Be Thou My Good: Chapter 11 (Patreon)

Chapter 11: The Devil You Know

Cat’s scream cut through the clash of steel, rising over the shouts of the dying and already dead. “Where were you?!” she shouted again.

I coughed, half bent over as I tried to get my breath back. A mailed hand grabbed me under the shoulder and yanked me upright. The pain lanced through my arm, but it didn’t feel like a full break. A fracture, hopefully.

The battlefield came into focus in flashes. We stood on the walls of Marcheford. From beyond, a wave of roiling flesh assaulted the palisade as Legionnaires and Callowans alike struggled to throw it back. From deeper in the city, scorpions and catapults hurled stone and bolts into the air as fast as they could reload, attackers packed so thick it was impossible to miss.

A twisted hand grasped the top of the wall before me and hauled a misshapen figure over the battlements. Mouths screamed and gnashed from within empty eye sockets before Catherine Foundling chopped it in half and sent it tumbling back to the ground.

The tabard of the Silver Spears lingered briefly in the air, cut neatly in two by Foundling’s sword.

Words returned to me first. “It was a demon of corruption, then.”

Catherine let out a harsh bark of laughter, running a hand through black hair matted against her brow. “I thought you were supposed to be a seer.” A trio of sideways-faced devils landed on the wall, and Cat surged forward again before I could respond.

“Drive ‘em back!” Her blade flashed out. “Down here in the mud!”

“IT’S US WHO HOLD THE LINE!”

She laughed again, a riotous sound that should have been swallowed by the din of battle. It was not. “Hold the line!”

The wall responded. “HOLD THE LINE!”

Another flock of devils swooped down. They forced a gap in the soldiers while Cat was turned away. My eyes snapped wide.

“Behind you!” I swept up a spear, stabbing through the first devil. It writhed, clawed forelimbs grasping at the parapet. I staggered backward, jagged surges of agony rushing up my arm.

I was good with pain.

Less good was a second devil landing on my spear as Catherine turned a second too slow. Then a brace of arrows plucked the wall clear.

The perforated devils fell soundlessly from the battlements.

“Seven hells and one.” Archer lands next to me. “I didn’t think you’d die without me.”

“Kind of you to join us, all the same.” I resettled my spear, catching my breath as the battle continued.

“I’m not even the one who’s late this time!” Archer didn’t even look as she continued firing faster than my eyes could follow. Her arrows slipped through the gaps in the line, picking off larger devils or mutated mixtures of man and horse that had spawned from the Silver Spear’s cataphracts.

“What happened to your normal arrows?” Cat asked.

“Ran out, stole some of yours instead.”

Foundling let out a muttered curse. Still, with two—no, three, now—named on this stretch of the wall, the narrative was stabilized. The legion infantry made a bulwark atop the wall itself, while scouts and Callowan auxiliaries plugged the gaps as they appeared.

But I could already see deeper cracks beginning to form.

I glanced at Cat. “What happened to Masego’s ritual?”

She shook her head. “The demon corrupted it, and now we can’t find the damn thing.”

“Yeah, and it would have corrupted you as well,” Archer chimed in, “if you went through with that dumb vision quest idea!”

Catherine grunted, ignoring the comment in lieu of raising her shield against another group of devils that made it past the defenders’ arrows. “Yeah well, good thing we didn’t have time for it. Speaking of,” she turned to glare at me, “still waiting on an explanation on why you up and vanished.”

“I’m here now, aren’t I?”

She continued to glare unabated.

I sighed. “I was kidnapped.”

Her eyes widened. “Kidnapped?”

“I’ll explain after we don’t die here,” I said. “But someone wanted to stop me from helping out. They did a…remarkably thorough job.”

“Not thorough enough, if you got out.” Archer grinned at me. “Speaking of, looks like you got a brand-new name, didn’t you?”

“Name?” Catherine’s head snapped up.

I let out a breath. “You can call me Weaver now if you like.”

Archer cackled. “Like an old spinster.”

Cat and I ignored her, but the other woman was clearly having a grand old time all by herself. Squire turns to me fully instead. “So, you are a seer.”

I shrugged. “Ostensibly.”

Catherine started to mouth the word before she caught herself. “I don’t care what you want to call it, can you use that fancy new name of yours to figure out where the damn demon is.” She pointed back towards Marcheford proper. “Masego saved enough stored magic, or whatever the hells it’s called.”

I nodded. “Just needs us to point it out? Right.” I reached for the part of me that was connected to my name. Instead of the intuitive grasp of the story that I had grown accustomed to, the sense felt worn thin, exhausted. My eyes narrowed.

I was tapped out from my fight with the Bard, just like Hakram had been a day or so ago. That was doubly annoying because it no doubt left me vulnerable as well. I took a tighter grip around my spear, trying to think of a way around the restriction. Maybe Bard had only let me go because she knew I’d be useless anyway.

“Taylor?”

Cat’s words made me look up. I could see the worry written clearly across her features.

Or maybe, I thought, Bard had known I’d rely too much on my new name, instead of the skills that got me that name to begin with. There was just one little problem with that, however.

“I don’t know very much about demons,” I said. “They’re always different, and the ones here are like none I’ve ever heard of.”

Archer shook her head. “Some soothsayer you turned out to be.”

I frowned. “You want fortune cookie wisdom? Fine.” I drew myself up to my full height. “It is hiding in the last place you’d think to look.”

“Now that’s something from the town fair.” Archer spread her arms, almost whacking me with her longbow. “Besides, wouldn’t it always be the last place you look, because you’ve found the thing you’re searching for?”

“You’re ruining my mystique.” I huffed. “What do you expect me to do in this mess?” I took steps forward, pushing a devil off the wall with my spear.

“Oh, I’ll ruin you any time.” Archer grinned at me.

I sighed. “Must you?”

“Must I what?” She batted her eyes at me. Without looking, she fired two arrows, both of which found their targets.

I was about to retort when Catherine stepped between us. “Of course,” she said. “The last place I’d think to look.”

“Um, Squire, pretty sure your girl was joking,” Archer said.

Catherine shook her head. “How else would it corrupt Masego’s ritual? He would have factored in the effect of its presence. Silent Heavens, he probably assumed I’d realize that without him even mentioning it.”

“That does sound like him,” I replied.

“The only way it wouldn’t work is if something was off.” She turned and looked me dead in the eye. “Like if the demon was closer than it was supposed to be.”

I sucked in a breath. “Archer, the tentacle you killed, where was it?”

Archer, for all of her attitude, was just as quick on the uptake as both of us. “Oh, that dirty little…” She turned, pulling one of her special arrows from her boot. “I’ll teach you to play dead!” She drew the bowstring, arms in her back tensing in stark relief. The arrow screamed from her bow, lancing across the battlefield.

It hit home.

With a scream, a tentacled mass of flesh rose into the air, thrashing back and forth.

“It was right there the whole time,” Cat whispered. Then she rallied. “Take it down!”

This time, the arrows did little. The demon smashed against the wall. Stone cracked; a man and woman fell screaming to their death

Another shot from Archer sent it reeling back, but this time the thing was clearly done playing. It crashed against the wall, sweeping across the battlements toward us.

With a curse, Catherine threw herself at me, taking us both from the wall. I landed beneath her armored form, and the breath was crushed from my lungs. I lost sight of Archer.

The demon crashed against the wall again. Dust and stone fell to the ground.

Cat’s face came into blurry focus above me. “Still with me there?”

I coughed something out. I didn’t know what. I tried to force myself upright, only to fall when I tried to use an arm that wasn’t there. My head lolled, something sharp digging into my back, probably my ribs. Foundling hauled me to my feet, dragging me away from the wall with an arm over her shoulder.

There was another crash. We staggered to the side, spinning. I bit back a scream as I hit the wall of a building. I saw a hole in the wall, a corrupted mass of flesh forcing its way through the opening. For a second, it looked like it would spill over into the city.

Then a massive clay urn splashed against its side. Green fire raced across its form, eating at the demon.

“Well,” I heard Catherine say, “Goblin Fire’s probably the better way to go.”

The demon screamed, writhing in the air. It jerked back, corrupted flesh fighting back against the fire. My head lolled against my chest as I saw it slough the burning sections off onto the ground behind it. It seemed the world would not end in fire after all.

Then a beam of light lanced through the air above our heads. It hit the demon dead center, locking it in place. For one scant moment, the ray of light burned a burnished gold.

“Ah.” Masego’s voice came on the wind. I saw a flash of his face, braids swaying around his head in a nonexistent breeze. “There you are.”

The light turned red. There was a sound, like a key turning in a lock. I felt it reverberate deep within my chest.

The demon was slurped up like a straw, its form distorting and turning from matter to pure energy. It was fed down the beam of light and vanished. A moment later, the light vanished as well, leaving only the night sky above.

I sucked in a shuddering breath. “Did we do it?” The words felt wet on my lips.

“We did it.” Catherine’s face broke out into a grin. “We won!”

A ragged cheer rose up from the shattered streets around us, and that was the last thing I heard.

*~*~*~*

The next time I woke, I was in much less pain than I thought I would be.

I sucked in a breath, sitting up on the rough cot. I was inside the manor. Instead of my well-worn dress, I was wrapped in simple legionnaire’s fatigues. A familiar voice said, “About time you woke up.”

I looked over to see Archer sitting in an overstuffed chair. She had a knife and a block of wood in her hands, but she tossed them aside as she walked over to my bedside. “You were looking pretty rough there for a bit, knitting needles.”

I let out a brief laugh. “Had a lot of time to think up that nickname?”

She shrugged. “Only a day or two.”

“I’m surprised you stuck around.”

“I know, right?” She stuffed her hands in her pockets. “Hunter helped out, needed some extra time to recover.”

I smiled. “I’m sure that’s all.”

“Yep!” she said. “Gods Below, it was so boring the last few days. Even Squire was too busy running around taking care of things.”

“I’m sure you found some way to keep yourself entertained.”

“Oh, I did. That bitch Heiress showed up, and Cat sent me to talk with her.” A savage grin spread across Archer’s face. “I sent her and her fancy-pants honor guard running for the hills.”

I leaned back on the bed. “Sounds like a good time.”

“It was the best.”