Valkyrie's Shadow

Chapter 11

Leather straps creaked as Ludmila tightened a steel bracer snugly over her wrist. She checked over her equipment one last time.

The set consisting of the gambeson – she was still paranoid that carried the scent of smashed cockroaches – and the various steel pieces that she had purchased from Mesmit’s Forge were still not quite broken in, but it was functional where it counted. There were two quivers of arrows fastened to her belt in addition to the dagger and axe she had purchased the same day. Reaching out to pick up her sallet, she placed it over the layer of cloth covering her hair and fastened the chin strap. She lowered her visor, and the helmet closed neatly over her bevor and gorget.

Clara, Liane and Florine stood around her; several others around the camp kept glancing in their direction as well. Ludmila focused on her equipment as she donned it, but she couldn’t help but feel that she was being watched like some rare animal.

“Well,” she lifted her visor again to pull on her gauntlets, “how do I look?”

Clara gave her a once-over, her gaze settling over Ludmila’s torso.

“Like an Adventurer?”

Ludmila’s hand came up to feel the metal tag fastened below her collar. It was her first time wearing it since returning from the strange Adventurer exam just over three days ago. Little did she know that it’s first use would be as part of a disguise.

“That’s what I was trying for,” she said. “I’ll be going on ahead; I’ve assigned one of the Shadow Demons to guard you just in case something goes wrong on your end.”

“At what point will it act?” She asked, continuing to examine the darkness for the Demon within.

“It will defend you if it recognizes that you are being attacked, and try to eliminate any assailants if doing so doesn’t put you and the others at risk,” Ludmila said. “You can also order it to attack if you feel that conflict is inevitable and want to strike preemptively. Just make sure you get to safety as quickly as possible if fighting breaks out: the Shadow Demon can easily overpower anyone Jacqueline has working for her, but it cannot defend you at all times from all directions. The less it has to focus on keeping you safe, the faster it will remove any threats.”

Her friend nodded in understanding, but her worried expression did not fade.

“Are you going to be okay going into the town on your own?” Clara asked.

“Common thugs aren’t likely to pick a fight with an equipped Adventurer,” Ludmila answered. “Besides, I’m not going on my own: I have the other two other Shadow Demons with me to check around the town to measure the reaction to your audience with Jacqueline Fassett.”

The first move they had decided on was to ‘inform’ Jacqueline Fassett through the course of their audience that an inspector from the Royal Court was due to arrive within the day to perform a thorough audit of the town. By doing so, they hoped that she would make some sort of effort to move her forces out of sight. If it succeeded, they would employ the same ruse against Campbell the next morning, then clean up the separated groups.

Hopefully it would give the siblings a push in the right direction once they realized they had been rendered impotent – if it even worked at all. If not…well, Ludmila supposed it hardly mattered at that point and she would have to drag them out of their manors by force. Doing things as neatly as possible was the goal now, with what time that they had. There were still the days of cleaning up that needed to be done after paralyzing both factions.

The plan amounted to removing the leadership and their major supporters, tying up what loose ends they could, and praying that their work was enough to appease the Royal Court. It was not the best plan by any stretch of the imagination, but it was far better than what could be achieved with the woefully insufficient means that the House of Lords had dispatched them with on the outset of their task.

Ludmila slung her shield over one shoulder and a half-empty satchel over the other. She retrieved her longbow and spear from where they leaned against the carriage, setting out from the encampment towards the town as the other noblewomen prepared to leave in their carriage.

After a light jog, she approached the gate of the town ten minutes later. The militia sentries only took notice of her when she entered the circle of torchlight that extended about 30 metres from the sturdy wooden gatehouse – well, one of them did, at least. He loudly called the others’ attention towards her and the two standing in the wooden towers above readied their bows. The second man on the ground nearly tripped over himself after being startled from his nap.

The first sentry gave her a once over as she approached, while his partner bent forward to recover the spear he had dropped on the ground.

“That’s far enough,” he called out to her. “What are you doing here, Adventurer?”

Ludmila came to a stop on the highway twenty metres from the gate. Despite the poor lighting, he had spotted the small Iron Plate from beyond that distance. However inept the other sentries were, the first man was neatly making up for their shortfalls. She was an easy target if the two on the wall were practiced archers, and there was more than enough time for the two men on the ground to react if she charged the gate. The manner by which he handled himself and managed risks spoke of his experience as a veteran of the town militia.

“I came from out east,” Ludmila answered.

“From Crosston?” He raised his eyebrows, “That’s quite a trip for a day in that kit, even for an Adventurer.”

“I thought I’d be able to stop in the village south of here,” she explained, “but there’s some sort of commotion going on there.”

“What kind of commotion?” The sentry frowned.

The distant sound of hooves turned her attention away from his question. From the south, the lights of twin carriage lamps approached. Ludmila stepped over to the side of the road as it came up to the gate.

“You’re back,” he spoke up to the driver. “What now?”

“Countess Corelyn and her entourage: to visit Jacqueline Fassett,” the driver declared their purpose in a somewhat flat voice, pointedly ignoring her presence.

The sentry seemed like he wanted to say something, but thought better of it and waved them through. The carriage disappeared around a bend in the road and the man cleared his throat to spit on the ground.

“That driver didn’t even look at me,” Ludmila frowned. “Think he’d have just run me over if I stood there?”

“Probably,” the man grunted. “Some haughty nobles from out east. The Countess probably brought ‘em in to get them to help with this whole mess. They aren’t staying at the manor; not the town either. They set up some sort of camp up on the hill back there – you probably saw it coming in. Up to no good, if you ask me.”

“If not the manor, why not the town?” She asked, “Camping outside doesn’t seem like something nobles would do.”

“Hell if I know,” he shrugged. “Maybe they saw the prices in town. Well, probably not – nobles from around the city are filthy rich. Now: you were saying there was some sort of commotion in the big village down south…”

“Uh…yeah,” Ludmila cleared her throat. “There were some coaches with the new kingdom’s flags. Men in uniforms. Undead soldiers too. The men in Fassett colours around the square looked worried.”

“You hear anything about who came?”

“Just some sort of official,” Ludmila replied. “I didn’t care to find out with all those Undead hanging around. They’ve taken all the work – can’t make a living here anymore.”

“Staying in town, I guess? Roads aren’t safe at night past the border.”

“Can an Adventurer even afford to stay here now? You said something about the prices…”

“Iron could, maybe,” the sentry scratched his jaw. “I wouldn’t hope for more than the common room though. Food’ll probably double the price for the night.”

Despite already knowing about it, Ludmila could not help but grimace. In Fassett County, one could engage in slavery and trafficking of contraband with little but a slap on the wrist upon being caught. Those that went out to hunt and forage to feed their starving families were charged as poachers and thieves, turned into slaves themselves or simply added to the bodies hanging from the gibbet in the town centre.

She stepped forward to pass through the gate, and felt the gaze of the sentries pass over her figure once again.

“Countess is looking for strong fighters to help keep things tight down here,” the first sentry spoke again. “Pays better than what an Iron makes, more reliable too – and you won’t be out risking yourself fighting Demis and monsters.”

Her brow furrowed at his proposition.

“Adventurers don’t interfe–”

“Right, right, I heard it,” he waved her through with a lazy smirk to his fellows.

Ludmila’s initial estimation of the man had been fairly high, due to how he performed as a sentry. By the time she walked through the gate, however, it had sunk to somewhere just below the muck one would scrape off their boots after a long patrol. Rather than a capable official that promoted order, he was a capable official that facilitated crime and corruption. It would have been much better if he had been as incompetent as the others on his watch.

The view of the town streets differed little from what she had seen from the windows of the carriage the previous day: the wide, paved route of the highway curved through the town, lined with merchant inns and the storefronts of businesses that catered to both travellers and county citizenry alike. Beneath the thin veneer of the swept highway and its festive decorations, signs of the town’s true nature peeked out from every narrow street and alley. The scarce few who dared brave the streets at night were no less than what one might have expected out of a scene painted by a tavern bard: men and women that kept to themselves and the shadows, with hands that constantly drifted over their sidearms.

She stopped to look up at the bodies hanging over the central square, which swung gently in the wind amidst fluttering flags of every colour. The gaze of the militia sentries followed her slow walk along the road. It was not just them – every thug, orphan waif and beggar seemed to pause what they were doing to watch her as she passed. Though it was meant to be a disguise, the shining steel and clean linens of her carefully maintained equipment in these surroundings was about as conspicuous as a pair of Death Knights stomping through the street.

Continuing up the road under this scrutiny, she felt a tug at her arm. She turned to see a woman who stood at roughly the height of her shoulder, sporting a head of dark red hair braided into a long tail behind her.

“Looking for a place to stay the night?” She smiled playfully, “I’ll take real good care of ya.”

A hand with thin fingers and dull, dry nails reached out to lightly trace a line over Ludmila’s polished gorget as the woman closed to press against her.

“Er, I…wait, what?”

Two armed ruffians across the road exploded into laughter at her reaction. Ludmila felt her face heating up as she pulled away from the woman and quickly walked away with the sound nipping at her heels. The prostitute clicked her tongue, and Ludmila didn’t slow her pace again until she was nearly to the other end of the town.

A small part of her had wanted to wander around and personally observe the streets, hoping that the conclusions that they had made with their reconnaissance efforts missed some small bright side to its people. Having covered most of its length along the highway, however, she couldn’t say that she had seen anything that suggested there was any case of this being true. The people had their own lives, families and circumstances, to be certain, but there was nothing that spoke of defiance or resistance to the common practices of the townsfolk.

After a time however, she came to realize that any such beliefs would surely be held close to survive, and not something she could discover so casually. Rather than agonize over whether such people may or may not exist, she headed straight to a point on the map of the town she had memorized.

There were two gates leading out of Fassett Town. The first was the south gate, which she had entered from. The second was the northwest gate, where the pavement of the highway stretched out for another ten or fifteen kilometres before reaching the border between the Sorcerous Kingdom and Re-Estize. Finding a corner draped heavily in shadows, brushed off an old crate before seating herself upon it.

“They should have just arrived at the manor,” she told one of the Shadow Demons, “so start keeping track of what’s going on around the city. Check the south gate once in a while though – if it looks like the camp is going to be in trouble, assist in its defence.”

It nodded in affirmation before flickering away to carry out its orders. The second Shadow Demon looked up at her with its yellow eyes.

“I guess it’s just you and me now,” she said to her translucent escort.

Settling herself in the darkness, Ludmila did her best to conceal her presence, assuming her quiet vigil.

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