Chapter 743: Captive Knights (Part One)

In the morning, after a fitful, sleepless night spent listening to the howling winds and furious thunder of what may have been the worst storm he’d ever seen, Hugo Hanrahan splashed cold water on his face and confronted the undeniable fact that everything that had happened to him since leaving Maeril Village was real.

He really had met Lady Ashlynn in the middle of the forest near a shallow grave where Owain’s men had buried her just half a year ago. He really had sat on a tribunal in those very same woods and he’d watched helplessly as Lady Ashlynn used Sir Rain’s own sword to execute a traitor.

But those things had only been a precursor to the real horror he found himself in. He and Sir Rain had been invited to become ’guests’ of Lady Ashlynn in the heart of the demon’s territory. Invited by a woman who turned out to be a great witch like the infamous Evil Queen who nearly destroyed the Kingdom of Gaal in its infancy.

Now, as he stood in the small washroom that he shared with Sir Rain, Hugo wished more than anything that he’d never listened to his father when Baron Hanrahan told him that there was an ’opportunity’ to serve at Owain’s side now that he needed a new steward. When Owain lost both his personal guards and his steward in such a short period of time, there had been a few whispers that the young lord was cursed, but Hugo had dismissed that as the superstitious nonsense of people who had never been educated.

It was only after finding himself here, in the heart of the demon’s fortress, that he understood that curses were very real and anyone who had ever been close to Owain was bound to suffer greatly.

Stepping outside the washroom, Hugo found Sir Rain slumped on one of the plush sofas in the sitting room that their bed chambers were connected to. It was clear that their quarters had been designed to accommodate larger groups, with four bed-chambers and a wash room adjoining a shared sitting and dining room, but in deference to their station, the pair of knights had been given the complete suite to themselves.

"Took you long enough," Sir Rain groused from the sofa. "I thought you might have fallen in."

"I, I’m sorry," the hawk-nosed Steward said as he slumped into an overstuffed armchair. "I just... I’m struggling to believe that this is all real. Look at this place," he said, gesturing to the intricately carved wooden table, the well-made chairs and rugs, and the elegant tapestries hung on the walls. "This is supposed to be a demon castle, isn’t it? But even Lord Owain doesn’t live so well..."

"Hey, watch it!" Rain snapped, sitting up straighter on the sofa. "You think the demons don’t know how to beguile people? They might be savages, but they’re cunning too. We know they’re primitives who dig their homes into the earth or spend their lives roving from place to place because they can’t even figure out how to stack stones on top of each other to build a home," he said, thinking about the nomadic demons who ruled the Southern Steppe.

"We know they aren’t really like this," he insisted. "So all of this, it’s just a trap to make us lower our guard. Especially around those witches! So don’t you dare fall for it," Rain said sharply. "You’re a spineless coward at the best of times and half useless in a fight, but right now, you and I, we’re all alone here, so you have to pull yourself together if we’re going to resist these demons!"

"Resist?" Hugo laughed mirthlessly. "You think there’s a way to resist this? You didn’t see what this place looked like when we arrived because they had to carry you here. And you’re lucky, you know," he added. "Sir Ollie insisted that you be carried. That witch woman, the one he called ’Virve’, wanted to drag you by your feet if you didn’t wake up."

"Hey, there’s no need to..." Rain started to say, ready to berate the weaker man for mentioning the shameful way he’d fainted under the pressure of the demon witch’s stare. A sharp knock at the door, however, spared him from having to defend his reputation.

"Sir Rain," a surprised but clearly excited voice called as soon as the door opened. "And Lord Hanrahan! Thank the Lord of Light. You’re both here," a handsome, brown-haired individual said as he walked into the room, kneeling as soon as he laid eyes on Hugo.

The man’s plain white tunic and simple brown breeches looked well-made, but they hung on the young knight’s frame in a way that suggested they had been tailored for someone else. His bearing and his strong features, however, were something that neither man could mistake, especially when they’d seen him so recently.

"Sir Carwyn?" Hugo asked, standing up and staring in shock at encountering a familiar face in this demon-infested place. "What are you doing here?"

"You see? I told you that you had companions waiting for you," a short, horned woman wearing an elegant dress and a wide-brimmed witch’s hat said as she followed Sir Carwyn into the room. "Your things will be brought to you once they’ve been cleaned. Well, everything except your weapons and armor, those were claimed as prizes by Captain Barsali. If you want them back, you’ll have to come to an agreement with him."

"I, I understand," Carwyn said awkwardly as he rose to his feet and bowed at the diminutive witch. "Thank you, for your kindness, Lady Heila," he said awkwardly. "Without you, I might not have survived the night."

"It’s good that you understand that," Heila said curtly. "But remember that I healed you because Captain Barsali was impressed by your courage and because Lady Ashlynn didn’t want to see you suffer since, unlike some others, you neither served her husband or conspired against her."

"Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll allow the three of you some time to become reacquainted," Heila said as she turned to leave. "Sir Ollie will be here shortly to prepare a meal for you. We have some experience with humans who refuse to eat after they arrive," she said in a warning tone. "I hope you won’t put yourselves through that unpleasantness. It always ends the same way, and the only person who suffers for it is you."

"We understand," Carwyn said awkwardly as he flexed his hand and shoulder, reminding himself that just a few hours ago, when they arrived at the fortress in the small hours of the morning, he hadn’t been able to feel or move his fingers, much less move his legs. Already, these ’demons’ had shown him great kindness in healing his wounds.

To refuse a meal would only have been insulting their generous treatment of a prisoner, but then, it wasn’t surprising to learn that there were people who refused to eat ’demon food.’

"You, um, you mentioned a ’Sir Ollie,’ Carwyn said awkwardly before the diminutive witch could leave. "Is he another of the serpent-knights who attacked my caravan? Or is he, um, a person with horns, like you?"

"Neither," Sir Rain said in a dark tone from the sofa. "He’s human, or at least he used to be. Now, he’s a witch, and if he’s coming to cook for us, then we might as well just starve. After what he did to our men, there’s no way I’m touching the food here!"