Chapter 8: Face to face with the past
The wooden walls of Serpico loomed larger with each step, sun-bleached planks nailed hastily over older stone. The names—Serpico, Villao—scratched at a part of Ezra’s mind he kept boarded shut, and his grip tightened on the strap of his pack. “You’ve gone quiet,” Sigfried observed, not looking at him as they trudged up the dusty switchback. Ezra forced a laugh that sounded like gravel. “Just wondering if they serve those beetles here toasted or raw.”
The joke landed in the dust at their feet, ignored. Ezra’s tone shifted, becoming uncharacteristically direct as the town gate drew nearer. “How can you be so sure it’s a demon?” he asked, his voice low beneath the helmet. Ginny didn’t break stride, her eyes on the walls. “The claw marks on the gate weren’t just blackened,” she said flatly. “The friar said the wood around them was subtly charred, as if seared by intense heat from the inside out.”
Lira’s hand went to the fletching of an arrow. “That sounds familiar.” “And it only hunts after sunset,” Sigfried added, his voice cutting through the heavy air. “Every attack, every sighting, has occurred in total darkness.” He looked directly at the slits in Ezra’s helmet, his analytical gaze piercing. “Demons are indeed very active at night.”
The comment hung there, a clinical observation that felt like a fingerprint on his soul. Ezra stopped walking, the dust settling around his boots. “You don’t necessarily have to talk about my biology,” says an uncomfortable Ezra, the cheerful façade finally cracking into something raw and defensive.
Sigfried’s retort died in his throat as they rounded the final bend. The four finally arrived at the entrance to Serpico; barely a second passes before a group of guards steps in front of them, surrounding Ezra's neck with the tips of their spears. The rusted points hovered a finger's width from the vulnerable join between his helmet and armored collar. Any of their eyes was wide with a mixture of terror and hatred. Behind the wall of spearpoints, Ezra went very, very still.
The scent of their fear-sweat was sharp, cutting through the dust and heat. He could see the whites of their eyes, the tremor in the youngest guard’s hands. A single twitch from him would start a bloodbath.
“Easy now,” Ginny’s voice sliced through the tension, authoritative and calm. She did not reach for her sword, but her posture became a command. “Lower your weapons. This one is with the Guild of Hawks. He’s under my authority.”
“That thing is the authority!” a guard spat, his spear tip drifting toward Ezra’s visor. “We’ve heard the descriptions. Horns. Fire. It butchers in the dark.” The captain pushed through his men, a broad man with a weathered face and deep suspicion etched into his eyes. He looked Ezra up and down, his gaze lingering on the black horns protruding from the helmet. “Well. Saves us the hunt, doesn’t it? You’re a bold one, walking right up to the gate.”
Ezra let out a slow, vented sigh. “I also do birthday parties.” The joke was ash in his mouth.
The captain’s hand went to his own sword hilt. “Bind it. Now.”
“You are making a fundamental error in identification,” Sigfried stated, stepping forward with an almost academic disinterest that contrasted violently with the spears. “Your assumption is based on superficial morphology.”
“It’s got horns!” the captain roared, gesturing wildly at Ezra.
“So do rams, certain breeds of cattle, and a regrettable number of nobles in the southern courts,” Sigfried countered, his voice dry. “Your surviving witness described a creature of ‘shadow and ember.’ Observe.” He gestured at Ezra, standing in the blistering midday sun. “This creature’s fur is quite vividly red. His armor is polished, or was, and reflects light. He is, at present, casting a shadow quite like the rest of us. Nothing about him is remotely shadowy.”
The captain faltered, his certainty wavering. Ginny seized the opening. “Your witness never saw the culprit’s face, Captain. No one has. They saw a shape. You are accusing my companion because he is the only demon you have ever seen.” Her green eyes were hard. “That is not evidence. It is prejudice.”
“He arrived just as the attacks began!” the captain insisted, though his voice had lost its conviction.
Sigfried shook his head, a teacher with a slow student. “The attacks began over four weeks ago, according to your own guild contract. We were in Valloria, two days’ hard ride from here, dealing with a grey orc incursion.” He paused, letting the timeline settle. “You can verify this with the Guild Master. This demon was there, fighting beside us. He couldn’t be here murdering your drivers.”
The logic was irrefutable, a solid wall the captain’s fear couldn’t breach. The spears, almost imperceptibly, began to lower. The captain’s shoulders slumped, the fight draining out of him, replaced by a weary confusion. “Then… what is it? And why are you bringing another one here?”
“Because,” Ezra said, his voice quiet but clear from behind the metal, “to find a predator, sometimes you need a better predator.” He slowly, carefully, reached up and placed a single claw against the nearest spear shaft, pushing it gently down and away from his body. “Now. Can we come in? The sun is murder on my finish.”
A tense, silent moment stretched. Then the captain grunted, waving a dismissive hand. The guard formation broke apart, creating a sullen pathway through the gate.
The guard formation broke apart, creating a sullen pathway through the gate. Before letting them go, the captain orders that they be followed by three Fantacorvi—summoned by the guards' arcanist unit—to ensure they do not play a double game. The creatures slipped from the shadow of the gatehouse, their forms mist-like and coalescing into the shape of large, silent crows with eyes like chips of polished obsidian. They perched on the eaves of a nearby tannery, three identical silhouettes turning their heads in unnerving unison. “Charming escort,” Sigfried murmured, not looking up, his knuckles white on his staff.
Ginny ignored the obsidian-eyed birds, her focus entirely on the weary captain. "Where is the surviving witness?" she asked, her voice stripped of its earlier command, becoming urgent and practical.
The captain rubbed his stubbled jaw, his eyes avoiding the obsidian crows perched above. "The girl's kept at the chapel of Saint Serriven," he muttered, his voice low and strained.
“Lead the way,” Ginny said, already turning toward the tangled heart of the town. They moved into Serpico’s coiled streets, the three Fantacorvi gliding soundlessly from roof to roof above them, their obsidian eyes tracing every step.
The tight lanes funneled the stench of tanner’s urine and baking bread, and from every shadowed doorway or shuttered window, glances like thrown stones found Ezra. A woman dragging a child inside, a old man spitting into the dust after they passed, the collective intake of breath from a group at a well—it was a silence more accusing than any shout.
“Getting the full hero’s welcome,” Ezra muttered, the forced cheer in his voice strained thin by the weight of their stares.
The Fantacorvi shifted on their perch above a butcher’s stall, their inky forms stark against the sun-bleached wall, as the modest stone chapel of Saint Serriven came into view at the lane’s end, its oaken door banded with iron and standing slightly ajar.
The Fantacorvi shifted on their perch above a butcher’s stall, their inky forms stark against the sun-bleached wall, as the modest stone chapel of Saint Serriven came into view at the lane’s end, its oaken door banded with iron and standing slightly ajar. Ginny stopped a dozen paces from the entrance, her eyes scanning the small, dusty plaza where a dry fountain stood. She looked from the chapel door to Ezra’s armored form, then to the sullen faces beginning to gather at the edges of the square.
“Ezra,” she said, her voice low. “You and Lira wait out here.”
Ezra’s helmet tilted. “What, my charming personality isn’t welcome in a house of worship?” The joke was automatic, a buffer.
“Your horns are not,” Sigfried stated, his gaze flicking toward the gathering locals. “The witness is likely traumatized enough. The sight of you might shut her down completely, or worse, convince her you’re the thing she saw.” His logic was, as always, mercilessly practical. “And given the audience, your presence might provoke an incident we cannot diplomatically afford.”
Lira touched Ezra’s armored forearm, a brief, solid pressure. “I’ll stay with you.” Her voice was firm, leaving no room for debate. It wasn’t just solidarity; it was tactical. One of them needed to manage the demon, and the other needed to manage the crowd that would inevitably gather around him.
Ezra let out a long, vented sigh that steamed slightly in the warm air. “Fine. I’ll commune with the local architecture.” He turned his back on the chapel door, leaning against the sun-warmed stone of the outer wall, deliberately positioning himself in full view of the square. It was a challenge, or an apology; it was hard to tell.
Ginny gave a curt nod, and she and Sigfried slipped through the heavy oaken door into the dim, cool silence within. The door closed with a soft, final thud, sealing away the world of incense and whispered prayer from the world of dust and glaring sun.
The silence outside was not peaceful. It was a held breath. A young boy pointed from the doorway of a cobbler’s shop before his mother yanked him inside, the shutter banging closed. The three Fantacorvi observed, unmoving, from their high perch.
Lira stood beside Ezra, her back straight, one hand resting lightly near her dagger. She didn’t look at the crowd, but her elven senses tracked every movement. “They’re scared,” she said quietly, not to them, but to him.
“I noticed,” Ezra replied, his voice muffled by the helmet. He crossed his arms, the metal scraping. “The beetle breakfast probably didn’t help my reputation as a wholesome, town-friendly entity.”
A faint, reluctant smile touched Lira’s lips. “It was… visceral.” She paused, watching two older men mutter to each other by the dry fountain. “Sig was right, though. About the timeline. You couldn’t have been here.”
“Logic and fear aren’t drinking buddies, Lira,” he said, watching a woman hastily pull washing from a line. “They rarely meet at the same tavern.” He shifted his weight, the plume of dust from his boots hanging in the still air. “Thanks. For staying out here.”
“Where else would I be?” she asked, as if it were the simplest question in the world.