BTMG: Chapter 8 (Patreon)

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Chapter 8: …And Full of Terrors

The first attack came in the dead of night.

Somehow, I woke clearheaded, despite drinking more than I should have with Foundling and Archer before going to sleep.

At the sound of ringing bells, I pushed myself to my feet from my rough cot, almost falling flat on my face as a hand clamped around my knee.

“Fuck.” I yanked my leg free, glancing over my shoulder to see a murmuring Archer grabbing after me. I huffed, annoyed mostly at myself. I didn’t remember falling asleep next to her, but my last clear memory was of us sitting next to each other, as I stubbornly refused to give her a rise as Archer all but climbed onto my shoulders.

The one time she’d tried to push me around, I’d dumped her on her ass, then slid to the side when she’d tried to kick me in the head. After that, a combination of alcohol, melancholy, and my own thickheadedness had clearly landed me in this position.

At least we both had all our clothes on. As far as I could tell, she’d just passed out on top of me because she couldn’t bother finding her own cot.

I sighed. Even after all this time, I just wouldn’t allow myself to blink first as Archer patiently tested my boundaries. On top of that, well… maybe I did miss my own team more than just a little bit. These insane kids weren’t the same at all, but I could already feel the edges of the story pulling me into their orbit. We fit together, a bunch of orphans broken in all the same ways.

That didn’t do anything about the ringing of the bells, though. A quick glance around showed that Archer and I had been left in the map room when we’d passed out. No doubt Catherine was already struggling into her armor, assuming she wasn’t halfway to the palisades by now.

I turned back to Archer, who continued to snore blissfully unaware of the alarm.

Sinking back to my knees next to the bed, I reached out, stopping my hand a hair’s breadth above the ochre skin of her arm. “Archer.”

Her eyes flicked open.

I nodded, stepping back as I pretended not to notice how she’d shifted to draw the hidden dagger under the pillow. “You’re up, how’s the hangover?”

For a moment longer, she didn’t react, then a happy-go-lucky smile settled across her face. “Takes more than that to keep a girl down.” She kipped her to her feet in one smooth motion, idly patting her daggers and various pouches. “What’s all the racket for?” She cocked her head at the window.

“Morning prayer,” I replied. “Catherine told me to get you to mass on time for the daily benediction.”

She blinked once, before laughing. “Wow, you almost had me there. Even Callowans wouldn’t wake up this early for prayers.”

I looked back towards the window. “Some of them did.” I gave Archer one last look. “Are you coming?”

“What, to the church?” She giggled again. “Morning prayers… snerk.” Poor Catherine, I thought. You didn’t even get to see when I gave Archer more ammunition against you.

Of course, the Squire probably had bigger problems at the moment.

“Suit yourself.” I started towards the door. “I just figured you’d want a chance to see a demon with your own eyes, but I’ll tell you all about it when I get back.”

She was ready to go before I managed to open the door.

“How do you figure it’s a Demon?” she asked as we left the manor. The streets nearest the building itself were all but empty. The nearest houses still had candles burning for those too weak and too old to fight, and I saw eyes peeking out of the shutters at us.

Even still, I didn’t rush. There were no shouts, no sound of steel against steel. Just the solemn tolling of a bell, deep in the night.

“Catherine and Apprentice already determined it was a demon.” I headed towards the torches on the wall. For the most part, the Fifteenth Legion had focused on reinforcing the existing walls around Marchford, but the town was too big to be fully garrisoned by a thousand men, so a long palisade had been constructed along the narrowest part of town, while the far gate remained only lightly manned.

We were aiming for a spot right where the palisade met the northern wall. As we drew closer, the torchlight resolved into men and women in armor. I sucked in a breath at the sight of legionnaires and Callowans standing side by side, each with their distinct garments.

By the time the night was over, Squire would have the entire town eating out of the palm of her hand.

“Love a woman in armor,” Archer said.

I raised an eyebrow at her. “Even yourself?”

“Oh, especially.” She nodded. “Self-love is the most important kind, after all.”

I chuckled. “There is no greater love than this, to give up one’s life for a friend.”

She blew a raspberry. “Who came up with that nonsense?”

“No one important,” I replied. “Still, it looks like we missed the fight. Shall we find Catherine instead?”

She shrugged. “Maybe if you’d walked a little faster we could have made it in time.”

“You didn’t have to stick around,” I said. “You could have even used that little trick that got you into Marchford.”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” She stuck out her tongue at me. “C’mon, let’s find Squire. At least she’s interesting.”

“Sore that you can’t fluster me?” I followed after Archer as she jogged up the nearest set of stairs. “What, did you grow up in a daycare?”

“Something like that,” she said. “No but really, you’re boring as the dead, and I was promised a demon.” I chuckled again, but followed along without complaint. In my experience, the dead were hardly boring. It had been the legion’s funeral pyre that whispered Catherine’s secret to me in exchange for one of my own.

Catherine Foundling had started this war.

Now all that remained was what she planned to do with it.

Catherine, for her part, was easy enough to find. She was yelling orders on top of the wall as men and women hauled up timber to patch part of the crenelations that had been worn away. She didn’t notice us at first, giving me ample time to survey the fields beyond the wall.

The bloody red moon was still overhead, which gave enough light to see piles of devils lying on the ground up to the wall. These ones had wings, scales, and too-large eyes staring sightlessly up into the sky. A few of them had made it perilously close to the wall before arrows and bolts had cut them down.

“There you are, weeping heavens.” I looked over my shoulder at Catherine’s voice. “What were you waiting for, an engraved invitation?”

I shrugged. “I woke up when someone started ringing the bell.” I jerked a thumb at Archer. “Blame that one for making us late.”

“Me?” Archer placed a hand on her chest, leaning backwards dramatically. “You were the one who meandered here like it was a day at the market.”

“We were already too late by the time I got you out of my bed.”

Catherine’s face flicked through a few interesting emotions at that. The girl really was trying to be so much older than her years.

Archer made a rude gesture before meandering herself down the wall.

Catherine watched her go with a raised eyebrow. “What?”

“She’s probably looking for demons,” I said. “It’s how I motivated her to come take a look.”

“The demon hasn’t sent anything yet, I think.” She glanced back towards the field. “Not a single corrupted cataphract.”

“Like it’s still feeling us out?”

Catherine shrugged. “Whatever it’s doing, it hasn’t seriously tried the walls.” She sighed. “I almost wish it would just get it over with. All this waiting is driving me up the wall.”

“It will get here when it gets here,” I said.

“Wow. That’s some real wisdom.”

“If people like me had all the answers, it wouldn’t be much of a story.”

“Sure.” Catherine Foundling gave me an odd look. “I’m trying to decide if we can risk burning the bodies. Can’t be good leaving all those devil corpses out there.” She wrinkled her nose. “Sacrilegious almost.”

“And here I thought this world wouldn’t have to deal with global warming,” I muttered. “Doesn’t Masego want them for something?”

“They’re ‘low level’ devils.” She pulled a face. “He’s not interested.”

“Typical.” I shook my head. “I don’t know the first thing about burning devils. In my home’s mythology, they usually like fire.” I paused for a moment before turning to look at Catherine. “I also wouldn’t use goblin fire this close to the walls.”

She huffed. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Hakram had stories.”

“Well,” her eyes narrowed, “I’ll see about—”

“AHA!”

Both of our heads snapped up as Archer fired her bow off the wall. The arrow hissed out into the darkness.

There was nothing.

I opened my mouth, no doubt to say something completely asinine.

Then she fired twice more.

The first arrow sank into something living with a meaty thunk audible from the wall. There was a screech and something long and sinuous rose from the morass of bodies like a tentacle as thick as my torso. Archer’s second shot took it somewhere vital. The thing twitched and spasmed, thrashing in the air.

“Fire!” Squire yelled.

A dozen bolts raced out from the wall, but it was Archer’s fourth shot that put it down for good.

The tentacle of flesh hit the ground and ceased to move. A moment later, Archer came back over to us, practically skipping.

“It was sneaking up to the wall under all the bodies!” she informed us. There was a sort of manic glee in her eyes. “Think it’s made of a bunch of bodies all stuck together, but maybe they just look like that.” She shrugged.

Catherine and I turned back towards the tentacle, only to find that Archer was completely correct. What I’d taken for a tentacle was in fact a series of human torsos fused together, legs melding with the head of the previous victim. Adorning their bodies were scraps of armor, or surcoats.

In the blood-red light of the moon, I could see reflected the emblem of the silver spears.

“I think I’m gonna be sick,” Catherine muttered.

I could sympathize. It was the type of thing that Bonesaw might have come up with, maybe as a piece of ‘art’ involving an annoying bug controller made to look like an insect.

In short, a fate worse than death.

“You know,” I said. “I think you should revisit the idea of goblin fire.”

“Burns for seven days and seven nights.” Archer’s smile was still far too cheerful for the situation. “Anyway, that wasn’t a real demon, but it was a pretty fun distraction.” She punched me in the shoulder hard enough to bruise. “You’re alright in my book, skinny.”

“I can feel the love,” I said. “Or that might just be the burst blood vessels turning my skin purple.”

“Same difference, really,” Archer replied.

“Weeping heavens.” Catherine ran a hand down her face. “Can’t you two take anything seriously for five minutes? I’m trying to figure out how to light a field of corpses on fire and you’re laughing.”

I turned to look at her. “Catherine.” She shifted, glaring up at me through her fingers. “You will see mountains of bodies before this is through. Some of them will even be people you put to the sword yourself.”

She stilled.

Perhaps I wasn’t speaking from experience, but really, I’d shot babies. There were few crimes more heinous than that.

“Sometimes,” I continued, “it’s better to laugh than cry.”

She let out a breath. “Right,” she said. “Thanks. Best advice I’ve heard all week.”

“You want some real advice?” I raised an eyebrow. “Get some goblins up here; I’m sure they have plenty of experience burning bodies.”