by Sally Slater
“It’s mine,” she and Braeden said in unison.
Sam said thoughtfully, “It has two heads, you know. Shall we share?”
Braeden’s lips curved into an unholy grin. “Gladly,” he said, and then his blade was in its human throat. Sam grabbed the sword Tristan had lent her and ran around to the demon’s back. The horse head screamed as she hacked through its neck from its vertebrae. Over the demon’s headless body, she and Braeden smiled grimly.
The creature was not the last of the demons—far from it. Outside the bedroom, the hallway teemed with them, a sea of monsters. The floor beneath them quaked at the heavy tread of their feet. Braeden squeezed her shoulder, and together they walked into bedlam.
It was impossible to say whether the demons targeted her more than they did Braeden. He was at her back at all times, and their attackers had to contend with them both. Sam and Braeden whipped around each other in a deadly whirlwind of steel, slaying anything within reach.
Sam was beginning to think she wasn’t right in the head. Though she knew their lives were in peril, she felt, for whatever reason, safe. Perhaps she had improved her fighting skills, or perhaps it was the perfect synchronization of her sword with Braeden’s. Or maybe, a snide voice whispered, it was simply having Braeden in close contact. She silenced the voice and let her weapon flow with his.
They gradually advanced down the long hallway, slowed by the furious onslaught of demons. At the midway point, Sam could see that that the door to Tristan’s bedroom was in shambles. A piece of door fell down, and a man walked out.
Sander.
Cold fear raced through her veins. Sander’s wrists were unbound, and in his hand he clutched a long knife. The blade was crimson from tip to grip. Oh Gods, she thought. Tristan.
Her fear turned to fury and fueled her. She broke away from Braeden, killing the demons in her path without conscious effort. When she reached Sander, she would cut him to ribbons for whatever he had done to Tristan. Her heart ached, but she brushed it aside. She couldn’t let emotion weaken her, not when she had the leader of the Uriel to kill.
Then Tristan stepped out from behind Sander, and Sam’s rage instantly became relief. His tunic was torn and bloody, and a makeshift bandage peeked out from behind the ripped fabric, but he moved without noticeable pain. Her knees sagged as the fire of her fury drained out of her.
“Sam, pay attention!” Tristan snapped.
She was so happy to see him alive she didn’t even roll her eyes at his rebuke. She did, however, raise her eyebrows at Sander. “What’s he doing free?” she asked, after thrusting her sword into the nearest demon’s gullet.
“I’ve been given a temporary reprieve,” Sander said. He wiped his knife against his breeches and adjusted his thumb over the spine. “If it’s all the same to you, I’ll fight.”
“Have at it,” Tristan said with a wry twist of his mouth. His sword was unsheathed, and, by the looks of it, had already been well-used this night.
Sander wasted no more time and hacked into the demons that encircled them. He dodged snapping jaws and swiping claws, uncommonly spry for a man of his advanced years. He made short work of the demons, but there was no finesse, no poetry to his movements. Sam felt foolishly disappointed.
“He’s good,” she commented, “but not as good as Braeden.”
“It’s not his weapon,” Tristan said.
“Maybe not,” Sam said. “I guess I expected more.”
“There’s only one High Commander,” Tristan said. “I don’t think Sander’s men follow him for his ability to fight.”
“Why, then?”
Tristan slashed at a demon that had drawn too near. “You and I were born to fight,” he said, decapitating the offending demon as emphatic proof. “That man was born to lead.”
“I would never follow a man weaker than I,” Sam declared.
“Nor I, but strength isn’t only physical,” Tristan said. A flush of color crept into his cheeks. “And sometimes even those of us who are strong can be weak.”
Sam didn’t know where his embarrassment came from, but Tristan quickly shrugged it off. He lifted his sword elbow to his shoulder and pointed with the blade. “Finish them.”
Sam didn’t need to be told twice. She leaped into the fray, cleaving through demon flesh. A demon butted her with fluted horns, catching her under her rib cage and knocking the breath clean out of her. Panting, she tightened her abdominal muscles against the pain and struck with her sword, separating one horn from its skull, and then the other. Her third strike separated its head from the thick trunk of its neck.
The demons kept coming, from the stairs above and below, and from the bedrooms. “Close the windows!” Tristan shouted.
Sam shifted course and ducked back into a bedroom—the one she’d so recently been asleep in. The window was open wide, letting in more than just the cold. Sam moved to shut it, but not before a winged lynx flew in, squeezing its muscular feline body through the narrow opening. It landed in the bedroom on padded paws larger than a human hand and spread its immense wings, black and webbed like a bat’s. Its gray coat was dappled with rust-colored spots, and pale fur lined its chest, belly, and the inside of its long legs. Dark stripes decorated its forehead and a white ruff encircled its neck in a thick collar.
The lynx beat its wings once, twice. The hard edge of its right wing bumped the nightstand beside the bed, where Sam had earlier lit a tallow candle. The candle wobbled precariously and then toppled over onto the floor and rolled under the nightstand.
That’s not good, Sam thought just as a tongue of flame licked up the side of the nightstand. “Shite,” she swore, backing away. The lynx demon followed her, then screeched as its wing encountered the flames. It beat its wings madly, smashing the nightstand into the wall where it burst into flaming splinters. The entire room was soon aflame.
Sam ducked out of the room while the demon shrieked behind her. “Fire!” she yelled, though her warning was unnecessary. Smoke was already filling the hallway. Within moments, flames were spreading across the ceiling and spilling down the walls in bursts of orange and red. Oppressive heat enveloped her.
“We need to get out of here now,” she heard Sander say from somewhere amid the confusion of smoke and fighting.
“But the demons!” Sam cried, spotting Sander in the hallway standing in the middle of a pile of disintegrating demon corpses.
“Will keep. You won’t,” Sander said. “We haven’t got long till escape is no longer an option.
“Do as he says.” Tristan ordered from somewhere in the smoke behind Sander. “Kill if you have to, but the priority is getting out.”
Sam fumbled blindly towards the stairs, the smoke thickening till she could no longer see her own hand in front of her. Wheezing and coughing and snorting, most of it not human, accompanied her slow progress down the hall. Jagged nails scratched at her face, and she gasped at the sharp sting. Liquid rolled down her cheek. Probably her blood.
Something grabbed her wrist, and she spun around, prepared to strike. “It’s me,” Braeden said. “Can you see?”
“Not a thing. Can you?”
“Well enough.” Glowing red orbs cut through the fog like beacons—his eyes, Sam realized. Braeden captured her hand in his. Sam said nothing, ceding to the comfort that his nearness brought her.
Braeden guided her through the hallway and down the stairs, his hand never leaving hers even as he fought off demon assailants. His words guided her, too. “Strike now, to your left.”
And then miraculously, they were outside, the cool air a heady balm. Sam peered into the night. “Where are Tristan and Sander?”
“They must still be inside.”
Sam cursed. Fire billowed out of the windows and a malevolent cloud of black smoke cloaked the upper stories of the house. “If I could see anything in there—”
“Look!” said Braeden. A man staggered out of the flaming doorway, another man draped across his shoulders. Once again, the icy fingers
of fear held her heart in its grasp. As Sander approached, she could see Tristan’s arms hung limply from their sockets.
“He’s fine,” Sander said, stumbling towards them. “A bit too much smoke, but he’ll come around. Help me put him down.” Braeden jumped to Sander’s aid, transferring Tristan’s weight before setting him down on the ground.
Sander knelt beside him and gently slapped his cheeks. Tristan shuddered and his chest heaved with great racking coughs. When his coughing subsided, he groaned, and his eyes fluttered open. “Gods damn it,” he gasped, looking at Sander. “That’s twice in one night you’ve saved my life.”
“You’re welcome,” Sander said, grinning. He patted Tristan’s hand. “Now you rest easy while we take care of the demons that are left.”
Tristan scowled, and Sam had to bite back a smile. “I’ll guard him,” she offered, and he actually growled at her.
“Good idea,” Sander said approvingly. He nodded at Braeden. “After you.”
They slew demons by the light of the roaring inferno till the first rays of the sun broke the horizon. Braeden beheaded the last of the demons, and Sam sat down beside Tristan with a tired sigh. Together, they watched the fire eat away at the house to the frame, and eventually that burned, too, and nothing was left but smoldering ashes.
“I’m sorry about your house,” Sam said.
“I hated that house,” Tristan said. “Good riddance, I say.” He turned his face away, not fully concealing the wetness of his eyes.
Sam’s hand hovered over his, and then remembering herself, she placed it instead on his shoulder. To her surprise, he leaned into it. “Good riddance,” Tristan whispered again, this time to himself.
CHAPTER 36
Though Tristan’s family home had burned to the ground, the stable and horses were unharmed—thank the Gods for small favors. Sam suggested they wait a day so Tristan could recover before departing Finchold, but he insisted he was well enough to ride. He conceded to an hour of rest—two hours at the most—and then they would leave.
The matter of Sander, however, still needed to be settled. Sam had expected him to bolt as soon as the last demon was slain, but he stayed true to his word. Secretly, part of her wished Sander had broken his promise; his presence unnerved her. She couldn’t understand him: why he’d let them abduct him without protest, why he’d helped them, why he’d saved Tristan’s life. There was no other explanation for it other than that he was, well, good. And yet the High Commander condemned Sander as a dangerous man, and she was forced to entrust him with her most dangerous secret. It made her uneasy.
Sander crossed the field from the stables with his stallion and passed the reins to Braeden. He dropped to his haunches in front of Tristan, who was resting against a tree. The Uriel held his wrists out to him, palms up. “What are you doing?” Tristan asked.
“Keeping my promise,” Sander said. “You can tie me back up. Although, I’d appreciate it if you would undo my binds during the next demon attack. Doing nothing is damned annoying.”
Tristan stared at the brown wrists for a long time. The skin was red and irritated where rope had rubbed it raw. “No,” Tristan said.
Sander sighed. “You won’t consider it?”
Tristan shook his head. “I won’t bind you again. I want you to leave.”
Sander cocked his head. “Leave?”
“Yes, leave. Go. Go back to your Uriel.”
“You’re letting me go?” Sander said slowly. “Why?”
Tristan wouldn’t meet his eyes. “You saved my life. Twice. It’s not something I take lightly.”
Sam looked between the two men in disbelief. True, Tristan was indebted to the man, but still . . . “What about the High Commander’s orders?” Sam asked.
Tristan scrubbed at his face. “I think he made a mistake.” Sam gaped at him, and even Braeden seemed startled by his declaration. “The High Commander is human, too.”
Tristan and Sander stared at each other for several moments. Finally, Sander stood and extended his hand to Tristan. “You’re a good man, Paladin.”
Tristan hesitated, and then grasped the Uriel’s hand with his own, allowing Sander to pull him to his feet. “You too, Uriel. Now go, before I change my mind.”
Sander dipped his head, and then vaulted onto his horse. “I’ll take the reins now.” Braeden surrendered them to him wordlessly. “It’s a courageous decision to question authority,” Sander said, “and one that’s seldom rewarded. If you should find yourselves in trouble—any of you—come to Luca. The Uriel always have room for courageous men.” He added, almost as an afterthought, “Or women.”
Knowing his last remark was directed at her, Sam studiously avoided Sander’s gaze. She hoped Tristan didn’t read too much into the careless comment, while a small, secret part of her wondered if Sander meant it.
“Thank you,” Tristan said, oblivious. “The gesture is appreciated but unnecessary. My trust in you does not extend to your organization. I fear the Paladins and Uriel will never ally.”
“No?” Sander asked pleasantly. “And what will you tell your High Commander?”
“That I owe you my life, and should he want you recaptured, he’ll need to assign another Paladin to the task. That’s all I can promise you.”
A gust of wind lifted Sander’s hair from his forehead “That’s enough, for now.” He gave them a nod, and then winked. “Till next time.”
“There will be no next time,” Tristan said. “Not for me.”
Sander chuckled. “I’ll miss you, Paladin. You too, Sam, Braeden.” He winked again, and then he was gone, his stallion streaking down the dusty road.
They stood watching him go till not even the flank of his horse was in sight. Tristan swore softly and covered his face with his hands. He waved off Sam and Braeden’s inquisitive looks. “It’s nothing. Let’s saddle up the horses and go.”
“Will it be all right?” Sam asked, once they were seated on their mounts.
“The High Commander is harsh, but fair,” Tristan said. “He will listen to what I have to say.”
“And if he disagrees?” Braeden asked. Smoke and flame reflected in his clear eyes. “What will you have us do?”
“Us?” Tristan shook his head. “There is no ‘us’, not in this. It was my life that was saved, and I who am obligated to spare him. You have no such compunction.”
“But we do,” Sam said earnestly. “We would have been lost without you.” Braeden glanced at her and then cast his eyes downward at his horse’s neck.
Tristan shifted in his saddle, clearly made uncomfortable by her comment. “Nevertheless,” he said, “I have known the High Commander a good many years, as well as any man can know him, and he knows me. He knows where my loyalties lie, and he trusts me. I trust him in turn.”
“How long will it take him to discover Sander’s gone?” Sam asked.
“Not long,” Tristan said. “Not long at all.”
Not long came six days later in the ghost town of Linmoor. Linmoor, an expanse of uncultivated drab lands with stretches of swamp and quicksand that was now bereft of people, was dreary and foreboding. A lone man in a dark cloak waited for them by a thicket of alders. At first, Sam thought he was the same man who had met them in Woodmaple Forest, but his complexion was swarthier, his nose more aquiline. He displayed his hand against his hip, curling his pointer and middle fingers to his thumb. As he drew closer, boots sloshing through mud, Sam could see a sneer on his face.
“Lyons.” The man said Tristan’s name like a curse.
“Guenther,” Tristan said in a matching tone. “Dare I ask the purpose of your visit?”
“Oh, I think you know why I’m here,” Guenther said. “Sander Branimir has returned to Luca.”
“Has he now?”
“Don’t play dumb, Lyons. The whole of Luca knows you released him. You can thank your friend Sander for that.”
“He’s not my friend,” Tristan said between clenched teeth. “The High Commander—does
he know?”
Guenther pulled a letter from a pocket in his cloak. “He knows. This is for you.” He shoved the note at Tristan.
Tristan traced his finger over the design of the wax seal holding the letter shut. “From the High Commander?” Tristan asked. Guenther nodded.
Tristan broke the seal and unfolded the parchment. He read the letter, shook his head, and then read it again. “No,” he said, white-faced. “No, this isn’t from him.”
“It is,” Guenther said. “You know that seal as well as I. You have one week.” He didn’t give them the courtesy of bowing before trudging away.
“What does it say?” Sam asked.
Tristan crumpled the letter in his fist. “We have one week to recapture Sander,” he said, “or my life is forfeit.”
“What?” Sam whispered, aghast.
“The High Commander offers you and Braeden amnesty,” Tristan continued, his voice shaking—with anger, Sam thought, and something else. “You cannot be blamed for my treachery, and if I should fail to obey his edict, he will welcome you back with open arms. But if you should stay by my side—” Tristan closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “If you stay by my side, he will name you traitors, too.”
“If we succeed in taking Sander back,” Braeden asked, “all three of us, what will happen?”
“Nothing, for you,” Tristan said. “My life will be spared, but recapturing Sander would be my last act as Paladin. The High Commander has stripped me of my title.”
Stunned, Sam’s mouth dropped open. The only coherent sound she could make was, “Huh?”
“You heard me.” He laughed incredulously. “I’m no longer a Paladin.”
Her incoherence faded and a deluge of words rushed out. “But what you said before, about the High Commander listening to you, about your mutual trust, the years you’ve known each other . . .”
“I know what I said!” Tristan snapped. “He’s already made this pronouncement publicly. Every Paladin knows or will soon know that I’ve been banished. He won’t go back on it, not now. That would be tantamount to openly admitting he erred in his judgment, and he won’t do that, not even for me.”
