It is the snake you never see that kills you.

* Narvonnian Proverb

☀

13th Day of New Summer’s Moon, 297 AC

Trist slumped and fell to one knee, the frost covered earth of the courtyard chilling the steel of his armor until it felt like he was wearing plates of solid ice. Around him, the wraith knights swirled, pale by torchlight, and turned to him from killing the last of the Kimmerian mercenaries.

“A good battle,” Sir Tor remarked, with a grin.

“You look nearly done in, boy,” Rience du Camaret-à-Arden said, examining his son with furrowed brow.

“Three days of a siege,” Trist answered him. The other shades moved aside, parting their company to make way for his older brother, Percival. It was the first time Trist had seen him since the funeral, when they’d laid his corpse to rest in the family crypt. “I did not know you could come,” Trist admitted.

Percy looked down on him, armored with some of the same pieces Trist wore now. He couldn’t wrap his mind around how that worked - he’d looted Percy’s plate mail for everything that would fit, before he first set off into the Ardenwood in pursuit of Acrasia, nearly three moons past. How could it exist in two places at once?

“You weren’t ready for me to come, Trist,” Percy said. Around the courtyard, the other ghosts began to fade.

“I’m sorry,” Trist said, his voice breaking, and he nearly choked on the words. “I failed you. I should have been there, I should have seen her for what she was. It should have been me who died, not you.”

“You should have known her,” Percy agreed. “That burden is yours to carry, Brother, for the rest of your life. You were fool enough to let a faerie wrap you around her fingers, despite every warning Father and I gave you. It didn’t matter what we said, you kept running back to the woods and back to that monster. That is your failing.”

Trist closed his eyes, unable to look at Percy, and felt tears spill down his cheeks.

“But it was not your sword that struck me down, Trist,” Percy said. “You didn’t make her do it. My death is not yours to claim - it is a crime to be laid at the faerie’s feet. Mine, and scores of others over the years. Tor, and Anne Chapman, and Bill Thatcher, and more whose names you wouldn’t even know. We aren’t your fault.”

“I wed your wife,” Trist confessed, shaking his head.

“Then protect her,” Percy said, and his chill hand touched Trist upon the shoulder, where it coated the steel of his pauldron in a tracery of hoarfrost. He opened his eyes, to find his older brother, unhelmed, waiting to meet his gaze with pity. “And make her happy. She deserves that, at least, and I cannot do it.”

“I will,” Trist promised, and Percy smiled before dissolving back into the night.

According to Baroness Blasine’s glass of sands, it was properly evening by the time that Sir Moriaen’s forces had withdrawn to the north of the city, back to their original camp outside the walls. The north gate of Rocher de la Garde was shattered, and King Lionel had not brought enough troops to hold the city walls in any event, so it was in the keep that everyone re-united.

Baron Urien strode into the great hall first, sweeping his wife up into his arms and spinning her around with a shout. “Put me down!” Blasine chided him, but everyone could see her grinning. Trist thought it might have been the first time he’d witnessed his mother-in-law smile.

“Gareth!” Urien folded his son in his arms next, though he at least left the younger knight the dignity of remaining on his feet.

“Father,” Gareth said, pulling back just enough to meet the Baron’s eyes. “I held the city.”

“You did, my lad,” Urien said, with a smile. “You did well.”

“All of you did well,” King Lionel proclaimed, removing his helm and setting it down on the high table. Sir Bors and Sir Guiron took up stations to either side of the entrance, where they stood at attention. General Ismet removed her helm, and turned away from those gathered to fix her scarlet head-scarf. Once she had, she looked Trist over.

“You look nearly as bad as when you came out of the cave,” she teased Trist gently.

“I feel nearly as weak,” Trist admitted to her. He was sprawled in a chair to one side of the table, with Clarisant seated next to him. Most of the population of the city remained underground, in the catacombs, but she and her mother had apparently watched the fighting from a window on the third floor of the keep.

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“And yet,” the king said, extending his hands to both Trist and to Gareth, “You have both done the impossible. I asked you to hold this city against anything that came, whether daemon or mortal, and you are still here. The keep still stands.”

Sir Gareth sighed. “But not much else, Your Majesty,” he admitted. “The docks and our fishing ships were destroyed by a daemon, most of the city burned, the gate broken. We have more men wounded or dead than able to stand and fight.”

“The usurper needed to defeat you,” Lionel said. “I needed you to survive. And you have done that.”

“But how did you come so soon?” Trist asked, brow furrowed, thinking back to all the king’s explanations of the logistics of marching an army. “The army should not have been able to make it here for another day, at least, or two.”

“The army did not,” Ismet said, sitting down in the chair that the king pulled out for her.

“We took every knight, scout, and horse-archer we had,” Lionel explained. “Everyone we had a mount for, and we rode ahead. The army is two days behind us still, but when Lady Ismet returned with word the city was burning, I knew we had to move with whatever we could bring.”

“And we took them in the rear!” Baron Urien said, slamming a fist into his own cupped hand for emphasis. “I wish you could have seen them panic when we hit! The dark worked to our advantage - they couldn’t be certain how many men we’d brought!”

“And so Sir Moriaen chose to regroup his forces,” Clarisant explained.

“Just so. He always was a bit too cautious for his own good,” King Lionel explained. “Our scouts tore theirs to pieces with Ismet to bolster them, so they will have no idea where our infantry has gotten to. It must be driving the man crazy.” Trist did not miss that the king stood behind Ismet’s chair, and rested one gauntleted hand on her shoulder.

“Your pardon, Sir Trist?” he turned to find a squire in a shirt of chain next to his chair.

“Isdern,” Trist recalled. Baroness Arnive’s son.

“Aye, Exarch.” The boy cast his eyes down. “Is - is your squire here? Is Yaél well? I don’t see her.”

“She is fine.” Trist exchanged a glance with his wife. “We left her with the survivors from Camaret-à-Arden, in the forest, to recover.”

“She was hurt?” Isdern’s eyes nearly bugged out.

“Aye, she was hurt fighting a daemon,” Trist said. “But she was already healing three days past, when we left her. As soon as we can drive that army of rebels from the field, she will be able to link up with us again, with my father’s-” he caught himself. “With my men-at-arms. You need have no fear for her; the Horned Hunter has pledged to the safety of all our people sheltering in the Ardenwood.”

“That sounds like quite a tale,” Lionel commented. “And one daemon destroyed? Which?”

“Two,” Clarisant clarified. “Vinea the Stormbringer, at Camaret-à-Arden, and Zepar the Scarlet, at the west gate. And my lord husband sorely wounded the Leviathan, as well, but I will not speak that monster’s name aloud quite yet.”

“Not until it is destroyed,” Ismet agreed, with a nod.

“Good,” the king said, grimly. “Anything that puts us in a stronger position is good. Now, I must speak to Sir Moriaen, and see if I can secure enough time for the rest of the army to arrive. Squire, prepare a banner. It is time for a parley.”

Seven of them rode out from the city, bearing torches and a white banner: Lionel, the king, and Urien as Baron of Rocher de la Garde, along with Isdern carrying the banner as squire. With them, the four Exarchs, as a show of force.

Moriaen met them with only two other men, knights of the Barony du Champs d'Or, by Trist’s guess. “Sir Lionel,” the enemy commander began, with a nod. “And Baron Urien.”

“You will address the king with his proper title, cur,” Sir Bors growled.

“Emperor Avitus does not recognize such a title,” Moriaen responded, with a shrug. “And as my liege does not, honor obligates me to obey his command. He is, however, willing to recognize your title as Baron, Sir Urien, and confirm your family’s ancestral rights, so long as you swear fealty to him.”

“You put my city to the torch,” Urien shot back. “Slaughter my people. And speak to me of supporting a daemon-worshiping monster? I’ll have your head before this is done, Moriaen, to put above my walls on a pike.”

Lionel held up a hand. “You have failed to take Rocher de la Garde, Sir Moriaen. I will treat you and your men with mercy, if you surrender your forces now.”

Moriaen shook his head. “I have not been given leave by my Emperor to surrender my command,” he said, simply. “Nor is this siege lost. The walls of the city are breached, and only the keep remains. I retain the numerically superior force.”

“Numbers matter little when you face four Exarchs,” Ismet pointed out.

“You have four Exarchs, I have two daemons,” Moriaen responded. “I admit that Sir Trist,” and here he nodded in what Trist assumed was meant to be a show of respect, “has performed in a most impressive fashion. But I do not think any of you have a solution for Forneus, and Bathin retains the ability to let me place soldiers wherever I choose, whenever I choose.”

“Bathin is afraid,” Trist said, “And Forneus wounded. Both have fled from me alone. You truly think they would face four of us, for you?” He did his best not to allow his exhaustion to show in his posture, or in his voice.

“If your only intent is to press the assault,” Lionel said, “There would be little point in meeting us here. There must be some purpose, Sir Moriaen. Do you wish to negotiate a withdrawal north to Lutetia?”

“There is a purpose,” Sir Moriaen confirmed.

The world tore open on King Lionel’s left, a raw wound bordered in sparking yellow strands, revealing a great hall beyond. Bathin, wings outstretched, surged through the portal directly at the king.

Trist was the only one quick enough to stop it. He drew his legs up, out of the stirrups and then beneath him, and kicked off the saddle. He flew through the air, arms outstretched, to push the king out of the way.

Everyone around him slowed, and Trist had time to see the daemon’s eyes widen in surprise, to see the Exarchs draw their weapons, to see the smile curve Sir Moriaen’s lips. ‘He tries one tactic, and then another when it doesn’t work, and then a third.’ The words came back to Trist as his gauntlets connected with Lionel’s cuirass, and he shoved.

Lionel flew out of the saddle, and then Bathin’s outstretched arms wrapped around Trist, the two of them tumbling through the air directly into a second portal, which snapped open to surround them.

Trist had just enough time to hear the panicked shouts of his companions, and then he tumbled onto a hard stone floor, the daemon bearing him down, and the portal to Rocher de la Garde closed behind them.