Black Wolf Rising Chapter 2: Upon the Road to Lairdon

The sun had risen above the horizon over an hour ago, and Arynn was standing before the bed she had spent the night in. She had changed back into the hard leather and mail armour after a hearty breakfast, and was currently picking her weapons up from the bed.

The silver etched sword slid easily into its scabbard, a dagger into a sheath across her lower back, a single edged axe slid into a metal loop on her belt, and the composite bow that was so popular in the south fit easily into a sheath that would let her keep it strung for the ride to Lairdon.

A soft knock came at the door as Arynn adjusted the straps that held her scabbard and bow sheath firmly across her back.

“Come in,” she said looking over her shoulder, hand instinctively straying towards the dagger.

When the door opened and Gillian walked in, Arynn had to consciously let her hand drop from the hilt. If the novice noticed it at all she said nothing on the matter, instead simply sliding into the room, glancing at the sword angled across her aunt’s back.

“You’ve only just arrived,” she said, Arynn turned to face the young girl.

“There is nothing I can do here,” Arynn was careful as she spoke the words, gently laying her hands upon Gillian’s shoulders.

“You can fight. Mother always said you could. That you were a hero of Ilimm.”

Arynn struggled not to laugh, to snort in derision. The few letters that travelled all the miles between here and wherever Arynn found herself had never been talk of heroism. Evelyn had made her thoughts rather clear when Arynn left home. Perhaps though her sister never wanted Gillian to think the same of her blood. For that, Arynn was thankful, and did manage to keep her face neutral.

“Be that as it may, I am but one woman. If I can get aid from Lairdon, we should be able to push back the sluagh and druden both,” she said instead, pulling her cloak from the wooden peg hammered into the wall beside the door, the fur of the garment flowing over her shoulders.

“So then, you’ll leave me, as you did mother. For what you think is best.”

Arynn turned, seeing her niece standing but a foot from her, fists clenched at her sides until her knuckles were white. There were tears in her eyes as she tried to defy her aunt. Arynn felt a twinge of guilt, a familiar scene once more playing out before her.

“What I know is best. Prepare yourself Gillian, the dark is deeper than you expect.”

With those final words, Arynn slipped out of the room, quickly making her way out into the courtyard. She found Amelia standing there with a horse that was not the one she had ridden in on. His dark brown coat was well groomed, and the saddle strapped across his back well made. Arynn raised an eyebrow, as she took in the creature, noting its muscles, the firm gaze it held with its soon to be rider.

“A knight once came through here. Bloody and wounded from a fight, we nursed him back to health over a month. For some time we didn’t think he would make it, but make it he did. The day he left, he said good bye to his destrier, not wishing to lead such a beautiful creature to the bloody end he knew he would eventually find for himself. So, we kept Khali. It’s been over a year now, but he is a restless soul. Battle is in his veins, as peace is in ours. He will not find peace here... but with you, I think he may help us bring it here,” the high priestess said as Arynn walked forward, running her hands through Khali’s mane.

She leaned her head forward, until their faces touched, his hard skull pressing gently against her. He let out a snort, but didn’t pull away.

“Thank you Amelia.”

“Don’t. Just as you cannot stay, we know now that neither can he. The knight might very well be dead, finding his end. I set him free not for you, but for him. Go Arynn, and return swiftly.”

The demon hunter nodded, trying to think of a response, but instead swinging up into the saddle, feet hanging at the horse’s flanks. She looked ahead as the gate began to open for her, and pressed in her thighs.

Khali shot forward, urgent for impending freedom, hooves cracking against the stones and dirt of the roadway as horse and rider shot out into the early morning. Neither looked back at the convent, relishing the feel of wind in their hair, blowing across their ears.

Eventually though, Arynn brought Khali to a slower trot, not wanting to wear him out so soon after setting out. Just before mid day, the sun at its zenith, the cool mist of the morning gone, Arynn had to pack her cloak away in her saddle bags, filled with fruits, nuts, and dried meat for the journey.

The pair paused by a stream, piled rocks the closest that came to a bridge, the water trickling between them. While Khali leaned his head low to drink, Arynn filled her canteen, before tossing an apple to the destrier, and taking one herself.

For a few hours after she walked side by side with Khali, gently holding his reins lest he get any ideas about leaving her, with all her gear. She was starting to rather like the beast; well trained, strong. She patted the side of his neck before mounting him again, continuing on her path.

She had never actually been to Lairdon, the capital of her home country. Only heard stories of it, but it couldn’t be any larger than Porma, nestled on the glittering coast of the Marizan Sea. Nor rival its beauty. Still, for Aenkleth, it was a place to see.

As night began to fall she set up a small camp, tying Khali to a tree with a loose knot. She didn’t dare start a fire, but fed a few apples to Khali and bit into some dried meat herself, chasing it with a few swigs of water and nuts. She already missed the candied nuts so common in the south.

Leaning against a tree, Arynn folded her arms behind her head and let her eyes slip closed, fingertips drifting across the hilt of her sword even as she fell into sleep.

Darkness swirled through her mind, interrupted by violent and vivid images. A flash of blood and severed limbs with a loud piercing scream, gray and cold. A gasp in her ear and the smell of sweat as a naked woman rose before her, visage hazy as a clawed hand ran up over her breast, golden, black and warm. A priestess upon her knees, amidst dazzling light.

It was the cry of a raven that pulled her from her sleep, and the nightmares that haunted them. She shot to her feet, sword sliding slickly from its scabbard in the moonlight. Above her the bird rustled its feathers but did not move. Arynn frowned at the creature as it twisted its head, eye staring directly back at her.

A shiver crawled down her spine; ravens, the messengers and spies of the demon Goddess Lyxa. Staring upwards at the bird, she slowly moved towards Khali. She had stored her bow carefully across his rump, her quiver on the side of her saddle for ease of transport. Had the Raven brought nightmare’s upon her, delivered at the whims of a succubus? Or was it the spreading darkness of Aalzgoth twisting even her dreams?

Just as fingertips grazed the bone and sinew of her bow, she heard the scream from down the path locals called a road. Loud, a mixture of pain and utter terror. The raven’s wings burst into a flurry of movement, carrying the creature into the night sky and from view.

Even before it was gone, Arynn had pushed the strange event from her mind. It was something to ponder another time. Already she had untied Khali’s reins, and was in his saddle. The sword across her back scraped against leather as it slid out into the open air, silver glinting in the moonlight.

With thighs pressing firmly against fur covered flesh, Arynn was soon guiding Khali down the road, his hooves beating against the ground in a faster clip with each step. Trees whipped past her as Khali sped along the road, before taking a turn at a fork that plunged directly into the forest.

With only a slight curve ahead of her now, Arynn could see the flickering light of torches, burning wagons, and shadowy figures moving in the glow they cast. Steel glinted in the firelight, and the sounds of fighting and dying carried through the forest despite the pounding of Khali’s hooves.

As she came closer, Arynn could see the tall thin forms of the druden, sliding like shadows through the low lighting amongst what appeared to be a caravan of merchant wagons. Guards sporting chainmail and metal caps fought desperately against the demonic foe as merchants, wives and children hid or ran.

Khali did not shy from the druden, and Arynn inwardly thanked the good training the destrier had received. A lord snort burst from his nostrils as he charged forward, head low to protect his neck, hard skull aimed towards the first of the unnatural creatures.

The demon turned, a woman, gray and tattered rags hanging from its emaciated form, a black steel sword in its deceptively small hand. Its large mouth hung open, blackened blood pouring over its chin and across its chest, a loud shriek pouring out into the night before Khali’s head cracked against the creature, sending her spinning to the side.

Screeches of the damned things came from all around her, and Arynn slipped from Khali’s back. The destrier’s ferocity could not make up for her lack of knightly training.

With her boots on the ground, a drude rushed to her, an axe in its hand. The demon’s wide black eyes were leaking the same blood as its mouth, and it shrieked loudly. A familiar sensation of cold dread grasped at Arynn’s spine, but she ignored it, instead taking a single step forward and swinging her blade at an angle before her. She felt the sharp edge of steel and silver bite through cloth and flesh, cold blood spraying outwards as her sword cut the drude from hip to shoulder. As it collapsed to the ground, smoke poured out from its wound, an almost skull like visage snarling in anger before it dissipated with the drude’s death.

The demon hunter could not pause. Pivoting she brought her sword downwards into the shoulder of another demon. The silver in her blade snapped through the bone of the monster and it let out a familiar screech as a black cloud burst out from the wound. Kicking the dead thing off her blade in another spray of black blood she was moving again.

Her sword swung upwards from along the hard packed dirt. More blood, and a head flying free from the neck that had once supported it. The decapitated corpse slumped off a guardsman it had pinned beneath it, the man’s face white with fear but still alive. Words to Ilimm poured out from his mouth, hands shaking as he gripped his wavering shield, but Arynn had no time to snap him out of it.

Beside her Khali was moving on his own. Bred for war he did not shy from the combat, rising upwards and lashing out with his hooves at the druden that came before him, even crushing the skull of one of the demons into shards of bone and sloppy gore that spilled to the ground.

“Push the demons back, and we can live to see the dawn,” a man in fine mail overtop of fine breeches and a silk tunic said from atop one of the larger wagons. A loaded crossbow was clutched in his hands that he now raised and fired. The bolt lashed out into the darkness, earning a scream.

His brave words earned a few calls from the surviving guards as they moved to rally around the large wagon while the man atop bent to reload his crossbow. A figure crawled upward behind him, and Arynn shouted at him to turn around before a drude slithered out from beneath a burning wagon. Its hair smouldered, small flames flickering around its face as it screeched, a long wicked blade slicing for Arynn’s legs.

A shout of pain tore itself from her throat as the jagged steel ripped through the thick leather of her breeches and into the flesh beneath. Unable to look to see if her warning had been heeded by the man atop the wagon, she twisted her arms, smashing the flat of her blade against the sword cutting into her, snapping it from her. With a quick shuffle she moved back as the creature continued to crawl outwards her, arms out wide, elbows poking above its back.

A quick kick of her boot to the back of its head slammed the creature into the dirt. The demon hunter’s hands moved quickly, reversing her grip on her sword. It plunged downwards, sinking into demonic flesh, breaking ribs, earning a shriek and a black cloud.

Pulling her sword free with a wet squelch she looked up in time to see a drude shrieking as a long knife slid across the richly dressed mans throat. Bright blood sprayed out from the gaping wound in the light of the fires. The man’s eyes were wide in terror as the moment of death descended upon him, his mouth flapping in a desperate search for words or breath.

It was the breaking point. Gripped in fear, the caravan guards started to run into the woods. Those that weren’t fighting and still remained were descended upon. Their screams stabbed into Arynn’s brain as she tried to stay and fight. Another wagon caught fire, the flames licking upwards towards the sky, a dark smudge of smoke obscuring the stars above.

Druden were crawling over the wagons, burning and unharmed alike. People were pulled screaming from their hiding places, screaming as claws dug into their flesh. Twisted cackles filled the air as the demons gorged themselves on fear and death.

Finding Khali, Arynn climbed into the saddle as quick as she could, ignoring the flaring pain in her leg, the hot, sticky warmth sliding downwards. This was a lost cause, and as much as it pained her to admit, she could not save them. There were too many of the creatures. As her thighs pressed inwards, her hands pulling tightly on Khali’s reins forcing the destrier away from the frenzy of battle, Arynn sped back down the road, past the scene of slaughter, back again on the road to Lairdon.

She glanced over her shoulder, and saw them. Druden turned to silhouettes by the raging fires consuming the goods held within the wagons. They stared after the retreating demon hunter, one upon the largest wagon holding a severed head. Silent as death they stood, and stared.

Slowly, like shadows, they began to vanish, slipped into the woods, hunting down those fleeing the wreckage of the caravan. Arynn cursed to herself, speeding off again down the woods. Behind her, screams continued, each one a painful shard. She clutched at Khali’s reins, concentrating simply on the road before her.

As hooves pounded into the ground, Arynn felt a wave of dizziness come over her. Blood was seeping further down her leg, making her breeches cling to her skin. She dared a glance downwards, to see the leather split apart, the flesh beneath opened in a ragged weeping wound.

Taking one hand from the reins, she clamped it down over the wound. She gritted her teeth as dirt and grime from leather clad palms pressed deep into the gash. She did not relent though, instead pressing even tighter.

Shrieks sounded from the woods; the druden were hunting her now. Someone screamed, high pitched and horrified. Arynn clamped her eyes shut, trying to ignore the sounds, to fight off the dread closing around her heart.

Then something hit her hard in the chest. For a brief moment that seemed to stretch outwards into eternity she was falling, her sword spinning through the air beside her. Khali came to a thundering stop as his rider was thrown from the saddle, her arms flailing for purchase in nothingness as her eyes locked onto the assailant; a drude swinging out from the trees. When her back hit the ground, her breath exploded from her lungs, leaving her gasping for air even as her skull hit the ground, making a dent in the hard packed earth of the road.

Blood pumped out from her leg, spreading into the ground beneath her, as her eyes tried to focus on what was above her. A drude’s pasty face glared down at her, cool blood dripping from its eyes onto her neck as it toyed with a dagger.

Another pair were trying to carefully moving around Khali, twisted spears in their hands as they dodged the destrier’s wicked hooves, waiting for the perfect moment to strike.

A raven cried out, the druden paused, long enough for Khali’s hooves to smash one to the ground, crushing its chest with a loud crack. The horse spun, back legs lashing out, sending his second attacker flying into a tree, its skull cracking open on the thick trunk.

The last of the demon’s looked up to the branches, and glanced back at Khali once. Arynn reached out for her sword, her palm settling on the comfortable leather wrappings around the hilt, before the drude’s foot stomped on her wrist. The heel of its boot ground into her, making her shout out in pain as its dagger rose above its head.

A head that suddenly exploded in a shower of bone and gore. Globs of brain and an eyeball splattered across Arynn, as a raven called out, flying from the shattered remnants of the demon’s head, off into the treeline.

“The, fuck?” Arynn whispered softly, as everything grew dizzy once more, the world fading out into a blurry haze as darkness encroached on her vision. A cloaked figure was drawing near, but there was nothing the demon hunter could do.

The realm of dreams claimed her as her body gave in to agony and injury.

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Black Wolf Rising Chapter 1: The Convent

A single letter was all it took to get Arynn riding through a countryside she had not seen in over ten years in the mist of early morning. The words of the message scrawled upon cheap paper by the hand of someone who scarcely knew how to write, yet no amount of spelling errors could hide the urgency behind each word. A call home, after so long. Something evil was stirring in the shadows, that even the faith of the rural folk could not repel.

Grasping the reins tighter as she rode hard, the chill of the mists swirling around her trying to pierce the cloak of thick black wool and fur that hung from her shoulders, the supple leather of  her tunic doing its part to protect her as the inn she had stayed at through the previous night faded deeper into memory.

She had wanted to travel through the night to reach the home of her sister, the only family she had left up here in Aenkleth, but the rumours and whispers from those that stayed at the inn last night had convinced her otherwise. It wasn’t their words that convinced her something was lurking in the night, but rather their fear. Arynn had not lived so long ignoring the signs of demons and monsters.

As the shoddily paved road turned upwards, towards the crest of a hill that ran from the mountains in the west that sheltered Arynn’s childhood village, and three miles east, she remembered the last time she had traveled this road. Nearly eleven years ago, she had been heading the opposite direction, a young woman with no husband, no children, and no future in sight, never thinking to ever set eyes upon the wooden beams and thatch roves of what had once been home again.

Now, as she crested the hill and emerged from the mist, overlooking the plains before her, still struggling to overthrow the morning fog, she saw smoke curling upwards towards the sky. Not a single column, but many thick plumes of black that lazily drifted upwards menacingly. Right where Glenval village was nestled.

With a shout, Arynn kicked her heels into the flanks of her horse, the recently purchased and as yet unnamed rouncey letting out a whinny as it broke into a hard gallop. Arynn’s heart pounded in her chest as the clatter of hooves and patches of dirt sounded in her ears. She kept one hand on the hilt of her sword as she rode through the mist.

Time stretched out for the demon hunter, the early morning hours turning to an eternity as she rode hard and fast, the horse’s breath coming in short snorts as it struggled to keep the pace his rider demanded. Foam dripped from behind the horse’s bit as it pushed itself at the behest of a stranger.

By the time Arynn had reached the outskirts of the village, her horse was struggling to walk straight, and the mist had slid away to a pale morning, the sun hidden behind a sheet of gray clouds that had swept in from the mountains. Slipping carefully from the saddle, Arynn reached over her shoulder and pulled her sword free of its sheath. The silver inlaid down the blood groove and curling like veins along the edges glimmered ever so slightly in the pale light. Her gaze swept over Glenval.

Each house was a smoking ruin, only blackened skeletons remaining of humble homesteads, smoke still rising from the mounds of ashes where once there had been furniture, walls... people. Leaving the horse stamping at the ground in discomfort at the edge, Arynn began to walk inwards, eyes flicking to splashes of blood smeared across stones laid carefully into the dirt to make pathways.

A raven let out a loud cry from the far edge, from the forest where the villagers gathered their wood and hunted their meat. The demon hunter kept moving, unable to find a single corpse save the occasional severed limb, though she could see all too clearly the entrails draped over the edge of the well in the centre of the village.

Sword at her side, standing beside the well she had drawn water from so often as a child, had tossed the occasional coin into to make wishes, she looked upon what had been her home. Had continued to be her sister’s home until some time last night judging from the smoke. She was having trouble conjuring memories of an innocent time with the stark reality of the present before her.

As Arynn’s gaze moved slowly from the husk of one home to the remains of the blacksmith, something caught her eye. With careful and deliberate steps, her eyes snapping from one location to another, she approached the ruins, stopping at the front steps and kneeling to one knee.

The smear of blood here was darker than the rest, almost black, and it stank horribly.

“Druden,” Arynn said softly to herself as she rose to her feet, noting that every scrap of metal had been taken from the blacksmith. So the demons had come to her home and razed it to the ground; the druden were not the most subtle of creatures.

Another piercing cry from a raven in the woods, the bird of death seemed like a beacon. Arynn followed its call, her footsteps too loud to her ears in the silence of a dead village. She left the path and walked through grass that grew taller and taller until she reached the edge of the tree line and peered into the shadows cast by the looming trees of the woods.

“Ilimm save us,” Arynn whispered, lifting a thumb to her left brow and pushing it upwards to her forehead.

That’s where she saw them all; the villagers, swaying ever so slightly as they dangled from ropes tied firmly around the thickest branches. The soft creaking was eerie in the morning quiet, disrupted only by the occasional beating of carrion wings.

Each of them had been stripped naked, their flesh bearing the long cuts of knives that had ripped the clothing from their bodies. The wounds that killed them had been made only worse by the birds that descended to feast upon the dead flesh, pulling strings of meat out from ragged holes in the skin to let it dangle.

Stepping into the grotesque orchard, Arynn carefully stepped around each of the bodies. Some of the men had their genitals severed, leaving a bloody hole with crimson trickling down to their heels. Some of them had been hung still breathing gauging by the rope burns on some of the palms that now lay by their sides uselessly.

Then Arynn spotted her. Even with her belly cut open, entrails trailing across the undergrowth of the forest awaiting the next carrion beast to come along and snag it, and her face a mass of purple and black bruising, and ten years of age changing her features, Arynn recognized her sister. A strange rush of emotions ran through the demon hunter as she stared up at her own flesh and blood. It had been so long that Evelyn no longer felt like the family she was, but she had been Arynn’s sister.

“I’m sorry,” Arynn said softly, taking hold of Evelyn’s hand gently, and knowing the gesture was utterly pointless even as she said it.

She was thankful for the fact that Evelyn was here; it meant her corpse was not wandering the countryside as one of the sluagh. She was far too late to save her sister, but she could avenge her. She had not expected the legions of Aalzgoth to have gained such strength here in Aenkleth.

Still holding her sisters feet, Arynn let her eyes move amongst the other corpses swaying around her, the creak of branches and rope almost overbearing in the otherwise silent wood. She felt her heart drop, for she couldn’t see Gillian; Evelyn’s daughter, and Arynn’s niece. She would be fifteen now, scarcely a woman, yet from what Arynn could gather, young Gillian was amongst the sluagh now.

Turning, Arynn stepped out from the forest, anger, sorrow and regret spurning within her heart as she sheathed her blade. She could make it back to the inn easily enough, but she needed more information on the movements of the druden, and if there were groups of sluagh wandering the area. There had been a convent just an hour’s ride to the north east, on the way between Glenval and Lairdon, the sisters might know something.

Gently taking the reins of her still recovering horse, Arynn began to start out, following the road that curled across the grasslands, skirting the forest that stretched far to the north. Absently, she wondered how many deer and squirrels were happily running about on this day.

The journey was longer by foot of course, and when she spotted the convent in the distance, another hour’s walk to the small hill it was perched upon, Arynn took a long drink of water, deciding to save her food for when she was mostly safe within its walls. She didn’t see any smoke rising from the holy site, which was a good sign. Perhaps Ilimm had not lost all his powers here in the north of the world.

Starting the climb up the hill, Arynn caught a sound on the wind. One hand upon the reins of her rouncey, the other reaching upwards to grasp her sword, she turned and looked towards the forest, listening.

Nothing else came after it, and she hadn’t be sure to begin with what it had been, so she quickly turned upwards again, moving step by step to the convent. Soon she was standing before the gates that led into the courtyard of the convent. Through steel bars with silver embossing curling like vines up the metal, Arynn could see the gardens lining the edges of the courtyard, the simple fountain in its centre displaying the St. Genevieve pouring water from an urn curled gently within her arm, and the crushed stone pathways that curled from the gate to each of the buildings within.

Directly on the other side of the gate though, spears clutched firmly in weathered hands, swords sheathed at the thick leather belts around their waists. Leather and chainmail armour was covered by a tabard split into quarters of blue and green, the symbol of a fox clutching a chalice and a sword upon it. From beneath kettle helms the two men stared at her, the left most one with a scar that left his cheek a horrible mess and his beard struggling to grow around the deformed tissue, was chewing on a piece of jerky.

The symbol was familiar to Arynn, she had seen it a few times during her time in the south. The Fox Company, one of the many free companies that had worked as far south as across the Marizan Sea. She’d not heard of them working this far north however.

“Sanctuary,” Arynn said, eyes moving between the two mercenaries.

“Not ours to give,” the one on the right said with a simple shrug.

“Then find me someone that can,” Arynn said firmly, and the two mercenaries merely glanced at each other before offering a simple shrug. Movement behind them caught Arynn’s eye.

“For the sake of Ilimm open the gates. You are not paid to turn away travellers, but to slay the beasts of this land. And seeing as how your acting, you may as well turn your blades upon each other,” a woman said, anger clear in her tone as she stormed up to the mercenary guards. For their part, they looked ashamed.

The woman’s garb was that of the priestesses that worshiped within the convent, except her white robes had golden lines running over her shoulders and down to her waist, where they burst out like sunrays. A rope of matching colour was tied around her, the tails trailing down with the folds of her robe. The high priestess of the convent, and not the same one that Arynn knew from so long ago. Yet, she did seem familiar.

As the guards opened the gate, the woman offered a sad yet warm smile to Arynn, ushering her inside, gesturing that she walk with the priestess. The demon hunter quickly fell in step with her, while a young woman in the gray robes of a novice came up to take Arynn’s horse to the stables.

“It has been many years Arynn Atwood. It is a shame that your homecoming must be in such, dark times,” the high priestess said, and the demon hunter was surprised that the older woman had recognized her. She looked closer, trying to pretend that the ash gray hair that was shaved until only the top of her head had growth, was more lively, that the crows feet and wrinkles creasing the forehead were smoothed out.

“Amelia?” Arynn said with some surprise, and the priestess smiled gently. A truer smile than what she had worn before.

“I’m guessing you’re here for your niece?”

Arynn quirked an eyebrow, and looked to the old priestess.

“Gillian is here?”

“Of course. She is amongst the novices.” A brief pause, gravel crunching beneath their footsteps as Amelia turned her head to Arynn, while the news sank into Arynn’s mind. “You didn’t know did you?”

The only reply the demon hunter could give was a slow shake of her head, before letting out a long breath of relief. A pair of mercenaries wearing only tunic and breeches wandered past, laughing quietly to themselves, Arynn’s eyes tracked them only briefly.

“No. Evelyn never mentioned it in any of her letters. Does she know?”

“She knows as much as any of us. That Glenval was attacked by druden last night, and that sluagh have been seen emerging from the village. I’m guessing you do.”

“Evelyn is not amongst the sluagh.” It was the only answer Arynn felt she could give, she could not bring herself to tell even the high priestess what she had seen in that wood line, no matter what horrors Amelia must have seen to prove herself worthy enough to inherit the position she held. She certainly did not want Gillian to know the vicious details. “She is dead.”

“It will give Gillian some comfort to know that her mother is in Ilimm’s light, and not in the shadows of demons,” Amelia said gently, and Arynn nodded in response, but the high priestess was not yet finished. “If not for Gillian, then why did you come?”

“Information, shelter for the night.”

“I can offer sanctuary for the night, but I have precious little to tell. The nights have been getting worse with each passing day. Aluma’s eye is blocked by thick clouds, and those that wander beyond torchlight have been dragged away by the druden. Packs of the sluagh have been seen to the south, slowly moving eastwards. We’ve been under a siege of sorts,” Amelia said, and Arynn nodded, though inwardly wondered if this woman had ever born witness to a proper siege to make that comparison. That she had made it inside the convent so easily, Arynn wondered how prepared for the coming days Amelia actually was.

Their walk had taken them to the front doors of the chapel, the second largest structure within the convent, loomed over only by the dormitories where both the priestesses and novices slept, and ate. There were a trio of mercenaries, one of them in leather and chainmail armour, sharing a bottle of wine between them.  

“That why you have the mercenaries?” Arynn asked, and Amelia simply nodded slowly.

“There have been threats rising around Lairdon. The Order of the Burning Blade has been busy at the capital, and the king’s armies are marshalling in case Baron Henry decides to rebel after all. My pleas for aid have gone unheeded, leaving me with no other option than coin to drop in the coffers of a free company to try and protect my people. Twenty men in total,” Amelia said, looking towards the drinking trio on the steps. “They can fight, but they leave much to be desired when it comes to piety.”

“I see that,” came Arynn’s dry reply. The mercenaries either didn’t hear them, or simply ignored them.

“So, demon hunter. What will you do?”

“It sounds like I’m starting to Lairdon in the morning. If the sluagh are headed east, and there are already threats around the city, then Aalzgoth’s aim must be out there. I need to find out what it is, and why he is hitting Aenkleth so hard when his focus had always been in the south.”

Amelia nodded gently. “I will have a room prepared for you, so you might at least get a good night’s sleep. I can also make sure your horse is prepared for a journey and pack some fresh provisions.”

“Thank you.”

“I helped bring you into this world Arynn. I wouldn’t be a very good mid wife if I let you flounder and perish on the road.”

Arynn nodded as she looked to the ground. Seeing mother’s face, pale and drenched with sweat, dark circles around her eyes as she gasped for breath, the sheets between her legs sodden with blood.

“Come, I’ll take you to see Gillian. She’s in the orchard behind the dormitories,” the high priestess said, snapping Arynn from her memories before they could take proper hold. The demon hunter nodded and let herself be guided along another pathway that curled behind the double storied structure on the south side of the convent.

The orchard ran from the outer walls of the convent, fifteen evenly spaced trees away to the small gap that separated it from the dormitories. There were ten rows of those fifteen columns, each with plenty of room for two carts to be pushed through, with ample room between them. Yet another mercenary was seated at a bench, absently sharpening a knife, his eyes watching a pair of birds that fluttered between the branches. Only two novices were in the orchard at the moment, inspecting the apples hanging from the trees, placing the ripe ones within a basket that hung from their forearms.

Even though the last time Arynn had laid eyes upon her, her niece had only seen four summers, she recognized Gillian immediately. Her thick brown hair had yet to be shaven along the sides and back, and she looked like her grandmother. For a moment Arynn just watched with a smile with Amelia standing beside her. The high priestess said nothing for a moment, but eventually laid a hand upon the demon hunter’s shoulder.

“Go on, before you frighten the poor girl.”

Arynn let out a short laugh that was even shorter in humour as she moved slowly into the orchard. The mercenary sharpening his knife watched her with a raised eyebrow, his knife pausing for a moment half way down the whetstone, but he made no further movements as Arynn walked forward.

“Gillian?” she said carefully, and the girl turned, an red skinned apple held within dainty hands that nevertheless looked callused and worn. Convent life was not an easy one. For a few seconds Gillian looked confused, and didn’t say anything.

“I’m Arynn, your aunt.”

“You came,” was her answer, the corners of her lips turning upwards ever so slightly.

“I’m sorry I could not get here earlier.”

“So am I,” the reply held just a hint of bitterness, and Arynn could not find it within herself to blame the girl. She let out a sigh.

“You’ve seen Glenval,” she said, a statement, not a question. As she waited the answer she gently placed the apple she held into the basket on her arm.

“Your mother... is not amongst the sluagh,” Arynn said, choosing her words carefully. She watched the same clash of emotions run across Gillian’s features that she had felt in those woods when she found her sister. Finally Gillian nodded, and moved forward, drawing Arynn into a tight hug, taking the demon hunter aback slightly. An apple fell from the basket, hitting her in the back of the calf, but Arynn ignored it, soon wrapping her own arms around Gillian’s.

Then the basket fell with a dull thump, apples rolling across the evenly cut grass, and Gillian buried her face into Arynn’s shoulder.

All Arynn could do was hold her niece tight as she began to cry.

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