Page 143 of Paladin's Faith

“Dawn by preference, then. If we can close the distance before the archers can take too many shots at us, then we’ll at least be able to see what we’re hitting before too long.”

“Well,” said Ashes, speaking up for the first time, “if you can get me a hundred gallons of horse piss—”

It was probably a good thing that the conversation was interrupted by the sound of the door opening. Three newcomers entered the hall, their clothes mottled with road dust.

“Well,” said Jorge, “it seems that the gods are looking out for us in some small way, at least.” He raised a hand and one of the newcomers waved in return. She was a tall, lean woman with red-brown hair and an oddly expressionless face.

“Judith?!” cried Wren, and then, to Marguerite’s astonishment, the paladin flung herself forward, charging across the open space. Marguerite half-expected the newcomer to brace for an attack, but then Wren skidded to a halt, wrapped her arms tightly around the other woman’s torso, and burst into tears.

Davith made a small noise and made as if to rise from his seat, then stopped himself. Marguerite glanced over at him and saw an expression she could not read, quickly hidden.

“Dear heart,” said the tall woman gently, stroking Wren’s hair. “This isn’t for me, is it?”

“Yes,” sobbed Wren. “No. But yes.” She took a gasping breath and stepped back, wiping furiously at her eyes. “What are you doing here?”

Judith shrugged one shoulder. “I had to get away. Everything I looked at was a reminder. I needed to see different walls. The Dreaming God’s people can always use a fighter who follows orders, particularly one who’s faced demons before. I had been working my way from temple to temple and ended up here.” One corner of her mouth twitched down in a tiny frown. “But why are you crying? Did we lose someone?”

“It’s Shane. A demon’s got him.”

Judith’s eyes widened a fraction. “No.”

“Yes.”

“When do we ride?” Judith asked.

“That’s what we’re discussing,” said Jorge.

“We must wait,” said Sir. “I don’t wish to, believe me. But we need bowmen. At least a half dozen, more if we can get them. Reynaud is out trying to scare some up from the local lords.”

“Bowmen?” asked Marguerite. “Why bowmen, specifically?”

All of the Dreaming God’s looked people at her. Marguerite, who prided herself on always being a step ahead, felt a stab of annoyance at their obvious pity. She spread her hands. “Pitched battles aren’t my forte. But they’ve got a keep, and I’d think you’d need something other than archers to take a keep. Isn’t it hard to shoot people from the ground?”

“It’s not for the keep,” said Judith, her voice oddly gentle. “It’s for Shane. They mean to kill him at a distance.”

“What?”

“It’s the only way,” said Jorge. He had the decency to look miserable. “If we can kill him, the demon will have to jump to someone else, and then we can exorcise it.”

“Why can’t you exorcise it from him?” Marguerite felt as if she was listening to the conversation from the other side of a pane of glass, as if she were shouting and no one could hear her. “Do that—that thing you do. Yell at him to kneel and pull the demon out!”

“Because we don’t know if the voice will work on him!” Jorge yelled back.

Marguerite inhaled sharply. Jorge sighed and rubbed his temples. “He was almost a paladin of our god,” he said, more quietly. “And he would have been a great one. He can do the voice better than I can. When one of our paladins is possessed, they seem able to shake off the commands. We all remember Lord Caliban’s rampage in the temple. He killed at least three nuns who could speak in the imperative mode. It only ended because someone managed to bash him over the head. We could walk right up to Shane and speak the words and he might not even notice.”

“If the battle tide has risen for him, he might kill you all and still not notice,” said Judith. “We become…very hard to kill.”

“But he wasn’t possessed,” said Marguerite, ready to pull her hair out. Was no one listening? “Not when we left him.” She waved a hand at Wren. “That creature that called itself Wisdom was standing right there. She was definitely still the demon. She moved wrong. You saw it.”

“That’s true,” Wren admitted, but Jorge was already shaking his head.

“How long do you think that will last? If the demon has access to a paladin host?”

Marguerite didn’t know how to answer that. Wren’s shoulders hunched up, a picture of misery. “And it did something to him. I could feel it. Like there was a shadow over him, even when we were at the river. Only not a shadow. Something weird and…I don’t know. Jittery.”

The paladins of the Dreaming God all nodded in grim recognition at that description. Marguerite forced herself to sound calm, even though she wanted to bash all their armored heads together. No one listened when you sounded hysterical, even if you had a damn good reason. “It was still him, though. Not the demon.”

She had not kissed a demon at the end. She would have staked her life on it. The lips that had moved on hers had belonged to Shane and no one else. And if I say that out loud, they will all look at me with profound pity, and probably they’ll try to make me kneel again, just in case I’m dealing with some kind of residual possession. They’ll just think I’m in denial because I’m in love.