CHAPTER 852: UNWELCOME NEWS (PART THREE)

"I can’t let word of this get out yet," Bors said as he looked at the slips of parchment. "The man who received these messages is being kept under close guard, allowed to speak to no one until you retrieve him. Have him collect fresh birds from the coops and bring them with you to the Summer Villa."

"News like this... I can’t leave unverified. I’ve never heard of demon giants or demon wolves," Bors said as he furrowed his brow in thought. "If we’re lucky, the demons will have left bodies behind, but I doubt we’ll be so fortunate. But if there are giants, there are footprints you can measure, and if there are wolves, you can count their tracks," he said.

"I have to know that the messages were genuine before I do anything," Bors said. After all, even though the slips of paper were real and the seals and words were real, that didn’t mean they weren’t forgeries. Cleaver, demonic forgeries that would force him to send out an army in winter, ready to be slaughtered by ’giants’ and ’demon wolves.’

No, his enemy was clever, he thought. Clever enough to help Jocelynn pass herself off as his late wife in order to manipulate him. Clever enough to attack across the breadth of the frontier all at once. So clever, he thought, that it must be the Demon Lady of the Vale herself who was plotting against him. Perhaps she’d even taken Jocelynn as one of her minions when the young lady was visiting the Summer Villa in order to maintain the charade that Lady Ashlynn was still alive.

And if he was fighting against a puppet master like the Demon Lady of the Vale and her demon spawn, then she surely understood the cascade of events this raid would trigger. And that only became more true if he was right that Jocelynn was one of her demonic spawn.

Losing ’Lady Ashlynn’ in a demon raid was both better and worse than their plans to announce that she had died in childbirth, but the timing was all wrong and his plans had been distorted by the demon raids.

Now, instead of a city that would briefly mourn a natural tragedy, he would need to deal with the fear and anger of his people, who would cry out for demon blood to avenge their lost lady. In the spring, that could have been a rallying cry to recruit soldiers, but in winter, it could all too easily turn into fear that paralyzed people into demanding safety for their own towns and villages. After all, if even Lord Owain’s wife wasn’t safe from the demon raids, then who was?

"I need to know what really happened, as much as you’re able to learn," Bors said as he set down his empty goblet of wine with a hand that shook more than he wanted to admit. Part of him wanted to tell Gilander about the charade, that the ’Lady Ashlynn’ in the Summer Villa had been a simple serving girl whose name Bors couldn’t even recall.

He wanted to tell his old friend that he was afraid that the message was a fake and that the Summer Villa was a trap... but he couldn’t make his lips move to speak the words.

"I need answers," he said instead. "And I need time to prepare."

"I understand, your Grace," the veteran knight said as he looked at his lord with worried eyes.

It was obvious from the strain in his voice that the news had come close to breaking him. It was kind of Lord Bors to share wine with him and drink to the fallen Sir Cathal, but Gilander hadn’t forgotten that his liege lord had just lost a daughter-in-law and an unborn grandchild.

Perhaps Lord Bors was still holding on to some kind of hope, Gilander thought. With three copies of the message, it was unlikely that they were fake, and they all bore the correct seals and marks.

While it wasn’t impossible to forge them, it would be very, very difficult. But if Bors wanted him to make sure, then Sir Gilander was more than willing to go, even if it was a futile mission that gave his lord time to come to grips with the truth of his loss.

"Take your best trackers," Bors added, his hoarse voice pulling Sir Gilander from his thoughts. "If anyone escaped this massacre, I want to know of it," he said firmly, all but confirming the knight’s suspicions that Bors still clung to some hope for his daughter-in-law’s survival.

"But remember," Bors said sternly. "We’ve already lost one knight chasing demons near the Summer Villa, and Broll was a good fighter even if he was an arrogant git. You and I, we aren’t young men anymore, so watch yourself and come home in your saddle, not draped across it."

"And... if there’s anything left of Cathal," he added after a long pause. "You bring him home, too. Even if it’s just his armor. Stella deserves that much for all the times I’ve sent her husband away from her."

"I will," Gilander promised, pressing his fist to his chest in salute. "And if the Holy Lord of Light wills it, perhaps there will be survivors to bring home as well. Cathal is a good man," he said with a tip of his goblet. "Perhaps he traded his life for time enough for Lady Ashlynn to escape. There may still be hope, however small..."

He didn’t believe it. Demons didn’t take prisoners, and Lady Ashlynn’s condition was said to be frail, even without being little more than a month away from giving birth. But once again, Bors hadn’t mentioned her, as if he couldn’t bring himself to consider that Gilander would need to bring home her remains as well.

So, rather than promising to do the same for Lady Ashlynn as he would for Sir Cathal, he offered up a thin shred of hope even though he knew he would have to quash that hope in a few short days.

"Of course," Bors said as he stared into the flames of the hearth, though his mind had already moved on to other topics. "There’s always hope," he said softly. "Even if it’s just a candle flame, flickering in the wind," he said as reflections of the flames danced in his eyes. "Sometimes, all it takes is a little flame to set everything ablaze..."

He still had hopes. Hopes that Loman would return from Hanrahan Barony covered in enough glory that he could easily stand up as the heir to the Lothian throne. Hopes that he could keep Owain occupied long enough that the Church could claim him for the Templars before he caused trouble.

And more than anything else at the moment, he hoped that the Inquisitor who would arrive soon would be able to burn the truth of his enemy’s plans out of the whore from Blackwell county who dared to wear the face of his late wife in order to deceive him.

He needed answers about his enemy’s plans, and he was increasingly certain that Jocelynn was involved in all of this. But as much as he hoped for answers, he hoped even more that she would resist giving them, and that he could gaze on a very different set of flames as the Inquisitor burned away her lies in order to discover the truth...