Chapter 3 - The Inquisitive Maiden

Behind us, the camp - and everything in it - burned.

When the angels had set to work, their fury was unstinting. Overhead, the rush of their wings was a constant insect drone; Rivers of flame washed through the tents and the pavilions, arrows clattering and hissing as beastmen fired up at them, or fled into the night.

Heat radiated from the stones and the rubble, and there was a powerful chemical stink. Many fires were still burning, eclipsing the cookfires I'd seen around the stone edifice of the ancient temple.

Some of the beast-men could fly. Most couldn't. Those who could, fled rather than fight.

I don't think most of them were warriors, not necessarily; In hindsight, I think they were worshipers. Supplicants. This was one of their high holy places, and they had come to reap the benefits of sacrifice.

When the hammer came down, when the prisoners rose up against them - with the desperate fervor of those who knew it was fight or die - the first priority of the priests had been to escape with their retinues.

I think, working together, they might have yet been able to overwhelm us. Maybe.

But only if we gave them the chance.

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"Gragh-rah… k’KH! Zhok’ta hurgh! Still Pash’ta’k… still… Pash’ta’K!! Ssstill! PASH'TA'K!"

My ability to understand the beast-men, it seemed, had a limit.

We'd run down the swaying litter entirely by chance. The bull-headed guards hefting the sedan hadn't even known what had hit them, Caius's arrows taking them in their throats and eyes and hearts.

Where he'd got the bow from - a seemingly-oversized weapon, almost as long as he was tall - I didn't know. Only that it fired the thumb-thick arrows with alarming ease and accuracy, the hiss of their shots catching up a heartbeat after the meaty thunk of impact.

Did I say accuracy? I meant to say - Caius never missed.

The Interfector burned in my fists, as I wrenched the sedan's violet curtains back. The retinue had showed fight, but they hadn't slowed me down at all; the horse-men had flinched back from the hungry fires of the sword, flailing away as if its mere presence was anathema to them.

Some had run, snorting and whinnying in distress, joined the flow of unhinged panic as the Cloven Ones routed. 

Those that tried to fight had burned.

I don't know what they were - acolytes, maybe. They'd been armed with long staves, adorned with human skulls and fingerbones. My stomach had roiled when I'd seen how small some of those bones had been, and I hadn't held back. I think one or two had tried to strike me blind, or curse me, or turn my bones to water...But none of it had worked.

And then the Interfector had put an end to them.

From out of the perfumed shadows, a beast-man lunged at me. Horse-headed, like the others; dark circles ringing bloodshot eyes beneath a maroon cloak. It led with a dagger, and at the needle-pointed tip I could plainly see the sheen of some deadly poison.

It didn't even get close.

One clean swipe from my sword had sheared it in half, and neither half was whole or recognizable when the sedan's other inhabitant came spilling out. The beastman sank down on its spindly knees, three-fingers hands clutching at the earth - Round eyes glared out from beneath a yellow hood, the sign of a tribal elder.

"Still Pashta'k!" it bleated out, whinnying in distress. I could see that it was indeed older than the other beastmen I'd seen, milky eyes dimmed with cataracts, with a grey muzzle and thinning hair.

"What's it saying?" I asked, never taking my eyes off the Elder.

Caius grunted. "He's saying you just killed his son," he offered, not sounding remotely sympathetic. He was looking down at the skull-staves; No doubt thinking, as I had, that some of them must have come from children.

It looked up at me, and I could feel the hatred in the thing's half-blind stare.

"Only blood will pay the debt for this sacrilege," the Elder snorted. "All Blood-Tusks will give last breath to see vengeance. The Gods demand such!"

The Interfector rose, and I severed the creature's head with a single blow.

"One less priest," Caius said. He was moving among the bodies, cutting arrows free, shoving them into the quiver on his back. Even at rest, his eyes were exceptionally fierce, making it look like he was perpetually pissed at the world - Though he wasn't, not really.

He just looked that way.

"What it said-"

Caius shrugged. "It's war. It's not like they can hate us more than they already do."

He punctuated his words by planting his boot on a fallen minotaur, hauling on the shaft of an arrow. It came free, taking clumps of meat with it - He looked at the warped iron-scale head, grimaced, tossed it aside.

"We've done all the damage we can, Sir Gabriel. Come on - the Commander's waiting for us."

---------------------

Somehow, a kind of order was beginning to emerge from the chaos.

Caius's five-man raid on the stockade had gone from successful to devastating, when he'd discovered the store of oil left by the Cloven. The cargo of some captured caravan, quite possibly: According to him, the beastmen plundered whatever they could, even if they couldn't use it immediately.

One explosion later, and they were fighting by the light of burning bodies. It had been a ferocious point-blank battle, and the former prisoners hadn't been shy about letting loose with firebombs - A handful of knights had been scattered among the armsmen and the militia, and they'd formed the core of a desperate resistance that had fallen upon the beastmen and butchered them wholesale.

They hadn't expected that. The Cloven Ones had been here for some celebration, something equal parts Grand Guignol and festival, and the breakout - the fire, the slaughter - had caught them off-guard. It helped that everyone - everyone - from the Holy Kingdom knew how to fight. Or, at least, to bind wounds and shove wicks into oil-filled bottles, to drive knives into the fleeing backs of beastmen overseers.

It'd come down to the wagons, in the end. You'd have thought that beastmen felt some connection with their non-sapient kin, and they did: Just like humans, they used them as livestock.

The holding pens had been filled with the horses and oxen that hadn't been slaughtered, that weren't turning over a spit - While the angels had been sent to harass the fleeing warriors, the animals had been harnessed into the traces, the carts loaded up with anything that could be salvaged.

Except meat.

I would have asked why, but I was afraid Caius would have told me.

A black haze had engulfed half the vast camp, obscuring both the temple and the distant skyline. Forking traceries of energy lit up the frothing darkness like veins - Confused fighting was still going on in the noisome fog, strange, inexplicable crashes and thumps mingling with braying screams.

Angels, however, were disposable. Humans were not.

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They were loading up the wagons when we arrived. The wounded rode on the carts - Thanks to the efforts of the priests and the healers, most were (at least) up and walking. But healing magic couldn't do anything for those with missing limbs, and some sported truly grotesque injuries; I saw a man's scalp hanging by a shred of skin, a woman clutching her severed arm like a talisman, a soldier with a red-spotted bandage over half his skull.

If I'd felt any guilt - the slightest iota of it - killing the Cloven Ones before, it was gone now. In truth, I found them inherently repulsive, inherently warped; they were crude grotesques of humans, with features like cheap carnival masks and forms drawn from a child's infinite nightmares.

Putting them to the sword had felt like an exorcism.

As I trudged back with Caius, I couldn't help but feel a deep and abiding relief. That the nightmare of the day was almost over, and that whatever came next had to be better than this. I was, I think, suffering from some kind of delayed shock: the violence, the killing, had all blurred into a single blood-red smear.

No, I didn't feel any guilt. But I could still feel disorientated, disjointed, by the sheer shock of it.

"Skander!"

A big, thick-necked bull of a man looked up. He had a doorstep of a jaw, with arms as thick as tree trunks, corded with heavy muscle. With an expression that suggested to maim was divine, he'd have been a true brute - Except for his tiny, beady eyes.

Like a bird's, maybe, or a rabbit's.

He grinned, all the same - a big, toothy grin - when he saw Caius.

"Sergeant. Still alive, eh? Good." Those beady, murderous little eyes settled on me. Took in my armor, took in the Interfector. "Who's shiny boy here?"

I had kept my hand - and my ruptured glove - close to my side, out of sight. With a start, I realized that the glove was no longer ruptured: the mythril had sealed itself, closing over the rent the way a smile slowly fades.

More, my hand was no longer bleeding.

Caius slapped me on the back, hard enough to make me stagger forward a step.

"This? Only Sir Gabriel, you maniac. He's the one that got us out of all this, you know?"

"That so?" Skander leaned forward. His already-small eyes narrowed, the great bull of a man frowning. Sniffed the air, as if scenting blood-

Then he laughed. It was a hearty sound, loud enough to make heads turn: Those who did saw Skander's massive form, the six or seven blades he carried like toothpicks, and found something else to look at.

"Ha! This shrimp? You're going senile, Sergeant - Look at him! He's never used that damn sword in his life!" His craggy, scarred face - lit up from within by good humor - looked twice as frightening, as he shook his head. His fist knocked against my cuirass, with a faintly hollow sound. "Where'd you find him, anyway?"

"That's not what the Manflayer thought," Caius said. He gave me a strange, puzzled look. As if something wasn't quite right, but he couldn't place it. "They went at it earlier, and he walked away. Tell me, when was the last time you saw that?"

Skander turned his head to the side, and spat, decorously.

"The Manflayer? Huh." Those beady doll's-eyes settled on me, with interest this time. "Could've sworn...Well, never mind. Gabriel, right?"

"That's-" I was a little overwhelmed by all this. "-that's my name."

"Commander's over there. Been looking for you two - Think she's sweet on you."

This time, his leer was a monument to suggestiveness, his eyebrows rising. With a grunt, Skander heaved himself to his feet, hooked his thumbs in his belt.

"Might go for a stroll, before we head off. Hadn't had a day like this in a long time." His expression soured, went sombre. "All my boys are dead, Sergeant. Went down fighting, but they got them anyway."

Caius merely nodded. I saw a glance of understanding pass between both men, before Skander lumbered past - His face set in a foreboding grimace.

I didn't envy any of the beastmen that ran into him. I had a feeling that, for many, he would be the last thing they would ever see.

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We found Sabrine at the front of the ragged convoy, hefting a cask of water into the wagon with one hand. At some point, she'd cleaned the blood off her face, but it didn't make her look any less savage - I could see the shreds of gore clinging to her gauntlets, which she'd made a desultory effort to scrape clean.

"Commander," Caius said. He saluted, fist-to-chest.

"Caius. Gabriel. Any luck?"

He grunted. "Got them running, at least." Caius lowered his voice, instinctively: "-Couldn't find your sword."

Sabrine didn't sigh. She merely closed her eyes, for a moment.

"A terrible loss," she said, calmly. Neither of us failed to notice the tension in her form. "Filthy animals."

Caius cleared his throat, scratching his cheek. He looked uncomfortable, a look belied by his killer's eyes. "The thing is, the situation's becoming untenable. We should leave now, while the angels are keeping them occupied-"

Her jaw clenched, as if Sabrine was chewing rocks. "I know," she said, almost spitting out the second word. Her gaze roamed the burning skyline. "It's got to be here. I can feel it, somewhere."

I exchanged a glance with Caius. More than anything, I wanted to get out of here, too.

"I," I began, and her eyes snapped to me, like a target tracker. It was a distinctly disconcerting experience. "I think Sergeant Caius's right. We've done all we can here."

Inspiration struck. "Lady Arisa requires a healer's aid. The other wounded, too."

Sabrine exhaled. Slowly, her shoulders sagging, as if bowing beneath some invisible weight.

She looked in the direction of Arisa's cart - the priestess hadn't woken, since she'd sunk into unconsciousness. Whatever had been done to her, it'd taken a toll.

"Very well," she said. "We leave as soon as we can. Where's Skander?"

"He'll catch up," Caius said. "He always does."

---------------------

And then, at last - finally - we were on our way.

More than twenty wagons rumbled their way along the beaten track, away from the ruin we'd left in our wake. Burdened, riding low in the axle, they jostled each time they hit bumps or obstructions, orbs of light hovering overhead to illuminate our way. How the priests did it, I would never know - But somehow, they'd convinced a handful of angels to fly overhead, radiating a palpable wave of calm confidence and serenity.

Huddled in the cramped rear-bay of the third wagon, serenity was exactly what I needed. Sabrine rode at the head of the column - She'd wrangled her horse through sheer willpower, more than anything else, and Caius had perched himself on the canvas stays of one of the wagons, his bow at the ready.

Caius, I think, had noticed how exhausted, how beaten-down I was. "Here," he'd said. "Ride with Lady Arisa." Half-dazed, I'd shaken my head, though I'd desperately wanted to; "So you can protect her, lad," he said, and that was that.

Skander had returned when the column was moving. He'd picked up a few more nicks and scars, added more blades to his arsenal. He hadn't been smiling, when he'd hauled himself up onto the last cart, staring grimly into the night.

So it was just the two of us, within the interior of the wagon - even sheathed, the Interfector's soft blue glow illuminated the darkened space. Try as I might, I hadn't found a way to turn it off.

They'd made Arisa as comfortable as possible, a horse-blanket draped over her bedroll, spare clothes wedged in a pillow under her head. It didn't stop her from muttering, in what might have been delirium.

The other priests were busy, but I noted the trust they'd shown in me. They never asked questions, simply looked, judged, relaxed - They'd seen what I could do, or heard, and so responsibility had fallen on me. Quite honestly, I wasn't sure I was up to it.

I must have slept. Or at least, I think I did: All I know is, when I looked up, the darkness had become a little bit more absolute. What surprised me, I think, was the lack of confusion that usually came with such an awakening - I'd closed my eyes, opened them, and was instantly alert.

It didn't feel natural. Nothing about this did.

"-Sir Gabriel."

It was a whisper, almost sepulchral. I blinked, looked around to see where it was coming from.

"Gabriel," Arisa said, louder this time. With her remaining arm, she'd pushed the blanket back - I saw her pale, drawn face looking up at me. There was a feverish light, glittering in her eyes; It didn't take away from the intelligence in those elegant features.

"That's your name, isn't it? Gabriel."

I nodded, realized she probably couldn't see it, shuffled closer.

"Yes," I said. Then, at a loss for anything else to say - "You should rest. We're taking you…" I didn't know where we were going, actually.

"-Somewhere safe. Away from here."

She made a sound that might've been a snort, or a cough.

"Sleep? In this?" Arisa coughed, and it turned into a hacking sound, and I winced. She was shivering, lank brown hair framing her features - "If I sleep, I might not wake up. Healing magic...can only do so much."

What do you say to something like that?

"So. Keep me awake - alive."

"All right," I said. "-all right."

For long moments, there was only the sound of her soft breathing. Then-

"You're an angel, aren't you."

It wasn't a question.

"I," I said, wrong-footed. "That's not what-"

She sighed, low.

"Not that kind of angel," Arisa said. A little waspishly, now. "You're...Help me up."

"I should get a healer-"

"Don't be a fool. Help me."

Against my instinct to flee, I did. I eased myself to the floor of the wagon, as it jostled its way along the uneven road; I felt Arisa's arm fumbling, reaching, draping itself over my shoulder at last. I also felt the swell of her breasts against my side, and hated myself for that.

She leaned in close. A strand of silky brown hair brushed my cheek.

"You're from Dhala," she whispered, and something like triumph flashed in her eyes.

"What?" I said, trying to disengage myself from her, but she held on.

"No? You have a holy sword. You say you're a knight, but you're from no Order I've ever heard of. You-" Another spasm of coughing, hard enough to wrack her like a convulsion.

When she subsided, Arisa went on, a little huskier than before.

"Skander might be a battle-maniac, but you can't fool his nose. You don't smell of death, of blood - He couldn't tell, at all. Either you've never killed anyone in your life, or…"

She lowered her voice. "-You're some kind of demon. You don't consider Cloven Ones people, do you? At all."

"That's not-" I began. I twisted, trying to break her grip without hurting her. It was a futile effort.

"Which Clade are you from? The Radiant?"

"I don't know what you're talking about!" I said. My voice was rising, and I forced myself to keep it level.

"No," Arisa agreed. "They'd have sent a team, instead." Her eyes narrowed - I could almost hear the gears turning in her head. Her eyes widened, a heartbeat later.

"-You're an Executioner," she said, hushed. "I didn't think I'd ever meet one."

"No," I said, forcefully. "Let go of me. Now."

"Or what? You'll hurt me? No, I don't think you will - And here I'd thought that only demons fear a virgin's touch." She was speaking faster, now. Putting together the pieces of a puzzle. "And yet you're here alone...Your handler died, didn't he? Or he was killed, and you decided to continue the mission by yourself. Is that it?"

"You're delirious," I said, trying to keep her calm. "You don't-"

"No? All right, then. Your handler dies. You carry on...But they'd have called you back, wouldn't they? They don't trust you to do anything but follow their instructions. Do you even know what you're wielding?"

I stopped. Cautious, now. "Tell me."

Arisa sighed. Soft.

"Your sword…Power like that comes at a price. Tell me, do you know your soul's being eaten away? Or-”

A pause, for breath or just for thought.

“...It's your blood, isn't it? That's why you look the way you do. The divine blood of the Founder keeps it from swallowing you up-"

I would have laughed, if I could. It was nothing like that. I don't think she'd have believed the truth if I'd told her.

A long silence.

"It's nothing like that," I said. "I…"

My breath caught, as I searched for the words.

"-I just wanted to help, that's all. When I saw what was happening...I had to do something." I exhaled, slowly. "I don't care if you believe me. That's all it was."

She looked at me, for a long time.

"You know," Arisa said. "I think...I do." She shook her head, wonderingly. "An Executioner with a conscience. Will wonders never-"

She coughed, and coughed again. Something splattered my breastplate, and I was too close to pull away. It was a racking, awful sound, and her grip tightened on my shoulder, as if trying to pierce through the mythril.

"That's enough," I said, as something moist trickled down my arm. "Stop. You need to rest-"

"Why?" Arisa rasped. "I'm dying, either way."

"But," I began, feeling the first stirrings of panic. "The healers-"

She bit her lip, hard. Her eyes glittered, as if holding back laughter. A shudder racked her form, and she went on - "They don't...let you do anything but kill, do they?" she husked.

Shit.

"Listen - You have to hold on. When we get-" I stumbled over the words. "...where we're going-"

"-Too late for me."

Now I was really beginning to panic.

"Your sister-"

"Don't you dare," she said. She looked like a ghost already, stringy brown hair clinging to her cheeks, her eyes wide and glazed. "If you - stop the column - curse you with my last breath…"

Her deathgrip slackened. I heard her wheeze once, then again, each breath coming more slowly than the one before.

"Arisa," I said, an urgent hiss. Looked around. "Arisa!"

The noise made me wince, but she'd already slumped against me. Something black bubbled and frothed on her lips. I could feel my heart clench in an invisible grip. No, I thought. No, not again-

I fumbled at Gabriel's belt, his pouches. Came up with a fistful of coins - golden discs, really. A rune-engraved dagger. A ring, an amulet. More coins.

No potions, not a single one...!

She didn't deserve to die. I might only have known her for the span of a few terrified minutes, but she had a sharp, incisive intelligence that deserved to remain in this world. That, and I didn't look forward to trying to explain to Sabrine how her sister had died on my watch.

And-

All right, yes.

Arisa was beautiful.

My heart raced, pounding so hard I thought it'd explode. I shut my eyes, trying to think of something, something - I remembered.

The light issuing from Sabrine's hands, closing the man's wounds…

She was a Paladin. I - Gabriel - was a Paladin, too. That meant...

But how? I'd never even tried to cast a spell. To use an ability. All I could think of-

I wasn't even sure if she was still breathing. I couldn't bring myself to touch the stump of her arm, her leg. Instead, I struggled to get my gauntlets off - Pulled off one, gave up on the other.

My bare hand settled on her brow, as I felt the slick, feverish skin beneath my touch. The other rested over her heart.

I concentrated. Please, I thought. God, if you can hear me, please-

Nothing.

God can be a bastard like that.

I reached into myself, summoning pure concentration, feeling for the trigger point with my mind. Deeper.

Come on…

Somewhere, a horse whinnied. Somewhere, one of the wounded moaned in pain. As if they had all the time in the world.

I felt my palm begin to tingle. The same sensation I'd felt, when I'd thrown my arm up to meet the Manflayer’s axe. The colors swirling before my closed eyes never changed.

Less effort. Just an intention. A feel…

There was nothing subtle about what came next. Something like a surge of lightning passed through me - It began at the very core of my being, and ripped out. My hands glowed like a road flare, starkly enough I could see flashes of my bones through my skin. Alien, empyrean lights flickered around us-

Arisa convulsed. For one moment, I saw a flickering photo-negative of her limbs - the ghosts of what she'd lost - at the bloody stumps. Her body thrashed, her back arching so fiercely I thought her spine would snap. 

Her hand closed on my wrist, gripping tight…

Her hand. The one that hadn't existed, a moment ago.

She didn't scream. That was the strangest thing. She never made a sound, even as blue light surging from me into her like flickering electricity, so powerfully it jumped and arced. All I know it, that single gut-wrenching effort surged through me and out of me in a single blast, enough that coils of smoke rose from my armor-

And she was sitting bolt upright, her lips forming an 'O' of disbelief, more awake than I'd ever seen her. The ruddy glow of health to her skin.

I tried to say something, but a terrible and complete fatigue crept over me. I fought to keep my head up, fought to stay conscious, but I didn't know if I could stay awake for an instant more-

I pitched forward, and everything went black.

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I struggled up through a fog, through a black mire of utter fatigue. Consciousness returned, slowly; My limbs felt like they were made of solid lead. It was an exhaustion more total, more complete, than anything I'd ever known.

I couldn't move.

Under my head: rounded, firm but softly yielding. Warm as flesh-

It was flesh, with the thinnest film of cloth above it.

"Awake?" Arisa's voice was just above a whisper. I could feel hands - delicate, long-fingered - cradling my head, as it rested on her lap. "Good."

"Can't...move…"

"You drained your mana, that's all. It'll pass."

Moving didn't seem like a good idea, at any rate. Slowly, Arisa's face resolved from the gloom.

Above me, her hair hanging down. Almost blonde, in the Interfector's dim blue light.

"Ah," I managed. "-ah."

She bit her lip. Looked down at her arm, as if she couldn't believe it was attached. Flexed her fingers.

"What you did-" she began. Caught herself. "If that's what passes for healing in Dhala...No wonder it's not more popular."

"I-"

"Shhhhh." I felt a finger against my lips, a gentle pressure. Her brown eyes - a shade lighter than Sabrine's - met mine. "I still don't know what to make of you, you know."

My eyelids felt like they weighed a million pounds. Each.

"What…" I tried, failed. Tried again. "What do you...think?"

I could feel her shrug in the shift of her breasts. Her brow furrowed, ever-so-slightly.

"...I don't know," she said, at last. "But you saved me. I don't know how you did it, but you did." Arisa's lips twitched, in the beginning of a smile. "I don't think you know, either. Most curious, isn't it? That deserves a reward, wouldn't you say?"

"Re...ward…?"

She drew a breath. I heard the pout in her voice, now.

"You're not enjoying this? Really?" Her thighs shifted beneath me, slightly, as she held my head steady. "If you're not, speak up. Or I'll get mad-"

"No, it's-" I said. Forced out the rest. "-I am. Really."

Abruptly, Arisa laughed. A soft, husky sound, one that echoed in my ears. I couldn't tell if she was blushing, but I think she was.

"Enough," she said, and a cool fingertip tapped me between the eyes. "Sleep. Await the dawn - Isn't that what you always say?"

Exhausted as I was, her words had the force of a command. When I closed my eyes, the darkness swept in again.

But this time, there was something like peace.

Next: The Holy King