David Niemitz
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Faerie Knight 143
🕑 Added 2025-01-11 12:00:08 +0000 UTC143 - The Battle of Basilea I: The Host of Winter
Even the Etalan legions feared to push north through the mountains of Raetia. It is a harsh land, with little there to eat - at least, little for any mortal.
François du Lutetia, A History of Narvonne
☀
5th Day of High Summer’s Moon, AC 297
Clouds boiled south, flowing around the mountain peaks and through the pass, and from there out toward the city of Basilea and the sea. Beneath the clouds, a blizzard raged. So much snow was driven before the wind that Claire could see little but white, in every direction.
She was wrapped in furs again, in the sleigh of Lord Bore. For the most part, she kept her eyes closed, and tried to stay warm. Here and there, Claire was able to catch glimpses of dim shapes through the snow: a pack of winter wolves pacing the sleigh, once, and another time a great white bear lumbering alongside. All of them ignored her, and for much of the journey, she was alone. Etoile, Henry and Yaél had been given steeds: more of the strange, shaggy northern stags that served the faerie queen. The rentier did not run as fast as horses, but they were sure-footed in the snow.
Clarisant would have been left to her own devices the entire way, if not for a single white fox that appeared out of the storm and leapt up into her carriage. It was about the size of a large cat or a small dog, and settled into her furs as if they had been constant companions for years. The fox’s fur was soft, and it let Claire run her fingers through it, so she did not complain.
Having a companion who did not talk to her, but kept her warm in the furs, gave her a great deal of time to think. Rather than dwell on John Granger’s death, or the bargain she herself had made, Claire chose to consider what she had missed.
Forneus was in Basilea. Beira’s use of the word ‘Leviathan’ made it obvious to her: had they not encountered a ship damaged by the daemon’s passage, on their way from Rocher de la Garde to Raetia? That alone would seem to indicate it had the same destination as them, but Claire hadn’t put it together immediately. Perhaps that was forgivable, but then when she found that Prince Conrad had inexplicably turned against his former allies, when they were imprisoned in their guest suite - that should have been enough. She’d always thought herself quite clever, but she hadn’t realized until the Winter Queen had come out and told her. She’d even known that Forneus could take more than one shape, from her study of the Marian Codex!
Could Beira and her court defeat Forneus, where Trist had failed? Claire didn’t think she knew enough to judge that for certain. It was a powerful daemon, that was certain: the way it had destroyed the entire fishing fleet of Rocher de la Garde, and then the docks on top of that, made its physical prowess obvious. But Trist had driven it off, even when at quite a disadvantage. Her husband really had no good way to fight at sea, and the sheer ridiculousness of his stunt on the bay had worked better than they’d had any right to expect.
Now, the Leviathan would need to fight on land - or at least, that would be the case if it could be prevented from getting to the ocean. Instead of having an advantage in the terrain, this time the daemon would be on the back foot from the beginning. But Claire had no idea how Beira’s forces stacked up to what her own husband could do on the field.
Suddenly, the walls of Basilia emerged from the storm, close enough to jar Clarisant from her musings. At the speed the sleigh was travelling, there was no chance they could possibly stop in time, and she clutched the fox to her chest, bracing for impact. With a bone-shaking lurch, Claire was thrown back in her seat, and the sleigh began to rise.
For half a moment, she fancied that somehow the faeries had made the sleigh fly. But no, that wasn’t it: instead, a great ramp of ice had been raised up from the drifts of snow on the ground, curving at a steeper and steeper angle until it topped the city walls, and then descending again. The storm had abated just enough for Claire to see a short distance, now. The team of rentier halted only once the sleigh began its descent into the streets of Basilea.
The winter creatures in service to Beira, in contrast, did not slow in the slightest.
Instead, wolves, foxes, rentier and great white bears charged past the sleigh, up the ramp and then down again, spilling into the city streets, where they collided with guards in the heraldry of the royal house of Raetia. Among the chaos stalked creatures of ice: tall and thin, some of them, and sharp as a knife, sometimes without even hands, but only frozen blades. Others were broader, like a child’s nightmare of an ogre or a troll, massive and snow encrusted. Claire watched one faerie bat aside a man in chainmail with such force that he flew through the air, hit the wall of a bakery, and then slumped to the ground, motionless.
“Most of these people haven’t done anything wrong,” Claire said aloud, searching the street for the faerie queen.
“They would kill you nonetheless, at the order of the Leviathan,” Beira said, riding out of the blizzard on the back of a white bear twice as large as the others. Plates of ice sat on the thing’s shoulders and haunches, shaped into pauldrons and barding, and a fur-lined saddle was strapped to its back for the faerie to perch upon. “If you would finish this quickly, mortal woman, invoke the daemon’s name.”
“Why me?” Clarisant shouted to be heard over the chaos.
“If I do it, my power will make him cautious and reticent,” Beira explained. “But you are only a mortal. Say it with intent, and then say it again. Call him out to face you.”
“And you will protect me?” Claire asked.
“We will do what you paid us to do,” the faerie said. “We will oust the Leviathan from our lands. Along with any mortal foolish enough to serve it.”
“We will protect you, m’lady,” Etoile said, emerging from the white with Henry and Yaél. Henry had a black arrow nocked on his bowstring, and Yaél held an arming sword that was already streaked with blood. Worst of all, Dame Etoile wielded the shard of ice that John Granger had killed himself with.
Claire rose in the sleigh, standing with the furs still wrapped around her and the white fox clutched to her chest. “Forneus!” she shouted. “Forneus, come face me! You fled from my husband at Rocher de la Garde, and now I call to you! Are you afraid of a mortal woman?”
A weight, a heaviness fell upon her, and for a moment Claire could not catch her breath. Her eyes darkened and blurred, and now she understood for herself why people were so hesitant to speak the names of daemons. The risk of drawing their attention might be small, but the feeling of Forneus noticing her was terrible. She swayed there, and almost lost her balance.
“Clarisant du Camaret-à-Arden,” a man’s voice came over the wind, and Minister Fabian stepped out of the storm. His smile looked painted on, and ill-painted, at that, by a talentless hand that failed to make anything even remotely human. The wind caught at his dark hair, and a monster lurked behind his eyes. “This was a mistake on your part,” Forneus continued. “The Queen of Winter is no ally of yours, nor even your husband. Regardless of who you’re fucking, the faeries don’t care about you.”
With the twang of a bowstring, a black shaft of Iebara-wood flew over Clarisant’s shoulder. Fabian - or Forneus - raised a hand as if to deflect or catch the arrow, but then gave a surprised cry of pain. Claire’s eyes widened, in spite of herself. Forneus clutched at his own right hand, where Henry’s arrow had pierced his palm. Black ichor already ran down the daemon’s forearm.
“Impossible,” Forneus hissed. “No mortal weapon can harm me.”
“Iebara wood,” Henry called back, drawing another arrow with practiced ease. “Strong as metal, hard as stone. Grows only in the Ardenwood, with a faerie beneath its roots. Seems it’s magic enough to kill you.”
With a roar, Forneus curled in on himself, and then began to expand. The doublet he’d worn ripped and tore away as his skin was replaced with dark scales. The wild curls of his black hair stiffened and swept back into horns, and when he raised his head, his mouth yawned impossibly wide, growing larger and larger until at last it was a gaping maw of fangs.
The rentier hitched to the sleigh reared back and shied away in panic, and Claire scrambled out of the seat and down onto the snow-swept stones of the road. The white fox leapt out of her arms and ran off. “Get behind me!” Dame Etoile shouted, sliding down out of her own saddle and pulling Claire back with one gauntleted hand. The broad-shouldered knight raised a blade of ice between herself and the rising daemon.
Around them, with a crack and a crash, entire buildings were pushed aside. Walls and roofs caved in, while the people of Basilea fled screaming. The city guards who had at first opposed Beira and her army of animals and creations of ice now scrambled back alongside them, desperately trying to get enough distance not to be crushed by the coild of the Leviathan.
If Claire had expected Forneus to be at a disadvantage on land, it was not enough to prevent the daemon from being an absolute terror. In those first moments, when it collapsed what seemed like half the city as it grew, she had no idea how even the storm of the faerie queen could kill it.
Quick as a gull taking a fish from the bay, Forneus’ reptilian head shot down from above the roofs of the city, jaws gaping, and took three of the winter-wolves in a single bite. The remnants of the pack leapt aside, howling and baying, and tried to sink their teeth into the coils of the leviathan. Unfortunately, Forneus’ dark scales were more effective than steel plate armor, and the wolves’ jaws were too weak to damage it.
“Forward!” Beira, the faerie queen shouted, and the great white bears charged, lowering their shoulders. Three of them took Forneus in its lowest coil at the same time, and they somehow succeeded in rocking the monster. Above the coils, raised on its long neck, Forneus’ head swayed, looking for a moment as if it might lose its balance. Then, it lashed out again, lifting one of the bears between its jaws. Blood sprayed everywhere.
Claire, in the meanwhile, had fallen back with Henry and Yaél. The three of them hid behind the wall of a stable that was now only half standing, the rest of the stones scattered across the street. Henry loosed another arrow, and the black shaft thumped into Forneus’ neck, where it quivered.
The Raetian archers of the city guard must have seen his success, for they began loosing arrows, as well, from the walls of the city and the nearby streets. The daemon was so impossibly massive that they could not help but hit their target. Unfortunately, just as the daemon had bragged, his scales deflected each and every arrow, save the ones from Henry’s quiver.
“Where did Ettie go?” Clarisant asked, casting about desperately. She’d already lost John Granger, and she had no intention of losing another of the companions she’d brought north with her.
“There!” Yaél shouted back, and pointed.
Dame Etoile had not pulled back with them. Instead, shard of ice in her hand in place of a sword, she stalked forward to where the daemon coiled among the ruined buildings of the city. She raised the frozen blade above her head, falling into one of the same stances Claire recognized from Trist’s old fencing books.
“Foolish,” Forneus rumbled from where its head was raised above the skyline of the city.
Then, quick as a striking snake, the leviathan’s open jaws descended on Dame Etoile.
