𝓦𝖊𝖑𝖈𝖔𝖒𝖊 𝖙𝖔 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝕯𝖆𝖗𝐤𝖑𝖆𝖓𝖉𝖘 - 𝓐 𝕮𝖔𝖑𝖑𝖊𝖈𝖙𝖎𝖔𝖓 𝖔𝖋 𝓢𝖙𝖔𝖗𝖎𝖊𝖘 - Chapter 7 - Wickedtealeaves (2024)

Night fell over the city of Estravia as the wagon pulled in. It was lead by a single cavalis donned in the church’s regalia, its driver stopped by the gateguards who eyed her off cautiously. “Who goes there?”
She turned, bound in red, with eyes peeking through her silver faceplate like yellow embers as she nodded and carefully produced her right of passage for the gilded guardsmen.
“Hm. Church business, eh?” The older of the pair nodded, picking up what few words he could from it. “And this-” He gestured at the creaking tomb of wood, the Unbound Flame’s sigil emblazoned upon it, impaled with arrows from top to bottom. “-Bandits outside the city?”
Once more she nodded. “But yer still livin’. I don’t see a blade on ya. There more inside?”

“Just one.”

Once more the wagon lumbered ahead, jolting the occupant within slightly as they prayed. Incense burned in thick, wafting plumes that felt like fire to the lungs. Symbols of the flame dangled from the roof amid swathes of crimson silk; all distractions intended to lure them from the sacred recitation and identify weakness of the mind. They had ignored the chimes a thousand times thus, and would continue until the crows dragged them up into the heavens for their prophecised demise.

“On the Eighth Day, Eastbrurn fell to sickness. It was without flame that they fell, and with it madness reigned.” Their voice was low, little more than a whisper, but steadfast in its delivery of every individual syllable.
“’Look on,’ said the great Archbishop Thadde the Twelfth of the Order of Purification overlooking the burning city whilst embark’d upon a holy pilgrimage, ‘and see what degeneracy has wrought. The sins of Murder, Blasphemy, and hom*osexuality cannot save them from the plague – for God has willed it so.’” Another jostle as the wagon rolled beyond the gates, the great stone bastion falling behind them and with its golden flag depicting a bestial king’s head disappearing from sight.
“’Look on and weep, scribes, and see what impure blood can do to the soul’. It was on this occasion that the Order of Cinder fell under harsh critique by the other sects of the Unbound Flame, though their rebuttal was divine in remark; ‘If blood infers sin, then is it not the duty of the holy to purify it with love, and save their descendants from this moral decay?’”

When they entered the tent, every guard that could stand at attention did so without hesitation. Physicians and doctors nervously eyed the masked inquisitor off as they looked over everyone in this cramped bunkhouse bustling with brutalised and charred bastions of Giglamax’ rule.
Look on, soldiers of Estravia, and behold an icon of the church’s command! An inquisitor. They stood some six feet tall with a body sleek and sharp, bound in ebony fabric, donned in red cloth wrought in gold. Gilded studs marked their cowl, strips of the rare material entwined along the long waistcloth, and their grand crown of flames wrought akin to thorns shining like the sun. Look on, soldiers of Estravia, and bite your tongues thus for sin meets no kindness here.
Among them were five guards who did not move. Whether conscious or not, their state was denied any ability to rise; a pitiable state. The remaining six still conscious offered as much respect as they could for the gold-tipped metal heels clicking across ash-coated cobblestone. Click click click. A gauntlet of peerless steel drifted above medical utensils – healing powders, clean bandages, stitching twine – but dare not touch them.
“I didn’t-” The head physician spoke without being spoken to, eliciting a scornful glance from within the inquisitor’s cowl. Their mask was sharp, angular, and without detail or flourish. The black eyes carved into it betrayed all they need; two red, glowing pupils from within the impenetable dark, looking down at the trembling man with vicious importance.

“Speak.” They commanded with a voice like carved onyx, a glint of light creeping down the twisted crown of gold thorns upon the red hood. The Unbound Flame, the Fallen Angel; it was all there, in full dictatorial degree. Did the little man feel fear when he beheld the sleek being? He needn’t. All were saved by the inquisitor, be they heretic or believer.
“Well, lord-” He paused for confirmation. He received none. “Ma’am-” None. “E-er...”
“Inquisitor.”
“Right you are, inquisitor.” There was nothing beneath the mask now. All self had been abandoned to the flame. “I know not how much you know, but an arson consumed much of the guardhouse. What few survivors have been uprooted from the wreckage by the second shift of guards, though with the captain absent, the progress has been slow. Acting Captain Graves is in no position to dictate orders currently.”
“Forgive me; I didn’t expect to see you this late into the eve, m-my superior, she left some hours ago but-” He felt inadequate in the face of the carnage. Little man. Tiny man. Just a thing of meat and skin. His lot in life was to tend the sick, and in a way that mimicked the priests healing the souls of their worshippers.
“Ah-hem. We’ve been keeping care of our sick, though the fire and smoke was just the first of our worries. No matter what balms we use, many of the guards are ill in a way my textbooks do not speak of. These... these mushrooms, they keep bursting from their skin. Rotting them inside and out. It’d be fascinating if it wasn’t so...”
The inquisitor eyed him down, their owl-like visage of plain steel tilted to the side. Say it.
“S-sorcerous.” Good. A believer. The unnatural is a mark of devils, not God.The inquisitor turned their attention back to the sick. “That is why I am here, doctor. Show me a watchman who can speak.”
“R-right this way, inquisitor.” Obediently, the balding physician lead his superior – everyone in Estravia’s superior – over to the first guard.
Her skin was dark. A Bdurnnhemmite? No, it lacked the ashen tone. She was heavily tanned from fieldwork. A peasant. Much of her left arm was bandaged, though the bindings came up higher than what a hand might permit.
“You are disabled, guard.” They spoke clearly and succinctly, and the red irises looming above bore upon the guard as a steady layer of sweat settled into her brow. “Fire took it, thanking not me whole arm.” A satisfactory answer.
“And who set the fire, guard?”
“Don’t rightly be knowin’, grace. Smoke pour’d in hard-like, fillin’ me lungs up to burstin’. Tried to get out, really did, ser! But it got bad, had t’ hide under th’ salt barrels we keep-”
Unimportant details. “Did you see where the smoke came from?”
“N-no, ser, I’m sorry-like.”
“And what of the prisoner your letter spoke of?”
“Which one?” The inquisitor’s crimson gaze tightened. ‘Which one?’ They did not enjoy that suggestion. It was their impression only one mage may have been responsible for this transgression.

“Speak ta- and I mean, not disrespectin’ ser! B-but I don’t know much about ‘em, all honesty an’ truth! It’d be Graves ya wantin’ to speak right to.”
“Your captain is still missing?” She nodded, lips dry. “Then direct me to this ‘Graves’.” She gestured with her stump at the cot across the tent. A faint wheezing noise emanated from the sheets beyond her direction.
“Thank you, guard. I will pray for your recovery; may the unbound flame cleanse you of this foul devilry and its taint.” Say nothing for the effects that fire had already wrought upon her. No, this was no flame holy. This was a devil’s flame – evidence standing – and thus it came from Hell. The fire produced in that nightmare realm was neither blessed by the angels nor sanctioned by the church.

The inquisitor turned heel even as the woman stared at their blade – a twisted, sharp thing intended to cause severe lacerations upon slicing their target – and more specifically, its grip; for the blade’s handle was marked with uniform spikes intent upon hurting those that wield it. Pain was a diligent teacher. It reminded the inquisitor to be cautious, and resolute in their damnations. Though few were as damned in appearance as ‘Graves’. Much of his body had been burned in the fire, but moreso his entire left cheek had been surgically removed in a manner far too familiar to the inquisitor.
“Why is this guard mutilated so?” They demanded of the physician, who tapped his foot against the bucket of dying mushrooms on the floor sheepishly. Tiny heads of orange and yellow were stacked in the hundreds, bloodstained and wilting. The removal of them must have been agonizing.“Can he talk?”
“Y-yeah, ser. I can speak.” Came a wheezing, wet voice from below. Graves was a city elf, no longer even remotely connected to his syd’he roots, and though the upper portion of his face was covered with a thin white cloth out of respect to his modesty? The inquisitor could predict his red sclera beneath with absolute certainty.
“Do you believe a mage set fire to your guardhouse?”
“Yeah, without question. I saw her cast a spell.” Ah, a lack of education strikes again.
“Mages do not cast spells. Witches cast spells. Did she appear a witch, possibly from the Daine to the west?”
“Yeah- I mean, no. No she didn’t. She was from the city.”
“Then it is unlikely she was a witch. This mage; what was her name?”
“Castel, I think.”
“Interesting. And you saw her commit an act of violation?” Graves’ lips pursed. He was not familiar with the term, but his age demanded he respond as if he did with a nod. The inquisitor failed to understand why people act thus. It made them appear neither clever nor wise to falsify knowledge. “Describe it to me.”
“She...” Graves began coughing, a sickly orange liquid oozing out between two missing teeth on the side of his face. This supernatural infection had undoubtedly reached his lungs, and with it his heart. In all likelihood, the man would be dead before sunrise, and it would be an agonizing death at that. For this, the inquisitor was pitiable of the guard. “She held a piece of her porridge – an oat – on her finger, a-and it started growing. It began to uncurl, and it rose up.”
Something was missing. “How is your hearing?”
“M-my... I’m sorry, ser, my hearing? It’s good. Always has been, being a knife-ear and all.” He whimpered out something resembling a laugh. By estimate, this man had spent much of his life in Estravia, where city elves suffered persecution for the sins of their forebears. The Church of the Cinder had yet to assist these poor souls and help breed out the impure blood entirely.
“Then I must ask why you failed to mention the sound.”

“Ser, there was no sound.”
Silence pervaded the moment as the inquisitor stopped. It became clear to the physician standing beside them that the church’s blade was not breathing. In fact, they had not breathed once since arriving.

“You did not hear the glass shatter? Bear witness to the air crack, fragment like a window under duress before the plant grew?”
“No, ser; it was as I said.”
“Then it was not a mage either.” A mage gains their power from the depths of Hell, where their patrons dwell, swimming in God’s nightmares and incentivizing the good people of this continent towards miscreant endeavours. To commit vio –‘Violation’ – of the world’s rules is to let that dark realm pour in from whence the rules of our reality are but suggestions. A disgusting endeavour that made the inquisitor nauseous merely thinking about.
“B-but I saw her-”
“She will not go unpunished for the unnatural act regardless of ‘how’ it happened. I will ask you something else; there was another?”
“Mhm, he called himself ‘The Voice of Guides’, though we didn’t-”
“A cult.”
“Wh-what?”
“I am thinking aloud. Continue.”
“Yeah, of course. This man, he was covered in fungus, he stank like a dead horse, and he had... he...” Faint patches of dampness formed beneath the cloth as Graves began to sob quietly. “He did something to me. He said things that made everything feel wrong. My mind, he just... he made it hurt. I couldn’t think. Even now it comes and goes, every few minutes I can’t think and these f*cking... these things-” The mushrooms. “-They keep coming out of me. I don’t want to live like this, please, it’s not right, yeah? It’s not right.” One cold, steel hand rested atop his. The knuckles were tipped with sharp studs, and the tips of each finger were sharpened like claws.

“Do you want me to kill you?”

Unable to stay quiet, the doctor spoke up. “W-wait a moment! You can’t-”
The inquisitor’s reprimand was immediate and unspoken with a sharp glower. Here, an Inquisitor holds authority, little man. For the inquisitor is above all in Estravia – even Gilgamax, though undoubtedly the dragon considered a different perspective truth. The only individuals they must answer to are the Council of Archbishops and each church’s Flame; their representative, their glowing icon of worship, the pinnacle of all they aspire to be.
“It can’t... This is a place of healing.”
“No,” The inquisitor rose, red strips of fabric dangling from their cowl with matching golden icons of the Unbound Flame hanging from each length. “This is a tent you have constructed beside a broken building. These people are sick. And this man has asked for my mercy. You have neither the authority nor the power to stop me from saving him.” Delicately, the inquisitor drew their flamberge of its sheath – thorn-like steel produced elegant with an arm that had drawn it a thousand times, and would draw it a thousand times more.
“Tell me, Graves, do you believe in the Encindered Man and the Unbound Flame?” Small wells of tears had formed against the sickly soldier’s cloth.
“Yeah, I do, ser. Always have.”

“Then I ask you once more; are you certain of this path? Whilst I assure that you will find God’s welcoming arms awaiting you in Heaven should you have abided by the Unburned Books, I cannot promise it if you have strayed into depravity and sin.”
The blade hung just above Graves’ throat, and through the thin white fabric he stared up at the shape of red over him; the glint of gold studs upon the fabric, the deathly glow of bloodmoons looming out from the darkness beneath.

“N-No.” Graves managed, swallowing his fear finally. The inquisitor returned their blade to its sheath carefully, and rested a hand upon Graves’ rattling chest. “I can’t... I can’t go there like this.”
“A worthy decision, guardsman Graves. The road to recovery will not be easy, but as all difficult endeavours are? You will be cleansed with your discipline, and your virtue will be rewarded. Rest, gilded guardian. You have served for king well.”
Graves breathed out a sigh of relief, the air all the sweeter despite the taste of sick still staining his perception with an unwelcome tang. He had come close to death twice this week. He prayed that would be the last.

“Doctor.” The physician straightened his back as best his aging body could. “See to it that this man is given what poultices you can spare him. I have faith that he will recover swiftly, God willing.” The old man nodded but remained in silence even as the inquisitor left the tent one shining step at a time.
It was not his place to speak, but he could smell it upon the church’s representative. It was his profession to note such things, and the smell of death was strong upon the stranger. Not rot, no, it was cleaner than that. Like a skeleton bleached clean of its flesh – like a hospital bed ready for the next patient, purified in salted water and ash.

LOOK WHO CALLS TO ME ONCE MORE; MY LITTLE ELF. Its voice was alien, it sounded like steel nails dragging through dried dirt, digging into places best left untouched within the church’s holy warrior.

“The Unbound Flame shields me from your desires, demon. I have questions for you, and you will answer them.”

WHAT A FASCINATING IMPRESSION YOU HAVE OF THIS DEAL. DO I STRIKE YOU AS SOMEONE ENWREATHED IN AN IRON MAIDEN? I MIGHT SIMPLY CHOOSE SILENCE.

“But you won’t, will you?” Their voice halted amid the sting of leather.

I LOVE YOU SO VERY DEARLY, MY LITTLE ELF.

‘Beg forgiveness, for an inqusitor needs no permission to cleave the unclean.’ It was a motto they appreciated. It suited their family’s blood nicely.

Their quarry is drawing closer to the hunter’s holy embrace.

Down the winding tunnels they venture, where water becomes rarer and now dry stone is met with a long but prideless gait. Dirt has been carried through the depths of season’s past melting snow passing through, covering every corner with its earthy embrace. It coats even the massive stone door that once barred the city’s drains from the forbidden depths below, now ajar and left to desolation.

Into the blackened depths there is no light, nor do they indulge in a torch. They have no need of it when their raptorial awareness keeps them from butting against the walls like a moth to a window. Down these tunnels there is no life, only the solitary sound of their heels striding on – and the constant prayers in their mind; incantations to God in all His glory. They can almost hear the church choirs singing, the organ rising with the beautiful violins behind them. It soothes their mind to know such beauty has been crafted by man’s hand, and not the wicked nor their ancient counterparts.

The first sight of light they spy is dull, creeping in through the cracks of a widening cavern’s roof afar. Beams of pale moonlight drift down from above, casting sharp streaks across the grand expanse as the tunnels give way to a wider opening. A cavernous expanse, a veritable tomb of grand proportion spreading the entire size of Estravia’s city. The forbidden ruins of Old Estravia, once known as Southhawke.

Much of the city’s collapsing structures have been submerged in scores upon scores of women, men, vren and children – if not more – lost to the ivory well. It was likely that millions rested here, for in the early days of Estravia great piles of corpses born of the war were offloaded below into a veritable sea of bones. It enswallows buildings leaving little more than their hole-riddled roofs visible amid them, but the most prominent building is the old castle of Southhawke, of the Hawke royal family that once lived within. King Hawke the Third was a despot, a madman, and his final days were spent decrying the orc empire as ‘degenerate reprobates’.

Their response matched the church’s fury with efficacy. The incalculable skeletons were evidence enough of that.

But beyond the reach of the corpse waves still in the gloom, situated in the centre of all these bones, was a church. A small, tender thing that once sat upon a hill outside the castle’s walls. The fire of the damned burns within it.

Even as they waded through the dead they felt bone break beneath their stride, but they made no attempt to mask it. The Voice of Guides had nowhere to run, nowhere to flee – he was trapped in this church, with their carnivoran reserved as the last defense they might muster.

The Inquisitor could smell it hanging in the air, no breeze to carry the scent; life. New, young, delicately burgeoning. The scent of mushrooms. The scent of an infection not of the mind, but the earth. This was a crime against the sanctity of the soul, and would be purged by serrated blade and fire – just as they had sought to excise the guards of their position of power. Aye, the inquisitor was not blind to what these degenerates had aimed to do.
It was a determined effort, a clear choice, and ultimately one made to leave its mark. Whatever plans they had were undoubtedly in motion. It would be to the church to weed this cult out, to cleanse them upon the pyre, and restore order to the city of Estravia.

“Stranger,” The voice rose out from the church, windows boarded and the speaker unclear. There was a gravel-like tone to their words though. The Carnivoran, perhaps? The inquisitor stopped in their tracks and rested their hand upon the flamberge’s hilt. “This is no place for you. Turn back, and live.”

“The Flame’s chosen fear not death. I come seeking the Voice of Guides. You house him – and I intend to rend justice upon him.”

The pause between speakers lasted some scant seconds, enough to note the faint skittering of carapace feet beneath the sea of bones. “I think you’d best turn back. I don’t want to kill you.”

“But you will if I approach.”

“Aye.”

“Then I wish to meet you first. If you had a bow you’d have issued a warning shot – and by your wake I assume you are a large carnivoran. Typically your kind favour close combat, not arrows nor bolts.”

“Your funeral.” They had seen their death countless times in their dreams. They feared no funerary service, nor the sweet embrace of the black void. Only the crows frightened them, as all their kind dreaded.

The large iron doors hung ajar, light pouring in as the bones gave way to dried dirt and crude steps leading up from the embrace of the dead. The stink of the impure taunted them to draw their blade at once, but they stayed their hand. For now.

Within the crumbling testament to tolerance and compassion, three individuals sat around a fire. The flames flickered in the gloom, casting strange shadows against the deteriorated walls and glassless windows.
The first of these strangers was a man, if he could be called that anymore. He was slumped in his seat, mushrooms rising in a great forest across his body some foot long each. He did not move, but his breathing was there. Faint. Laboured. He was dying. This was certainly the Voice of Guides as described, decaying even as the Inquisitor beheld him.

Second was a woman. Her skin was pale, and her eyes were covered in a crude band of fabric – yet even then the distinct bulge within her sockets was noticeable, and from them a slow trickle of orange fluids ran free. She was infected just as her mentor.

And finally, a carnivoran untainted by the sickness. He was a large brute, donned in chausses under leather greaves, with large boots and gauntlets of simple iron. Strapped over his back was a sword as thick as his already sizable arms, and criss-crossed over his powerful chest were the scars of battle. He regarded the Inquisitor with a nod, and softly sipped on the stew he had been tending to by the fire.
“Take a seat. I didn’t see you were a churchman in the dark, otherwise I’d offer you a sip of my wineskin.”

“I will stand.”

“Suit yourself.” The carnivoran shrugged, his white mane shifting with the gesture.
The woman spoke – her words wet with spittle – and low. “Who is there, Beran? I cannot see them.”
“Can’t imagine you see much anymore, but there is a person here.” He regarded the inquisitor’s body with caution. Carnivoran’s adopted gender from the world of man, and though their forms can adapt to any environment it does not entail an absolute understanding of the facsimile of humanoid identity. “They have a blade. I think they’re here to kill you, am I right?” The inquisitor nodded.

“Do not look for the seeds in their form, my child.” The Voice of Guides gurgled, a sickening plume of spores pouring from his mouth as he spoke of the hunter. “Look deeper within. Do you see it, shifting amid the black blood slowly turning to sand inside them? There is life. Strange life, life untouched by the green, but with it change has been willed. The fourth door – invocation – corrupted by foreign design. You are not of this world.”

“No. I was born in Eastbrun some time back.” The dead city meant little to the carnivoran, but the Voice of Guides nodded. “Ah. What a long life you have lived, killer of the church. Strange that you have no seeds in your skin, nor your boots. How is this?”

“I am purified in fire. These ‘seeds’ cannot touch what God protects.”

A laugh met them, wet and weak. “Ah yes, God. Blessed be his nature, for he gives birth to new life with every day passed.”

“You surprise me, Voice of Guides. I did not take one were engages with the forbidden to believe in God’s beauty.”

“All things are beautiful, stranger. Flesh, stone, earth. From the worms to the rolks... But we have a difference in our faith. You praise something that is written whilst I have listened to the Cycle and the Lake of Rot it whispers from. I know of God better than you, for She speaks of Him in memory.” The Voice gestured at the collapsed roof, the empty blackness above shrouding the great cave’s roof, which was undoubtedly marked with stalagtites. “Even here I can hear Her. The veins of the great mushroom have reached far below us, and feed directly from God’s still hot blood. It nourishes life, and blossoms in founts to the west and the east.”

“The Blood Swamps and the Blood Grove. I know of these places. But your theory posits that God is mortal, and not watching over His children. This is Heresy.”

“You would kill me for less, I imagine. But the expanding growth of networks do not wish for my death yet. I am to bloom beneath this city, and grant life new to the above. They will be freed, hunter – inquisitor - stranger.”

“You act as if they are slaves. The Church explicitly forbids slavery.”

“Perhaps in word, but not in practice. The people above are sick, misguided. They are slaves, and their masters bind them with coin that forbids food to the poor, or drink to the weary. Beran here was bartered with such foul circles I am remiss to admit, but we have no need of the dead’s dragon heads.” The coin of Estravia. It always came to rear its visage time and time again.

Beran nodded, taking another sip of his stew. It appeared to be a brown broth, made of sausages cured and spiced. Likely the carnivoran’s last meal. The inquisitor would not disturb this sanctified endeavour.

“If you were to blossom,” The inquisitor began, taking note of the room. It was a large enough space. A rotten rug covered the floor, and the pews had fallen to absolute disrepair in abandoned piles. Something about it stank of demons, but those cursed beings had long since moved on. “You would kill those above?”

“No, my child. They would be freed. The mushrooms would rise from the bones, feeding on their nutrients, and reach up in a brilliant grove. We would take the seventeenth door, and even now I turn its key. Metamorphosis pure and wonderful.” He paused. “Strange that you understand my words so clearly. The spores find no entrance to your lungs, and even those that touch your skin feel its coldness. I have never encountered one of your kind before. Even you can be beautiful. Perhaps when you fall you will feed the growing spread?”

“If you intended to twist my flesh against me, cultist, you will find it resistant to your rot. But I must confess you are not my typical quarry. I am accustomed to mages and the learned of the Viozana Universitus; practitioners of devilry, and all those that house them.”

The Voice of Guides may have smiled, but it was impossible to see even with his mask cast aside in the burning guardhouse prior. If even there is a face left to the twisted abomination. “We are both new to one another. Permit me this inquiry, if you will; do you not find it abhorrent that people suffer?”

“Of course.” The inquisitor’s response harboured no hesitation. But it would not go without addition. “However suffering is important. It gives us purpose. When one is in labour they feel pain, but from it they give life. Even suffering of the soul stands to reason, or else I would not self-flagellate.”

“But can you not hear the living cry out for freedom?” The woman spoke, staring into nothing from beyond her blindfold. “The life of a serf is not a suffering that grants dignity. It is pain, it is torture. They must be freed from the Hell upon this world that your superiors have unleashed, just as your church found freedom from the Syd’he of Scellienefth centuries past.”

Philosophy wasn’t Beran’s forte. He sipped his meal, and kept watch of the stranger as his mane-laden tail swayed across the ground. He knew just as the inquisitor did that violence was inevitable here. If he were to die today, then he would do so with a full stomach.

The Inquisitor’s crown of golden thorns caught the light as they nodded, the five tips of the flame’s radiance marked in gilded beauty representing each of the five sects of the Church. “If they were not enslaved, then they would not have known the cruelty of it. It was an event that transpired regardless of whatever we imagine, whatever we propose. You are an educated man, Voice of Guides, so you understand that the illogical world you present implies a people without cities, order, or law.”

“There will be law, if only the natural. People will have what they need simply because they need it. Farmers will feed all within their village, not ship their grain out to be leveraged with a king’s hunger for war.”

“And what is to stop crime – to stop ‘want’?”

“Empathy.” The woman responded, then permitted the Voice to continue in her stead. Her father was a farmer, and all the words she spoke came from the spoken tongue. “Yes my child, empathy. We will all be linked. There will be no cruelty, no violence. Only the natural way of things, the surrendering to the Cycle as the forests teem with life once more.”

“Millions will starve.”

“No,” The Voice shook his head. “They will at last be fed.”

Beran gently placed his bowl beside the fire and wiped his chops of the savoury broth. “I think it is time.” He announced. The Voice of Guides let out a low sigh, before looking up at the missing sky once more – through his muddled vision, he could almost see its brilliance. “Already? I had seen us speak for longer. Very well, mercenary; you have your coin, now you may have your blood.”
The carnivoran rose from his seat to tower over the inquisitor some two feet, war-trained muscles relaxing in preparation for the melee that would soon follow.

“I would have your name, churchman, before we fight.” The Inquisitor squinted at the carnivoran from within their owl-like mask, red eyes focused on the bestial fighter’s breathing. It had a rattle to it. The same oil-soaked sickness infected him as all carnivorans from Tibenn.
He too had unleashed bloody carnage upon the city in the Black Night, driven into a frenzy by unknown sources. The Church theorised demons, or the Sin of Treason acted upon.

“I have no name. I am wholly an Inquisitor.”

This amused Beran, a jagged smile splitting into rows of sharp fangs. “Have it your way. I am Beran, Lieutenant of the Twelfth Regiment of Tibenn. I fought in three wars, and I have slain more men and women than I have lain with. If you kill me, I ask you to take my amulet,” He gestured at the simple, golden censer strung about his neck. It smelled of herbs from the rainforests to the west. “And gift it to my people. You will find some in the city above I am certain. They will see it given to the next Carnivoran young to reach maturity.” The Inquisitor nodded, and drew their blade as Beran followed suit.

Slowly, the two warriors began to circle one another. Careful steps drawn from experience – step to step – like a methodic drumbeat. Red cloth swayed silently amid the gentle movement, the only sound both swordbearer’s footfalls and the occasional skitter of insectoid legs beyond.
Beran’s blade was fit for a carnivoran; large and heavy, too much so for a more humanoid individual to wield. His tail offset the weight of his powerful muscles, keeping him perfectly balanced with the poise of a trained combatant. He would use this to his advantage in the first attack. The inquisitor ran through each approach in their mind; if Beran took an overhead swing it would leave his chest exposed, permitting the holy blade a quick and sudden rebuke to his stomach.

The only logical answer was to swing diagonally, rising from the ground to the holy warrior’s chest. It would cleave through their left arm first, then hack into their ribs with murderous intent. Yes, it would be a low maneuver, followed by another should they miss with a turn of their steel which would use the weight of gravity to cleave its target should they still be standing – an attack that would undoubtedly shatter the flamberge should they try to meet it with steel. The carnivoran was likely to use his physical abilities to their utmost proficiency. A dangerous flurry that permitted little openings towards major organs. Instead they must aim for the wrist, the ankles, the thighs, the neck.
They would have to strike quickly, and efficiently. Dodge, then riposte. Dodge, then riposte. Dodge, then riposte. Commit it to memory, then act upon it. Hesitation breeds vulnerability.

Upon reaching the full circle after sizing one another up, the final footfall back where they began marked the dance was over – and the two lunged the bloodier waltz.

Quick as a dagger, the carnivoran turned his blade flat to the ground and swept it low as the inquisitor moved to his left. It rose up from the aged stonework and arched towards the long shattered windows. The inquisitor shifted on their heels, and slid down upon plated knees under the passing steel.
Dodge- It cut through air, sailing above the red-eyed hunter’s mask with nary an inch between it and the golden crown, before they pushed up from their slide and thrust the blood forward in a pointed assault -and riposte! They met white fur, but only the carnivoran’s extremity, and drew a red mark along the primal fighter’s gut – this did not slow the foe down, who brought the weight of his blade’s pommel upon the inquisitor. Something inside their sacramental cloth cracked – a rib – before they pushed forward and rose aside Beran with astounding speed.

They were fast, and he was heavy. The pain in their body was temporary, trained to ignore, trained to push through with the jagged flamberge aimed for a quick slash across toned pectorals. They cut quick, severing skin in a clean motion, then drew the red-soaked weapon up to dig into the beastly mercenary’s deltoid. It struck true just as the weapon was raised, piercing fur – skin – flesh – bone with a sickening sound. The Carnivoran yanked his shoulder off with the trained response of a soldier lest it pierce deeper, and took several steps away from his foe. The inquisitor followed suit with the respect of a warrior to let Beran take a breath. It was an honourable fight, not a vicious clammer toward death.

“f*ck that stings!” The towering brute barked, animalistic growl bleeding through his curse as he changed hands. The damaged arm would have very little strength now, and so he would have to rely upon it to balance the weapon rather than carry it. His wounds spoke of a slower assault to follow, but those bulging biceps were nothing to balk at. He would not hoist such an instrument of bloodshed around if he couldn’t manage it in his offhand.

Content that Beran had adjusted to continue, the inquisitor’s approached their target in three quick steps, then dipping down low as they turned their blade’s pommel towards its mark. Not a portion of the blade was without a sharpened point, and it made a worthy spear when the blade’s edge was gripped so. It would be difficult – nay, impossible to parry such a short edge of the weapon as the lightning-fast killer moved too close for Beran to swing.

It rose for his neck, and without blinking he bore down through fear, pale eyes focused wholly upon the inquisitor; aware of their form, aware of their speed. Beran avoided the pommel aimed at his neck by taking it to his already bloodied chest now closer, and bit down into the inquisitor with his powerful jaw. The sensation was not new to the inquisitor, but it was certainly one they had long forgotten as a sharp maw pierced through cloth and flesh, tearing into the trapezius like sundered meat. The proximity denied another jab of the pommel – so close, the fangs inside, chests close- their muscles would rend if they pulled free. They grow desperate.

The inquisitor rose their head away, then brought it down with a deadly crunch against the carnivoran’s face – shattering the edge of his cheekbone and dislodging a fang, if at the cost of their mask which fell to the floor bent and broken. The fresh air poured over their face, image finally beholden before the carnivoran locked around their nonvital muscle. Blonde, wavy locks dangled from their brow in messy rivers as their twisted, mutilated face was made visible. The long healed injury ran up from the gaping holes they’d personally carved into their cheeks, removing all flesh that surrounded their monstrous rows of fangs with the tip of a blessed silver dagger – so that none might mistake them for God’s beloved. Spit dangled from between the white blades, rolling down a face that was once the image of a beautiful elf.

Their foe released their bite, and spat out the revolting black blood that filled their mouth though it didn’t matter the quality; it was enough to incite that primitive portion of his brain into action. The mind of a hunter, a man-eater, something that spent near millennia skulking through morning light, stalking wayward human villagers out trying to feed their kin. He could feel his ancestral lineage beckoning him for more.

This fury came with a guttural roar from the carnivoran who lunged with his sword directed at the inquisitor’s chest. The force of this attack would have cracked plate like a hammer, but it was sloppy. Desperate. Animal.
They sidestepped the weapon, and for a moment time seemed to slow to a crawl. The blessed swordsman of the Unbound Flame down looked upon the weapon, admiring how sharp it was, and the arms it ran up to trained with repeat exercise. Every day Beran pushed his weight up a hundred times, and a hundred more with the setting sun. He would run until his heart screamed at him to bite into cooked man flesh, and settle it with hot wine.

He would never drink again after the inquisitor thrust their blade into Beran’s torso, and pressed it through the carnivoran’s chest – passing his ribs, piercing lungs, and puncturing through to the other side.
The battle was won, and the inquisitor held the man before their face. He felt so light despite all the muscle. His blade fell to the ground with a clatter, slitted eyes meeting the inquisitor’s own crimson stare. They could smell it.
They could taste it in the air.
That delightful decadent stench.
The mesmerising red that made the creature inside squirm.
Delicious Heaven begging to wet their tongue, to sate them.
It cried out to them, screaming in their ears to taste him before death.

Their mouth opened wide, two pointed blades pronounced amongst their many fangs, and sank into Beran’s neck as he had intended them. The taste of red life poured into their mouth – hot and sticky, a vile delight soaking over their tongue as they began to swallow gulp after gulp of Beran’s very ichor. It was of the Angels. It was divine, it was pure and clean and perfect without Sin.
Every inch of their skin tingled delightedly as dopamine coated what remained of their warped brain, seeping into every aspect of their being. The inquisitor felt alive, and they exhaled a hot plume of breath from their nostrils with every swallow.
Even as Beran surrendered his desperate grip on the inquisitor’s arms – a gesture that had been completely missed amid euphoria fantastic – even as he slumped in his stance as the anesthetic from the holy warrior’s poisonous bite numbed him towards an easy death. Blankly ahead as the light faded from his eyes – and was cast to the floor in a crumpled heap, a thud, the mark of death. Beran was dead.

They rose from the ground and its corpse with a shudder, sensation returning to their limbs amid the ecstasy. It felt as if their silent heart was beating, thumping against the blackened meat surrounding it. It was Heaven. It was the closest they would come to God’s love as an abomination born of the Family of the Accursed.
With a soaked gauntlet they tried to wipe the red from their lips but only smeared it across pallid skin. “Thank you, Beran of Tibenn.” They stood over him, reached down, and plucked his censer from his neck in one swift motion. He had fought well – and his wishes would be honoured.

“This was a dream I had hoped would not pass.” The Voice of Guides sighed behind them, watching the blood-drinker through his overgrown brow. “Are you content with the justice you have dolled? His flesh will soon feed the Cycle, whether I am dead or not.” The Inquisitor could barely make out the man’s voice. It sounded so far away – so alien, so inhuman. It sickened them.

“No.” They tipped their flamberge towards the disturbed church-stone, watching the carnivoran’s blood drip upon it in a steady trail of red. “This sickness you have cultivated must be purged.”
They turned, and without the mask it became all too apparent that the autumn glow amid their twisted face once so beautiful burned even free of their mask’s darkness. These nightmarish orbs pierced into the cultist’s verdant visage – then to his compatriot’s blind, pitiful figure. They had committed Heresy. The Unburned Book cried out for them to execute the sinners.

“This body is temporary, but the Cycle is eternal. Everyone carries the seeds of life and they will-” His words met a sharp end of a blade piercing his chest. His heart tried to beat around the unwelcome intrusion, then surrendered with a shudder.
“-Be freed, whether you or your church wishes it. When the fourteenth door opened for us druids, it did so with love for all.” Castel continued, unafraid of her imminent death. She had embraced the Doors and knew that to end is to begin anew. “When the rot blossomed it did so with love. You are loved.”

“I am not loved.” The inquisitor muttered, wrenching their blade from the man’s chest with a sticky trail of infected red following the removal. Only one heart was left to silence. “I am hated. I am loathed. And in God’s disdain, my eternal punishment is given purpose. You speak of ‘love’ like it is unconditional. But love is never that. It has rules, it has regulations, and it has unforgivable transgressions.”

“You are one such transgression.”