The Shepherd and his Sheep

“Recently, there’s been a lot of those small-scale murder rituals taking place, it seems. We haven’t gotten word from the higher-ups, but we’ve seen the number of Roamers has improved in the footsteps we’ve tracked. If it weren’t for that majour attack on Alfheim you mentioned, I’m sure the Templar would have put focus on those occurrences. It’s unfortunate." Carris yawned as he stretched, standing up, his gaze suddenly flitting back and forth.

Keihart stood up beside him, and Torres brushed a handful of snow over the embers, extinguishing them and bathing the area in darkness.

"What's going on?" Liel glanced around in the darkness, unable to see a single thing.

"Kill anything that moves, and hope it's not us." Torres spoke in a gruff tone as he unsheathed his blade. Similar sounds of swords ringing against their sheaths echoed through the area, and for a time afterwards, all was silent except for the howling wind.

Then, a chilling screech resounded through the air. She unsheathed her blade and raised it, and a moment after, pitch-black liquid crashed against it, splitting in half on either side of her. The creature that had lunged at her had thousands of beady bright-red eyes, and a maw that dripped with foul ooze and miasma. It split off into two creatures, running off towards the sudden sounds of blades clashing in the night as if Liel didn’t exist any longer.

Liel reached to her side, wishing to alight the tinder with Torres’s flint and steel so that she could catch a glimpse of the danger around her. A hand pressed against her shoulder, preventing this action.

“Don’t.” Morrigan whispered. “If you set a fire, you’ll become their first target. They’re attracted to light. Use your eyes instead, your God’s special eyes.” After giving her this warning, Morrigan disappeared into the darkness, leaving her behind.

‘They’re attracted to light? Are there beasts that act in such a way!?’

Liel took a deep breath, and then another, steadier and steadier, until her breathing became a constant, rhythmic cycle. Her irises gradually took on an iridescent hue, and the darkness around her became lighter, able to make out the shapes of figures dancing in the shadows.

She saw several pitch-black monsters rushing at the group of Paladins, who tried their hardest to slash forward without hitting each other, becoming surrounded by the beasts. They were irregularities, animals that had been completely taken over by Horror.

“Why won’t these things cease!?” Graham shouted angrily, letting out an exasperated huff.

“They’re my attack dogs. They’ll only stop when I tell them to.”

As a new voice spoke out, fires alighted around them, basking the snowy ground in a dim orange glow. Liel glanced around, noticing the appearance of several human figures around them. Dozens of men clad in black hooded cloaks stood before them, brandishing various swords and spears. The one at the front had a pitch-black mask on his face, which twisted and encircled itself around his wrist as he reached to take it off, revealing a calm and genial expression. He was a middle-aged man, about the same as Torres, although his features were a bit more pleasant than weathered.

‘They’re just like the hooded figures that attacked me in Estelle!’ Liel’s gaze shook, taking a step back. However, something else immediately caught her attention. There was a weird sensation under her boot- fleshy, wet. She glanced down behind her, spotting the dead-eyed expression of the giant man, Keihart, lying beside her. His jaw had been torn from his face, and his ribs lied open to the world, his organs still pulsating underneath. Pitch-black liquid surged through his interior, causing his heart to beat and his stomach to whir.

Keihart had died, and was now in the process of becoming corrupted, becoming one of the creatures that had first attacked them- an Irregularity.

“The Shepherd and his sheep.” Torres scoffed, walking towards Keihart’s body as he raised his blade, spreading an unusual violet substance on its tip before thrusting it into Keihart’s heart. This caused the Horror spreading within him to writhe rapidly, slowly turning a dull-grey colour as it died off. He wouldn’t let his former comrade suffer in death when he had already suffered so much in life.

The violet substance, a poison, was something that all of his comrades were equipped with. It didn’t have a standard name, it was just made from plants commonly found in the Faust quadrant. So, they had all taken it to calling it ‘mercy’.

“It’s been a few years, Captain. How have you been?” The man standing at the front reached behind him, procuring a large steel scythe from its holster as he began to circle around Torres. The two repeated these motions as the black-hooded figures encircled them, creating a ring that Torres couldn’t escape from.

“You’ve certainly given us trouble, Ciaphas. If it weren’t for you choosing to betray us and serve the False Lord, we wouldn’t have been tasked with killing you. If you hadn’t spent this whole time running from us, the last time we would have seen each other would have been years ago. Laisson wouldn’t have died… and now Keihart wouldn’t have died. How many deaths will you wear on your hands until you’re satisfied with the shade of the red?”

“I haven’t spent this whole time running, though…” He gestured around him, grinning. “I now have ten times as many men as you have. What did you first call them? Roamers? Well, in any case, I think I have completely outdone you.”

Torres rushed forward, swinging his blade in an arcing motion towards Ciaphas’s neck. If he could just kill the traitor, it wouldn’t matter if they all died, he thought. For a Paladin, their assigned mission was their only goal. Survival was a secondary outlook.

Ciaphas grasped the edge of Torres’s sword with the blade of the scythe, thrusting it downwards as he hit the Captain in the face with the butt of his weapon. Blood began to trickle down Torres’s cheek from his nose, but his determination remained.

The hooded figures began to chant around them, as if cheering on their leader, and Liel and the Paladins were forced to watch in terror as the two fought. She thought about approaching the two, but the sheer number of hooded figures sent shivers down her spine.

Suddenly, one of the hooded figures raised his blade, twisting his body in a circle as he took the heads off of several of his compatriots. This caused Torres and Ciaphas to pause in their bout, watching as the rogue hooded figure lunged forward, appearing underneath Ciaphas as he raised his blade, pressing it against Ciaphas’s throat in an instant.

Ciaphas grinned madly, looking down at his traitor with excited eyes. “You! You’re-”

The figure gradually let down his hood, revealing a pleasant face with short curly black hair. It was Morrigan, who had disguised himself as the Bard.

“Good day, Ciaphas.” Morrigan spoke calmly, his face dull and free of emotion.

“Hello again, Morrigan. It’s almost hard to recognise you with that face, but someone of this caliber could only be you. Have you come to win the wager we made?”

“No, I just came to kill some of your men.”

A familiar face enveloped in a hood rushed forward from the outer circle, one of the surviving Elders from Estelle. He thrust his blade towards Morrigan, but the Bard pressed his hand against his face, turning towards the Elder without raising his sword in defense. Instead of the Bard’s charming appearance, he now wore the calm, well-aged face of Ciaphas.

Seeing his leader’s face in front of his blade, this caused the Elder to hesitate, giving Morrigan enough time to pivot his body, taking the Elder’s head clean off of his shoulders. He pressed a hand to his face in the next instant, wearing the Bard’s face once more before facing Ciaphas.

“All the others associated with that man I just took down… I’ll kill them all.”

“And what if I don’t let you?” Ciaphas raised an eyebrow.

“It’s the price of me not killing you today.”

“Sorry, but I’ll be the one killing him today.” Torres chimed in from behind, rotating his shoulder in an attempt to stretch it.

“You can try if you want, Paladin, but he doesn’t have any intention of killing or being killed.” Morrigan responded in a still, unwavering tone. “You’re going to be captured and taken, and I don’t plan on following you.”

“Isn’t it honourable to kill a man yourself? That’s why we’re fighting now…” Torres began to wonder if he had completely misjudged the situation. Was he really being toyed with by his former comrade? Moreover, this strange man accompanying Ms. Astalette ended up having some past connection to Ciaphas, the traitor of his group. What could it have been, and what wager had they made against each other?

“Ciaphas has no honour in him.”