Grave no. 8

“My name is Gress, my Lady.” The lazy guard spoke in return.

“Why tell me that?”

“I just thought you would like to know.”

Liel shook her head, continuing to walk down the street, still holding Elienoire’s hand. “No, I have another nickname for you. I don’t need to know your name.”

“Eh? Another nickname? What is it?”

“It doesn’t matter.” Liel smiled slyly.

Soon, the trio came to the south edge of town. The first grave was found at the north-most part of town. If it were the case that all nine points of the ritual were arranged on the outermost part of town, then there would be no point at the south edge. An enneagram, a ritual diagram with nine points left a space at the bottom-most part of the diagram. If it were actually arranged as an octogram, with eight points, then there would be a grave located in each cardinal direction of the town, with a final ninth point in the center.

Right at the edge of town, there was a small patch of dirt around six feet in length that had obvious been dug out and reburied.

“There it is… another grave… right where I predicted…” She stood for a moment, staring at this unmarked grave before sighing. “Let’s dig it up. We have to confirm there’s a corpse there.”

For the next few minutes, the trio dug into the soil that had softened with the arrival of spring, Elienoire more eager than most. Liel’s gaze grew empathetic as she saw this. She knew that the wolf woman only wanted to know if the body resting right underneath their feet was the corpse of her daughter.

Soon, mottled, rotting flesh was revealed to the open air. Maggots had long dug away at the flesh, filling their bellies and dying as soon as they had been born. All that was left was a paper-thin husk. Gress reached into the grave, digging around the corpse until he had procured an item- a wooden comb that had lost many of its prongs.

‘One of the Chieftain’s gifts? Does that mean that this is another of the Chieftain’s children, or one of the women he lied with…? But what does Gress want with this? Is he trying to cover up for his father? No, if the two of them were complicit, it wouldn’t matter if they tried to cover it up. The ritual will happen soon, and they will be revealed anyway. Let’s let him take it and see where it ends up…”

Liel averted her gaze, turning away from the grave. She then continued walking down the street, back towards the town.

“What? We’re leaving already? Don’t you have some sort of Paladin ritual to do? Bless the body, maybe?”

“I’m a Paladin, not a Priest.” Liel replied, pulling the collar of her coat up to her cheek to stave off the cold. “I prevent the dead, not take care of them.”

The two soon caught up. Elienoire’s gaze was a mixture of emotions. She seemed satisfied that the body wasn’t her daughter’s, but still uneasy that they hadn’t yet found her. Liel reached out and brushed her hand through Elienoire’s hair, trying to comfort her.

Gress smiled warmly, looking down at Liel as they walked. “You’re quite intelligent. I admire people like you.”

“Really? You don’t seem like the type of person who likes intelligent women.”

“I don’t really know what that means…” Gress seemed dumbfounded by her reply, which made Liel chuckle inside. “My father stuck me on guard duty simply because I wasn’t intelligent enough to follow in his footsteps… isn’t that a shame? Sometimes I see smart people like you and wish I could trade places…”

“Is that why you’re never at the gate?”

“Being at the gate is one of the worst positions for guard duty. There’s never anything exciting happening there. That’s why no one wants to fulfill it.” Gress shrugged.

"Still, isn't it important to watch over the town?"

"In recent days, the townspeople have been more worried about the streets than the gates. I've just been doing what I can to ease their worries..."

“How admirable.” Her off-handed and dry remarks weren’t caught by the lazy guard, who seemed too preoccupied with himself to notice.

For a time, Liel and the Guard continued to search for unmarked graves in the specific locations she had marked on the map, until they came upon the final location, the eighth, confirming her suspicion. Of course, just where she had suspected they would be, there were corpses, long-rotted and left to the vermin of the soil. Each one had been buried with a distinct item, likely a gift from the Chieftain, which she had tacitly allowed Gress to retrieve. They were probably all related to the Chieftain in some way, going by past events.

Gress reached down into the eighth grave, procuring the item left behind, a small wooden wolf. It had a black stain spread across its side, just like the wooden-beaded bracelet and Isabelle's doll. It was the poison that had affected Liel just a couple of days prior.

“Wouldn’t it be best to remove the bodies? If they’re really part of a ritual, couldn’t you undermine its progress by interrupting the diagram?”

Liel shook her head in response to this question.

“If it’s a ritual that involves ‘death’ rather than the ‘deceased’, these points act as a location where death has occurred. ‘Death’ becomes the ritual point rather than the corpse itself, and I don’t have the ability to destroy the concept of death. If this isn’t the case, the perpetrator stole the hearts of the corpses. It could be that they set up a smaller scale using the organs, which serve conductive purposes. In any ritual, the heart is the most important element, and the corpses don’t have any. That makes moving the corpses a useless endeavour. And if it's the former, it's as I mentioned, futile. My only option is to try and discover who’s really behind it before it’s too late…” Liel grimaced as she turned away from the grave, continuing to walk into the town towards the next theorised location.

“Don’t you mean ‘we’?” Gress interjected, following behind her.

“Right.” Liel replied curtly.

Elienoire had continued to stick close to Liel. Her gaze had been purposefully averted from the guard. It was obvious that she couldn’t bear to look at the man. It was just enough for her to suppress her hatred of him. Liel could finally understand why. What mother could bear to look at the child of her own neglected child’s father? If it weren’t for Gress, it might have been Isabelle in his place, and she might not have gone missing.

But even Liel thought this was a little misplaced. After all, it was the Chieftain’s womanising that had brought about these events. And more than that, it might have been him that had been complicit in the disappearances anyway.

“But that’s just conjecture, unproven thoughts…” Liel mocked her Lord underneath her breath as they walked. She turned towards Gress, questioning, “what’s in the center of Estelle?”

“Ah… that would be…” Gress thought for a moment, glancing up at the sky. His voice grew a little colder as he replied, his grip tightening on his spear “My father’s house, I think.”

‘The Chieftain’s house is in the center of the town? More specifically… the Chieftain’s house is in the center of the ritual diagram!’ Her hand navigated towards her blade. ‘This entire time, I’ve been wary of acting out on false evidence and killing the wrong people, but this evidence is just too much! Should I kill Gress before he can do anything? He might not really be involved, but I can gamble it anyway! Can I really risk the safety of this town on one life that may or may not be innocent!? I haven’t found the hearts… I don’t even know what type of ritual it might be! I lack so much and yet there is no time at all! Even little Isabelle-’

“Don’t do anything stupid.”

“Huh?” Liel was snapped out of her thoughts, glancing up towards the guard.

“You’re probably analysing the situation right now, trying to connect all the pieces. Are you operating under some motive of justice that doesn’t let you act brazenly? It really doesn't matter now." Gress replied, shaking his head. "You can stop your theorising."

"What? What are you talking about?"

Gress ignored her questions, smiling warmly. “Thank you, you’ve been a great help.”

Gravel crunched underneath several pairs of boots around Liel. She instinctively drew her sword, but it was knocked out of her hand in the next instant, causing it to fly across the road, clattering against the stone tiles.

Suddenly, black-cloaked figures appeared from the shadows, seizing Liel and Elienoire by the arms, her sword picked up by another figure in the distance. Because the Siltte didn’t sense deadly intent from the attackers, it didn’t react to protect Liel.

“I had to retrieve Father's gifts, but I didn't know where he had buried the bodies. At least, until you led me straight to them. I think I’ll always remain indebted to you in this regard, but I don't think I'll be able to pay you back.”

Daybreak danced at the edge of the plains in the distance, a dim orange glow illuminating the figures slightly. Liel grimaced as she glanced at Gress, seeing his once-genial expression twist into one of madness, self-exuberance, and violent perversion.

Elienoire let out a yelp as she was thrown to the ground, pinned down by one of the hooded attackers. Liel tried to wrestle herself free from their grasps, but they were unusually strong, her skin twisted and stretched underneath their harsh fingertips.

“Sorry, I lied earlier. In truth, I was never supposed to guard the gate. It was purposefully left open in order to lure targets into the town. But our town doesn’t get many visitors. We had to make do with what we had, unfortunately. That just happened to be a lot of our own people… A lot of his children…”

'The Chieftain killed his own children? But Elienoire said he would never be able to do such a thing! Was she wrong!? Or did the Chieftain have Gress do it in his place!?'

“You killed your own comrade.” Liel spoke bitterly through gritted teeth. Her eyes filled with an inconsolable fury. If the figures holding her back were to let go off her in that second, Gress would have surely not survived to see the next.

“Yes, that was a hard plot to plan out.” Gress sighed, turning on his heel as he faced the approaching dawn. “I crushed his skull in order to prevent him being identified by others as an elder of the village. If you were to see the Elder, you might have immediately attacked me, confirming I was complicit in the disappearances, at least by association. I know you’ve seen them before. During the harvest ritual, I believe. Moreover, I had to retrieve the Horror as soon as I killed him so you wouldn’t discover it on his corpse…”

“The Horror…?” Liel’s gaze shook violently upon hearing this. Fear surged within her chest, like a sharp ache that cut into her fleshy crimson heart.

“Ah, yes…” Gress smiled slyly. Slowly, black tendrils began seeping out from underneath his eyelids, crawling along the surface of his brows. At the same time, his pupils began to decay outwards, fragmenting into microscopic pitch-black flakes until nothing remained except empty blood-red sockets. In these empty holes, darkness churned violently about, emitting a blood-curdling screech as it made contact with the air. "We've long since accepted the Will of our Lord- the birth of all Horrors, Humanity's greatest fear, the unknown. He is the master of the One True Will, Lord Eurussil..."

It was Horror.

Liel glanced backwards, up at the face of her attacker. The figure did not have a face. There was no head underneath the hood, only a bloody stump from which pitch-black liquid sprouted out like writhing tendrils that curled over themselves, black eyes peering from behind the clump of shadows.

‘It wasn’t a cannibalistic plot!? It was the plot of the False Lord, Eurussil!’ In the glint of her blade, still held by one of the black-cloaked figures, Liel spotted the reflection of Ciseus, his grim expression glaring. He slowly mouthed out a sentence to Liel from afar, gritting his teeth as he spoke.