Chapter 1
Chapter One
Vagabond Paladin
I fiercely opposed killing the dog. I was not entirely sure I could commit so black a deed, no matter how much it was warranted.
“Now you do what I say, unholy fiend,” I growled as I jammed his snapping jaws into the wet clay.
Brindle’s teeth had never seemed overly large when we played tug-of-war. Now, their dreadful size held an ominous threat.
The dog scrabbled hard against the ground, his claws tearing gouges into the hardpan just as they’d torn gouges through my flesh. Desperation shot hot through my limbs, granting me strength to hold him in place. It was a burning brew when it mixed with my hot tears.
“Hold, curse you. Just hold.” My voice was raw — of course. Screaming will do that.
I cinched the rusted chain tight around the dog’s neck. Already it was slick with spittle and blood. It painted my hands ruddy.
Here’s my advice: never fight a dog unless there’s no other choice.
Brindle’s huge body — easily as large around the rib cage as my own — thrummed under his short fur and his wild eye rolled up, searching, the whites gleaming.
The moment his gaze met mine, he snapped again, and I had to lean even harder onto his round skull with my greave to hold him in place.
This was a battle of will alone and I wasn’t sure which of us was winning.
Or even if I wanted to win. I’d raised this dog from a pup. Every hurt to him hurt my heart.
He barked roughly, teeth snapping at air, and strings of drool flying outward like seeds of a blown dandelion. They clung to the pewter earth, adding to the churned slickness of the clay.
Let me be clear. Of all the places to fight three opponents, I’d chosen the worst. If you could call it a choice. I didn’t feel particularly like someone who had been offered options.
I was trembling straight through when he finally stilled and I could ease back.
The chain was securely rigged through metal loops on the long pole.
It had been a lantern pole affixed to my paladin superior’s saddle before I forced it to serve this way.
Likely that was why his horse continued to throw dark looks my way from where he hid among the shadows of the surrounding trees — he saw me as a robber.
Yes, I know, Dandelion. I’m a traitor to us all. By all means, judge away.
Brindle swung to snap at me, stymied by the pole but undaunted. I jammed it hard against him, a reminder that just because he couldn’t reach me didn’t mean I couldn’t reach him. I knew the look of betrayal in his eye was my imagination. It didn’t make me hurt less.
I took each step backward with absolute caution until the length of the pole was between us. Former friend or no, he’d turned on me, too, and if I wasn’t going to kill him outright then I’d need to secure him.
My breath sawed through the sudden stillness of the evening, loud and uneven.
How long can you keep this up, Victoriana? You must dispatch the dog, or what will you do with poor Brindle when you finally stop to bury my remains?
Yeah, there was a voice in my head talking to me.
And it knew my name. This was a new development and I was not grateful for it.
It might be part of our creed to “accept with gratitude that which we do not understand” but I’d never really been very good at keeping the creeds.
Or at accepting things I didn’t understand.
I was pretty sure it was some kind of shock or trauma or something that had me hearing my mentor’s voice in my head when he was very clearly dead.
Well, I’ll be the first to admit I’m not quite well, but I’m not sure I’d go so far as to say “dead.”
Swallowing down a wave of unease, I spared a miserable glance for the corpse whose voice echoed in my mind.
Sir Branson lay sprawled in the clay not far away, limbs akimbo, my longsword pinning him through the chest, and quite neatly to the ground. Which, I might add, had done little to stop him when he tried to tear out my throat before the demon leapt out of him and into his beloved dog, Brindle.
Remember when I said I was fighting three opponents? That’s them.
One mentor. One dog. One demon.
There were swirls of clay all over Sir Branson’s armor and thick tracks and whorls scored into it around him, as if a potter had been forming a pot and set him in the wall of it as a grisly stamp.
I’d seen worse things pass for art in our time journeying through the great cities — Dancartia has a grotesque statue that looks like children formed it from blobs of mud — but I’d never seen anything that wrenched me in two like this did.
Beyond my mere sorrow, this was terribly unholy.
I made the sign of the Aspect of the Rejected God — a holy tap of knuckle to forehead and then sword arm.
God forfend my spirit be stained by communing with the dead.
God forfend the demon jump to me next.
I’m doing my best to prevent that, dear girl, but if you’d stop with all the doom and gloom, I’m sure it would be easier. You’ve cast out demons before. Just do it again, quickly now, my cheerful — and very dead — paladin superior Sir Branson said in my mind.
Look, I know it’s because I’ve gone mad. I’m under no illusions about this.
Sir Branson had been a Vagabond Paladin of the Forsaken Aspect in life and now, even in death, he did not seem to have a set course to take. It was disheartening, really, to think that I might suffer cold and loneliness all my life only to have it continue past the gates of death.
Well, I’m not exactly staying here for me.
It’s just that I may possibly, sort of …
well, it pains me to admit it, but I may have skimped just a little on your training and this death situation has brought that screaming realization to the forefront and it feels just a tad irresponsible to sidle off now.
The dog crouched low, growling with a vibration so deep that I felt it more in my bones than heard it in my ears.
“Are you still in there, Brindle?” I coaxed. Who knew, maybe there was an epic dog-versus-demon battle going on within. Maybe the dog would win. He’d nearly beaten me. “Who’s a good boy?”
A flash of red rolled through the dog’s eye and then an eldritch voice — the demon, no doubt — replied, “NOT ME.”
Send the denizen to hell, girl. One deep strike to the throat of the dog! I think you know how stories like this end. No need to turn them on their heads.
Sir Branson was very confident for a man I’d been forced to kill. If he couldn’t cast out the demon, how did he expect me to do it?
Well, I didn’t want to murder a human. A dog is different.
Was it though?
I hesitated. It should be stated most adamantly that I am not a dog murderer and did not wish to become one.
You didn’t have such qualms with me.
I hadn’t had time to think with him. It had been mostly instinct.
You really have no option here, my squire.
I had some option. Seeing as I was the one holding the sword.
The dog sat on his haunches and whined.
“I don’t suppose you’ll dig the grave?” I asked him hopefully.
I was bleeding far more than I liked. My blood alone might soften the clay — though not enough to make any headway.
In hardpan like this, I’d be digging all day.
And I’d be doing it with a demon-possessed dog watching me and a dead man talking in my head.
Don’t you fuss. I’ll be right here the whole time, Sir Branson said gamely. Just, do me a favor and maybe turn my body so I don’t have to look it in the, well, not the eyes, obviously. In the place where eyes once were.
“Go with the Rejected God, Sir Branson,” I intoned the sacred words, trying to dismiss his ghost while swallowing bile. Look, don’t judge, it’s hard to give last rites to a man with no face.
I stumbled over to his horrific corpse and made the holy sign on the place where his forehead used to be and where one of the bends in his arm that I was relatively sure was the elbow was located. I touched a second one just in case. The God would forgive me … possibly.
“Blessed Lord take from me this knight, consecrated by water most holy, dipped in the cold of sacrifice, given now into thine —”
Blessed Saints! Wait. I’m not taking last rites!
“You are extremely dead, and you should take last rites,” I said aloud to the miserable corpse. I refused to speak with him in my mind. He had no right to be in there with me.
I shot a sad look at Brindle. We were both possessed. He, with a demon. Me, with a dead knight. What a sorry pair we made.
Except I will remain with your mortal coil, though I am bereft of my own, while Brindle will be relieved of his haunting spirit.
Remain?
I’d hardly abandon you when you need me the most. Like I was saying … there are things I forgot to mention that you probably should know …
I closed my eyes and sucked in a long inhale. It was how I handled frustrating situations — that and prayer — although this time I got a nice whiff of dog and death for my trouble. Wonderful.
“Rejected God, I beg thee send to me some means by which to bury Sir Branson with honor,” I prayed aloud.
Good. Prayers. This is excellent. Your faith is unblemished!
He sounded so cheerful at this that I didn’t want to point out that desperate prayers were hardly a measure of godliness.
I pushed him aside to look at the situation reasonably.
I had three problems now.
Night approaches.
Fine, I had four problems now.
First, I had a demon to deal with.
Second, I was bleeding badly from multiple lacerations and they needed to be cleaned and tended.
Third, my former paladin superior was now a paladin excisis and he was haunting me.
Rude.
I must prioritize.
I squatted down on my haunches in front of the dog.
“Perhaps we could make some sort of a deal,” I said coolly. “I have you by the neck, after all.”
“AND I HAVE YOU BY THE BALLS.” The demon laughed — or at least, I took that stone-crunching sound in my brain to be a laugh.