The stranger answered. “What you seek is not here, for those in Qi Shi have abandoned such desires. But if your purpose must be for the cycle to continue, there are tales of a lost tribe surviving to the northeast. And if he yet lives, and if his city still stands, you might seek King Solomon. But beware. There is a mad dog loosed in the Tsaazaar, a black beast, and He has come as was prophesized.”
“Then we better hurry,” said the voice that was not Ba’al’s, that was not human. “You’re sure you don’t want to join us? Gautama?”
“There is no Gautama, Centurion. There is no ‘I.’ There is only the darkness.”
Sixteenth Verse
For their first four day’s north on the Valley Road, Ogdon felt like a real knight. Never before had he experienced anything more wild than Pareo’s domestic fields and beasts of burden. So as the road reached far from view of Ward Aureus to run along the white river rush of the Serpent’s Tail, every instance of unfamiliar creatures, trees, even buildings swelled Ogdon’s soul with a sense of adventure. It filled him with fire hot enough to fight off the cold of the early winter, though no flame could ever burn hot enough to ease the pain of Leonhardt’s icy shoulder.
Not until the fifth morning, as they were closing in on the great lake so called the Serpent’s Head, did she speak to him. The captain had ordered them to undress their coats of arms, to hide all sign that they were holy knights. It was shameful, and Gildmane attempted no explanation, and wouldn’t have had Brandon Harpe not protested on the spot. At once, Sir Schirmer scolded his squire, yet Ogdon saw the skepticism in the paladin’s eye. Emboldened, Sylvertre joined the dissent. He spoke openly and at length, expounding upon the virtues of being seen according to rank and title, that doing so solidifies the country’s social strata, that for order to be maintained the lower caste must know that they are low and that it is the rulers who rule. He was impressed with himself, with how fluidly he could rattle off the new philosophy fashionable among the nobles yet seemingly unknown by the fighting classes. Jael had not been so impressed.
“Idiot,” she’d called him, then with permission from the captain, she explained the reasons for his command. There was treason in the northwest; Gildmane claimed a letter as evidence, a threat sent from Duskhall in reprisal for the execution of Harold Blackheart. As members of the Cross, they’d likely be hunted as soon as they came into view of the Serpent’s Head. “So go ahead if you want,” Leonhardt spat, her eyes wide like a woman possessed, “show your noble colors and make a pretty ornament on a Blackheart lynching tree, or you can shove that archaic horse shit right back up your ass!” The captain applauded her for that, laughing. The others were kinder, remaining silent and averting their eyes as Ogdon flushed.
He was happy that she had at least acknowledged him. It was all he had their first night pitching the tents and braving the wilderness. Thus far, there had been inns or taverns or even just a farm house stables the Cross could stay in. But on the high road climb overlooking the lake, the only shelter to be found were in the hills and forest: caves and abandoned lean-tos too dangerous to trust. For they were truly in the west, land where the wild was never fully beaten back, where the only hunters were great gray wolves and lumbering black bears, where in the furthest depths danced depraved pagans in their ritual worship of the Devil’s legion.
Ogdon imagined all this and more as he hammered pegs binding the thin ropes of his tent. They’d chosen the driest spot they could find, a high knoll overlooking the murky waters of the Serpent’s head, yet still every hammer fall spattered mud over his trousers and jerkin. He hated it, that Trey’s craven command had saved his surcoat. And the longer Sylvertre brooded, the more it seemed to him that the captain arranged for it to be so—that he chose to take the high road so his orders would actually serve a purpose, so that he could take advantage of their few two-man tents—take advantage of Jael. It infuriated Ogdon when he found out that the captain and Leonhardt would be sleeping under the same canvas while he would be relegated to staying alone in his own tent—a wall of woven cloth the only thing between him and the feral darkness. And so that evening, the deserted squire sat at the fire gnawing bits of blood sausage and unleavened bread, angry and afraid as he watched the sunset behind the trees across the green, bubbling lake.
Sleep came hard as the death-grip on Ogdon’s sword as he shivered and listened to the hellish blasts of bog gas and the chattering madness of mole crickets. They played incessant on their demon fiddles while in the distance wolves sang baleful tones to be droned by choirs of owls—every once in a while, a bloodcurdling scream—so that even his dreams teemed with unseen beasts. It was fitful sleep, what little Sylvertre got. By predawn he lay awake, cramped, and exhausted. Then, of a sudden, he thought he was dreaming again. Through the thin of his canvas walls, he saw the dim of light to the west.
He pulled on his boots and woolen cloak and crawled out into the open with his sword bare. The rest were still aslumber, snoring softly in the silent air. True silence—there were no infernal crickets nor howling owls—only quiet and darkness, their fire killed by morning dew and mist floating up from the surface of the Serpent’s Head. And there to the west, a lone light, small and golden. A Swamp Ghast, thought Ogdon of his wet-nurse tales about will-o-the-wisps
