Paladin's Oath

by M. H. Johnson

  Jess gazed sadly at her sister. "Everything I said was true, Apple. He really did kill all those girls, and he kept all their bodies. They're still there, you know. Down there, in the old root cellar of the renovated log mill that Kipu and his mother had called home for the first twelve years of his life."

  Appolonia’s gaze flashed with loathing. “By the gods, Jess. Listen to yourself. You are raving. Mad in the head.” She spat at her sister's feet. “By Justice, I can’t stand even listening to you!”

  Their father just nodded his head in acknowledgment of Jessica's words. “Very well. I see what led to your confronting Kipu, though I bitterly regret your lack of restraint in doing so. Still, Jess, how did accusations turn to this?”

  "Father, you don't understand!" Jess's voice was almost pleading. "I had to seize the moment as the impulse struck me! It was like riding a wild stallion. In racing to the truth, I dared not risk falling off and crashing to the ground. I had to pursue him, I had to confront him, I had to circle and pace and taste his words, see his eyes, sense his foulness when it became apparent, as flashes of his hideous crimes and twisted fantasies roared into me. I was trapped in the storm of it. And I was terrified for Apple who didn't see the threat, didn’t understand the danger. Even I didn’t, Father, until I had committed to understanding it. All of it!”

  Jess shook for a moment, Verona oddly certain the poor girl was about to collapse in a fit, before she took a deep breath and steadied herself. “Kipu was not lying when he said he had planned to do no more than kiss Apple and walk her home this evening. The bards would vouchsafe those words, attesting to the truth of it. That’s because he’s not planning to strike until the next time he comes calling! I suspect he was planning on enticing Apple with the prospect of a secret romantic rendezvous. Just between the two of them. The perfect opportunity for him to do what he would with her, she fully under his power once his carriage quietly left our lands, and no one would have seen him come or go, since Apple will have snuck out under her own power! That’s the trap, that’s the dark brilliance of it. do you see now, Father? Do you understand why I had no choice but to act as I did?”

  Lady Agda quietly lifted her sobbing youngest daughter’s chin, to meet her gaze. “Appolonia? Did you and Kipu exchange a promise to meet at a later time? Did he leave you with a letter, perhaps?”

  Apple shook her head furiously, burying it once again in her mother’s bosom. “Jess is crazy, Mother! There is no way he would have done any of the… the horrid things Jess accused him off!”

  Her mother sighed, gazing at their father. His face was hard and solemn, like granite. His voice though, was almost soothing. As if speaking now to a spooked animal that could bolt at any moment. “Please, Jessica. Explain to me why there are four bodies on the ground at our feet?”

  Jessica's eyes flashed. "You know Eloquin's lessons, Father. You know what I do to those who would hurt our clan! No matter what your intentions were before, when your opponents draw steel, when your foes show their intentions to take away the people you love, the time for words is over. All that is left is to seize the Vor, and destroy your enemies with such utter savagery that no foe will dare to cross you or yours again!"

  Morlekai abruptly burst out in laughter, “You are a mad one, Jessica de Calenbry. Yes, you are.”

  “Jessica de Calenbry, people have died!” Her mother’s tone was chill as ice, and Jessica immediately lowered her head, speaking softly.

  “Yes, Mother.” Jess took a deep breath. “They had unsheathed their blades. They with bucklers, arming swords, and armor, had seen fit to prepare to strike me, armored in nothing more than this absurd gown, when I had not even drawn my dirk until that moment. This was after Kipu had started to panic, when my circling steps and spiraling logic began to slip about him like a noose, tighter and tighter, and he made to bolt.”

  Her eyes flashed. "I distinctly heard him say for his men to ‘take care of the situation' after the two guardsmen who had been hiding in the underbrush made their presence known, and thus instead of two, there were four armed men facing me, and they were no longer just standing in proximity to their lord, they were approaching." Jess nodded in firm recollection. "I could feel the tingle of battlefury, and prepared myself. When the first one thrust his blade at me, that is when I acted.”

  She sighed, forcing her defiant gaze to meet her father’s solemn one. “You understand battle, Father. You know what had to happen next.

  Her father, veteran soldier and commander that he was, took a close, clinical look at the bodies, shaking his head as he did so. "I understand your logic, and would never fault you for doing whatever you had to, to survive the battle you found yourself in. Your well-being, my daughter, means more to me than a thousand nameless soldiers who would dare to raise their blades against you." He sighed. "But still my daughter, but still. I wish it hadn't come to this."

  Jessica looked of a sudden, utterly deflated. “I understand, Father. I’m sorry too.” Her voice turned soft and sad. “I killed four people today. And I only know for certain that two of them deserved it.”

  Her father’s glance was sharp. “Pray tell me what you mean, daughter.”

  Jess pointed to the middle two corpses, faces intact, despite the savagery of the wounds that had brought them down. "Those two. They were in on it." Her voice turned dark, bitter. "They knew what Kipu was doing. They helped to secure the girls." She shuddered. "He even let them use his victims, when he was done with them, and wanted to savor their additional pain, and bond his men ever tighter to him, before he finished those poor girls off."

  “How do you know this?” her mother asked, voice sharp with horror.

  Jess shrugged. “I don’t know. I just knew it from the second I saw their cold, hate-filled eyes as they faced me.”

  She pointed to the man whose wrist had been shattered, dying of a sword lunge to the throat, covered with blood from a severed jugular. "He is the one who initially lunged at me, the one who started the dance from which there can be no ending, save death." She gazed back up at her father. "Did he know what was to happen? Did he understand what Kipu intended to do? I don't know that. I only know that the stain of his soul isn't on Kipu's past victims." She sighed. "All I know for certain is that once he had tensed to thrust, I had to act. And from that moment on? Everything I did, even running him through once he had fallen and I had claimed his sword, was exactly what I had to do to ensure my safety. To ensure my survival. What any good soldier would do, well knowing that a momentary act of mercy could mean a dagger thrust to the kidney, seconds later." Her gaze turned cold. Fierce. Even though Verona could swear her crimson eyes were growing redder with suppressed tears. "So I did what had to, Father. Once steel was in play, I fought as I was trained to. I fought with no mercy. I struck to kill."

  “But, how do you know?” Apple’s voice was soft, her head only partly turned from the solace of her mother’s bosom to gaze with tear-stained eyes at her sister. “How did you know he wasn’t simply prodding you to back away? Did you really have to kill him, Jessica?”

  Jessica blinked, looking nonplussed. Stunned. Rendered speechless as she angrily shook the thought out of her head. “Apple, do you know nothing of warfare? When a man unsheathes steel, facing you with a naked blade, that means he’s ready to kill you. You do not. I repeat, you do not second-guess the intentions of his blade, lest you would risk coughing up pink frothy blood as he impales your lungs with a sick grin. All because you wanted to believe it’s a nice, safe, happy world, where no one would actually want to cause you harm. That kind of delusion can get you killed!” Jess was all but shouting, Apple shaking with every word, even as their mother gazed at Jess fiercely.

  “Enough, Jessica!” Agda shouted.

  Jess blinked, speechless, and turned away, angrily rubbing her eyes. “I couldn’t know,” she whispered softly. “His blade came at my breast. How could I not take it seriously?” She began to shake. “He was, he was trying to kill me! He must have been!�
�� She looked down at her feet. “I don’t know, Twilight! How can I know that?” Rubbing her eyes, she began to shake.

  “Jessica…” Her father began softly, even as his oldest daughter ran into his arms, burying her face in his chest.

  Despite herself, Verona could hear every muffled word. "What if she's right, Father?" She cried softly against him. "What if, what if I killed him, and it didn't even have to come to that?"

  Her father clenched his eyes tight, shaking his head, even as he held her to him, gently. "Oh, my headstrong daughter, so fierce and sure. Don't you dare doubt yourself now. What was it you had said but a moment ago? You dared not take that chance. For if you had second-guessed yourself, and the man had thrusted true, who would have protected your sister then? If your suspicions are right, Kipu would have lost nothing hastening his plans, stealing your sister, his guardsmen dragging along your body as well, no doubt. He could then return to the party none the worse for wear, plead that the two of you went off somewhere, and head for home. It would be weeks before the Lords Council would be able to intervene, assuming I didn't bring my men to raise his father's keep to the ground, in fury and fear, and how many lives would have been lost then, my daughter?" He sighed, holding her close. "How many lives would we have lost, in addition to my precious daughters?"

  Jess whispered softly against her father’s chest.

  “What was that, my love?”

  "The last boy, he was innocent," she said with a shudder. "I could see it in his eye, after I had sent him crashing to the ground." In that moment Verona saw in her mind's eye the savage thunderstrike that had rung throughout the field, Jessica's sword hilt pounding into the young man's helmeted skull with such terrible force and skill.

  "His was the look of an innocent boy, not even knowing what was happening. Not even realizing he was dying…he only struck out at me because I had just killed his friends. Or men he had thought of as friends." She shuddered. "I had to act, though. I had to. We were both fighting for our lives, and my training runs too deep for me to even dare to pull my blows, as one day I would be the one lying disemboweled upon the battlefield, did I ever make a habit of doing so." She shrugged. "And I only sensed his innocence when the roar of battle fury began to dissipate, when there were no other threats near me, save… Kipu." She spat his name like a curse.

  Her father nodded solemnly. “It is all too easy for an outsider to pick apart a battle, to lay judgment with cool disposition, when the hot fierce passions from which it sprang have long since cooled to dying embers, when the mind is lucid to dispassionate logic, and one is not in mortal danger of death’s mocking laughter, of the blade’s pitiless evisceration.”

  Verona felt her heart begin to race, feeling the lord's gaze firmly upon her, knowing his words were being said as much for her benefit as his daughter's.

  Lord Calenbry stroked Jessica's brow, holding his now trembling daughter close. “It is all right to live with regret, my child. The important thing is that you are alive at all. With life? There is always hope. The chance to live, to learn, to grow from our folly and seek to be ever wiser, ever stronger. So even the bitterest of mistakes become a tincture of sorts, an inoculation against future folly, should we but have the heart and courage to learn from them. And in doing so, we make peace with our past. We make peace with ourselves.” He gazed down upon his child, holding Jessica close. “Do you understand, my daughter?”

  Jessica gave a tiny nod of her head. Her father smiled, gazing at her gently. “Come then, my Jessica. I think a nice hot bath would serve you well. We will have the maids prepare it. What you need now is rest.”

  Her parents exchanged a silent look, Lady Agda still gently stroking her shaking youngest, murmuring soothing sounds to Appolonia, gently patting her hand. The baron then turned his gaze to Verona once more, voice coldly formal. “I trust we’ve seen all that we need to see here?”

  She solemnly nodded her head. “Yes, Baron de Calenbry.”

  “Very good. I shall put my daughters to bed, and the four of us shall talk.”

  Del Morlekai chuckled softly, the only one seeming at total ease with the blood and chaos about him, but he nodded gamely enough as the group returned to the Calenbry residence, leaving the fallen bodies behind like a bad memory all of them wanted to forget.

  43

  "Quite an invigorating evening so far, wouldn't you say?" This from a grinning Morlekai looking as polished as if he had just come from the barbers, completely unruffled by the events that had thus far transpired, he and Verona presently sipping from exquisitely cut crystal glasses some of the finest apple brandy to be found in all of Erovering, Verona had no doubt, poured by their hostess herself as they were quietly bid to wait in a particularly well-appointed study, taking their ease upon exquisitely fine furniture, Verona losing herself in careful examination of the many portraits done with exceeding talent and care lining the walls, many highlighting what were no doubt previous member of the Calenbry line, Verona was certain, fully armored sans helmets, gazing nobly upon any number of battlefields. Some scenes looked straight out of a faerie tale. In others, the artists did not shy away from depicting the graphic results of battles brutal and violent.

  Verona could hear the revelry soften to the quietest of murmurs before dying out entirely in the adjoining rooms, as the Calenbrys no doubt politely wrapped the evening to a close, claiming that both of their daughters were unfortunately feeling unwell, letting the rumor slip out, carefully planted, that their moontides were in sync, and both were suffering significant discomfort.

  “My, the Guild would love to know the artists this family uses for its hangings. The bards do so love the added poetry of portraits portraying our various members gazing nobly at far off sunsets, even as their exploits and deeds fade to memory in the years to come, and hardly a soul remembers who they were, save for the placards under their portraits.” The fierce looking man shook his head bemusedly, even as his tone rung with utter sincerity.

  “I cannot tell if you are making jest, or are utterly serious,” Verona quipped, surprised to hear her thoughts allowed.

  The powerfully built man's brilliant white hair seemed almost to shimmer in the reflected candlelight as he gave an unreadable shrug. “Both, I suppose. Personally, I find the obsession with preserving memory of our exploits long after we have faded to dream a bit amusing. I prefer to revel in the moment, to seize life and Shadow in all its visceral glory, to squeeze every drop of life’s fruit from its rinds, and embrace the adventure of existence as it folds, with no regret for the past, and no brooding for the morrow. Simply embracing the day, and savoring all its potential. Once I’m gone, though, what do I care? Whether a thousand young lads revel at my tales or not a one, I’d still be little more than dust in the wind, returned at last to the great song from which all existence has sprung. And high time as well, no doubt, for I have been playing this game for a very, very long time indeed.” His wink chilled Verona for some reason, for all that he seemed to be speaking in jest.

  Verona gazed consideringly at the enigmatic man before her. “Such an interesting mix of self-aggrandizement and existential serenity. Is such a stance common among Delvers such as yourself?”

  Morlekai flashed her a grin. "In truth, I don't know. Not something we are in the habit of asking one another." He shrugged. "I know many of us like to be commended on our exploits, to have the bards literally fawn over our every word and gesture as we recount our tales, and that is fine. But in truth, many of us do it just for the sheer thrill of it; the gold and glory to be garnered from our Delvings are but a sweet bonus. The never dull quest for riches and fame, boon companions who would fight by your side, mead flowing, and lovers ready with a single wink and smile when your belly is sated with the finest foods the kingdom has to offer when your daring exploit has come to its conclusion? Truly, dear Verona, what more could any adventurer ask for? Yet once the final page of the saga in my life is finished, as much as I will have reveled in every bit of fame and
glory I had garnered while alive, what does it matter to me, once I'm dead?"

  Verona shrugged. “In truth, I don’t know. I had no idea what motivates the minds of Delvers. Security and the satisfaction of a job well done are what motivate me in life.”

  Morlekai nodded solemnly. “Of course. Your blood does not run as hot a one of my kind, and what’s more, you have a little one to care for, no?”

  Verona took a deep breath, alarmed at how much had been revealed in what was supposed to have been just a discrete reconnaissance mission. Gaining the trust of the subjects of her interest was her hope, not to have her own self laid out so utterly bare, and offhandedly at that.

  Morlekai winked. “We mustn’t forget our dear Jessica’s rather perceptive cat, no?”

  “Indeed,” Verona nodded. As bizarre as such sounded, an invisible familiar that had been able to smell her fear and her child's spore, what other explanation was there for those flashes of knowledge, of insight?

  It was then that the gilded door to the meeting room was opened by a rather grim-faced baron and his wife. Verona, of course, had the grace not to check if they had locked it, not wishing to place things on such awkward footing, and one glance at Morlekai's powerful frame, indolently draped about a randomly grabbed chair as it was, left no doubt in Verona's mind that he would not be kept any longer than he chose to be.

  Baron de Calenbry’s gaze was that of a commander gazing upon questionable troops. A powerful, brilliant man who needed to understand the tactical layout before him as he considered his next move. His wife, standing firmly by his side, looked upon Verona and Morlekai both with a gaze that was, if anything, even more fierce and discerning than her husband's. If he was a commander taking the measure of uncertain troops, she was a lioness ready to disembowel anyone who dared to threaten her cubs.