Chapter 765: Faults and Doubts (Part One)
"None of us may survive the winter!"
Liam Dunn’s bold declaration shocked everyone present, especially when he mentioned the Undying Demons, the scourge led by the Demon Lady of the Vale who ravaged the countryside a hundred years ago and recaptured the Vale of Mists from Lothian hands.
"You know them to be Undying Demons?" Diarmuid blurted, lurching to his feet as he was unable to restrain himself when he heard something so shocking. "Has a Templar or Inquisitor confronted them in your barony?" the Inquisitor asked as he stood, staring at the young lord of the Dunn barony with an intense stare.
"We have witness accounts," Liam said, shaking his head at the Inquisitor. "From at least two of our hamlets, where men saw the demons attacking the night before the storm. One of them even found the bodies of our fallen soldiers drained of their blood. If not the Undying Demons, who can only be killed with Holy Light and Fire, what else could it be?"
"Many things," Diarmuid said as he slowly sat back down. "More than you might imagine, young lord Liam. Many times over the years, men have attempted to invoke the fear of Undying Demons by draining the blood from the bodies of the slain in the same way you drain the blood of slaughtered cattle and goats."
"Indeed," High Priest Aubin said while gently stroking his thin white beard. "It is best to avoid wild speculation about something as shocking as the return of Undying Demons. But you said there were witnesses as well. Did they describe these demons in detail?"
"My father is still gathering the details," Liam said, clenching the small scraps of paper he’d received from his father in his fist while he struggled to bite back the hot words on the tip of his tongue.
Liam had been in the Village of Maeril, overseeing the loading of their goods onto barges when the unnaturally fierce thunderstorm struck. He’d been delayed by a full day as he and his men worked to retrieve the pair of barges that had broken free of their moorings in the storm. When he returned to Sir Garrick Maeril’s castle that evening, there had been half a dozen messages carried by pigeons waiting for him, each one more concerning than the last.
In a few days, Liam was certain that he would learn a great deal more, but now, he had only a few cramped lines of text and his father’s dire warning to present at the meeting of the Lothian Court. And if he failed to convince these men of the danger...
"The witness account describes the demons as twisted creatures," Liam said as he unclenched his fist and carefully smoothed out the slips of parchment on the table in front of him before selecting one to read. "It had horns like a steer and scales like a snake with claws as sharp as a hawk’s," he read, shuddering at the thought of such a potent demon.