Rain in Bretonnia does not wash away sins; it only pushes them deeper into the mud. Geneviève had been riding for three days under a sky the color of molten lead, the incessant patter of water on her armor becoming the only rhythm of her existence. Beneath the layer of plates, leather, and chainmail, her body was a grid of dull aches. The linen bandages compressing her chest were by now soaked with cold sweat and dampness, rubbing against irritated skin with every step of the horse.
She had not stopped at an inn. "Sir Gilles" did not enter inns. Sir Gilles slept in abandoned barns or under cart sheds, seated, with sword on knees and helm strapped on, feeding on dried meat forced through the visor slit. The Damsel's blessing in the forest had given peace to her spirit, but it had not made the steel lighter. On the contrary, now that she knew her lie was sacred, the weight of responsibility seemed to have doubled gravity itself.
She arrived at Pied-de-Cochon at sunset. It was not marked on the royal maps. It was one of those villages forgotten by God and King, a cluster of crooked shacks sunk into the slime at the borders of the Dukedom of Mousillon. The air tasted sickly sweet, a mixture of burnt peat and sickness.
The village was silent. Too silent. There were no barking dogs, nor smoke from the chimneys. The windows were barred with wooden planks nailed up in haste. Geneviève stopped her destrier in the center of what passed for a market square. The horse snorted, nervous, pawing the ground.
A door creaked open. An old man came out, leaning on a gnarled stick. His eyes were veiled by cataracts, his skin stretched like parchment over his bones. Behind him, in the shadows of the hovel, Geneviève glimpsed the terrified eyes of a woman clutching a bundle to her chest.
"Are you a tax collector?" asked the old man. His voice trembled, but not out of respect. Out of resignation. "If you are here for the taxes, milord, take the manure. It is all we have left."
Geneviève remained motionless, a statue of dark metal in the rain. She shook her head slowly. The old man squinted, trying to focus on the imposing figure. He saw the armor devoid of a crest, black as night, and the two-handed sword jutting from behind the knight's shoulder like a tombstone. "A Knight Errant..." murmured the old man, and a spark of hope, fragile and desperate, lit up in his gaze. "Are you here for the Beast?"
Geneviève did not answer with words. She nodded, a single sharp movement of her armored head.
"Praise be to the Lady," whispered the old man, making the sign of the hammer. "The Baron says they are wolves. But wolves do not open doors, milord. Wolves do not leave bodies... drained."
The Beast came at night. Geneviève understood this from the tracks she found behind the old mill. Claws as long as daggers had dug deep furrows into the oak wood of the door. It smelled of ammonia and old blood. They were not wolves. And they were not orcs. It was something ancient. Something the corrupted land of Mousillon had vomited up.
Geneviève tied the horse inside the mill, safe. Then, she began her ritual. She did not pray on her knees in the chapel, because there was no chapel. Her prayer was maintenance. She checked every strap. She oiled the joints of the armor with pig fat to make them silent. She sharpened the edge of the sword with a whetstone she kept in her pouch, a rhythmic sound, scritch-scratch, that filled the wait for the night. She was tired. Her muscles burned. She would have given anything to take off the helm, to feel the fresh air on her shaved skin, to be just a girl for an hour. Not yet, she told herself. Not while there is darkness.
Night fell like a shroud. Geneviève positioned herself in the center of the square, motionless under the pouring rain. She was the bait. Hours passed. The cold penetrated through the gambeson, biting into her bones. Then, she smelled it. Not a sound. A smell. A stench of an open grave and rancid meat. From the roof of a stable, a shadow detached itself from the dark.
It landed in the mud with a liquid sound. It was huge. A Vargheist, or perhaps a Ghoul grown to immense size thanks to black magic. It had pale, taut skin, membranous wings atrophied on its hunched back, and a mouth bristling with fangs dripping black slime. The creature rose on its hind legs, nearly three meters tall, and hissed at the solitary knight.
Geneviève did not back down. Fear, that old friend who had accompanied her since childhood, knocked at her door. You are small, fear whispered to her. You are just a blacksmith's daughter in a dress of iron. But Geneviève answered with the voice of the Damsel: I am the truth they do not see.
Her right hand gripped the hilt of the sword. The monster charged.
It was a clash of primordial violence. No courteous duels, no honor. The creature struck her with a swipe that would have decapitated an ox. Geneviève took the blow on her left pauldron. The metal shrieked, denting, and pain exploded in her shoulder like a searing star, but she did not fall. She used the impact to rotate. The heavy sword described a perfect arc in the rainy air. Punish Evil. There was no light visible to the eyes of a common man, but for the creature, that blade suddenly became incandescent, a burning brand of pure faith.
The double-edged steel sank into the monster's flank, shearing through ribs and black muscle. The beast screamed, a sound that rattled the glass in the houses, and counterattacked, sinking its teeth into Geneviève's forearm. The teeth slid on the steel vambrace, but the pressure was such that she almost dropped her weapon.
Geneviève grunted, a low, guttural sound, stifled by the helm. She let go of the sword with her left hand and threw an armored punch, direct and brutal, at the beast's snout. The gauntlet smashed into the creature's nose with a satisfying crack. The beast staggered back, stunned. It was the moment. Geneviève grabbed the sword again with both hands. Ignoring the pain in her shoulder, ignoring the bandages cutting off her breath, she channeled everything she had: the rage for her dead father, the hatred for the absent nobles, the love for those invisible peasants.
"Die," she snarled inside the helm.
She brought the blade down. A vertical slash, from collarbone to sternum. The sword passed through the monstrosity as if it were smoke. The Vargheist collapsed into the mud, split, twitching one last time before melting into a pool of blackish slime.
Geneviève stood there, panting, the rain washing the black blood from her armor. Her knees were trembling. She felt a trickle of warm blood, her own, running down her arm under the protection.
The doors of the houses opened timidly. The old man came out first, holding a lantern. He saw the knight standing over the remains of the beast. He saw the lowered sword, the dented armor. The villagers approached, murmuring blessings, some weeping. A woman tried to kiss Geneviève's dirty gauntlet.
"Milord... Milord Gilles..." whimpered the old man, searching in his empty pockets. "We have no gold. But take this... it is my wife's ring..."
Geneviève looked at the ring. It was a band of poor silver, misshapen. She looked at the old man. She looked at the children staring at her as if she were an angel of iron descended from the sky. If she took the ring, she could have eaten warm meat for a week. She could have paid an armorer to repair the pauldron that was now mangling her flesh.
Slowly, Geneviève closed the old man's hand around the ring and pushed it away gently. She shook her head. She remounted her horse with a stifled groan that no one heard. As she turned the destrier toward the dark road, away from the lantern light, she heard the old man shouting at her back. "Who are you? At least tell us who we should pray for!"
Geneviève stopped for an instant at the edge of the village. The temptation to scream her real name, to say I am Geneviève of Bord de l'Eau, and I am one of you, burned her throat. But Geneviève was dead. She raised a hand in a silent salute and spurred the horse into the dark. They would pray for Sir Gilles, the hero. And she would continue to ride in the rain, alone with her pain and her strange, terrible freedom.