The Ghost's Crusade

Chapter VIII: Drystan

“Goats?”

The cover of the book was thoroughly scorched and flaking away beneath his touch like the shedding skin of a growing snake, but the central pages were not so badly damaged as to be completely unreadable. Several entire passages were intact, none of which Drystan had the desire to read himself. Had whomever set the camp doused the fire with a bucket or two of water before they left it most certainly would have been destroyed. He supposed they were counting on the highland rains to finish the job for them.

“Shocking what they've found they can do with goat's blood in the decades since your zealots last got their hands one one of those,” replied Akkali. “And by 'shocking' I mean shit you're dealing with on your own.”

“Guess we should thank Junan for the fact that he wasn't smart enough to wet the ashes before running away,” quipped the Inferi with a smile.

Akkali rolled her eyes towards the forest canopy for the hundredth time that day and set back out towards Baedorn, this time heading for the main road in instead of trekking through the underbrush. “I thank your god all the time for making most of you utter morons. It is such a boon.”

“Good to know you're in a better mood!” he called after her chidingly.

She pulled the hood of her coat up over her head and saluted him over her shoulder with a vulgar motion. Sitting back on his heels and watching her walk off with a critical scowl, Tiernan crossed his arms flat against his chest. Thankfully he waited until he thought Akkali was out of earshot before he said anything further.

“You didn't leave us for her, did you?” he questioned with a sneer, hiking his thumb in the direction she had walked off in. “Because she has all the charm of a pit viper. Normally the girls you fraternized with were more... vapid. And not as blatantly vicious."

Drystan handed the burned book to his old friend and the Inquisitor placed it inside the small satchel at his back, deciding to ignore his comment on vapid women. Tiernan would have to take it back to the Rectory and submit it as Inquisitorial evidence, and Drystan had no further use for it himself. Naturally nothing would come of it unless they brought in the actual Oratio who had attempted to burn it, but at least they would have it for the future. The forbidden reliquary of the church was full of such items, painstakingly cataloged, filed away, and ultimately forgotten when no one was brought to trial for owning them. It was called the “Reliquary of the Abyss” for good reason.

“She's just in a bad mood because of that fight in the alley. You know that saying 'Inferno hath no circle more terrible than that of woman's wrath'? Hers is the wrath they were talking about.”

“That's... good to know. But do I get a straight answer?”

The man nodded towards the road and they set off. “No, I really did leave to go back to Woad Plains. I only met Akkali after I came back to the north.”

“All right then.” Tiernan shook his head. “But I'm still angry with you.”

“I figured you would be.” He laughed. “I never thought you'd leave Whiteshire, truth be told. You worshiped Marshal Inquisitor.”

“Wasn't that hard a choice. Æbenforth left.”

Drystan froze mid-stride and gave a slight hiccup of surprise. “He what?”

The taller man did not bother to stop and left his friend to catch up with him as he continued along at his quick long-legged pace. “About a year after you left he parted ways with the Inquisition too. It wasn't the most... cordial of severances, either.”

“You're having me on. There's no way that man left.”

Tiernan shrugged. “He defended you against the Cardinal when he showed up in Whiteshire. There were quite a few things of... impolite nature said between them. A day later he left. Said he'd 'had enough of bending over and taking it from the idiots with rods.' Whatever that means.”

A nostalgic grin formed on the Inferi's face. His friend never had been one to grasp a vulgar innuendo. It had always been a running gag among the initiates how most of the dirtier jokes they made, littered with all sorts of euphemisms for sex and the various organs and orifices involved, went straight over his head and into the aether. Eventually it became such a well-known fact that making them up on the fly and running them past Tiernan just to see his myriad of confused expressions had turned into something of a game among them, and even though they were forbidden by their vows to gamble, Drystan had always found a way to win the bets.

The smiled faded as they walked on and his thoughts wandered back towards his early days growing up in the Rectory. It was difficult for Drystan to believe how much had changed. When he had been at the Rectory in Wardenfell he could never have imagined that Æbenforth would ever be anything other than an Inquisitor. The clearest thing he could remember about the man aside from the jagged scar across the right half of his forehead was the pride in his gray eyes as he spoke of being among the Inquisitorial ranks. Pride in roaming the countryside investigating leads on espiri witches and rogue mages preying on innocent men and women and bringing them to justice—in many cases by severing their heads.

Any number of things could have changed, but that was the one thing that Drystan had always believed to be carved in stone: Markus Æbenforth, Marshal Inquisitor. Never shall he hold another role in life or death.

“What is he doing now?”

It was Tiernan's turn to laugh, and he did so with more mirth than he had heard from the man the entire day. “You know Æbenforth. The man considers death as the only acceptable form of retirement. He ousted the city seneschal's son and took over the Whiteshire city guard.”

Almost in unison the two of them chuckled, remembering the terrifyingly disgusted face Æbenforth wore whenever someone suggested he was getting too old for field work. His nose would wrinkle up, his lips would peel back in a snarl, and his skin would flush red in anger at the brazen insult to his honor and manhood. He would rave and roar about how he was twice the man anyone else was, and if they wanted empirical evidence he would gladly take the lot of them to the training arena and beat a measure of humility back into their bones.

“I received a letter from him a few months ago, actually,” continued Tiernan thoughtfully. “He is now a happily married man.”

The possibility of any member of the fairer sex being able to put up with the Marshal Inquisitor's ruthless and imperial nature left Drystan baffled. “Well now I'm certain you're lying. No woman would be that foolish as to marry Æbenforth.”

“No, it's more truthful than the First Verse,” he affirmed with a nod. “Her name is Diana.”

“Is she pretty?”

Unexpectedly Tiernan shot him a cold look. “I wouldn't know. I've been too busy with this to go and see them.” He sighed and stared out at the road ahead of them. “Wonderful. The weather's turning.”

Drystan followed the man's eyeline across the hills. Baedorn was gray and beginning to cloak itself in fog far in the distance, a sure sign of impending rain. Patchy clouds were starting to thicken and darken overhead, and a thick mist was starting to form around the treetops. When they set out it had been bright and sunny as though it were the middle of summer.

“I hate highland weather,” muttered the Inferi with a shake of his head.