Chapter 1005: An Executioner (Part One)

Outside of Hanrahan Keep, the sky had begun its slow, gentle shift from night into day. The stars had faded away, and the inky, velvety darkness above had begun to shift toward a lighter, brighter blue. In the east, beyond the gently rolling hills of Hanrahan Barony, a soft golden glow heralded the coming of dawn.

In the dungeon of Hanrahan Keep, Dame Sybyll had taken as much time as she could afford to question Ian Hanrahan. After hours of enduring her questioning, Ian’s body was a broken ruin. He’d only attempted to flee once, and the punishment he received, the brutal shattering of every bone in his ’good’ leg, had been more than enough for him to learn that any hope he had for a quick death was nothing more than a fantasy.

The former baron had lost count of how many times his merciless ’cousin’ had cut into his flesh or pummeled his body because he wasn’t comprehensive or honest enough in his confessions. Time after time, she rounded on him for saying he didn’t know who his victims were because they weren’t important enough to remember.

Any time that happened, she hounded him ruthlessly for places, times, or anything else that could be used to allow her to find out who had suffered for his crimes, but in the end, there had been far too many instances where the only things that he remembered were the schemes and the profits...

Through it all, Cossot’s quill pen never stopped moving. At some point, she realized that she’d grown numb to it all. At first, she’d been sickened and furious, but as the night wore on, the words started to lose their meaning. She had filled three pages with names, but by the end, nothing that spilled from Ian Hanrahan’s mouth shocked her.

-Ceredynn of Hanrahan Valley, Age Nineteen, taken for ’entertainment’ to visit Lothian City, abandoned at the Dancing Doe brothel five years ago, current fate: unknown-

-Claude, Candlemaker of Hanrahan Town, exempt from tithes, skilled at the forging of wax seals and inspection certificates-

-Rupert of Hanrahan Valley, deceased, lands seized and gifted to Willis of Hanrahan Town, fate of Rupert’s wife and son unknown-

This list went on and on, and as it neared the end, the grievances and crimes became even more petty. A man embarrassed Ian Hanrahan at court by correctly reciting the laws of the kingdom in his dispute with a neighbor. So, in response, the portly baron had given him his due in court only to ’suggest’ to a gang of thieves that his farm would be vulnerable when the guards who patrolled the valley would be busy training for demon raids.

When the poor farmer had lost his life to thieves and raiders, Ian had placed his lands ’in the trust of his neighbor’ to oversee until the man’s son came of age, only that son had gone missing years ago, leaving the neighbor with everything the slain man had once owned.

It didn’t have to be like this... There was no reason for any of this to have happened, and Cossot cursed herself for attending feast after feast with her father, enjoying the bounty of the barony she’d thought was thriving, when that ’bounty’ was built on the backs of so much suffering. She’d been blind to it.

But she wasn’t blind to it anymore. Over the past few hours, Dame Sybyll’s stature grew greater and greater in her eyes as she pulled one confession after another from Ian Hanrahan’s battered body. Whether it was justice for the dead or not, Cosset didn’t know, but she silently wished that the people who had died because of the baron’s schemes could hear his screams from the Heavenly Shores, just to know that he hadn’t gotten away with it, and that his victims hadn’t all been forgotten.

"It’s time," Sybyll said, shaking her head as she looked at the quivering, broken man who had once been an arrogant, ruthless ruler. Hatred still burned in her eyes when she looked at him, for what he had done to her mother, and what he had done to the people of Hanrahan. But that hatred had dimmed, replaced with contempt as the man who had once been invulnerable and unreachable to her now lay helpless before her.

At Sybyll’s command, the Iron Tusked guard waiting outside the dungeon took Bastian Hanrahan away. He would be returned to the dungeons soon enough, and other prisoners, like Head Priest Germot, would be brought down as well. But for a moment, Sybyll wanted to be alone with Ian Hanrahan and the two young women she’d pulled into this sordid, bloody world.

"Ye both did well," Sybyll told the young women without taking her eyes off of Ian Hanrahan’s broken body. His breathing was labored, and blood trailed from his lips. His complexion was pale, and his eyes were screwed shut against the pain. But despite it all, there was a look of relief on his face when Sybyll said ’it’s time.’ The end to his suffering, it seemed, had finally arrived.

"Cossot, come here," Sybyll said, gesturing for the willowy young woman to join her next to Ian Hanrahan.

Cossot gasped when she saw what had become of her former lord. Blood stained his once glamorous clothing, and bone could be seen peeking through the wounds on one of his legs. His tunic had been torn open, and his thick torso was a mass of bruises and cuts. Cossot had heard the meaty impact of Sybyll’s fists on his flesh, and she’d heard his tortured screams, but it was only now, when she no longer had her writing to focus all of her attention on, that she saw what the Crimson Knight had physically done to the man who had wronged her.

"I’m gon’a tell ye somethin’ that few people know," Sybyll said with surprising gentleness as she stood next to the young woman. "We’re not the same, not even close. When me Mistress turned me in ta’ one of her progeny, when I became a vampire, she made me different than any who came b’fore me, and I’m different from the one who came after too. We’re all different," she said softly.

"Sir Thane is tha’ knight who trained me up into knighthood," Sybyll continued, speaking as if Ian Hanrahan wasn’t even there, or at least, as if her crimson eyes no longer saw him. "He polished me like a jewel after Mistress scooped me up an’ took me in. But I were never meant ta’ be like him. He’s tha’ best of us. He shines like the moon in tha’ night, an’ if anythin’ had happened ta’ our Mistress, we’d all follow him ta’ avenge her..."

Standing behind her, Roseen’s eyes widened in surprise, and she wondered if this ’Sir Thane’ might be more than just a knight who trained Dame Sybyll. Her voice held a sort of reverent admiration that went beyond what a person felt for a teacher, even a beloved one, and for a moment, she tried to imagine the sort of man who could capture the heart of a woman like the Crimson Knight.

"I were never meant ta’ be tha’ sort of knight Sir Thane is," Sybyll continued, oblivious to the flight of fancy taking wing behind her. "He’s a man ta’ lead us. But Mistress gave me somethin’ different. She gave me tha’ strength to do what I’ve done t’night," she said as she clenched her fist. "She made me tha’ strongest knight ta’ ever don armor an’ take up a blade, an’ when she did she dubbed me not just a knight, but her Executioner."

"Do ye know what tha’ means, lass?" Sybyll asked as she turned to look at Cossot for the first time since she’d begun speaking. The question she asked seemed light, but her next words made it incomparably heavier, and they loomed over Cossot like the blade of an executioner’s axe.

"Do ye know what it means ta’ carry tha’ blade of an Executioner, an’ ta bring it down when it needs doin?"