Part 13: Going For the Throat
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It was one of those rare moments where the time seemed to slow down enough for Nearin to realize just how screwed she was. The hellhound struck the horse’s hind legs, causing both the mount and the rider to roll over the beast. Nearin struck down with her sword and felt the blade hit, but then she had no time to focus on anything other than the ground that seemed to be determined to break her neck. She pulled her feet from the stirrups and threw herself clear from the horse, dropping into a roll that left her lungs without air.

She staggered to her feet and turned towards where the hellhound was savaging her horse. The horse managed a kick to the demon’s head that would have killed a human, but it barely slowed the hound as it went for the horse’s throat.

It took Nearin precious seconds to clear her head enough to charge in to try to save her steed. She cut a long slash along the hellhound’s side, causing black boiling blood to spill on top of the horse and on to the ground. She tried to follow the attack with a second one, but had to step back and raise her shield to protect herself from a stream of fire that the beast aimed at her.

So she had wounded the demon twice, but now the demon disentangled itself from the dying horse and was free to fight her without any distractions. And her shoulder still hurt like hell. She swallowed and started circling the beast. The hound turned keeping its eyes on her and preparing to lunge, but its steps didn’t appear to be that steady.

Nearin gripped her sword tighter and continued her circling. Now that she had noticed the small advantage she had, she wasn’t about to let it go to waste. She was sweating from both the heat and from fear. She could feel it running down her brow and dampening her clothing. Every movement her right shoulder made hurt, but she thought she still had mostly full range of motion with it. And then there were dozens of other minor aches in her body from being blown from the saddle.

She stopped circling and reversed her direction when the sun came to her eyes, and that was when the demon chose to attack. It rushed forward the second she was momentarily blinded and crashed into her shield. The impact sent her crashing backwards. And suddenly she found herself on the ground without breath in her lungs and with a quarter-ton creature pressing against her shield.

She did her best to keep the shield in front of her face, knowing her helmet wouldn’t be able to protect her from the hellhound’s flaming breath. At the same time the demon kept trying to snap at her past it and she could feel its teeth scratch against the top of her helmet as it tried. Panicking she started stabbing at the beast with her sword though the demon was too close for her to aim.

Still it was not like she could miss totally and boiling blood started pouring on her. She could feel the metal of her armor start to heat up from the contact. If she didn’t get away quickly she would boiled alive even if the demon didn’t manage to crush her. Still, the demon’s actual attempts to kill her were slowing down as she kept at her panicked stabbing.

Then the hellhound changed tactics. It bit down on the shield and wrenched to the side, pulling the shield from over her and exposing her to its attack. But to do that it had to move its front paws from top of the shield and suddenly there was room her to aim.

Quick as a snake the demon let go of the shield and brought fire to its mouth, prepared to roast her properly, but at the same time she stabbed once again, this time hitting the creature under the jaw. She turned her head to avoid boiling blood getting inside her visor and pressed the sword harder until finally the hellhound died.

She rolled to the side as the creature collapsed narrowly avoiding being trapped under its weight. As she rose she did her best to wipe as much of that hot blood from her as was possible. Then she stared at the dead demon.

It was the second demon she had killed. She knew she ought to be proud but at the moment she was tired and hurting too much. And relieved she was still alive. That was a big one. Panting she turned around to see Tiilin still focusing on healing the wounded paladin. It was like the healing instructor hadn’t paid slightest attention to the combat near her.

Well, Nearin didn’t think any of her injuries were serious, just painful, so best not to stay and bother a woman who was focused on saving someone. So she started limping towards the village.

The village was a not pretty sight. Savaged bodies lay in three piles to which the hounds had apparently been dragging them. Despite the Firemind’s efforts, more than half of the houses were still on fire, with the Paladins doing their best to look for survivors.

Nearin knew damn well that she was too beaten up to risk going to a burning building, so she picked one of the buildings that the hounds apparently hadn’t had time to set on fire and went see if there was anyone there.

It was a cozy little house, she thought as she stepped inside. Despite the disaster that had happened in the village, here the only sign of anything being out of ordinary were the ransacked cupboards. She assumed the owner had tried to gather his belongings before fleeing. Despite being small house, the owner had been moderately wealthy, she could see. There were few paintings on the walls and there was actual silverware in one of the cupboards.

Maybe the owner had been a retired artisan or something.

As she was walking towards the door of the only other room of the house, she heard movement there. Steps, a closet opening and its contents being thrown to floor. Baffled, she opened the door, her sword still drawn just in case. “Someone in here?” she asked, more as a form of a greeting than a question.

The person in the room turned to face the paladin novice, obviously startled. She was perhaps the most stunning woman Nearin had ever seen. She was tall, taller than Nearin, and her red hair reached to her waist. Her clothing was obviously made for travel, but somehow managed to hug her figure more tightly than should have been possible. And as she turned to look at Nearin, she didn’t look like someone whose fellow villagers had just been massacred. She looked annoyed.

“Excu-“ Nearin started as their eyes met, but then it was like a wave of something had passed over her. Her sword dropped to the floor. Why had she dropped it? She tried to turn her head to look at it, to pick it up, but her muscles wouldn’t move. Everything felt unreal. She knew where she was, in a small house in a burning village. She knew what she was doing, looking for survivors. But none of that felt real.

She felt disconnected from everything around her, like she was watching someone else stand there, like someone else had dropped the sword. Like the strange woman was walking towards someone else.

Dumbfounded, she stared at the woman as the woman’s fingers grew longer and thicker and sharper until they resembled claws. She couldn’t think of any reason to do anything but watch as those claws took hold of her helmet and pulled it off her and then struck at her throat, tearing it open.


Part 14: Cut Down
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She was bleeding. Nearin knew that. But the fact felt distant. As she started having trouble breathing, panic kicked in. But it was still hard to focus on why she should be panicking and why the bleeding mattered.

With effort she managed to focus enough to bring her hand to her throat. It felt wet. She looked at her hand and saw it entirely covered in red. And suddenly a realization hit her.

She was dying.

That thought struck the spell holding her mind and broke it with pure panic. She was going to die! She dropped to her knees, her both hands shooting up, trying to somehow stem the bleeding. Gods it hurt. She couldn’t even breath. Every time she tried she just ended up coughing as she bled into her windpipe.

The woman who might just have killed her chuckled, then backhanded the side of Nearin’s head knocking her down to the floor before hurrying back to continue looking for something.

Nearin's vision blurred as her head hit the wall as she fell. However, it did not come back to focus. It was hard to think and not just because panic was hammering at her thoughts. She was loosing consciousness.

She was going to die. She really was going to die. Her very first encounter with real danger and she got herself killed. She would be the warning example the trainer would use for the rest of the novices, about how the danger was real and they weren't just playing anymore. Tears appeared at her eyes.

She didn't want to die.

As she lost consciousness the last thing she saw was a stream of fire fly over her and strike at the strange woman who might have just killed her. There was a scream and a sound of something crashing through the shutters of the window. Then nothing.


“Seems it got away.”

“So it was a succubus then?”

“Yeah, and we didn't bring in anything to track it properly with.” The Firemind spaced around the room, staring at the cupboards the succubus had been ransacking before. “Damn it! It was supposed to be just a pack of hellhounds! We didn't expect a second circle demon.”

Tiilin didn't reply but instead focused on her spell.

“How is he?” The Firemind asked absentmindedly.

“I have finally managed to stabilise her condition,” Tiilin put extra emphasis on the pronoun. “I think she'll survive. Now shush, this is delicate work.”

The spiritbinder, who's usually red hair was now curiously black, shrugged and then went back to looking around the room. She managed to stay silent for around four minutes. “I wonder what the succubus was looking for.”

Tiilin gave her an annoyed glare then turned back to Nearin's still form. She swiped sweat from brow. Healing a throat that been torn that badly was very difficult. Just healing the wound wasn't enough, at the same time she had to take care of blood flow to the brain and making sure enough air got to patients lungs. She hoped that there hadn't been any damage to the brain, but there was no way to be sure yet.
“Funny, if it wasn't for him,” the Firemind rambled,” we might have missed the succubus entirely. I think it shrouded the house when we entered the house, but obviously it wasn't strong enough to do more than avert attention of the group of us who entered the village. But he entered later so he wasn't close enough when the spell was cast for it avert him. And of course when the succubus started throwing its power around my Charoc couldn't help but notice it.” She turned back and played with her hair as she said the last part.

“Lucky for him too,” the Firemind touched her throat and grimaced. “That will leave a scar I think.”

“Definitely.”

“What about his voice? Will he be able to speak?”

“The novice is a she and I am just moving to fixing her vocal chords. So shut up and let me work, Besides shouldn't you be taking out the fires?”

“Charoc can handle them just fine,” the spiritbinder crumbled, but left the healer to her work.

Tiilin sighed then continued healing the throat. She had already reconstructed the major blood vessels so she no longer had to manually make sure that Nearin's brain got the blood it needed, but the throat was still filled with so much blood that she still had to keep up the spell that made the air travel to the lungs despite the obstruction.

But, the worst was past, she wasn't fighting for the novice's life anymore. Now it was just damage control.

Just then the girl stirred and opened her eyes.

“It's okay, you are alive and you are going to make it,” Tiilin reassured her patient. “Just stay still and don't try to speak, okay?” Nearin closed her eyes and didn't stir anymore. Tiilin wasn't sure if she had heard her or if the girl was even conscious anymore, but it didn't matter.


Part 15: The Ceiling
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During the journey back Nearin was slipping in and out of consciousness. She remembered seeing the other novices give her glances that were a mixture of sympathy and the fear that it might have happened to them. Her horse was dead and it wasn’t like she could have ridden on her own anyway so she shared the mount with someone else who kept her from falling. When she woke up she couldn’t remember who it had been, no matter how hard she tried.

When she did wake up she was lying in bed and staring at the stone ceiling. She felt horrible and weak. Trying to turn her head proved to be a bad idea when she attempted it, the sharp pain in her throat forcing her to stay still.

It was either late evening or early morning judging by the amount of light that was coming from the window. How long had she been unconscious? She rubbed her eyes. She hoped it was morning, she was thirsty, but if it was evening then it might be hours before anyone checked on her. She didn't want to think about making noise with how her throat was feeling.

There was nothing to do but wait and be miserable. She drifted back to sleep occasionally, but was woken up by pain and discomfort. She only had just about enough time to dream glimpses of nightmares that still seemed half real when she was awake even if she could not recall them. It was definitely a morning though as the light coming from the window kept getting brighter. After what felt like eternity but was likely less than hour one of the healers came to check up on her.

“Oh, you are already awake,” the young healer chirped as her footsteps approached Nearin's bed. “How are you feeling?” she continued as she appeared in Nearin's vision. Nearin was about to try to make a sound but thought better of it and pointed at her bandaged throat instead.

“Oh right, you apparently can't speak at the moment,” the healer said then stopped to think. “Do you want anything? Water perhaps? Point your thumb up if yes, down if no. It's probably best if you don't try to swallow anything solid yet though.” Nearin gave her a weak thumbs up.

The healer disappeared only to come back with a glass a water, then helped Nearin rise enough to drink without spilling water everywhere. Swallowing felt like tearing her throat open again but she was still thankful for the water. After emptying the glass she fell back onto the pillow.

“By the way there is a bell on the night stand. Ring it if you need something,” then the girl left before starting to talk to another patient who was apparently in another bed a bit further away.

Nearin adjusted her pillow while moving her head as little as possible. She was alive. She had only now really started to realise that. Because of her own recklessness she had come so close to dying. No, she told herself, that wasn't quite true. She hadn't had any way of knowing there would be anything like that inside.

She shuddered. The woman had probably been a Succubus. She couldn't be sure, but the way the demon had gotten into her head certainly suggested that. Though she wasn't really an expert on the subject yet. But the biggest thing that had shaken her was that it had all happened after she had thought that the danger had passed.
But still, she was alive.

She smiled and fell back to sleep.

“Oh, she is sleeping again. You should come back later.”

Nearin opened her eyes. The voice had come from somewhere close but not from close enough for her to see while staring at the ceiling. She raised her hand to indicate that she was awake.

“Seems we woke her up. Well don't keep her up too much. She needs her rest.” The healer's voice became more distant as she spoke. “Oh, and she can't speak yet. Just so you know.”
After few moments Yanna popped into Nearin's view.

“Hey! I heard you ended up here so I thought I should come visit as soon as possible,” she smiled. “How do you feel?” Nearin gave her a thumbs up causing Yanna to laugh nervously. How bad did she look? Nearin wondered. She could feel the bandages around her throat. Were they bloody? Then the healer would have changed them right? She didn't remember getting any scratches or anything in her face so she was probably just pale and looked exhausted.

Yanna fetched a chair and sat down on it. “So I hear you charged ahead and got your ass kicked?” she teased. Nearin closed her eyes for a moment then gave a thumbs up again. “Heh, I knew you were a hero type.” Nearin rolled her eyes.

“So did they tell you if you are...” Yanna stopped to search for the words. “I mean when you are going to get better?” Nearin bit her lip. Thumbs down. Then again it most likely wasn't because she wasn't going to get better but simply because only one person had talked to her. And that person was quite young for a healer so was least likely to know to about it.

But then again she wasn't really good at not fretting. She didn't think it was out of the realms of possibility that she had lost her voice forever. She didn't know much about healing so she had no idea how easy throats were to fix anyway.

Would she be kicked out of the Paladin order? A soldier who can't communicate is a liability right? She swallowed and it hurt just as much as it had in the morning.

Yanna took her hand and squished. “You'll be okay.” Nearin forced herself to smile. The words themselves didn't mean much, Yanna didn't know any more than she did, but it was nice to have someone who cared.

Still it would have been nice if she could have figured how to sign: 'lets talk about something else.'


Part 16: The Recovery
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The next days of healing were for the most part boring. The first five days consisted only of staring at the ceiling, drinking water and few disgusting tasting potions that were supposed to help. During the sixth evening she even managed to swallow some food and use the chamber pot without assistance. Requiring assistance for that had been awkward.

She still couldn't speak properly. Well she could say words and short sentences, but it still hurt too much for anything more than that. So she tended to stay quiet. Well she had been quiet beforehand as well, but now she had a nice excuse.

On the tenth morning she managed to walk around without feeling dizzy. For about ten meters! It was actually surprisingly exciting. She had never been this ill before so any sign of getting better was something Nearin relished. Her throat though...

Tiilin had checked on her later the first day after Yanna had left. The healer had told Nearin that she was lucky in that she would regain some use of her voice. That was it. Some use of it. When Nearin had been able to use a full sentence for first time, the healer had obviously been pleased.

And she should be. She had saved Nearin's life after all.

Of course, after that sentence her throat had hurt so much she couldn't get another word out for the next few hours.

Yanna visited her every day which helped Nearin from being bored out of her mind. Two times she dragged one of her friends along. The quiet and violent girl who had been with the group that had ambushed her during her first morning in the compound. The girl was still quiet, though thankfully less violent.

That was pretty much how the two weeks Nearin spent in the hospital wing went. Slowly regaining her strength and her weight. Though her throat did not seem to get any better, after that time she was judged strong enough to return to her lessons.

So it was that one Tuesday morning she walked to Demonology lesson slightly late as Tiilin had decided to perform a few tests before allowing Nearin to leave. The lecture hall was like all the others in the compound except for a heavy reinforced door down near the blackboard. She would later find out that that was where many the books about demonology were stored.

The instructor, a short bald man who had been drunk during the admittance ceremony, didn't even seem to notice a novice arriving late and continued his lesson without a slightest look of annoyance.
The other novices did notice her though. First there was silence but as she started walking towards the empty seat next to Yanna people started whispering to each other.

”What are they whispering about,” she muttered quietly. Then she shut up as the pain blossomed in her throat.

”You, obviously. You are the first of them to nearly die when fighting demons,” Yanna shrugged. ”Of course it's interesting enough to gossip about.” Nearin groaned.

”Now that we have gone through what we learned last time we can move to today's topic,” the instructor continued. Damn, a recap could have been useful, Nearin thought. ”The Circles of Demons.”

”As you probably know almost all demons belong to one of the three circles. The demons of the first circle are beasts. None of them speak and they don't appear to be sentient. They either follow the will of higher circle demons or act on their instincts and their hunger if no one else is not there to command them.” He drew three circles on the blackboard, one inside another. Then he wrote the word beast on the outermost one.

”Generally they are regarded as the weakest of the demons. Common species include the hellhound and the swamp troll. I heard some of you actually tackled with the former already.” He shook his head.

Tackling had been pretty literally in Nearin's case. If she closed her eyes she could hear the hellhound's snapping jaws as it tried to get a good grip on her head in order to crush it. She could also feel people staring at her again. Just what she needed.

”The demons of the second circle are different. They are stronger and more intelligent. Also while many first circle demons have magical abilities, like the hellhound's ability to breathe fire, the second circle demons have vastly more outlandish abilities. The Succubi are known to mess with your mind. The Oracle fishes have the ability to see the future. We are lucky they almost never work with other demons.”

”These demons instinctively understand every language in existence. Even code. Even if they have never heard it before. Often they operate alone, but sometimes they form groups. Usually they have packs of first circle demons to their bidding.”

The instructor, whose name always escaped Nearin, paused for dramatic effect.

”And then there’s the third circle. The demon lords. The princes of hell. The fallen gods. We don't actually know if the last one is true or just a popular myth. The fact is we know very little of them. Each is unique and their powers are immense. It takes most of our entire Order to take on even one of them. We are lucky they never cooperate with each other or they would have destroyed us easily in the First War. They also cannot be killed by any other means than the blackblade.”

Nearin swallowed. She steadfastly kept her eyes on the instructor, aware of even more stares at her. Why couldn't she just have been a normal novice who could blend in with others and wasn't singled out for anything special?

”We know about eight of them, but there could be more. As I said we know very little about them and what we know you will mainly learn during the second year. This year we are focusing on the first and second circles since those are the ones you are actually likely to find in the field.”

And then he went on to start listing the demon species belonging to each circle. Nearin started finding herself spacing out, it felt like her hands were working autonomously while writing down what the instructor said.

She was getting tired, she realized as the lesson went on. She had been up and about for a few hours already. Rubbing the bridge of her nose she sighed. At least she didn't have another lesson after this one as she was still forbidden from physical training.

Besides, the scarf she was wearing around her neck was starting to itch. She imagined pulling it off when everyone was stealing looks at her and almost laughed.

The silver lining of it all was that she knew most of the stuff in the lesson. She had studied extensively to make sure she would make it to be a paladin. So this one time she wasn't too hard on herself as it became more and more difficult to focus.

Eventually the lesson ended.

”I think I need to go lay down,” Nearin told Yanna who frowned with concern.

”You okay?”

”I'm fine. Tired.” Nearin stood to leave when Yanna suddenly hugged her briefly.

”Go back to the healers if you start feeling worse, okay? Otherwise see you at the library this evening like we planned.” Then she left before Nearin had time to reply.

Her face still red, Nearin staggered to her room where she collapsed on the bed. She lay down for a moment, and then pulled her itchy scarf away. On impulse she pulled her hand mirror from her nightstand and eyed the reflection of her ruined throat.

At least no one would pay attention to the lump of her throat anymore.


Part 17: Weak
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Nearin woke up with the usual feeling of having had too long a nap. She groaned and sat up. What time was it? She wondered as she drew her robes on and stood to open the door. With the door open she could see the hallway was still filled with light. Good. She should go and find some food then.

And that’s what she did, made her way to the kitchen and kindly asked for some leftovers since the lunch had just ended two hours ago. What she got was still a bit cold after being quickly heated, stale and difficult to swallow with that throat of hers, but she still made sure to eat it all. The servants hadn't had to give her anything, but they had, so she was going to show some gratitude.

Afterwards she was feeling a bit better and wondered what she should do next. She was supposed to meet Yanna in the Library in about an hour so she could copy her notes from the time she had been bedridden. Well she could go there already and do some studying of her own. The chairs there were quite comfortable as well. So she could close her eyes if she needed more rest. She made her way to the library located on the upper floor of the main building.

The Library was quite big for the fortress of this size and was composed of only the unrestricted books in the library. The rest were in the vaults like the one near the demonology lecture hall and those under the compound.

Since it was facing the training yard and not towards outside of the compound, the windows in the library were allowed to be big and so they let out a lot of the light in. Between the shelves there were tables and those oh so comfortable chairs. Nearin picked one empty table and started looking for books about those subjects whose lessons she had missed.

She found three that seemed to cover the right things, stacked two of them on the table then started reading the third. It was about the one thing she had most difficulty with in this entire place. Okay, maybe the second most difficulty after her own anxieties.

It was a book about basic spellcasting theory. She could already feel a headache forming as she started flipping through the pages, looking for the right chapter. It felt like casting spells was for those magical people who were calm all the time.

She had succeeded a few times after that time in the baths all those weeks ago. But she was still far, far behind everyone else.

“Hey, freak!” a voice suddenly taunted just as Nearin was reading the same paragraph for the fifth time, still not quite understanding what it meant. She glanced up and saw the boy who had been with Yanna and the others when they had confronted her. Not the tall, lanky and awkward one, but the one who had been calling her a freak back then as well.

“What do you want?” she croaked. Every word was like twisting a knife inside her throat. It took all her willpower to glare at the boy.

“Oh, I just heard you got your ass kicked by the demons.” The bully leaned over the table, towering over Nearin. “But weren’t you supposed to be a super awesome blackblade? Maybe you aren’t so tough after all.”

Nearin glanced around. Apart from them the Library was empty. “Go away.” She stared at the bully directly in the eyes.

Greir. That was the boy’s name she suddenly remembered. He was big, a full head taller her and much more muscular. She stopped herself from swallowing loudly.
She had seen the boy in the training field. The truth was that he wasn’t very good. He was someone who was so used to being stronger than his opponent that he counted on that being enough to win. In a sword fight Nearin was confident she could win against him easily. In hand to hand her chances were bleaker but still there.

Normally.

At the moment she didn’t think she was strong enough wrestle with a kitten. Maybe a lame one. Maybe.

“That’s the point though, isn’t it? You can’t make me.” He gloated as he pushed one of her books off the table. “You are supposed to be the strongest of us, but are just a pathetic freak, who pretends to be a girl.”

Nearin rose to her feet, only managing to avoid wobbling by steadying herself by keeping one hand on the table. The boy was looking more and more angry and self-confident. Maybe she shouldn’t have stood up.

“Going to beat up a wounded girl then?” She leaned over to pick up the fallen book, but mostly to hide her grimace from forcing so many words from her mouth. She really needed to figure out how to say things with fewer words.

Suddenly she heard a few quick steps as Greir stepped past the table and shoved her shoulders. Normally she would have staggered backwards from that, but now she was sent sprawling. Her head hit the bookshelf as she fell causing stars to dance before her eyes for a second.

“Calling yourself a girl, disgusting.”

Nearin groaned while her mind was filled with panic. She tried to rise only to feel a foot kick hard into her stomach, emptying her lungs. She gasped for air while the pain caused tears to appear in her eyes. Eyes she managed to close before the next kick hit her face sending the back of her head against the bookshelf again.

“What is going on here!” a voice rang through the library, stopping the bully in his tracks just as he was pulling his foot back for the third kick. He quickly set his foot down as Instructor Selazar stood near the entrance to the Library. Yanna was behind him and quickly ran past Greir to Nearin.

“What do you think you are doing?” The old man shouted. “Attacking fellow novices is strictly forbidden. And kicking her while she is down? If you have so little honor, then what are you doing here trying to become one of us?”

He walked over to Greir. “Go to my office and wait there.”

“Nearin are you okay?” Yanna helped her sit up.

“Hurts,” Nearin replied. She touched her throat then breathed in relief as the wound had not opened up. For some reason she wasn’t crying yet. Probably the shock. Good thing though, a Paladin shouldn’t cry just because she got beat up.

“You should probably help her back to the hospital wing,” Selazar advised Yanna.


Part 18: Hanging On
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Luckily, Nearin’s thick skull protected her from any real damage. Tiilin had checked on her while Yanna stood nearby and continually cursed Greir. In the end all Nearin got was a black eye and bruised stomach. Neither was bad enough to warrant a healing spell.

But the black eye was bad enough to attract even more stares at her. She couldn’t help but wonder how many others approved of what Greir had done. She shuddered. Who knew how far Greir would have been willing to go if he hadn’t been interrupted. He probably hadn’t intended to kill her, that would have gotten him thrown away into prison immediately, but there was no safe way to kick someone in the head. He could have killed her accidentally.

And that, more than anything, scared her.

At least the ******* was locked up in the dungeons or so they had told her. And would be for the rest of the week.

Still, in an effort of will that surprised even herself, she refused to avoid situations where she would be alone. She knew herself. If she were to start avoiding those situations and jumping at shadows she would never be able to get rid of the habit.

Two days passed without incident, though even with coaching from Yanna she wasn’t making good progress on catching up in spell casting lessons. Then came the evening she had been dreading. The evening she was supposed to continue her training with knight-champion Selesta. She was only fainting two to three times per training session, but with all the pain she had been in the recent weeks she didn’t fancy any more discomfort.

But there was nothing she could do about that. The Order needed a Blackblade apprentice to be ready to take the Blackblade’s place in the case he or she died. So she needed to learn to wield that sword as soon as possible. It was not like she had ever imagined that being a paladin was easy.

She carried her candle as she made her way to under the compound. She swallowed as she made her way past the dungeons, knowing that Greir was in one of the cells. Gloating didn’t really hold any appeal to her.

“Hey pally!” Nearin stopped in her tracks and looked around. The voice wasn’t Greir’s but belonged to the unwashed prisoner who had been watching her when she first came here. “What beat you up?”

Nearin turned to face him. “Not your business,” she croaked. She had worked for months on her voice, getting it to higher pitch and had been quite proud of it. Now she sounded like a raven with a hangover.

“Ooh, so you are the pally that got your throat ripped off by that succubus?”

“How’d you- The warden probably told you.” Or he had heard the warden talking about it to someone else. Nearin shook her head and turned to go.

“Did it find what it was looking for? The notebook?” The prisoner sounded excited.

Nearin stopped. “The what?”

“The prospector’s notebook. Which the succubus was looking for. Did it find it?” he sounded like he was getting impatient. Nearin just stared at him, dumbfounded. Obviously, things were way above her pay grade but she didn’t know if anyone knew what that woman had been looking for.

“Ooh you don’t know!” The prisoner did a little dance in his cell. “Now this is intriguing!”
Nearin backed away. She had to tell someone about this. So she ran. If they already knew that the prisoner knew, then she would at worst appear stupid. If they didn’t…

As she approached the vault door she suddenly came to a halt. She blinked few times. Why had she been in a hurry? She rubbed the bridge of her nose. A headache already?

She shrugged and went inside to the vault where Selesta was waiting for her. The knight-champion was sitting on a chair and reading a book. She set the book down as she noticed Nearin.

“Tiilin insisted I go easy on you this time. Because of your injuries,” she said, her face unreadable. “Of course, it’s a not a physical thing what we are training down here. It’s mental.”

Nearin lowered her head, resigning herself to fainting several times in the next hour.

“Still, I agree with her. Your progress before you got injured was satisfactory. We can allow you to regain a bit more of your strength instead of risking a setback.”

Nearin made a choking sound. That was the first time Selesta had given her any sort of compliment.

“Do you know why we Blackblades are often regarded as outsiders by the rest of the order?”

“Uh, because we are the only ones who can kill the demon lords?” Nearin suggested. She thought that Selesta wouldn’t accept ‘because we have scary swords.’

The dark skinned woman picked up the sword from its pedestal and inspected it thoughtfully. “No it’s because we are the only ones who can understand demons.”

“What do you mean?” Nearin was baffled.

“Because we are the only ones who know the hunger. The rest know of it. They know about it. But they don’t know it. They have never felt the bottomless hunger that drives those beast. We have. We feel it every time we pick up this blade. We willingly expose ourselves to it so that mankind can have hope.” Nearin could have sworn that the blade was writhing within Selesta’s grasp, even though it was completely still.

“People don’t think of us as the epitome of Paladinhood. They do not see us as the shining knights who protect them. To them we are dangerous weapons to be watched and kept stashed away until we are needed,” Selesta sounded bitter.

“But do not for a moment think that the calling we both have is any less noble than the other paladins’. If we have to sacrifice companionship to fight the ultimate enemy, then that is the sacrifice we are glad to make. Because someone has to do it.”

She suddenly tossed the blade to Nearin who caught it. Instantly Nearin felt the familiar pressure appear in her head.

“I said I would go easy on you today, not that I’d allow you to slack completely.”

Nearin doubled over as the pressure kept increasing in her mind. She kept a tight grasp on the hilt even as it became difficult to think. Even as the pressure began to take over her senses. She gasped for air, feeling as if she was going to suffocate. Then with a wordless cry she straightened up.

She wobbled on her feet, but still she didn’t let go. Didn’t allow herself to get absorbed in the sensation of hunger. She continued focusing on her own senses. On sensations that were real. And when more and more of the hunger crept into her she focused it into things she wanted to achieve. She wanted to get more words of praise from Selesta. She wanted to become strong. She wanted to become something. She didn’t want to feel helpless anymore.

And so she held onto the sword, for minute after minute, unable to do more than grit her teeth.

“That is enough, you can let go of it.” Nearin dropped the sword then fell to her knees. Selesta was looking at her with a fierce pride in her eyes.

A bit later, as Nearin was starting to leave she suddenly stopped at the door. “Weird, I feel like I was supposed to tell you something important, but I can’t recall what it was;” she croaked, the long sentence being almost as hard to get out of her mouth as the sword had been to hold.

Selesta didn’t say anything, just frowned.


Part 19: The Officers' Meeting
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The meetings were usually held rather late. So this one wasn’t that unusual. Lately, the fact that everyone was tense hadn’t been unusual either. It had been weeks since the Succubus had almost killed Nearin and the paladins still had no idea what it had been looking for. Or where and how it had disappeared.

Selesta was sitting on her seat on the right hand side of the knight-commander. As the knight-champion she was technically the second highest ranking officer in the compound. Technically, as her only underling was a one meek apprentice.

She sipped her tea as she listened to Gaskos, the demonology instructor, and Selazar argue about why exactly the warding orb at top of the compound’s tower had failed to show the second circle demon in middle of the pack of hellhounds before it had almost killed a novice. Sending novices without the Aura of Command against a second circle demon was often considered a suicide mission.

Those two came to argue over anything that worked as an excuse. The rest of the officers had already lost interest in the discussion that was leading nowhere. The truth was that the demon had found some way to fool the orb into showing it as a first circle demon. And until they found further clues into how it had done it there was nothing they could do.

Eventually Alexander silenced both of them with a cough. The man could have a very pointed cough. Everyone at the table had learned to associate it with his deep displeasure.

“Gentlemen, please. You can continue that discussion in private but I don’t want it eating our valuable time until one of you makes a breakthrough regarding it,” the Knight-commander said, not raising his voice once. “Is that understood?” Both men nodded unhappily.

“Now on to other matters. We have a call for help from a village called Alne. They have had many mysterious disappearances lately and other strange happenings.”

Firemind crossed her fingers behind her head and leaned back. “Why don’t we just delegate this to the count? It’s probably just bandits or a spirit the morons angered. The count could just send a few soldiers and one of his spirit binders and call it a day.”

“Because protecting people is never beneath us,” Alexander explained patiently. “Because with everything else that has been happening lately we can’t overlook something that could be demon activity. And because the village is near the Phoenix’s Fall.”

That got everyone’s attention.

“Well that would be a good reason,” Firemind shrugged, still not really caring.

Selesta thought about it for a moment then gestured with her hand. “I request this mission.”

“Why? With the increased demon activity you should remain here, in the case of an emergency,” Salhos protested. “I could send a squad of third year novices with one of my trainers to take care of it.”

“The fifth company has ridden north for field exercise. So Goiros is close by if you have need of a blackblade while I am gone;” Selesta countered. “Meanwhile I have an untested apprentice you saddled me with.” She glared at the others, letting them know that having been overruled on that decision still rattled her.

“You have trained with her every week. And she went on a demon hunt way earlier than is normal for novices,” Tiilin pointed out.
“Training is not same as testing. And yes, she went on a demon hunt… and almost died. You made her a blackblade apprentice. She does not have the time to learn slowly like other novices. I need to find out how she deals with being out in the world.”

“You just want to get rid of him, don’t you?” Firemind poked Selesta on the shoulder. “Feed him to a shadowfiend or similar, then get a new apprentice more to your liking.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Selesta said then turned to face the knight-commander. “Do I have your permission?”

Alexander Ur-Manas stayed silent for a long moment. “Yes.”