The Song of Roland Ch. 24

"-And ended up trapped on this accursed plateau instead." Tedric allowed another soft smile to grace his lips. "More's the pity."

"Why the ruse, Roland?" Triss asked.

A bell within the Inner Cloister began to toll, signaling the end of morning services. Roland nodded in its direction. "The Cult wouldn't let us in on honest pretenses. We were low on supplies and fending off constant attacks by Demons." He shrugged, "They mentioned the plateau being haunted by a Hautviech, so I fed them a lie and claimed that we'd killed one."

"A liar and a deserter." Hobber spat. He turned a resentful eye in the direction of Triss. "This is your 'expert' Demon slayer?"

"Ask the Cult what deeds I've really done, if yer so inclined to doubt." Roland said, not batting an eye. "I make no excuses fer my stint in the Briar Dogs, nor fer my lie to the Cult. I was the one who cut the Succubus' throat as she was burnin' the Inner Cloister to cinders. Had I failed, you lot would have ridden into a town of ashes and ghosts."

"One dead Demon don't make a man an expert." Hobber groused, but he seemed chastened by Roland's words.

Fabian let out a slow exhale. His Lieutenants all turned to look at him. "...How did you slay the Demon?" He said quietly.

Who helped you? Was the obvious question hidden in the weeds.

Roland tilted his head in the direction of the Inner Cloister. "Priestess Almyra kept her attention. I snuck up on her flank while the two were trading fireballs, and caught her unawares."

"What weapon did you use?"

"My sword." Roland patted the pommel. "Only thing I had on hand, at the time. Pinned her arm behind my back, and threw her down onto the earth using 'er own momentum." He raised his hand and mimed sawing back and forth. "Cut her throat from end to end, and then kept cutting till she stopped moving."

"Thorough, but messy." Tedric Merryman observed.

"As Beatrice tells it, this was far from your first kill." Fabian said. "How long have you hunted Huzra's spawn?"

"Ten years, near enough." Roland said. "On and off; I'm a mercenary before I'm a Demon hunter."

"Have you even been taken by a Demon, before?" Came the pointed question. "Glamoured, enthralled, rap-"

"Yes." Roland answered. He failed to keep the downward twist of his lips in check. Fabian was a keen man, sharp of wit and ill-disposed to trickery. He was not one to trifle with in this instance, not with something so personal. But inwardly, Roland bristled.

Far from being cold about the affair, Fabian nodded in respect. "As have I. 'Tis not a weakness to admit it. I was but a boy of ten when I cut an innocent man's throat at the behest of my mistress. Were I of saner mind, I'd have cut her throat instead... or my own." There was no emotion in his admission, merely a statement of fact. "Then you know the weight of our words, when we say that we must 'deal with the threat?'"

Roland's brow tightened. His hand went to the hilt of his dagger as he lifted it up and down in its sheath. "Yes."

Fabian's face did not shift its firm expression. His eyes staring with unflinching intensity into Roland's own. "We scour the mountain clean. Top to bottom, peak to pit. There can be no survivors, no 'scattered remnants' that might flee and make their accursed nests elsewhere. We must exterminate them all, or we die."

Roland nodded again. Fabian spared a half-glance in Triss' direction. "This is not a mere matter of formality. Demons are natural charlatans, able to change their form at will. This makes the hunting of our quarry especially difficult."

Fabian gestured dismissively in the direction of the inner walls. "There is little doubt that the village has been infiltrated by this malingering blight. The Cultists have been dishonest with us since the day they hired us."

"Yet, you trust me enough to tell me all this?" Roland asked.

"No." Fabian answered, "I trust only my brothers and sisters who take the Helstriders' oath. But you are known to one of my Lieutenants, and she has vouched for your authenticity. You're the closest thing we have to an informant in this insular village." He gave a stiff nod, "So, inform me."

"What d'you wish to know?"

Fabian's eyes narrowed. He put a hand down onto the table to balance himself as he leaned his considerable weight against it. "The Elf Witch has brought us here on false pretenses. She claimed we were dealing with a minor infestation, perhaps a single Succubus leading a small coven of Imps."

His lips twisted with distaste. "An easy tale to tell, when ensconced in the warm confines of an Arjal tavern. Had I known the level of resistance we would encounter, I would have dropped the contract immediately and dispatched riders to warn the local city-states of the threat, instead."

"These people need an army, not a company of mercenaries." Tedric agreed.

"We are stuck on this plateau." Fabian said. "Any attempt to retreat back the way we came would encounter as much or more resistance. We cannot protect the townsfolk if we were to make such a journey in a caravan. But neither can we abandon them to be made into still more Helspawn."

"We's stuck here." Hobber grunted, "Rats on a sinking ship."

Fabian nodded towards Roland. "What say you with regards to this Cult, Roland? Have they treated you fairly, thus far? Have they been honest with you?"

"They've treated my party fair enough." Roland said, chewing his lip. "As for honesty... they hold their tongues, and are loathe to reveal too much of their inner workings. But I do not see it as trickery, so much as distrust. All things considered, they have been quite tolerant of us, thus far. "

"Are there any in their number whom we can safely count on when the bloody business is upon us?" Fabian asked.

Roland considered the thought. "...Their priesthood are powerful spell weavers, and they are fiercely protective of their kin. You'd do well to make friends with their Priestess of Gosvin, Almyra. She's the closest thing they have to a leader, and has dealt truly with us since we first arrived."

"That Loriel too is... spirited." Tedric said, unable to help the wry smile that flitted across his face.

"What of the town guard?" Fabian asked.

Roland shrugged. "They gave a good account of themselves defending the Inner Cloister during the battle, but they are weary of warfare and short of good men. I would not count on their courage to last long in an open battle."

"-To say nothing of needing someone to guard their kinfolk while the company marches off to war." Tedric said, stroking his beard.

"The fire's outta their eyes." Hobber said with a dismissive wave of his hand. "Old men and green boys defending farmsteads. Fighting for their homes is one thing, going Demon hunting out in those Gods-forsaken wilds is another."

"No matter." Fabian said, "The task remains the same: we exterminate the Demon threat, by whatever means at our disposal."

Triss grinned her knife-cut smile. "The Roland I know is always up for a scrap."

Roland scowled at her. "-The Roland you 'knew' didn't have a wife and an injured friend to look after."

"If we fail, they're corpsefeed either way." Hobber said.

"-And an extra sword will be invaluable when the air is blazing with balefire." Tedric Merryman agreed, his long hair twirling in the mountain breeze. It was only then that Roland realized that they were all looking at him.

"Join us, Roland." Fabian said. He tilted his head in the direction of the village graveyard. A small crowd of the Cult's priesthood had turned a corner in that direction, and was now headed towards them. "The Cult seems to trust you well enough. We could use the weight of your words at this War Council."

Whatever test he had been subjected to, Roland had evidently passed it. He grunted, stepping beneath the overhang and joining the Helstrider officers around the map table as the Priests approached. He took his place directly to the left of Triss. She smirked and nudged his side with her elbow.

"That wasn't so bad, yeah?" She whispered in his ear with a teasing chuckle.

"Fuck you, Triss." Roland muttered under his breath as the remainder of the War Council arrived.

On the opposite end of the table gathered the representatives of the Cult. Guyles, the brave but unremarkable Captain of the town guard was there, hollow eyed, with scruffy brown hair flecked with grey. His large, grey mustache was his most defining feature, which he took to stroking periodically when he was particularly puzzled about something.

Next to him stood the squat frame of Maghas, clad in yellow robes of a stiff, papery material. The grim Dwarf's head only came up a few scant inches above the edge of the map table. His large, granitelike nose stuck out over the map like a fat, grey plum. Aside from the slight inhale of breath into his barrel chest, he could almost be mistaken for a stern, diminutive statue.

At his left stood Varrn the Minotaur, Shaman of the Beastfolk. He stood well over two meters tall, his large hulking frame silhouetted in orange robes of cured leather, threaded with cowgut. He looked cramped in the stunted confines of the smithy, bending his head low to avoid catching his long horns on the roof's crossbeam. His large, cowlike eyes swept over Roland in a brief moment of respect. He nodded at Roland, expelling a loud snort from his snout.

At the far end of the table across from Roland stood the beautiful, intimidating visage of Loriel, the Elven representative of the Wounded Spider cult. She moved with fey grace, her slender arms settling upon the top of the table with a gentle sort of beneficence.

She was curiously beautiful, alien in her allure. There was an otherworldly aspect to the way she moved, the way she spoke, the peculiar manner in which her autumnal hair twisted like swaying leaves in the breeze. She was dressed as she had been when she had first ridden into town on that strange steed of hers: clad in multifarious furs of a dozen assorted beasts.

The Elf's cancerous, sappy eye turned to focus on Roland first of the group. It held to him for a long, uncomfortable moment before shifting to look upon each of the Helstriders in turn. He saw her brow tighten imperceptibly as she stepped past the overhang and joined the group at the table, taking her place to Fabian's direct right.

"Is this all of us, then?" Fabian asked.

"Aye." Grumbled Maghas.

"Where's the rest of ya?" Hobber said, wiping cold spittle from the corner of his jaw.

"I take it the other priests won't be joining us, this morning?" Tedric Merryman asked, in a somewhat more cordial tone.

"No." Loriel said. "We still have many sick and wounded members of our congregation. Almyra, as Gosvin's voice, must tend to the flock."

"What about the skeleton-fucker?" Triss asked, her smarmy grin widening when the Elf scowled back at her. "Your necromancer friend?"

"He is indisposed." Loriel replied, in a voice like death.

"Oh ho!" Triss remarked, a shallow smirk announcing her unscrupulous intentions, only half-hidden with her hand. "How convenient. Seems awful easy to be a priest, nowadays."

"My Lady Loriel-" Guyles began, reaching towards the stiffening Elf.

But Loriel would have none of it. "Would you welcome a wolf into your den to drive out a bear?" She replied, barely concealed hostility lurking low in her angelic voice. "He is absent from this Council for good reason. Let us leave it at that."

"Enough, Triss." Fabian said, thankfully preempting a confrontation between the two women. "We are here to plan, not to spar." He planted his hands onto the table and stared directly at the Elven Priestess. "Loriel, you rode with us when we were climbing the pass. You know as well as I do how difficult the journey here was."

"I do." She said.

"If the road here was that trying, then your original estimate of one or two Demons leading this particular coven is - to put it charitably - a falsehood." His brow knitted together as he pointed at the snaking, narrow road near the bottom corner of the map, leading into the mountain range.

Fabian's finger traced the distance between the trail and the village on the map. "Now that the daylight is upon us, I've walked the perimeter, and gotten a good look at the size and scale of the battle that was fought here. Attacks of this size and ferocity could only come from a much larger coven, perhaps seven or eight full fledged Demons leading the horde."

"This is likely true." Loriel responded in a faint, defensive tone. "I did not know the true scale of the threat when I hired your company, Captain."

"What does this mean for our defenses?" Captain Guyles asked, with the worn tone of a man well aware of how out of his depth he was.

"It means you'd best polish yer spears and don yer armor, lest you be forced to gird yer loins instead." Triss said. "A coven of that size can sack a well-defended castle."

"Holding these walls means nothing." Fabian said. "It matters not if we withstood the first siege. The Imps would just return, and in fiercer numbers. So long as their dreaded masters are left alive, they would simply wear us down. Like waves crashing upon the beach."

"What is the state of your larder?" Tedric Merryman asked.

"Low." Captain Guyles said. "We're well into our winter stores at this point. Most of what we had was lost in the attack. We have weeks of food left, at most."

Fabian cast a dismissive hand in the direction of the Inner Cloister's Dwarven fortifications. "With the limited number of men and supplies at our disposal, we stand little chance of holding these walls for long. The only reason the Demons have failed to take the town so far is they have - in their typical, chaotic fashion - withheld the bulk of their forces, dispersing them in disorganized bands to rove across the countryside. It's doubtful that they will make the same mistake twice."

"Hence the lack of attacks so far." Tedric Merryman added. "They're building their strength."

"We should strike now before they can regroup." Triss said.

"Agreed." Fabian said, lifting his gaze to gauge the Cult members' response. "We cannot allow them to marshal their full might against us."

"Before I left to retrieve your company from the lowlands," Loriel said, "I hunted a massive pack of Imps, tracking them as they fled back to their misbegotten lairs." Her lyrical voice took on a particular brutal note as she spoke. "Though I failed to slay them all, I managed to pursue the survivors back to an open entrance. This entrance leads into the abandoned tunnels of Maghas' people."

"Kaz'Tyggm." Maghas rumbled, his voice gurgling with inhuman syllables. "The Deepmines."

Loriel gave a respectful nod in the direction of her fellow priest. "The creatures have made their vile abode somewhere in the ground beneath our feet."

Fabian frowned. "How deep do these mines go?"

"Deep." Maghas said, "Ancient Dwarven roads, carved by Dorthanc's Children in the Age of Stone. They flow to the roots of the mountain. Many paths, hundreds of chambers."

"We can't possibly hope to pursue them down there!" Hobber exclaimed, glaring at the little Dwarf as if he were about to name him a liar. "It's their damned pit! We'd be ambushed in an instant."

"B'fore it was theirs, it was ours." Maghas let out a low grunt that sounded more like a rockslide than an exhale. "I know deep paths. I will lead you."

"'Tis a dangerous proposition..." Tedric said, stroking his beard.

Triss guffawed, "'Tis the only one, as well. Lest ya want to be dining exclusively on Imp cock in the coming days."

"Where is this entrance?" Fabian asked, turning to stare at the Elven Priestess.

"Here." Loriel said, pointing on a spot on the map near the base of the mountain, at the far edge of the plateau. "The door can be discerned with the naked eye. It is less than a half day's travel from the village."

"Then we should make for it tomorrow at dawn." Tedric said, "Reach the entrance by midday, and catch the beasts unawares."

"There is another matter we must consider." Captain Guyles murmured. All eyes turned to him. He pointed on the map, to the very peak of the mountain. "The Monastery."

A short silence followed his statement. Loriel shot Guyles a dark look, to which the chastened Guard Captain lowered his head in contrition. Roland observed this unfolding exchange with curiosity.

"...What monastery?" Fabian asked. His bright eyes gleamed with suspicion.

Varrn, the Minotaur priest who had been silent thus far, let out a low growl, "Aska-veh tet." He snarled in Guyles' direction. The man grimaced and looked at the ground.

"S'nothing..." Guyles whispered, shifting uneasily on his heels.

"Now's a poor time to be keepin' secrets." Triss said, her easy smile disappearing from her face.

Fabian's gaze shifted suddenly to Roland. "Have you heard tell of this 'Monastery' before, Roland?"

All eyes were at once upon him. Put on the spot, Roland adopted a cool expression. "...Bogdan, the Death Priest mentioned it in passing when we first arrived."

Fabian nodded, turning his displeased glare upon Loriel. "What is this place? Why didn't you speak of it before?"

"It is nothing you need concern yourself with." She said. Her cancerous green eye stared with unflinching intensity in Roland's direction.

Fabian shook his head, "I will concern myself with whatever I please, Elf. If you're intentionally misleading me, then I'll take my men and ride back down the way we came."

"Ignorance is more deadly than balefire." Tedric Merryman agreed. "We're here to help you. But we can't fix a problem knowing only half the tale."

"You are asking overmuch, Mercenary." Loriel said, crossing her slender arms. "These are the deepest secrets of our Order."

"We's the fools and corpses who're keepin' you sorry lot alive, Elf." Hobber said, letting out a nasal snort. "Least you can do is talk straight wif us."

Loriel turned to her fellow priests for guidance. Varrn let out a frustrated snort and looked away, but stony Maghas gave a grim nod.

"...There is a trail that leads off from the northern road of the village." Loriel pointed in the direction of the northern gate, towards the foggy crown of the great mountain looming in the distance. "This trail leads to the mountain's peak. Atop the peak lies an ancient Dwarven Fortress, hidden in the clouds. Our founding Prophets converted it into a Holy Monastery for the proper worship of the Seven who are, and the One who is no longer."

"Why haven't you mentioned this Monastery before?" Tedric asked.

Loriel scowled. "It is forbidden to speak of it to outsiders. As it is, I am breaking sacred vows to tell you this. Were it not for the dire circumstances, you would have never known."

"How many of your Cult dwell within the Monastery?" Fabian asked.

"Hundreds." Loriel said. "It is where the bulk of our congregation now live."

Triss let out a low whistle. "They'd even the odds, I'd expect."

Loriel regarded Triss' knifecut smile with a look bordering on disgust. "They are monks, not warriors. The path to the Monastery is open only to those of our flock who have earned their place in it."

"What of the village?" Tendril said, gesturing. His hand pirouetted in a circle as he indicated the building around them. "If the Monastery is your home, what are you lot doing down here?"

"The village is where we teach our new neophytes to reach spiritual clarity in the eyes of the sevenfold Gods." Loriel lifted her chin, her slender features giving her an air of ageless wisdom. "Reaching the Monastery is an achievement, a holy effort attained through toil and worship. We, the priesthood, are tasked with aiding new converts in their path to enlightenment."