Zepar the Scarlet, this daemon is named, or the Scarlet Duke, for the armor it wears, all of blood red enamel. It has the face of death, but can rouse the hearts of men and women to lust at its own whim, will they or not. So, too, can it raise the spirits of the dead to serve as its slaves in battle, but most blasphemous is this: the monster renders the wombs of women barren, by its very presence.
* The Marian Codex
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10th Day of New Summer’s Moon, 297 AC
It had been less than a month since Clarisant left behind the bedroom she and Trist shared on their wedding night, and it was an odd feeling to see how little trace of herself remained there. Sir Rience’s servants had kept the room clean and aired out, so there was no cloud of dust when she opened the door and led Yaél inside, and that was good.
“I wonder whether the daemons will let us alone until tomorrow,” Claire mused, heading over to Trist’s small wooden bookshelf. “I could do with a night on a bed, again. Here, take these,” she continued, pulling out all of the books and handing them to the squire. They made only a small pile, not even enough to fill the girl's arms.
“What for?” Yaél asked, wrinkling her nose in precisely the same expression she’d made during her reading lessons in the carriage.
“Those are my husband’s books,” Claire explained. “Fencing manuals, most of them. I expect he would want you to have them.”
“Fencing manuals?” The girl perked up at that, and flipped the top one open, revealing pages of detailed and labeled etchings, each showing some technique or other. “Oh! I recognize that. They’re cutting from Ox.”
Claire grinned. “See? I told you there was a reason to learn how to read.” She crossed the room to Trist’s chest of clothes, opened it, and began throwing things onto the bed. “See if you can find a pack, or get a servant to find you one,” she asked, sorting as she went. Linen shirts were always good, but her husband wouldn’t need anything fancy in the near future. She was pleased to find a spare pair of leather boots, and filled them with rolled up, short white wool stockings ornamented with blackwork. She found a spare cloak of heavy wool, and put that on the bed as well. It was summer now, but who knew how long the fighting would continue, or where it would take them. The wood floor creaked, and she turned.
“Good, what did you manage to find - you!” Clarisant hissed, took a step back, and scrambled for the belt knife she wore at her waist. Rather than Yaél returning with a pack, the faerie who had murdered Percy was standing there, in the center of the bedroom. Claire struggled to draw breath, and realized she was shaking.
Acrasia was impossibly beautiful, but it was the beauty of a wolf or a forest cat: soft fur, bright eyes, and a graceful gate did not conceal the predator’s nature. The faerie’s blonde hair fell in waves about her shoulders and down her back, over a sheer black dress. Her eyes were like the winter sky, and a silver belt caught the dress above her hips, drawing it in around a slender waist. Standing opposite each other like this, Claire realized that she was the taller one, though not by more than a hand.
“The daemons are here,” Acrasia intoned, her voice filling the chamber. “Just south of the village, with their mortal soldiers. Trist is fighting them now.”
“Then why aren’t you with him?” Clarisant shot back.
“Your husband has struck a bargain,” the faerie maid answered. “His people will be accepted into the Arden, and protected. He sent me to get you all into the forest.”
“So he’s fighting them alone?” Clarisant practically shrieked. It couldn’t be happening again. It couldn’t.
“His men-at-arms were running in that direction when I looked,” Acrasia pointed out. “And he is stronger than you understand. You’ve never really seen him fight, have you?”
“I got a pack,” Yaél said, opening the door and slipping into the room. “Oh! Lady Acrasia!”
“Thank you, Yaél,” Clarisant said. “Give it here.” She found the squire had already put the books in the bottom of the pack, which had wide leather straps sewn onto it and looked well-suited to be worn on the back. Gathering up the boots, she stuffed them in first, and then crammed the rest of the clothing after until she couldn’t fit anymore.
“That is a waste of time,” Acrasia sneered.
“My husband needs more than one set of clothes,” Clarisant countered, “and not to be begging them at every step of the way.” She grabbed the drawstring at the top of the pack, pulled it tight, and handed it to Yaél. “Here. It will help you build muscle.” When she looked back up, the faerie’s mouth was puckered, as if she’d bit into a very sour fruit.
“Come along then,” Acrasia said, and turned for the door. Yaél followed her out into the hall, and Claire found herself with no choice but to follow. She paused at the threshold, and looked back into the room. Would she ever see it again? Would the Foyer Chaleureux, or the rest of the town, even be standing by the time anyone returned? Resting a hand on the pommel of her belt dagger, Clarisant hurried down the hall to the stairs.
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Sir Rience was waiting for them at the foot, a longsword buckled onto his belt. “Come along,” he shouted. “The men have run down to help Trist,” he said, and then his eyes focused on Acrasia.
“You won’t find me helpless a second time,” Rience growled, half the length of his blade already clearing the scabbard before the faerie could speak.
“Don’t be foolish, old man,” she said, tossing her blonde hair back with disdain. “None of you can hurt me. I am here to keep my Oath to your king, and the bargain your son has struck. Come along and get to the horses. I can protect you all better once we’re in the Ardenwood.” Without waiting for a response, Acrasia brushed by him out into the courtyard.
“I don’t trust her,” Rience muttered.
“Neither do I,” Clarisant agreed with her father-in-law. “But if Trist is already fighting, then we need to move.” The three of them stepped out into the courtyard, where Cazador, Yaél’s gelding, and an old courser Claire recognized as belonging to Sir Rience were all saddled and waiting. She caught the scent of smoke on the air.
Rience hauled himself up into his saddle, caught his breath, and then rode down past the gatehouse and into the streets of Camaret-à-Arden. “You know me, boy,” Claire murmured to Caz, stroking the destrier’s nose and letting him smell her. Warhorses were trained not only to carry their riders in battle, and not to shy from a charge, but to fight themselves, with hooves and teeth. Only when she was certain Cazador had recognized her did she set a riding boot in one stirrup and haul herself up into the saddle, settling in with her legs across, rather than astride.
“I don’t know how you ride like that,” Yaél commented, waiting for her atop the gelding.
“Sidesaddle? I’m not a squire or a knight,” Claire explained to the younger girl. “This is how I was taught.” Taking the reins in hand, she steered Caz out of the courtyard and down into the town, following her father-in-law, and Yaél settled the gelding in to ride at her right. The squire was learning well: the position left her sword arm clear.
Camaret-à-Arden had only two real roads: one that ran south from the manor all the way to Rocher de la Garde, following the river. The other ran from the mill on the bank of the Rea west, into the Ardenwood, and that was the path the woodcutters followed every morning. Where the two roads met and crossed was the center of town, and that was where the local merchant family had built their shop; just south of them was Hywel’s smithy, and along both roads were built houses, giving the entire town the appearance of a lopsided cross from up on the hill.
The southern half of the town was burning.
Columns of smoke rose from the furthest houses, where Clarisant could see flames consuming the thatched roofs. The next row was just starting to catch and smolder, and there only slim gray tendrils wafted up into the sky. She could have mistaken them for smoke from fireplaces, perhaps, if she hadn’t seen the Kimmerian mercenaries loosing flaming arrows into the town from the south in great arcs. Many hit nothing, coming to rest in the grass or the packed earth of the road, but enough hit roofs that she could already see the town was lost. A flood of townsfolk ran north in a great crowd, away from the fighting, and then onto the woodcutter’s road west. As she watched, one arrow took a boy in the back; he fell and did not rise. Claire’s hands squeezed the reins until her knuckles turned white.
The Kimmerians were coming out of a horrible, yawning tear in the world, two at a time. Ten or twenty yards back, she saw the village’s men-at-arms fighting them, with two ragged lines having formed just past the last house of the village. And past that, she could see her husband.
He was easy to pick out, even from this distance. Trist was the only one wearing a set of plate armor, even if it was incomplete, and flashes of sunlight reflected off the metal where Yaél had spent hours polishing. He’d been driven back from the portal, where Claire caught sight of a pile of bodies that had been pushed aside to make way for more troops to emerge. Now, he was on the grass above the riverbank, facing off against a monstrous figure in blood-red armor, wielding a massive sword. Without thinking, Clairsant reined Caz in to watch.
Acrasia, as much as Clarisant hated to give the murdering bitch credit for anything, had been right: Claire had never really seen her husband fight. Not like this. The ride into Rocher de la Garde, even breaking through the barricade coming north, had both been charges on horseback, and she’d been right in the panicked, confused middle of it. It had all been so fast, so terrifying, that there’d been no real way to watch him. Now, from atop Caz and the hill, it was almost like she was viewing a tournament, and she’d never seen anything to match this.
Trist moved like a stroke of lightning.
It was the only comparison Claire could make: if Acrasia was a wolf, or a wildcat, dangerous in every coiled muscle but moving on instinct, Trist was nearly too fast for her eyes to even track him. He would flicker to one side when the great cutting blade of the daemon swung down at him, appearing at the end of a cut that staggered the monster he was fighting, and then move again. And none of it was instinct, that was clear: every move was as graceful and precise as the dancers she’d watched at the court in the capital. If she’d had the name for the stances, Claire had no doubt she’d be able to recognize them, picture perfect, from those books she’d placed at the bottom of the bag for Yaél.
“I told you he was good,” Acrasia said, with a smirk, and Clarisant hated her for one more thing: having known this piece of her husband first. For all the things she’d had first, that should have been for his wife.
“He’s more than good,” Clarisant said. “He’s amazing. Let’s go.” They rode down into the center of the town, where the air was already growing thick with smoke. Sir Rience was there, with one of the monks: Brother Alberic, Claire recognized.
“This is nearly the last,” her father-in-law said, shooting a withering look to the faerie that strode next to their horses. “You should go with them, Lady Clarisant.” The faerie, in turn, looked skittish, Claire observed, like a doe that had scented a wolf.
“I need to be certain that Trist gets back,” she protested, and then the sky rumbled. Claire looked up. Somehow, storm clouds had rolled in, though the morning had been clear. It reminded her of the day on the road to Rocher de la Garde. A single fork of lightning speared down, directly into the windmill by the river, setting it aflame, and she was certain.
“A second daemon!” Clarisant said. “Acrasia, can you see where it is?”
“I am not hiding,” a voice growled from over her shoulder, and Clarisant wheeled to face the daemon as Rience and Yaél both drew their blades. It was massively muscled, with the head of some kind of great cat, and great red wings like those of a bat spread from its shoulders. When it flexed its hands, claws emerged from its fingers, and thunder rolled overhead.
“I told him it was foolish to leave his wife undefended,” the monster said with a smile.