Chapter 1 #2
“How unfortunate for you, as you’ll find that means you have nothing at all,” I said acidly. “I could kill you right now, but I’m fond of the dog.”
Kill it! Kill it now!
“SILENCE, REVENANT! LEAVE ME WITH THE MORSEL.”
I paused. Was it possible that the demon could hear Sir Branson and Sir Branson could hear the demon? The only thing worse than two voices in my head was two arguing voices in my head.
“Wuff?” Brindle asked, tilting his head.
I find myself in an embarrassing position, Sir Branson said in a tone I had never heard when he was alive. It seems I can no longer possess my body, as it has expired.
“Indeed,” I agreed. “I bid you farewell as you enter the heavenlies. Go now, with my blessing and gratitude.”
Cough.
“Did you just say cough instead of coughing?”
Dogs, it would seem, don’t cough on command.
I blinked at Brindle. He blinked at me and then yawned one of those bone-cracking full-body doggy yawns.
One of his eyes was still glowing red, but the other …
the other shone with a heavenly light. And it was the watery blue of an eye I’d looked into every morning over breakfast for the past ten years.
“Blessed Saints.”
That curse was not ladylike at all. So, it was fortunate I was no lady.
You are a supplicant squire of the Paladins Rejected and, as such, it befits you to act in a way both godly and dignified. Sir Branson always sounded more formal when he was miffed. Additionally, you know I don’t like that curse. And I have asked you not to use it in my presence. Repeatedly.
I glanced at my dead paladin superior, who looked anything but dignified. It would be best not to speak of what happened to corpses upon the flight of the soul to glory. That he was a knight remained obvious in that armor. The holiness, however, had evaporated with his soul.
I turned my eyes to Brindle. A dog now possessed of three souls: his own, my dearly departed mentor’s, and a demon of questionable origin.
And that reminds me, Sir Branson said stiffly, you have five problems.
Wonderful. I now had more problems than I did gold coins.
There are four gold coins in my left boot.
I stood corrected.
Tonight, you must stand vigil and accept my cloak as my heir apparent, the anointed successor chosen by the God and the journey. Well, I say stand, but you must kneel in vigil throughout the night until the first blush of dawn. On your knees. Where it hurts.
“Great. Great. Great,” I said as if considering.
You should probably take the cloak now. If you can wiggle it out from under me.
He paused as if waiting for me to obey, and when I didn’t move, he went on.
And if the Aspect of the Rejected God speaks to you on this night and puts his mark on you, then you, too, will be a paladin blessed in the Holy Order of Vagrant Knights — the Paladins Rejected. And I’m sure he will, so no need to be skittish about that. It will work out, is what I’m saying.
If it wasn’t obvious by the fact that all my armor was sub-par and my cloak was ragged, or that little hint about the distinct lack of gold, my master and I were beggar paladins. Knights Vagrant. The God’s Own Rejected. Vagabond Paladins. Etc. Etc.
Only, Sir Branson, unlike me, was God-touched.
He was a paladin called to the small places of this world, and if I were lucky — wait, we are not to say lucky — if I were blessed then I could be one, too.
And I could join him in everlasting poverty and duty.
Which might sound like hell to some people, but what can I say?
I chose this. I actually want it. And if that didn’t make me God-touched then who knew what would.
Okay, problem one. Nighttime. I limped to where the gnarled, ghastly trees edged the clay riverbanks, hauling poor Brindle with me.
“Were it my choice, I’d set you free, Brindle,” I told the lanky dog as he looked at me with sad, liquid eyes. “I don’t like keeping you tied like this, but I do not know who controls your furry form and I do not want to have to kill you, too. Gifting death to Sir Branson was bad enough.”
I think I nearly have the dog under … aislhtrpoetn.
HHHTHERLJFPSDLKNG.
I gritted my teeth, falling to my knees as the two voices screeched over one another, whatever they meant to say lost in the tides of their private war.
The sound was like the tearing of metal — a sound I’d heard once when the massive Oakencrest drawbridge closed over one of the Oakencrest guard, pinning him in its great jaws and tearing his steel plate chest guard in twain.
I will not say what it did to his remains.
It is enough to note that I’ve seen sorrier corpses than poor Sir Branson.
The pain in my head from the sound split it so hard that I forgot momentarily that I had a dog to mind and I dropped the chain, covering my ears as if I could block out the internal maelstrom.
Beside me, Brindle sat down, whined, and then shuffled forward, shuffling a little farther and a little farther until he could lick my hand.
When — at last — the screeching subsided, I was gasping and trembling. I blinked, the world buzzing with the sudden absence of sound. Brindle put his round head into my lap.
Blessed Saints.
Well. It must be the dog in charge of the body.
For now.
So, that was nice.
It’s hard to control another creature’s body for long even if one possesses it. Drains the strength.
I froze. The voice that had spoken just now was neither Sir Branson’s nor that of the demon but some terrible combination of the two, and it rang in my head with the terrible certainty of a hanging-day bell.
“Which are you?” I asked, shuddering.
Which, indeed, the voice replied, and then followed it up with, I’d think you would know, even if our voices have somehow merged into something new.
“How would I know?”
Well, you could hardly confuse the thoughts of a most holy paladin and a demon.
It would seem that I could easily mistake them.
I did not know which was speaking to me now.
This was like one of those puzzles where two keepers guard two gates, and one always tells the truth while the other always lies, and the puzzler must form the perfect question to discern between the two.
I did not yet know the perfect question, but at least Brindle wasn’t currently trying to kill me.
I can tell you’re very upset and that’s understandable. Maybe you should take a moment.
I didn’t have a moment. I swiped away the tears still wet on my face. Useless things. They hadn’t protected any of us. Not the dead knight, not his devastated squire, and not the dog currently infested with a demon.
Brindle snuffled against my palm and I petted his head absently. This was hardly his fault.
“I suppose this will go more quickly now that you’re not about to rip my throat out,” I told him. “But what am I going to do with you?”
Obviously, you must keep him by your side.
Devil or Branson? Branson or devil? Either way, he wasn’t wrong.
Demons could jump to other creatures — a fact I had been made well aware of when this one hopped from the beggar who had found us on the derelict bridge over the Wendilclay River and into Sir Branson, and then from Sir Branson into the dog.
The beggar was dead, too, or I assumed he was, since Sir Branson had been trying to cast the demon from him and been dragged waist-deep into the water by the ravaged man.
When the demon had leapt from the beggar to Sir Branson, my mentor had drowned the poor soul he’d been trying to save, before coming after me.
The poor beggar’s corpse had washed down the river.
Were I not bleeding from multiple places, I would be honor-bound to find it and offer last rites.
Given the current circumstances, I’d have to leave that to whatever priest was near the shores where he washed up.
I’m starting to suspect that you shouldn’t cast the demon out.
That had to be the demon.
Cough.
I was terrible at this game.
Well, from what I can tell now that I’m elbows deep, as it were, had you tried to cast Hxyaltrytchus out without killing me first, he would have leapt from me to you, necessitating that I slay my supplicant squire, and killing a friend is not a thing a man gets over easily.
I glanced over my shoulder at the broken corpse behind me. He was not wrong on that last point. Abruptly the tears tried to surface again. I throttled them with all the heartlessness I had left.
There, there. It will be fine. I’m not really gone, am I?
From someone else that might have sounded sweet. From him it sounded dry and impatient.
But I was wasting time, even if I’d finally brought my shaking hands under control. With haste, I gathered the dead wood from the peeling trees along the edge of the forest and then hurried to light a fire.
Problem one under control.
Problem two. I was still bleeding badly and now it was making my vision shiver and darken, and if I did not deal promptly with that, then I may find I’d dug a grave only to collapse dead in it myself.
That would be such a waste.
Thank you, Sir Branson.
Cough.
Blessed Saints!
Listen, it’s all in the tone. When I speak, it’s in a humorous tone, and when he speaks, you can hear the clang of hell’s gongs in the background.
Hell had gongs?
Did I forget to teach you that, too? I hope I remembered to warn you against going to hell. Terribly dreadful place. An eternity without a drop of tea. I shudder at the thought.
He’d warned me often. He had no need for guilt on that count. I struggled not to roll my eyes.
Well, he said with the air of one holding up his hands in innocence, that really was the main thing.