The Song of Roland Ch. 24

He didn't answer her. Roland squeezed his eyes shut and fought to hold back the tears he had managed to keep down for most of his adult life.

"...Roland?"

His body was a traitorous, expressive thing. Roland let out a shuddering sigh without intending to, hunching forward as the agony of the memory pressed down upon him with its unbearable weight. Kelsea's eyes were fixed to the back of his head.

"Who was that woman you were walking with, Roland?" She asked. "Callie. The... she was a Demon?"

Roland shook his head back and forth, gritting his teeth. His heart was pounding, he couldn't get his breath to steady. "Leave it alone, Kelsea." He said, clenching his fists.

"But-"

"Leave it alone!" He roared at the top of his lungs, a manic hysteria gripping his voice.

Roland gasped in air, gulping it down and expelling it forth in loud exhalations. His whole chest cavity lifted and lowered as his lungs palpitated. He couldn't get his hands to unclench themselves. He was drowning in an ocean of panic.

His fingernails cut deep furrows into his palms as he stared at the bare wall in front of him, as if its vacant features could somehow calm the hurricane that raged in his chest. Roland's breath became even more strained, his emotions overwhelming him as he tried and failed to keep himself in check.

A tender touch caressed his right hand. He looked down as Kelsea's fingers moved across his palm, squeezing him with soft affection, pulling him into her grasp. He felt the weight of her shift the mattress as she repositioned, tucking her legs under her as she leaned herself against his right side. The Succubus' infernal warmth settled into him, driving away the disquieting shivers that wracked his nerve-ridden body.

Her fingers went to the left side of his face, turning his head to look at her. Roland met her eyes only with extreme difficulty, finding it almost impossible to keep his gaze affixed to her unbearable beauty. There was a profound sense of humiliation that coiled in his gut when he looked at her, as if all his sins had been laid bare in an instant.

She saw him now, in a way he'd never wished her to see him. The sense of moral nakedness made him feel all the more vile and contemptible.

"Hey." Kelsea said, matching his eyes with unblinking focus. "Breathe for me, Roland." Her hand stroked his cheek. He could feel the light press of her fingernail curving down his jawline. "Give yourself a second... yeah?"

Roland did as he was bid, holding his gaze upon her as he struggled to even his breathing. He wanted to cry, to huddle beneath the covers of the bed, to hide this ugly part of himself down in the deepest pit of his soul where it belonged. Forgotten. Unmourned and unremembered.

"Are you okay?" She asked. Roland shook his head back and forth, rendered incapable of lying now that his oldest one had died right before her eyes. He opened his mouth to speak, but only an emotional sigh issued forth. Her hand stroked his face, pushing aside stray locks of long, reddish hair.

Kelsea was his reference point. The look in her eyes, the smile she gave, the warm expression - despite her demonic features. Roland pulled himself with halting slowness back down to the baseline of his emotional spectrum. She kissed him, and he felt his body suffuse with her heat. His pain began to thaw, though the ignominy of it all remained. Like a raw, gaping wound.

"T-that-" He began, but had to swallow to hold back the bile in his throat. "That dream we 'shared' was the beginning of the Meld." He said at last.

"The what?" Kelsea asked, pulling him into her arms. Roland leaned his head against her shoulder, soothed by the slow trail of her fingers through his hair. She was so small, yet she took up the whole world.

"The Meld." Roland continued. "It's... something that happens to mortals, if they live long enough and are exposed to the same Demon repeatedly." His breathing finally steadied, "...You said you recall the location I was in during the dream, and the woman ya saw with me?"

"Yes." Kelsea said, "Chea was one of my mother's working girls. I knew her for most of my life. You were both walking up the main street to my mother's brothel, you passed right by it. The alleyway you and Chea went down was where my friends and I would meet to play every day."

Roland nodded, his mind racing with the image of Callie's true form. "The dream was a jumble of both our memories mashed together. But our minds cannot manage it all at once, we're forced to project other elements into the memory to fill in the blanks. You are merging them together. "

"So that was..."

"My memory. Yes." Roland said, closing his eyes. He couldn't bear to feel Kelsea's eyes upon him. "It was... partly the reason I left Loherhof."

"-Because of Callie." Kelsea said. "She glamoured you."

"She did more'n that." Roland replied, "I only realized years after it was finished about the glamouring itself. She did something to me, something to my memories of her. She used it to keep me in the dark about what she was for as long as possible. But I get these... flashes, and then-" He started to shiver.

"Roland." Kelsea said, pulling him to her bosom. Roland felt her arms wrap around him as he settled into her embrace. She rocked back and forth, holding him close as the weight of the world seemed to hang heavy over them both.

"I love you." He whispered into her shoulder. "I know I've never said it, but..."

"I know, Roland." She murmured back. "You never had to say anything."

"It's going to keep happening." He said, running his hands down the bare line of her spine. She was fascinating to touch. "It's only going to get worse."

"We'll handle it as it comes." She said, toying with his hair. "I'll be right here next to you, every step of the way."

Roland let out an emotional chuckle. "That's... part of the problem, you damned wench."

A forlorn smile came to Kelsea's face. "What else can we do?"

"We could leave." Roland enjoined.

"Stop saying that." She said. "You know you don't mean that."

"I do mean it." Roland said, having now lost what little inhibitions he had left.

"These people need us, Roland." Kelsea said.

"No." Roland said. "They need to be away from us. They need the Helstriders."

"They need both." She said, refusing to back down. "If it wasn't for Carl, if it wasn't for you, this whole town would have burned. We can't just abandon them now, when so much is at stake. Do you want what's happened to us, happen to them?"

Roland felt a pang in his chest, but he had to press the point. "Every minute you spend here is another step closer to the pyre. If they figure out what you are..." He tensed up.

"They won't. It won't come to that." She insisted.

"Kelsea." Roland said, sitting up out of her grasp. "Whatever choice yer going to make, make it. But don't lie to me and make promises ya can't keep, yeah?" He stared at her, "-If they discover who you are, I will defend you. With my life, if necessary."

Kelsea's gaze fell. "I would never ask you to do that for me."

"You wouldn't have to." Roland replied. "Nor would I stop to consider it. But this is the doom we have chosen."

Kelsea said nothing for a long time, the Demoness ran her fingers across his bare back. "...So you were invited to the Council of War, then?"

Roland nodded, pulling himself out of her arms and standing up off the bed. Naked, he stretched, feeling every errant ache in his weary bones. "Triss' fool notion. She thinks I'll have some invaluable insight in putting an end to these attacks."

"Never doubt that, Roland." Kelsea murmured, her wayward eye trailing across his bare form. Roland felt a stirring in his loins as he went to retrieve his clothes. "You are the only man I know who could slay a Demon so easily."

Roland let out a humorless huff, " 'Easily,' she says." He pulled on a white cloth shirt, "Nearly lost my life to it. And it took a Priestess of Gosvin and another Demon to wear her down enough for me to properly gut her."

"You're too modest."

Roland hid his smile behind his back, turning away from Kelsea to adjust his trousers and strap on his sword belt. "Mayhaps I am. But cutting a monster's throat is not the same thing as knowing how to outflank a horde of 'em."

"You'll advise them well." Kelsea said, smiling that guileless grin of hers at him. "You have more experience with Demons than most."

"I've more experience inside Demons than most." He corrected her, turning around and bending at the waist to plant a soft kiss on her lips as she sat on the bed. "What's yer business for the day?"

Kelsea's happy smile receded. "...I'll be helping Almyra with the wounded wherever she needs me. Otherwise, I'll be looking after Carl."

Roland shook his head back and forth, his shaggy red mane flowing in the dim morning light that streamed through the window. "You don't have to do that."

"I do." She said, a conviction in her voice that would brook no arguments. Roland swallowed back a platitude and made for the exit. "...Roland?"

He stopped, tensing in place at the heavy oak door. He heard her voice in his head. He knew what she was about to ask.

"Did you... was Callie...?"

"I loved her." He answered, allowing himself the barest of shrugs. "Maybe, in a way, she loved me too. Or maybe I'm twice the fool who fell for a lying whore with horns, yeah?"

"What happened to her, Roland?"

The snapping twang of bowstrings echoed like thunder in Roland's ears. "She died." Was all he said, "Count it a blessing, elsewise we'd have never met."

* * *

Roland arrived at the Council of War's makeshift meeting place just as the pale shine of the sun peaked above the blue horizon. The day was cold, bitterly cold. It was only moments after stepping outside that Roland felt the icy breeze settle like a waiting vulture in the depths of his bones.

They had chosen as their secluded spot the local blacksmith's forge, a half collapsed building in the Outer Cloister just a short walk from the tavern he had spent the night before. Scattered sounds of commotion could be heard inside the tavern as he passed, where doubtless many a wayward Helstrider had spent their dawn hours in drunken revelry.

There were no Cultists to be seen, for they had yet to emerge from morning prayers. The dearth of humanity in the empty streets near the graveyard made Roland nervous. It added an element of mortal isolation to his dreary trudge through the snow. Over the parapet of the Inner Cloister's walls, Roland could just make out the sound of distant chanting.

He pulled his cloak tighter about him, feeling the unsympathetic breeze of the frigid mountaintop caress his exposed skin once more. The fog was returning, and with it came the promise of future Demonic incursions. With that uncomfortable thought in his mind, Roland quickened his footsteps to the appointed meeting place.

The Blacksmith's forge had been left a shattered wreck in the aftermath of the recent demonic attack. Much of the building sagged to one side, like an old man half asleep at his bedside. Assorted tools and weapons were cast about the ground in disorganized piles, sticking out of the snowdrifts like blades of sharp, metal grass.

The only space one could safely stand in the field of twisted metal was beneath the tall overhang of the smithy, in the narrow workspace near the forge. The floor had been swept clean, and a small table fashioned from the smithy's smashed front door, cleared of splinters and set flat upon the heavy anvil. In the center of the table was a crude map of the local mountain range.

Clustered around the narrow space were the Helstriders: Triss, Tedric Merryman and a far more sober Hobber. They stood to either side of their hulking leader, Fabian. Roland tightened his jaw and approached.

Roland had never met Fabian the Slayer before, though he knew the man by fearsome reputation. He was tall, merciless muscle stacked atop a stern visage, regal in his ruggedness. He bore the battered body of a warrior: a heavy, muscled frame of murderous potential.

His bright brown eyes stared down at the map beneath him, reading something in its flowing lines of ink. Upon his deceptively brutish brow was the intense, contemplative look of a learned man calculating an abacus in his head.

"So, you're the mercenary then?" Fabian said, neither lifting his head, nor otherwise acknowledging Roland's presence.

"Aye." Roland said, stopping short of the overhang. He put his hand upon the pommel of his sword and adopted a relaxed posture.

"Roland Ronce? Second son of Duke Ganelon Ronce, Lord of Loherhof?"

Roland's brow tightened. He shot a short glare in Triss' direction, but she remained as stone faced as the other Captains. The breeze that blew through the smithy carried just a bit frostier than usual.

"...Aye."

Fabian didn't look up, his finger tracing some unseen line on the map beneath him. "What's a disgraced southern lordling doing squatting on this Gods-forsaken mountaintop?"

"Killing demons," Roland answered, "Same as you."

"Admirable." Fabian said, his brow lowering as he kept his gaze fixed to the map beneath him. "Auspicious too. You have chosen an unlikely killing ground for such a task. Most locals aren't aware that this village even exists."

"I've a good eye for finding easy work with little competition." Roland said, shrugging. Fabian gave no visible response to the dry jest.

"Seems competition found ya." Hobber piped up, spitting onto the snow in front of him.

Tedric Merryman's fingers toyed with the hilt of the long rapier at his waist. "How came you to this village?" He asked. His bare expression betrayed no familiarity with the man he was speaking to, as if their night of drinking the previous evening had been but a fevered delusion on Roland's part.

Roland sized the man up for the first real time. He was wiry, but strong. A clever warrior, if his distinct lack of scarring on his body was to be believed. The tawny mercenary was lightly armored, clad only in a thin, yellow gambeson of padded cloth. He toyed with his weapon as Roland spoke, shifting his weight back and forth every so often on his heels.

Roland continued. "My party and I were waylaid by a Hautviech on the High Road from Dornich, nearly a week ago. We were almost to Arjal when it attacked us."

Hobber, plain and scrawny as he was, let out a gruff grunt. "First Harpies, now a Hautviech? Is this plateau a portal to the Northlands?"

"Best hope not," Triss joked, "Else the snake-kin might slither out and mistake yer fat head for an egg."

"How many men were in your party?" Fabian asked, steering the conversation back to the point.

"It was just the three of us." Roland said. "The burned man you rescued - Carl Hale - was among them."

"How'd he get s'far from the party?" Hobber asked.

Roland glanced in the direction of the Inner Cloister, where Carl was convalescing. "He was with us when the Demons came. The Harpy attacked in the midst of the battle, probably looking to feast on the carrion."

Roland wondered where the helpful blue bird was lurking now. "Carl was hit by balefire, defending the inner walls. I wasn't there to see it, but my guess is, she saw a half-dying man and figured he was easy prey."

"As for why she didn't devour him?" Roland shrugged, "Damned if I know, but I'm glad she didn't. He's... a good man."

"What of your other companion?" Triss asked.

Roland's brow tightened as he turned to glare at her. "...My wife, Kelsea."

"You brought your wife up here?" Hobber asked, incredulous. Roland's lie had caught a snag.

"Wasn't by choice." Roland said, shrugging. "We were supposed to go to Arjal."

"What business brought you to the High Road in the first place?" Now it was Tedric's turn to press the question. "You weren't part of a company, elsewise you wouldn't be traveling with family."

Roland pivoted to face this new thrust. "What business is it of yours what my 'business' is or was?" He shot back.

"The business of slaying Demons. Same as you, yeah?" Triss responded. Her face was stern, but there was a distant twinkle in her eye.

In an instant Roland understood. This was a test.

"We have to be certain the kind of man we're dealing with." Tedric Merryman agreed, tossing his long dreads over his shoulder. "'Tis far too easy for Demons to squirm their way into their victim's beds."

"I'm fresh out of whore's cunt, at the moment." Roland said. "You want 'divine comfort,' go ask the Priestess of Gosvin."

"You's an outsider among outsiders. You don't belong here." Hobber growled. "And you's acting awful tight lipped fo' a man facing the bonfire."

"Are these to be my judges before the Gods, then?" Roland said, crossing his arms. "Two drunks, a mute, and a bitch?"

Triss guffawed. "I don't drink that much!"

"Answer the question." Fabian whispered, his cold tone cut through the air like a knife. A grim silence fell upon the group.

Roland knew then that he was but a stray word from mortal peril. "You want the truth?" He asked, fixing them with a hard look. Hobber, standing at Fabian's shoulder, nodded for him. "The Hautviech was just a story. A ruse to make the Cult let us through the gates."

Hobber expelled an annoyed huff of air. Triss grinned at the news, and Tedric let out a thoughtful hum. Fabian's brow narrowed. "We were attacked, to certain: but not by the Hautviech. We were on the run from a mercenary company known as the Briar Dogs."

"The Briar Dogs?" Tedric Merryman murmured, his soft voice humming like a harp. "A nasty bunch, if memory serves."

Hobber's disdainful snort put it far more succinctly. " 'Nasty' nothing, they're scum. They's the pricks who burned Reisau in the Twins War."

"Who sicced that sorry lot on you?" Triss said with a grunt.

"It was old business. Bad blood." Roland said. "A few weeks ago, Carl and I counted ourselves among their ranks."

"What changed?" Triss asked. The too-clever look in her eyes told Roland she already knew what he was going to say.

"Call it... a task too many." Roland said, "They told us to do something that neither of us had the stomach for."

"What was it?" Hobber asked.

"Something like Reisau." Roland replied. His hard look warned off any further speculation.

"So you tried to leave their service early, but they wouldn't let you?" Tedric said, stroking his beard.

Roland nodded. "Every tavern tale you've heard about them is true. Carl and I were both tired of it. We cut and run the first chance we got."

"A deserter then." Fabian's expression hardened. "I've no use for a deserter."

Roland spat at Fabian's feet, missing the toe of his polished steel boot by inches. "Desertion's a lesser sin when the misbegotten Company yer deserting is full o' sadists and rapists." He said, righteous anger rising to the fore.

Fabian's flat expression didn't change, but Roland saw a brief shadow pass over his eyes. "...You brought your wife with you in your flight?"

"Aye." Roland replied. "I had a room rented in Dornich, where she was livin' while I sold my sword. She was to join me and Carl with the horses as we passed through the city. We planned to make for Arjal in the night, while the rest of the Briar Dogs were in their cups."

"What happened?"

Roland shrugged. "They figured us out, somehow. Soon the whole company was after us, with less than a half day's head start." Roland grimaced at the memory of the High Road. "Cap'n Derion's a raw bastard. He didn't need our swords, he just chased us out of spite. When it was clear they would catch up to us before we reached the safety of Arjal, we abandoned our horses and risked the cliffs."