They call it the daemon bull, the unstoppable force. Fortunately, the monster did not prove difficult to bind: while it is certainly physically potent, we found it somewhat lacking in cunning or intelligence.
* The Marian Codex
☀
15th Day of New Summer’s Moon, 297 AC
“Can you portal us out of here, Trist?” Margaret asked.
Trist shook his head. “I would not even know where to go,” he admitted, as another crash echoed off the door to the armory. “I have never been to Cheverny before this. I do not know the castle, or the city. Putting us through a door is easy enough, but I can not picture anything further.”
“We fight our way out, then,” Lorengel said. “At least we’re armed and armored, now.”
“I assume this armor that was with that blade belongs to you, then?” Sir Cynric’s voice came from near Trist’s shoulder.
“It should be,” he answered.
“Good. Enid, is it?” Cynric continued. “Help me get him in battle harness. Even if he can’t fight, it will help turn aside a dagger.”
“Aye,” Enid said, and Trist got to his feet. This, at least, was familiar enough, though he was even less a part of the process than usual. His padded gambeson, cold and stiff after days without being used, was the first step. They found his boots, as well, and even a pair of breeches which didn’t feel like his, put fit near enough. Cynric knew what he was doing, even if Enid didn’t, and between the two of them he was armored again before the door came down.
“Stay behind us with Lady Enid,” Margaret commanded. “The three of us can handle a few guards, but we need to get out of the castle before any of the daemons come. I’ll get us to the postern gate, and if we can’t open it, you can make us a way through.”
Trist nodded, and placed his hand on the hilt of his sword. “I can do that. Enid, stand behind me and keep your hand on my back.”
The bashing at the door ceased, and instead, they could all hear the click of tumblers turning over in the lock. “They found someone with keys,” Lorengel observed.
“Ready,” Margaret said, and then everything burst into chaos. Trist could hardly comprehend it, without the use of his eyes. Boots slid on stone, steel rang out against steel, men grunted and screamed. There was the scent of blood in the air, and then the bowels of a dead man releasing his last meal. Through it all, Trist saw only darkness. He didn’t draw, because he was as likely to wound an ally, if he swung his blade, as kill an enemy. It was maddening, and terrifying, because he could not recall being so utterly helpless. Even crawling up those stone stairs under the mountains, he’d been able to see, and to pull himself forward. His life had been in his own hands, then.
Now, he had to trust in others to keep him alive, and Trist did not at all like it. He was certain these Exarchs were competent enough knights, but he didn’t know them, hadn’t fought beside them. All he could do was listen, and wait for Margaret’s word when it was over.
Then, in the darkness, there was a glimpse of color.
A bundle of orange and yellow, tightly wound, moving through the otherwise absolute blackness of the world. No, Trist realized, not one bundle - three. Three wrapped cores of burning strands, each pulsing like a man’s heart, and each moving about the darkness before him.
He could see the cores of the three Exarchs.
It wasn’t much - it wasn’t anything like actually having eyes - but it was better than the nothing that he’d been dwelling in before. Trist could at least track the rough direction and distance of the three knights in front of him, now. When they stopped moving, and the bright flames of their strands dulled to banked embers, he knew their enemies had been defeated.
“We’re clear to move,” Margaret said. “Enid, you’re going to have to lead Sir Trist so we can fight.”
“No,” Trist spoke up. “Stay behind me. I can follow your cores.” There was a moment of silence.
“Alright,” Margaret said. “We’re moving now. Stay close.”
They rushed, more than crept, through the halls of the castle. It was clear the alarm had been raised, because the guards at the armory were not the last skirmish the Exarchs fought through.
“At least they’re all Champs d’Or men,” Cynric commented. Trist recognized the sound of a man pulling his blade out of a corpse. “I would have misgivings about killing people I’ve known for years.”
“I would not,” Lorengel said. “Any of the castle guards who stayed to serve this monster are traitors.”
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
“Come along,” Margaret urged them. “We’re almost to the gate. Through the next courtyard.”
Ahead of Trist, the three lights he was following turned, and he stumbled, stretching his hand out to the side to make certain he didn’t hit a wall. With the change in orientation - they must have taken a side passage, or come to an intersection - his view shifted, and a cold stone dropped into the bottom of his stomach.
“Wait!” he called to Margaret and the others. “There’s a daemon ahead!”
The core of the thing was burning like bright, baleful sun, with strands of fire curling out and pulsing. It was larger than the cores of any of the Exarchs that Trist could see: where most of them had four or four strands, and he himself had earned six, the daemon ahead possessed only three. Each one, however, flared a bright yellow.
“How do you know?” Lorengel hissed, as all of them skidded to a halt. Trist could hear their boots scrape against the stones of the hallway floor.
“I can see its core,” Trist shot back. “Three strands of yellow, just ahead.”
“You can see through a door?” Cynric asked.
“How can you see at all?” Enid said, from behind him.
“It doesn’t matter,” Margaret said. “This is our route. If we turn back, it’ll be behind us, and they'll surround us and trap us in the castle.”
“Move!” Trist shouted, as the yellow core shot forward towards them. He grabbed Enid and pulled her to his left, the both of them slamming into the stone wall of the corridor harder than he’d intended. There was a crash ahead, the sound of splintering wood, and hooves ringing on stone. The yellow core hit one of the three Exarchs, but Trist didn’t know their colors well enough to tell which one. The Exarch was flung aside, and a man’s voice called out. Not Margaret, then.
“Stay here,” Trist told Enid, and drew his sword. The world slowed, and a bright yellow flare of power shot through his muscles. There was a route forward: the slowest Exarch had been thrown aside, while Margaret and the last had acted on his warning, and gotten out of the way. The burning yellow of the daemon’s power continued on, but it was slower than him, and Trist stepped into its path.
He couldn’t see whether the thing carried a weapon. He couldn’t tell whether it had wings, or claws, or a tail. Trist recalled three daemons surrounding Avitus’ throne, but he didn’t know which one he was facing now.
If it was Loray, however, Trist thought she would have said something to him by now. That left the giant daemon with the head of a bull, and the daemon who had worn a sword at his belt, with black feathered wings and bare feet that smoked and burned where he stood.
Trist didn’t smell smoke.
That left a single daemon, and the idea of a bull-headed monster crashing headfirst through a wooden door made the most sense in any event. Trist tried to picture the thing’s body as best he could, but he didn’t really recall anything more dangerous than the horns on its head. He had to avoid getting gored.
Moving faster than anyone else in the hall, Trist ducked as low as he could, cutting a vicious slice in the direction of the bull-daemon’s core as he let it go past him. There was a roar of pain from the daemon, and the scent of blood, and the shudder of an impact up the length of his sword to Trist’s arm. He spun after letting the monster pass him, and fell into a Plow Guard, hilt at his waist and the tip of his blade in line with the daemon’s yellow core.
“You little gnat!” A rumbling, deep voice echoed down the hallway from the general direction of the daemon’s yellow core. “I’ll rip you in half for that. I have feasted on Angelus! I’ll eat your hearts!”
“Which one is it,” Trist asked, panting. “The one with the horns?”
“Every daemon I recall seeing has horns of one sort or another,” Cynric said, and the knight’s voice let him put a name to that particular bundle of strands. The Exarch of Theliel moved into position next to Trist, and Margaret came up on his other side. Lorengel was still on the ground, and from the sound of it, struggling to catch his breath.
“Three of us, Morax,” Margaret said. “Are you ready to die tonight?”
Morax. It was the bull-daemon, then; Trist had guessed correctly.
Instead of charging them again, the daemon bull roared, the sound so loud that Trist winced, and wished for some of Yaél’s wax to plug his ears with. “I have found them!” it cried, in a deep thunderous voice that seemed to shake the castle. “They are making for the postern gate!”
“Run!” Margaret commanded, and all five of them took off, Cynric’s hand guiding Trist through the splintered remnants of the door to the courtyard. Trist could tell when they’d got outside from one taste of the fresh night air.
“They’ll all be coming now,” Cynric said, leading Trist over to the gate and placing his left hand against the wood.
“Take us through, Trist,” Margaret ordered. Trist took a deep breath to center himself, the sword in his right hand almost forgotten. He risked a glance back, and saw that there were more cores coming their way: two in the air, and one closer to the ground. The brightest burned blue and white, like Auberon.
Trist teased his newest red thread out, then split it. With each use of the Boon, he was more confident, and the opening of the portal came easier to him. He threaded the needle and punched it through the world, and a circular gate, bordered by red threads, yawned before him. “Go!” he told the others, afraid that it would close if he moved. One, two, three cores moved through, and Enid brushed past him as well, before Trist ran forward, letting the thread go. It was like dropping a great stone, and he gasped in relief, sucking for breath.
“We need to keep moving,” Margeret said. “They’ll be after us.”
“Two in the air,” Trist told her, between breaths. “Loray and the other.”
“Cail,” Margaret said. “We had time to learn all their names. But I’m more worried about the archer.” She grabbed Trist’s hand in her own, and pulled him along after her. Together, the five escaped prisoners ran across smooth stone. He couldn’t see where they were going, couldn’t do anything useful other than keep watch on the burning cores of the daemons.
One of the two fliers pulsed, extending a strand of fire that picked out a shape that Trist recognized: the form of a drawn bow with an arrow nocked. Something about the pulsing yellow energy made Trist’s stomach roil, and reminded him of fighting Agrat, the Plague Dancer.
“Keep going!” Trist shouted, and yanked his gauntlet out of Margaret’s grasp. He took the hilt of his sword in both hands, and when the burning yellow line of the arrow shot down at them, he lunged forward and swung.
Trist’s blade pulsed with fire, and sheared Loray’s arrow out of the sky, cutting it in half. The two pieces fell to either side of him, harmless.
“How are you still fighting?” Cynric asked in awe.
“I said go!” Trist shouted, cutting a second arrow down as he backed up. Loray glided down toward them, and her voice was the softest silk, whispering in the night.
“Trist,” the daemon purred. “Don’t run away, lover. I have such plans for you.”