Valkyrie's Shadow

Birthright: Act 5, Chapter 16

Chapter 16

The Shadow Demon rejoined Ludmila as she stepped out of the bushes that encircled the open village and onto the manor lane. Campbell’s manor was several hundred metres up the hillside, and two large men could be seen stationed at the entrance of the grounds. Though late in the afternoon, the skies were still quite bright: she wondered how well the Shadow Demons would be able to work in these conditions. Deciding on an approach that followed the side of the road, she walked along the poorly-maintained snarl that was probably once an ornamental hedge.

As she came closer, she noted that the two sentries were not a part of the same group of hirelings that Campbell Fassett had surrounded himself with in his hall. They seemed to be nothing more than a pair of large men that did not give off the air of experienced combatants. Their broad stature, however, probably did much to dissuade the nearby villagers and prospective troublemakers from drawing near. Ludmila stopped at the base of the slope and silently stared up at them from the middle of the road.

It did not take long for them to notice the suspicious, masked figure below. When she did not leave after several minutes, they exchanged glances and made their way down the dirt road. Ludmila wondered what to do as they approached. Mercenaries who willingly exchanged their lives for coin were one thing but, from the account of the children that they had brought into the camp, even common labourers were being offered work as the lines were drawn between Jacqueline and Campbell. With the demesne falling further into poverty as the standoff bled away the wealth of the land and its people, more and more men were being drawn in as desperation drove them into taking any job for food.

“You shouldn’t be standing around here, girl,” one of the men warned her as he came within speaking distance. “This is the lord’s manor.”

She simply continued staring at them, so they came closer.

“Something wrong with you, girl?” The man said, “What’s with that getup, anyways?”

“You should leave this place,” Ludmila said quietly.

“What’s that?” He stepped forward to better hear her voice.

“I said you should return to your families,” she replied.

“Now look here–”

Ludmila stepped forward and grabbed his improvised billhook. It came away from his hands with little resistance and they all stared at one another for a moment – she had not expected for the man to be holding his weapon so loosely, and the moves which she had plotted in advance were suddenly no longer required.

The man came forward in a delayed reaction to snatch back his stolen weapon and she pivoted aside, bringing the base of the polearm into the side of the man’s jaw. Reversing her strike, she continued past his collapsing form to jam her weapon against the second man’s own, pushing the point off line and into the ground. Guiding the weapon with her right hand felt a bit awkward, but the impromptu form allowed her to snap her foot into the side of the man’s left leg. He staggered as his knee buckled under him, and Ludmila flicked his bound spear away with her own as he flailed his arms to maintain his crumbling stance.

He fell heavily on the ground and, when he rose to stand again, froze when he found the point of her polearm a hand’s breadth away from his face.

“Go home,” she told him. “You do not belong here.”

The man stared cross-eyed at the crude metal blade for a moment before he got up and limped away towards the village. She looked back towards the manor to see if anyone had noticed, and two pairs of yellow eyes looked up from her hazy shadow.

“Your orders, Camilla?”

The words dripped with anticipation. She had the vague sense that the Shadow Demons had been patiently waiting for this the entire time, and the brief exchange had caused them to finally come out to ask if they could participate. Tossing the billhook aside, Ludmila held out her hand.

“Bracers. Gauntlets. Spear,” she said.

After armouring her forearms and hands, Ludmila grasped the haft of the weapon rising out of her shadow. They were carrying her longbow and six quivers stuffed with arrows as well: she wondered where they kept everything.

“One of you, follow the man that just left,” she ordered. “If he tries to bring anyone back from the village, deal with them in this same spot. If he just returns home, come back to me.”

A Shadow Demon flickered away through the hedges and Ludmila reviewed what she had seen of Campbell’s manor. The unexpected absence of all but one servant made things much easier. The majority of the men in the yard had the same feeling to them as the two she had quickly dispatched; only the ones equipped in chainmail probably had any real reason to stand their ground.

“Enter the manor first,” she said. “The mercenaries you saw when we came in previously – kill all of them in the manor, save for the ones in the hall with Campbell Fassett. Do not alert the men out here until this is completed, if possible. After that, stand guard outside of the room that Campbell is in until I arrive. If you see a servant with green hair wandering around, leave her alone.”

The second Shadow Demon remained, even after she finished her instructions.

“I’ll be waiting here until the other returns,” she said, “I’ll be fine.”

It scrutinized her for a moment until it, too, flickered away. Ludmila went to stand out of sight of the road after tossing aside the makeshift spears and dragging the fallen man along with her. Waiting in the shadows, she strained her ears, trying to hear anything from the manor above. Several minutes later, a Shadow Demon appeared before her.

“What happened?” She asked.

“The man returned to his home,” it shrugged.

“Oh,” Ludmila blinked: she could still not distinguish one from another after several days in their company.

Hefting her weapon, she walked up the road to the estate entrance. Not a single person had come looking for the two missing sentries; the men in the yard continued to stand around in twos and threes, chatting amongst themselves in low voices. There was no indication that they were aware of what was going on inside the manor, nor could she see anything through its windows. The group of men at the door remained undisturbed in their vigil.

“Remove the mercenaries at the entrance,” she instructed. “See what you can do about scaring away all of these men loitering about in the yard as well.”

Ludmila peeked around the corner of the gate again to see what the Shadow Demon would do.

The first mercenary’s head was abruptly twisted from his shoulders, held aloft in the dark talons which had come out of the shadows of the ceiling above. To their credit, the mercenaries instantly reacted with startled shouts, stabbing upwards at the figure sticking down towards them. The Shadow Demon ignored the attacks, which simply passed through its translucent, wavering body. If Ludmila was not mistaken, magically-imbued attacks were required for one to even have a chance at damaging a creature with incorporeal properties. Campbell’s men truly had no chance.

The men scattered around the yard turned curiously to see what the commotion was about. The Shadow Demon picked out a target amongst them and hurled the detached head. It struck a tall man solidly in the stomach and he fell to the ground, winded. The head rolled away leaving a thin trail of blood behind it, and the faces of the men around him turned pale as it came to a stop and they realized what it was that had streaked through the air. Their attention went back to the manor entrance as the mercenaries shouted for help, but they were clearly conflicted on what to do and did not approach.

The Shadow Demon flipped back around, drifting to the floor as it wrested away one of the spears that the mercenaries were trying to use against it. The Demon turned the weapon against the man to its right and the spear punched through both his shield and himself before he could react. It didn’t stop there, though. Even as the first man weakly grasped the bloodied haft with both hands, he was lifted off of the ground as the same weapon was used to impale the leftmost sentry across the way, who offered no more resistance than the first.

The final mercenary had seen enough. Throwing his weapon and shield to the ground, he desperately dashed away towards the entrance of the estate. The Shadow Demon turned to peer after him with a grin, and came forward with the spear upon which the two others still squirmed. With its running – floating? – start, it launched the weapon into the air and the projectile made a clean arc over the lane before skewering the fleeing mercenary through the back: pinning him on the road halfway to the gate. There was an indescribable sound as the two bodies slid down the haft of the spear to press him into the ground as he writhed in agony.

A few moments passed as the bystanders stood frozen at the grisly sequence of events; then the men around the grounds broke as one, fleeing for the gate with rising cries of horror. They did not even look towards where Ludmila stood, off to the side of the estate entrance in their single-minded flight for survival.

After the yard was emptied out, she entered the gate and stopped to look at the grisly totem planted in the road. Though far larger in scale, it was vaguely similar to the territorial markers erected by the Demihuman tribes in the wilderness beyond her demesne. At some point, the people of Warden’s Vale had started to set up their own which, in the end, was far more effective at defining their borders than constantly chasing trespassers around. Neither they nor the neighboring tribes ever used entire bodies, though.

The Shadow Demon circled around its handiwork, floating off to the side to pick up the detached head nearby. It returned to fly up and jam the head onto the base of the spear, then turned to Ludmila and bowed.

Does it expect applause?

“What…uh, inspired you to do this?” She asked.

“The first attempt was insufficient,” it responded with a broad grin, “so a more potent measure was devised.”

Ludmila’s eyes shifted to the head on the spear, then back to the Shadow Demon.

“I suppose I can’t deny its effectiveness,” she said, “but I pity whoever has to come and clean this up. There’s nothing more for us out here – let’s head in.”

The Demon slipped back into her shadow, and Ludmila stepped over the pools of blood in the entryway to open the door of the manor. Within, there were no signs of any disturbances along the long corridor, save for a fallen mercenary at the door to the Hall. The other Shadow Demon hovered over the corpse.

“What happened?” She asked as she neared.

“This one came to look outside when the noise outdoors started,” it explained. “The others barricaded themselves inside afterwards.”

“The rest of the manor?”

“There were few. They are no more.”

“What’s left in the Hall?”

“The noble. The servant. Seven mercenaries.”

Nothing seemed to have changed. Well, given that it was not even twenty minutes since the carriage had departed, it wasn’t exactly unexpected.

“Campbell and the woman are to be left unharmed,” she said. “Deal with the mercenaries and remove the barricade when you are done.”

The two Shadow Demons waved their arms at one another several times, making signs with their hands. Ludmila furrowed her brow as she watched their strange behaviour.

“What are you two doing?” She asked.

“Jan ken pon.”

“...what?”

“Competing between ourselves to determine a winner.”

“Does the winner get to go inside, or stay with me?”

The two Shadow Demons remained silent, and Ludmila rolled her eyes.

“I’m not so fragile that the piles of dust here will be the end of me,” she said. “Both of you, just get in here; we still have much more to do ahead of us.”

Panicked shouts and hoarse screaming could be heard on the other side of the wall seconds later. Not half a minute had passed before clunking noises issued through the door as various objects were removed from the other side of the entrance. The door swung inwards, and Ludmila stepped through.

With how sudden and violent the Shadow Demon attack sounded, Ludmila expected the Hall to be painted with gore…but it was mostly undisturbed save for the seven men that lay unmoving on the floor with blood pooling around them. Some had their throats torn out, while long gashes had been opened across the armour of others. At the head of the hall, Campbell Fassett sat rigid at his table, narrow face as pale as those of the dead men strewn about. The green-haired servant was sitting beside him, steel-grey eyes darting back and forth around the chamber.

Ludmila retraced the steps that Clara’s entourage had taken up the centre of the hall, stopping to look up at the trembling nobleman. His eyes followed her, but it took several long moments before he found his voice.

“W-who…who are you?” He stammered.

“You know who I am,” Ludmila replied.

“No! No…I’ve never seen you before,” hysteria rose in his voice. “Why have you done this? Why would you do this? Who…was it my sister? Did she send you to kill me? A-a-assassin…? How much did she pay you? I will triple the amount! ”

Ludmila resisted the urge to look down at her outfit. He had just held his audience with Clara and Campbell claimed to not recognize her. She supposed that it changed nothing, in the end.

“You may call me Camilla,” she said. “I have come from the capital.”

“You’re the inspector they spoke of, then,” he said. “But why? They…they got to you, didn’t they? Those self-righteous bitches from the east! What vile lies did they tell you?”

How could he be so adamant? If they had not spent the past few days collecting all of the various bits of information and records from the county that they could, Ludmila would have severely doubted her own actions. Her gaze hardened as disgust simmered within her; she was not here to argue. The placid tone of her voice surprised even herself as it carried throughout the hall.

“Count Campbell Fassett,” she said.

Addressed by his title, he straightened his posture somewhat.

“Yes?” His voice was tinged with hope.

“You are called to account for the deeds of your house,” she said. “For its tenure as a territory of the Sorcerous Kingdom.”

His blue eyes were adrift in confusion and his thin lips turned to frown.

“W-what? It’s only been two months! Not even that! What could I possibly be–”

“You have…exchanged your household to finance this company of mercenaries,” she cut through his protests.

“No! I released them from my service!”

“You have throttled distribution of food and supplies, purposely hoarding the necessities of life to press the people of your demesne into your service through extortion.”

“I have done no such thing!”

“You have defied the development directives outlined by the Royal Court by further driving your demesne into destitution with this familial dispute.”

“The streets and storefronts are cleaned and repaired: made presentable, as ordered!”

“Your deterrents against crime are insufficient, effectively facilitating it through a system of periodic, affordable fines for personal gain.”

“I am adhering to the law! I have the right to exercise justice within my own demesne in the way that I see fit!”

“You send your men into Re-Estize to steal crops of Laira, and allow smugglers to deliver it to neighboring nations.”

“…what? That’s not me, that’s–”

“You shelter bands of ‘mercenaries’ in the hills and caves throughout this County, allowing them to operate from within your borders, in exchange for favours against your opponents.”

“No, no! That’s not me! That’s Jacqueline! I–”

Ludmila slammed the base of her spear against the wooden floor. The harsh sound echoed over the chamber several times before fading into deathly silence.

“Count Fassett – you claim to be Count Fassett, do you not?”

“Of course, I am–”

“The head of House Fassett,” Ludmila finished his sentence for him. “It is your family. Your household. Your land. Your towns,villagesandhamlets. Your people. Everything that happens in your demesne…is your responsibility.”

She stepped forward, the sound of her boots bouncing off the chamber walls.

“This is the Sorcerous Kingdom now – do you know what it means to be a Noble of the Sorcerous Kingdom, Count Fassett?”

His mouth worked silently as he followed her slow advance.

“You have been granted your lands to administer in good faith,” Ludmila told him, “by the grace of your liege.”

“But that is the same!” Count Fassett protested, “Everything is the same. Our positions are the same as in Re-Estize. Our laws are the same as Re-Estize. We nobles have rights and protections – provided by the laws that have been adopted by the Sorcerer King himself!”

“Indeed,” Ludmila replied, “But this is Re-Estize no longer, Count Fassett. There is no sovereign on his far away throne: no place that lies beyond his reach. You cannot shield yourself with posturing and pretense. Twisted, half-hearted measures are as good as none. Your lies will not avail you and you cannot hide what you have done. Your wealth will buy no one, there is no fear of disapproval and your resistance means nothing.”

Ludmila placed a foot on the steps to the dais.

“Above all else, you have the duty to uphold the dictates of His Majesty’s order,” she continued. “As a Noble, you have obligations to fulfil and laws to enforce according to his will. Duty is why your authority exists. Duty is what binds the nobility, Count Fassett, so spare me your talk of rights. To be certain, as long as you remain faithful in performing your duties, you may benefit from what rights, protections and immunities your liege and his laws have afforded you…but you have decidedly not done anything of the sort.

“You have not simply failed in your duty, Count Fassett: you have defied it…and in defying your duty as his vassal, you have defied His Majesty’s Will.”

Standing over Campbell Fassett, Ludmila looked down at his cowering form. The pale mask reflected in his terror-filled eyes.

“Now tell me, Count Fassett,” she asked him quietly, “what does that make you?”