Oathbreaker: A Dark Fantasy Web Serial

Arc 5: Chapter 8: Cackling Death

Several things happened at once.

The sudden, abrupt empty space where Catrin had been took me off guard, even though I’d expected it. She seemed to sink into the sheets, as though a hole had opened in the bed, and then just… wasn’t there.

The door exploded. A shower of splintered wood fragments and dust tore across the bedroom. Something came through the window on the room’s opposite side, blurring fast and eerily silent.

I leapt, going for my axe even as I hurled the sheet as an impromptu shield between me and the erupting door. Something got tangled in it, barreling into the bed I’d left empty in a ripping, flailing mess. But the second one who’d used the window wasn’t tangled. I heard a soft thunk as they landed on the bedpost, along with a series of softer clicks.

I ducked. Something, a blade, slashed through the cloud of dust where my neck had been an eye blink before. I lunged for the wall, grabbed my axe, and swept it up and around my head. The second blade, which would have skewered through my spine, instead broke off Faen Orgis’s keen edge, spinning through the air to embed itself in a rafter.

I did all of this without really seeing who was in the room with me. I didn’t think, didn’t bother strategizing or making demands. Just acted, my world a chaos of sound, motion, twitching reflex, and clenched muscle.

Survival.

The attacker I’d almost died to went stumbling back, off balance from the force of my parry. I heard an odd noise, a rhythmic clicking, wood and metal shifting with stiff, jerking motions. The bedsheet I’d thrown fell away as whatever had been tangled in it shredded free.

The dust from the destroyed door cleared, and I got a look at my would-be killers. There were two of them, and neither were human. They were human sized but on the smaller side, both barely more than five feet tall, with cylindrical torsos and arms segmented by brassy spheres at each joint. They were mostly wood otherwise, their heads perfectly round and carved with deep slits for eyes and mouth, permanently fixed in expressions of squinting confusion.

Their hands ended in weapons. A short blade of steel on the left, and a two-faced hammer on the right with a sharp spike on one end and a hexagonal bludgeon on the other.

Marions. Dolls animated by sorcery, and crafted for murder.

They crouched side by side, clicking and contorting like spiders of brass and wood. I heard a loud thud from downstairs, a shout, and my blood froze. There were more, and they were attacking Emma and Catrin too.

From within the slit mouth of the left Marion, a hollow little giggle emanated.

They would be strong. One of them had smashed through a solid door in a moment. They would be fast, and possibly have hidden weapons within those cylinder torsos.

I had faced worse horrors, but was also naked just then. It would only take one slip to get a blade in the heart or a cut throat. Easy enough to go for my stomach, or slice an artery on my thighs. My magic could heal most wounds quicker and cleaner than natural, but it wasn’t instant. If I took a lethal or maiming injury, that would be that.

I tightened my axe, tensed, and waited. These things would be faster than me. I would need to react on pure, perfect reflex, or I’d die. One of the Marion’s tilted its head, an almost curious gesture, and again made that muted tittering sound.

Another heavy impact from downstairs. I flinched, and both Marions flicked into action with the grating sound of cackling wood.

I swung, barely aiming, and felt impact tremor through my limbs. The Marion on the left split in half, splinters of wood and metal bits flying in a shower as I smashed it. It was mostly wooden rope on the inside.

Its blade would have gone right through my ribs, but it happened to be the dagger I’d broken before. It left a deep gash, the jagged edge grating along bone, but didn’t punch through. Even still, the bright flash of pain, the grinding sensation of it, made for a sickening pressure.

I’d aimed in such a way as to slam my target against its companion. They both went down in a jumble. They were heavier than they looked, but ungainly. The one I’d cut went still, while the other thrashed and clicked as it tried to disentangle itself.

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Marions are a nightmare, among the worst weapons employed over the course of the last century. They’d been forbidden by the clergy generations back, but many noble Houses, not all of them Recusant, had ignored the ban. Then, during the Fall, entire platoons of the murderous dolls had been unleashed.

They were efficient, indiscriminate killers. Entire castles had been left as nothing more than bloodstained, abandoned shells by mere squads of these things. They had been used as shock troops and suicide soldiers on blasted battlefields across the war’s many theaters.

Or as assassins, like these.

Here, in such close quarters, they were at their most deadly. The wound on my chest bled down over my stomach already. I ignored it, and the foe I hadn’t destroyed, and went for the door. All I had in my thoughts right then were the two women downstairs, and that they might already be dead.

A third Marion waited on the stairs. It crouched low, so I didn’t see it until I’d crested the lip, then hurled itself at me. They had some sort of spring built into their limb joints, and it made a harsh, barking crack! as it launched itself.

I’d known there was a third out on the stairs. Even still, I nearly died right there from the thing’s sheer speed. It struck me, barreling us both back. All the wind went out of me in a wheeze. But I’d caught the thing under my arm, trapping its blade hand against one side of my body and its neck against the other. We skidded back, my bare feet sliding over rough wooden boards.

I would have started to choke a normal man, leaving them in too awkward a position to do much more than punch into my hip. But the doll’s articulated hammer hand bent back, further than any human limb could have. It slammed the iron bludgeon into my back. The strike sent a flash of pain through the point of impact, breaking skin and bruising muscle.

It wasn’t a big or particularly heavy hammer — probably for smashing glass, prying away obstacles, or cracking a skull with a hard enough strike. A carpenter’s tool, improvised into a weapon. Deadly enough if used properly.

The Marion hit me again, in the knee this time. I let out a gasp as that leg buckled. I fell to one knee, still keeping hold of my captive.

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Broken? I couldn’t tell, not in that moment where the numbness preceded the agony. I heard clicking from behind me. The Marion inside the bedroom had disentangled itself from the dead one.

I bared my teeth, let out a muted howl to drown out both the panic and the noise of accumulating injuries, and squeezed.

The Marion was made from good, smooth wood, but had been fashioned to be nimble rather than sturdy, and I poured every ounce of strength I could muster into my arms. The creature’s torso broke, cracking along its seams. It continued to flail, striking me in the arm, the calf, the thigh. It turned the little hammer, this time to punch the spiked back end into me.

I gained both my feet, turned, and swung the Marion like a bludgeon just as the one behind came at me in a whirling, spinning fury which left its spherical head facing stoically forward. Their torsos were segmented, I realized, allowing them to spin their arms and legs without changing direction.

The one I swung went right into its whirling companion. More wood cracked and splintered as they collided, neither able to halt their momentum. I hurled them both down the stairs as they clacked and clicked, still chopping into one another in a blind rage, their limbs getting tangled together like some macabre vision of two overeager lovers.

With my axe hand free, I stomped down the stairs. Another lightning bolt of pain shot through my leg, and I nearly fell right into the monsters, catching myself against the wall. One of the dolls looked at me, its squinting rectangular eyes spinning in my direction.

I righted myself, lifted my axe with one hand, and swung down just like a farmer chopping winter firewood. The carved face split in half with a sharp crack!

I swung again, and ropes held taut as a catapult mechanism snapped, almost taking out one of my eyes as they lashed like whips. The Marion went still as that improvised musculature lost its integrity.

The remaining one disentangled itself, ripped its companion’s hammer hand off with a single brutal jerk, then lashed it at me. I blocked it with the flat of my blade, nearly tumbled over the side of the stairs as my injured leg slipped, and nearly had my stomach opened by a follow up slice from the Marion’s blade hand.

The thing was dextrous and could swing and contort in any direction it wanted, and attacked relentlessly.

But I had the high ground, and the weight.

I jumped on it feet first, sending us both tumbling down the stairs. We landed with a jarring impact that brought all my weight down on the creature. The Marion’s hollow torso split. Caught by the momentum of falling down half a flight of stairs, I rolled off it, hit the corner wall at the bottom, and added another future bruise to my growing collection.

“Ughuh…” I groaned, even as boiling adrenaline forced me to my feet. I took a guard, ready for the evil puppets to keep on the offensive.

No further attack came. One was dead, splintered and in pieces, and the one I’d just tumbled with twitched like a dying insect next to it. I’d damaged something it needed to move.

Standing with a long, slow inhale, I stepped forward and brought my axe down. The puppet’s struggles ceased.

I took six panting breaths, my heart hammering in my ears, then turned in a drunken stumble toward Emma’s room. It had gone quiet in the house.

“Catrin?” I called out in a hoarse, guttural voice.

“I’m alive.” Her voice came out of the darkness. The bedroom door lay slightly ajar.

I stared into the darkness, lit in pale amber hues as the aura in my eyes brightened in reaction to the gloom. Some Marions could mimic voices. I recalled the hollow laughter these had made.

“When did I first let you taste my blood?” I asked.

From directly behind me the dhampir said, “Baron Orson’s castle, after that tunnel with all the bat leeches.”

I flinched, turning. She’d emerged from the shadows into a patch of moonlight coming in through the open window. She was still naked, with a fresh cut on one shoulder and a bruise forming on her left cheek. The cut didn’t bleed much, the blood dark and viscous as it made a slow trail down the curve of her upper arm.

“Emma?” I asked.

“Not there,” Catrin said. “Her sword is gone, so I think she must have gone out before the attack. One of those things jumped me going into her room, but I tore it up.”

She must have gone out to give us privacy. It had probably saved her life.

“You’re hurt,” I said.

Catrin flicked a thumb across the wound and brought it to her lips, dabbing at it with her tongue. “I’ll be fine. You’re not the only one tougher than most.” Her eyes went to the slice on my chest. “They got you, too.”

Her eyes brightened as she stared at the weeping wound. I watched her nostrils flare once, and a shudder run through her.

“I need to find Emma,” I said, keeping her focused. “There might be more of these.”

Catrin nodded, tearing her gaze away from my injury. “Don’t they usually have like… a handler?”

“A puppeteer, yes. Marions can act independently, but I don’t think these are. These are assassins. Their master will be close.”

“Let’s go then.” Catrin started to move. “I’ll get bandages for that wound, and—”

I grabbed her by the arm. “You should stay here.”

In response Catrin spun, took my hand by the wrist, and lifted it to her mouth to bite into my palm with one fang. The motion had a calm, deliberate quality. She broke the skin, staring at me the whole time with brightly red eyes before pulling away.

“I’m no damsel, Alken. Let me help.”

I hesitated a moment, my attention lingering on her injury, then relented. “Fine.”

Catrin aimed a finger at me. “Stay there.”

Without explanation, she stepped back and sank into the shadows again. She reemerged into the moonlight several minutes later with an armful of items, dumping my shirt, breeches, and boots on the ground in a heap. My hauberk too, letting it collapsed in a weighty clank.

I set my axe against the wall and dressed at speed. Catrin had dumped some rolls of linen I kept in my room with the clothes, and I wrapped them tightly around my chest to cover the open wound. It needed stitches, but there wasn’t any time. My Alder given vitality would probably prevent infection, but not death by blood loss.

Catrin hadn’t grabbed her own clothes, remaining pale and naked. She clutched a length of deeply red material in her fist — my cloak. I reached for it, but she took a step back.

“Nope,” she said. “I’ve got a plan.”

Then, with a flourish, she wrapped the cloak around her shoulders.

I grimaced. “Cat, no. I’m not going to use you as a decoy. Besides, you’re too short.”

The cloak trailed along the ground behind her. Even still, Catrin just smiled and pulled the pointed cowl up over her features, drowning her whole face in black save for twin points of red and the flash of sharp teeth. She seemed very much the vampire, then.

“Just trust me.”

Then she stepped back into the shadows again, vanishing. I cursed, realized I was wasting time standing around. I grabbed my axe and started moving.

Catrin had just handed over my coat of black rings, not all the other pieces of steel I usually strapped on with it. No time to fully armor myself, anyway. I moved to the door, finding it locked but not bolted. More evidence Emma had gone out at some point. The Marions must have come through the windows, using their small forms and clever tools to slip in. I remembered shuttering and latching the one in the main room.

Assassins. I’d known about that risk. My mind whirled as I moved out into the harbor town, thinking through who might have sent them.

Too many possibilities. Figure it out later, make sure your squire is still alive now.

A ways down from my home’s front door, I found Rudy. He still sat by the edge of the canal, his pole held in stiff, pale hands. I approached, calling his name. No response. Soon enough, I had my suspicion confirmed when I caught sight of his staring eyes.

The Marions had cut his throat first to silence him, then stabbed him repeatedly in the back. His blood dripped into the canal from where it had started to pool between his legs. The puppets had aimed for his kidneys and lungs.

Marions aren’t mindless automatons. Their makers bind spirits into them, and not always human ones. They can take a cruel delight in butchery.

The man’s glazed eyes stared at nothing. He’d been an old widower, a veteran who’d fought for the Bough during the war, with three sons who worked as ship hands. When he’d learned I had also fought the Recusants, he hadn’t even asked questions. He’d just agreed to keep a lookout on our house, let me know if he saw anyone snooping.

“I’m sorry,” I told the man I had gotten killed. Then I went to find the one responsible.