Once they had some distance from the mountains, the sun at least showed himself for a couple of hours near mid-day. The thick arboreal trees blocked most of the light until Pentarch brought them through the wilderness to a roughhewn road.

  It did not look well maintained, but it was clear of trees to either side by about twenty paces. The foliage nearest to the path were withered.

  “Stay off the road,” Pentarch warned them. “We’ll follow it, but tread only where plants still grow.”

  Vero examined the soil quality from afar, wherever enough daylight fell to melt through the snow. It looked utterly dead to her. There was some foul enchantment at work, the forest earth beneath her was quite rich. It would probably make for good farming, if not for the climate.

  The slayer fortress was built near the center of the Star Mountains, but slightly offset on the Teutonian side of the southern arm. The northwestern and southwestern arms both stretched out into the ocean as island chains, inhabited by Pictish settlers.

  The lowlands where they were currently located was in the joint between the northwestern arm south of them, and the northern arm east of them. Their goal was a castle, located along that northern arm.

  Pentarch guided them to some settlements he knew along the way, but each village they found was burnt out and abandoned. There had recently been a tremendous culling in the local population. Inauspicious as it was, they still sheltered in whatever structures they found standing by necessity.

  It was devilishly cold; they could no longer risk lighting fires when they made camp. On a few occasions they saw a cart or rider using the road, but they kept themselves out of sight in the trees. All the men they saw were well armed and wore dark cloaks.

  “No one uses the road except thralls of the vampyres,” Pentarch informed them. “Their masters give them talismans to protect them from the fell magic.”

  There was plentiful game in the forest, but without fires to cook the meat there was not much use hunting it. Vero’s one great vice, besides lust, and also besides wrath, was gluttony. Dull traveling rations wore heavier on her while so much good meat was so near. They crossed a buck deer who paid their party no mind at all, off on his own journey.

  On their twelfth night, they saw smoke on the horizon. It was a sign of the first inhabited place they had found on this side of the mountains. According to Pentarch, it was also the last human habitation before their ultimate destination.

  “But can we trust the humans there?” asked Isolde.

  “Our order had contacts there decades ago, but we’ve since lost communication with them.”

  “It would be convenient to have a secure base to operate from,” Vero began. “But the vampyres already control the roads, and they’ve burned out every other settlement we’ve passed. I think we need to assume that this town ahead of us only exists because they wish it to, for one reason or another.”

  Pentarch nodded. “We’ll approach cautiously, and-”

  “-Someone’s coming…” Alexius interrupted, in a manner that was almost distracted.

  They were all quiet, and Vero could hear footfalls in the snow. She made silent signs to the others. They faded back the way they came, and stepped through the slushy snowmelt, where their tracks would be less distinct.

  A form stumbled into the clearing they were occupying only moments before.

  The form belonged to a scrawny peasant with fading hair. He held a hunting bow and struck Vero as a poacher, as ridiculous as that seemed. He cast his eyes back and forth wearily, but did not see them.

  Pentarch nodded to her.

  Vero crept forward and drew her knife. Ahead of her, the man stopped to examine the ground where they had been standing.

  Before he could determine anything definite, Vero put her blade to his throat and hissed into his ear, “Stay silent.”

  The man froze stiff, and she roughly pulled him back to where the others had sheltered.

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  Pentarch took him from her and threw him to the ground. “How many are with you?”

  “I’m alone,” the man replied.

  “Hold him still and let me look into his eyes,” said Isolde. “I can force him to tell us the truth.”

  “You can force him to tell us whatever you please,” Vero whispered loud enough to be heard. “Who is to know if it will be truth or lies?”

  Isolde pretended not to notice.

  Pentarch concerned himself only with the prisoner. “Where are you going? Alone at night like this?”

  “No reason. I’ve only come out to relieve myself, Ser. That’s all, I swear.”

  Pentarch leaned forward and bared his teeth in a vicious smile. “I don’t believe you.”

  The man looked up at Pentarch with terrified eyes, but they were all interrupted by a cry.

  “Unhand him, foul beasts!” A templar knight showed himself, with his sword out.

  Every hand went to their weapon- except Vero’s. “Fra Heward? Is that your voice?”

  The knight did not lower his guard, but he looked at her keenly. “Aye. Who are you that claims to know me?”

  He may not have spells to brighten his eyesight, but she did. Vero was certain that she recognized his face. “I am Vero, the slayer. We met when I was in the service of the Maquis de Fer, at Kaer Longus.”

  “Lady Veronique? Gods! What can have brought you to this terrible place?”

  Vero stepped between Fra Heward and her companions to forestall any conflict. “My trade. My companions and I are on a hunt.” She also pulled up their prisoner, who quickly fled behind the templar.

  “Madness! There is no law on this side of the mountains, vampyres rule openly here. My Lady, I beg you to go back the way you came. At once. If your companions truly hold your best interests in their hearts, they will take you away, if you wish to go or not.”

  “I assure you we do, Ser Templar. But if this place is so dangerous, then what are you doing here?” Isolde asked, with a chill tone.

  “I am… undertaking an act of penance. My wellbeing no longer matters, but I assure you all that you are in grave danger here.”

  Vero reasserted herself. “We have our own quest to undertake. We won’t leave until our hunt is complete.”

  Fra Heward bowed his head. “As you wish, my Lady. At least allow me to escort you back to what passes for civilization in these parts. You’ll be able to find some shelter there.”

  Pentarch looked enquiringly at Vero, who answered on their behalf. “Your guardian and companionship would be very welcome, Brother.”

  The templar turned the direction their former prisoner’s footprints led through the snow, and motioned for them to follow.

  “Do you trust him?” Pentarch asked, loud enough to be heard by all of them.

  “To take us to shelter in the town we know can only be walking distance away? Unreservedly. He’s a true knight of the temple, so he won’t report our location to any vampyres; if that’s what you really mean to ask.”

  Pentarch nodded without comment, and Vero was sure the question was only posed to let the Fra know that he was being observed for signs of betrayal. When he was finished, Fra Heward started walking, and they followed him.

  “How do you and the Dame first meet, Ser?” asked Isolde.

  “Address me as Fra please, magister. As a monk, I hold no worldly rank to warrant the title of Ser,” Fra Heward stated plainly, but not rudely. “The temple I served was located in a city put under the influence of a baleful spirit, which corrupted our earl’s mind. The Lady Veronique expunged the wraith.”

  The earl in question had created the spirit in the first place, when he murdered his own sister. He was later beheaded, when Jean discovered he was an agent of the King of Velois.

  Vero did not mention the addendum. Fra Heward had already vanished into some punitive assignment from his church before the whole matter came to light.

  He had sinned on two fronts, in their opinion. Firstly, he had not singlehandedly foreseen the possession before it occurred, and solved the problem entirely in private. And secondly, he had the temerity to assist a suspected witch in solving the problem once it did become public.

  She presumed that was the reason he was now in this horrible place.

  “How did you know I was a magus?” Isolde asked.

  “You are a companion of the Lady Veronique; I presumed you shared her occupation. And what kind of woman besides a sorceress would come here, in company such as this?” Fra Heward explained it all in his usual calm and direct manner.

  Vero could not see it, but she could imagine Isolde’s features when she learned Fra Heward considered them both magi. Except that Vero was also ennobled, granting her a higher title than magister. Vero did not enjoy petty courtly intrigues for their own merit, but she was too competitive to turn away from a duel after it had been offered.

  The transition between forest and town came very suddenly in the dark. Instead of trees they were surrounded by peasant hovels, and the snow beneath their feet became a trampled slurry of mud. He led them to a larger building than the others, located in the center of the town. It was constructed of solid wood, but since fallen into a state of disrepair.

  He knocked on the door with meaningful precision in the speed and strength of his raps, the pattern of which Vero committed to memory. The door was opened by a woman of approximately Vero’s own age, and they were all allowed inside.

  The building was once probably a church, but there were bare places where the holy icons had been stripped away, and the frescoes painted on the walls were defaced. However, it was pleasantly warm inside, so the structure itself was still sound. The heat came from a large hearth, and in front of it sat the man they found in the forest. He jumped up when he saw them, but Fra Heward immediately reassured him.

  “At ease. They’re friends. They may even be the answer we’ve been waiting for.”

  Besides the poacher, and the woman who let them in, there were four other stout looking men and a lad who looked younger than Conner. There were tables with benches beside the hearth, and Fra Heward sat down at one of them.

  “Anna, bring us some beer, won’t you? Our friends are certainly weary from the road, and I expect we have a great deal to discuss.”

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