain that I will do whatever it takes to keep you from harm.”
She squeezed his hand. “I’ll do the same for you. Come on.”
They met the others at the entry to the castle proper. The doors were different than the last time she’d seen them. A circle of glowing runes covered the old wood.
“Some kind of dark magic,” Adamus said.
“It’s locked,” Madira explained, turning to Raiya.
“It’s not dark magic,” she said. “They’re just runes. An enchantment to block the doors. But I think I can devise a counter-enchantment. Let me see if…”
Azreth put a hand on her shoulder to stop her. She stepped aside. Without further prompting, he kicked a booted foot through the wood, sending both doors crashing across the room inside.
Madira snorted. “I was going to suggest stealth, but I suppose you think showing off for your woman is more important?”
Raiya smirked up at Azreth, who just looked confused by the comment.
“You’re a night elf. Of course you were going to suggest stealth,” Adamus said. He gestured into the castle, looking up at Azreth. “After you.”