Chapter Forty-Three

  Adon shivered, his feet were soaked to the bone, the flesh was looking like it was starting to rot. ‘That’s not good. No, it’s not good at all…’ He’d seen it before on some victims he’d processed, people who walked with unprotected feet, the hookworms got into the soles, or the feet that were drenched for long detoo veloped pale patchwork blotches, a wrinkling look that was worse than prune fingers, untreated, it always ended the same way. Bits of the foot would swell, rot, and eventually the flesh would die and simply ‘fall off’ like the parts of a leper’s body.

  It was so easy to prevent… ‘If only I had the time!’ Despair clawed at him still.

  ‘You can’t stop! He’ll catch you! He’ll chase you! He’ll skewer your body through and through and make you pay for what you’ve done! As long as you live, he’ll hunt you down… and it could be anyone… anywhere…’ The fear tore at his mind and sanity so much that he dared not venture into the village he came across.

  His clothing was a tattered remnant of its former self, brambles, bark, and tearing branches picked at the fabric as he scurried along to avoid any chance of being seen.

  Finally, he saw an old barn on a farm, the hour was late and the moon high in the sky. “I’ve got to sleep… even if it is a nightmare… sleep…” He muttered as he staggered out of the woods in which he concealed himself. The wheat was high enough that even he felt safe hiding in its depths, and off in the distance he could see the handful of elven slaves shambling off to their quarters.

  In past times, he might have split the worth of his coin and asked to buy some pleasurable company… ‘But not now… no. Whoever did it might be a master of disguise, they could even be a female elf, or maybe that prostitute I had beaten up a few months ago, it could be anyone… I can’t risk it… this is my last coin, all I’ve got…’ He raced through the wheat fields, doing his best to make the stalks shake only little more than what the cool breeze would allow.

  As stealth went, it was nothing a spy or assassin would have been proud of.

  But it was good enough when nobody was looking. He crouched within the field and watched the barn, turning his eyes to the estate, there were still lights within. ‘A trap. They may know you’re here, no, they surely do…’ The warning was pure and utter anguish, the barn had no obvious way out, if he were caught… ‘I’ll be trapped…’

  But sleeping in the field was worse. There was a newer barn on the other side of the house, the old one didn’t appear to have any use, ‘They shouldn’t go in there… right?’ He asked himself, but he was already in motion, his low, hunched scurry carrying him over the distance as fast as a rat until he found himself in the shadowy darkness of the half rotted wooden structure.

  Old, moldy straw sat untouched in a corner, whatever its intended purpose, it was now utterly useless except as a nest for rats. Adon stumbled over to it, dug himself into the damp straw, covered himself up as much as possible in the deepening darkness, and curled up.

  ‘Yes, this feels good, like death, safe. Safe here, like this… no one can see, no one can hurt, the hunter, the monster chasing me, he will not find me now… he can’t hurt me…’ Adon listened to the sweet song of promised safety, where nobody could hurt him any more…

  ‘But if the gods judge me… it will just be the same all over again.’ He thought, and clenched his only coin tighter.

  And that… that gave him an idea, and told him what to do. ‘There’s only one way to save myself… one way… one way… just one way…’ Adon told himself over and over again until at last he fell into a desperate, blessed sleep, and for once, even the nightmares were at bay, it was a dreamless paradise of silence, nothingness, and blackness until he awoke when a crack of bright light pierced the gaps in the moldy straw and kissed his eyes.

  He wiggled his way through the poking stiff bits buried deep within the pile and inched himself to the old wooden wall. Adon’s ears caught no sound of anyone nearby, but even so… ‘There could be someone there… the monster could be right out there, waiting… I’ll outsmart him!’ Adon vowed and with hands that trembled from cold and wet, which ached from days without a proper rest, which stank from sweat born of exhaustion and constant frenzied motion to flee the cause of his nightmares… he grabbed the old wood at a broken segment and began to rock it back and forth.

  The old wood cracked with ease, but in small pieces only, requiring him to do it again, and again, and again, until his scrawny, slender body could wiggle through the gap he made, and run away toward the nearest town, toward the nearest temple.

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  Torald groaned as he stood up. “Gods above and demons below, I hate that!” He put his hand over his chest and then with a frown, peeled off the armor and dropped it to the ground. “I suppose the Slane Theocracy Scriptures are nothing to sneeze at.” He muttered, that wasn’t unknown to him, everybody knew how dangerous the scriptures were, but never till now did he experience the other side of their fury.

  The spearman had clearly done a number on his men-at-arms. Heads and shattered bodies were lying in heaps, the horses, those were mostly long gone, save for his own, which was nearby munching on grass on the side of the road. Whether the spearman or the sword wielding cardinal was responsible for the greater death toll among Torald’s contingent, that would take time to figure out. Time that Torald did not have. ‘I wonder if my talent would have let me survive beheading…?’ He reached up and touched his neck, that was a question he didn’t want to explore, regardless of the answer.

  The Oathkeeper Talent had kept him alive… sort of, more times than Torald could count, and it had done so again. Now there was only one job. ‘Alert the Queen…’ He winced and touched his wound, “Can’t have this distracting me though, better put some salve on it before I head out. Distraction by pain is never a good thing.” He murmured to himself, and then got to work.

  “How far has the demonic influence spread?” Dominic asked nobody in particular for the thousandth time. He seemed to be seeing demons in the shadow of every plant. Every peasant they passed who made a gesture, Dominic wondered openly when they were alone, “Do you think that was a demonic gesture?”

  “He was waving hello, Dominic.” Cenna clenched his hand over his spear and clenched his jaw to keep back what he really wanted to say.

  “Maybe. But what if? What if it was a demonic hand signal meant to identify fellow worshipers?” Dominic asked, and Cenna rolled his eyes.

  “For the thousandth time, Dominic, even if there were demonic hand signals in some little cult… why would they go around flashing these things wherever any twit could see them for no purpose whatsoever?” Cenna asked, but Dominic’s wild eyes showed he barely registered the obvious question.

  “Who knows how far it spread… if the Queen herself is a demon’s private whore, he’s as good as captured this country… we should turn around, go back, raise the army, and destroy this nest.” Dominic hissed the last word like a serpent and Cenna looked down, then pinched the bridge of his nose while he took a deep breath.

  “Dominic… first of all, if we couldn’t send them an army to push back the beastmen, and we couldn’t send an army to assist the Holy Kingdom, even though we border the north of the Abelion Hills and Raymond said we could have easily invaded them from behind…we definitely can’t pull the army from the elves to deal with a heavily militarized country that is backed by a demon strong enough to defeat the beastmen by himself. Even if we did, we’d lose. Besides that, if they really have gone that far, you have only our country to blame.”

  “What?!” Dominic’s nostrils flared and the vein in his forehead pulsed as his face grew red with anger.

  “For years you all held us back, the Windflower Scripture, the Black Scripture, and all the others. All you sent here were retirees, and all they could do was slow the tide a little.” Cenna snapped and pointed toward the distant town, “Everybody here had given up hope and you know it! What do you think would happen if a force came along that could destroy the threat to their existence?! Of course they’ll embrace it?! Who cares if it’s a demon?! We have an undead as one of the pantheon, what’s the damn difference you colossal idiot?!”

  “I am a Cardinal!” Dominic roared.

  “You are an idiot, Cardinal or not.” Cenna bit back. “We’ll be lucky if I don’t have to carry your sorry ass out of here, we’ll be lucky if we don’t leave with a declaration of war after what you did to Sir Torald.”

  “He’s dead, idiot. I’ll confront the Queen and if she won’t comply-” Dominic stopped when Cenna’s hand moved to his spear.

  “You wouldn’t dare. You took an oath to protect me on this journey.” Dominic’s growl of anger was almost feral, but Cenna did not move.

  “Test me, Dominic. I took an oath to the Theocracy first, you second. We can find another Cardinal, but Godkin aren’t to be found just lying around. I might be punished, but I’ll be back to work in a few weeks, and you’ll still be dead.” Cenna met the Cardinal’s fanatical eyes with eyes of flint.

  Their staring contest lasted until the sun’s rays began to withdraw, as if the daylight itself wanted to avoid their conflict.