Speaking the proper name of a daemon aloud is dangerous, that we have confirmed beyond a doubt with experimentation. It may draw their attention, in the same way that a man may suddenly hear his own name spoken in a crowded room, and turn to see who said it. Will it happen every time? No. Exarchs, notably, seem protected from the effect completely. In fact, our experiments indicate the number is perhaps one in ten, and even if attention is drawn, the daemon’s gaze may turn away, from lack of interest, being preoccupied with something else, or what have you. However, even a one in ten chance is not worth the risk, and so the General has commande that, Exarchs excepted, only euphemisms and monikers are to be used, from henceforth.

* The Marian Codex

☀

10th Day of New Summer’s Moon, 297 AC

When last Trist had seen his father, it had been near the end of the Planting Moon, the morning he, Henry and Luc left Camaret-à-Arden. It had been, he realized, exactly a moon and a half since the morning of his departure. In that short span, Rience du Camaret-à-Arden had aged years.

It was not the first time in the old knight’s life that he had been ravaged by grief: he’d buried two wives. The loss of Trist’s mother, Cecilia, along with his unborn sister, during the last outbreak of plague twelve years prior, had marked not only him, but both his sons, as well. Losing Percy, it seemed, had broken him down like a horse whipped into pulling an overloaded wagon too far and too long.

Sir Rience had lost weight; where before he had given the impression of a muscular man who’d put on a bit of extra flesh in his age, now muscle and fat both seemed to have melted away. You could see it in his face, Trist observed with shock, where father’s eyes were now set in dark, hollowed out sockets that spoke of sleepless nights. What color had remained in his hair and beard was all but gone, replaced with gray and white, and his hairline seemed to have receded the width of a finger, if not two. The old man didn’t even stand as straight as he once did, and Trist found himself looking down on a father shorter than he was. Was this really the man who’d swung Trist around by his arms when he was a boy, as easily as if he weighed nothing?

Trist tried not to let his surprise show in his face, and when his father crossed the hall to embrace him, Trist returned the gesture carefully, not wanting to hurt Rience against his steel plate.

“It’s good to see you back safely,” Rience said, stepping back to hold Trist at arm’s length. “We heard you faced down a daemon at the Passe de Mûre.”

“More than one,” Trist admitted. “Before and since then. But I am home in one piece.”

“You brought your wife back, as well,” Sir Rience said, releasing Trist to embrace Clarisant.

“And not only me,” Clarisant told him. “I’ve brought your first grandchild.” She placed a hand against her riding doublet, over her belly.

“That is the best news I’ve heard in moons,” Trist’s father said. “And who is this?” He turned to look over Yaél, who shuffled her feet nervously.

“This is my squire,” Trist explained. “Yaél du Havre de Paix. She fought at Falais, as well. You will like her, I think.”

“She reminds me of Chantal,” his father remarked. “The last time the Caliphate came north. Scrappy little thing.”

“She has one eye less after this last battle,” Trist told him, “but Dame Chantal still holds command at the Tower of Tears.”

“Did you ride all night?” Rience asked. “Come, eat. Tell me everything.” He walked over to his chair at the head of the table, and collapsed into it.

“There is no time,” Trist said. “Not for everything.” He settled himself down carefully into the chair next to where his wife was sitting, put his gauntlets down on the table, and speared himself a few sausages. “John should be on his way, and we have sent word to the monks. We have to evacuate the village, Father. There are already Kimmerian scouts around Rocher de la Garde, and we had to break through a barricade on the road to get here.”

“We’ve had no word from Sir Gareth,” Rience said. “Only a few people fleeing the capital through the Ardenwood. It has been hard to tell what is true, and what is rumor.”

“Cheverny has fallen,” Trist explained, between bites of sausage and bacon. He used his belt knife to slice a large hunk of cheese off the wheel in the center of the table, as well. “Old King Lothair is dead, and most of the Exarchs captured or dead. King Lionel is marching east to Rocher de la Garde, to reinforce the city, and he sent me to get you all south, along with every piece of Iebara lumber we can bring with us.”

“If this had happened ten years ago,” his father mourned. “I could fight. But now, as I am…”

“I will fight for you, Father,” Trist promised. “What matters is getting our people to safety. There are at least five daemons at work, and I fear one of them may be coming here.”

Rience’s face paled. “Is it Agrat, then? Is it finally time?” Claire’s eyes widened when the name was spoken aloud, and the candles in the hall guttered.

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“No, the Stormbringer,” Trist said, with a frown. “But what do you mean?”

“Trist!” John Granger called, striding into the hall and already wearing his shirt of rings. The Master at Arms threw his helm and gauntlets on the table, and poured himself a goblet of wine. “And the Lady Clarisant. It is a comfort to have you both here, but Hywel tells me that we don’t have time for any of that.”

Trist shook his head. “No, we do not. You have seen Hywel already? He sent word to the monks?”

“Aye, I had stopped by to have him put a new edge on my dagger,” Granger explained, putting two sausages onto his own plate. “War, he said.”

Trist took a swallow of wine, and nodded. “We need to load up all the lumber we have cut, gather everyone in the village, and make our way south.”

“You said you had to break a barricade on the road to get here?” Sir Rience asked, staring into his goblet. “And outriders are already at Rocher de la Garde?” Trist nodded, again. “It isn’t possible, my boy,” his father said, with a sigh. “It would be three days to get the wagons south, at best. The entire way, we’d have only twenty men to fight off those outriders, and whatever came with them. And there’s every chance they would already have invested Rocher de la Garde by the time we got in sight of the city, leaving us trapped outside with hundreds of people and the wagons. There just isn’t enough time.”

“What if I drew them off?” Trist asked. “Made a hole in their lines to take the wagons through.”

His father slumped back into his chair. “You’re a great swordsman, Trist, but you never learned strategy, and we never truly tried to teach you. It isn’t your fault; another failing of mine. We all assumed your brother would handle that, if it were ever needed.”

Trist swallowed. Even dead and in the grave, Percy was still the better son. “Into the Ardenwood, then,” he proposed. “We pull everyone out of the village, and all the cut lumber, as well. We withdraw into the forest, bring all the food we can carry, and leave them an empty town. At worst, they burn a few buildings, and we rebuild when they have gone.”

“The forest is dangerous,” Rience warned.

“More dangerous for the daemons than for us,” Trist said grimly. “Does anyone have a better plan?” He looked from face to face, and first his father, then the master at arms, shook their heads.

“Hiding in the forest is better than staying here,” Clarisant agreed. “But husband, you are the only one who can fight any daemons who come. And the longer you stay here, the more danger that Rocher de la Garde falls.”

“Not the only one.” Trist rose, brushed his hand across her shoulder, then snatched up his gauntlets from the table. “I need to talk to someone. May I leave the evacuation in your hands? Father? John?”

“Aye,” the Master at Arms said. “We’ll start moving people along the woodsmen’s path west, then follow the stream up past the falls. You bring Henry and Luc back?”

“Henry,” Trist said. “Luc fell in the Hauteurs Massif.”

“He was a good lad.” Granger frowned for a moment, then continued. “I’ll put Henry in charge of covering our trail through the forest.”

“Don’t take too long,” Clarisant cautioned him, rising from her seat. “Yaél, come with me. There’s a few things to get from our rooms, and then you and I can help get people moving.” The squire tore off a last hunk of bread, put a slice of cheese on it, and then folded the whole thing around a sausage to carry with her. Trist nodded to them both, then strode out of the hall and into the courtyard. He didn’t want anyone else to be with him for this conversation.

Down the hill from Foyer Chaleureux, he could see and hear the village shocked into life. There was a note of panic, rather than routine, in the townspeople rushing to load their things into carts and wagons. Trist turned east, and walked over to the bank of the River Rea, downstream from the mill, with its great water wheel. There, he drew his longsword from its sheath and rested the point on the grassy earth, folding his hands over the hilt and pommel.

“Acrasia,” he murmured. “Speak to me, please.”

The faerie maid simply appeared in front of him, like the sun coming out from behind a passing cloud. She stood on the water of the river, unmoved by the current, and the morning breeze stirred her hair, tossing blonde locks about that perfect face. Acrasia no longer hid her pointed ears, and instead of the simple white dress he was used to, she was clothed in sheer black cloth, with buttons of silver and a matching belt. She neither said his name, nor smiled; only said, “I am listening.”

“I need to take my people into the Ardenwood,” Trist explained. “To hide.”

“The Ardenwood belongs to the King of Shadows,” Acrasia reminded him. “Not to mortals.”

“And yet, you helped us travel through the forest once before,” Trist pointed out. “And Auberon is no friend to the daemons who are coming.”

“My King has been well paid by your Tithes,” the faerie maid answered. “And the territory your squire helped him acquire in Falais. And in return, he has healed you and we have given you the power to fight your enemies. If you wish a new favor, you must pay a new price.”

“What would you have, then?” Trist asked her.

“What I would have, and what my King asks of you, are two separate things,” Acrasia said, after a moment. “I have leave to grant your people safe passage into the Ardenwood, and protection besides.” For a moment, her mouth twitched, as if she was about to say something more. My Love, it would have been. He could hear it, the way she’d called him in the past, glaring now by its absence.

“And in return?” Trist asked. “What does Auberon desire?”

“You will take up the quest that Sir Maddoc of the Wood failed to fulfill,” Acrasia said, her words falling into the space between them like rocks into a still lake. “You will go to Velatessia, the ruined city of daemons. You will undo what was done three hundred years ago. And when the power coiled in those ruins is broken, the Court of Shadows will take back the land stolen by the Etalans when they built their city in our forest.”

“Aye,” Trist declared. “I will do it. But I will do it after the people of this village are safe, and after the battle for Rocher de la Garde is won. And your people will fight any daemons that follow us into the Ardenwood.”

“Agreed,” Acrasia said.

“And for your part?” Trist asked. “What is it you would have of me, Acrasia?”

“Trist,” she said, then broke off, her eyes wide. Acrasia’s face turned south, to the road that ran along the River Rea to Rocher de la Garde. He followed her gaze, and caught the sparking, luminescent tearing in space that he had seen when the daemon Vinea escaped from him on the road.

“They’re coming,” Acrasia said.