The smell of smoke wafted over the hills, bringing with it a caustic taste that tingled on the tongue. Cheron watched impassively as silvery ash fell gently upon the forest canopy at the edges of this clearing they had made in the trees, causing the pines to mirror the white mountain peaks that rose behind them. The hoarse cries of crows, unseen but close by, broke what could have been a peaceful sight; they were impatient for their carrion feast.

  Coughing came sporadically from the men around him as they busied setting up the tents of the mobile headquarters, moved yet again as they progressed deeper into the forests. He had already ordered everyone to put on their filter-masks, which through the Lord’s blessing would protect them from the carcinogens and other demon-spawned ailments that purifying these lands unleashed, but something of the smoke from the blazing fires set all around still got through. Especially as the smoke contained such exotic particles.

  The villages hidden throughout this region had proven unexpectedly rich, particularly in galnite crystals, and once these were processed and properly blessed they would be a worthy offering to the church. First, however, the dull grey, blocky crystals needed to be found and isolated, along with whatever other precious materials the apostates had stolen from the sacred forests. The easiest way to do this was, of course, to burn everything to the ground; with their extremely high melting point, potential Blessmetals could easily be sifted from the ash.

  So Cheron ordered the villages burned, heedless of those cowering within.

  How long had the heretics been here? Cheron wondered. How long had these aberrants lurked in these forests, spreading like a cancer across this hallowed, forbidden ground?

  Years, at least. Decades, most likely. The church moved slowly, and debates around creating a codex exception to permit an army into the forests were ongoing before Cheron was even appointed to the position of Sanctifier. Things had only come to a head once it was obvious to even a casual observer that someone was living within the sacred trees.

  We are here now. I am here now, he said to himself. That is what matters.

  The forest sighed around him, a susurration that rippled through the pines from behind and continued onward, as if a legion of unseen ghosts were charging ahead, eager to join battle against heretics not yet reached. As Cheron was learning, it was no wind that caused this. The great shaking of the needle-leaves occurred regardless of the strength or direction of the wind, and though he could discern no pattern to the timing nor heading, he was convinced there was one.

  Then, as one, the massive trees rang out with a sound like a vast weight of liquid being forced from them and into the earth, and the ground itself vibrated. This time, it did not surprise him.

  The forest’s pulse, the whisper-priests had called it during the briefings to ready him for this mission.

  When Cheron pressed them on what this actually meant, though, they were forced to admit that they knew little more. It was a phenomenon noted in the records, along with warnings that the forests were not to be touched on pain of eternal damnation, but what actually caused it was not explained nor, of course, why.

  The rest of the church briefings had been equally lacking in anything useful. Once his army travelled beyond the aid of the Angel Paths and the church-blessed transports that sped them across the Dominion, once they passed beyond the fields of angel feather that swathed this part of the continent in pale softness, they were on their own.

  A Soulguard-robed figure appeared from between the trees ahead of him. He paused as he stepped out from the shade, raising one hand in cross-fingered salute towards Cheron before marching swiftly forward to come to a halt directly before him.

  “Sanctifier,” the missionary-soldier said, silver robes making waves of glistening light as they moved, reflecting the sun high above. He hesitated, clearly nervous.

  “You have something to report, Voxcaster?” Cheron said, noting the symbol on the man’s left forearm that marked his rank.

  The Voxcaster cleared his throat.

  “Sir, yes, uh… sir. We encountered a large nest, larger than any so far.”

  Cheron raised an eyebrow.

  “Large enough to give you trouble?” he said, genuinely surprised.

  “Sir, no sir. Uh, at least, not during our initial assault. But…”

  “Come on, man,” Cheron snapped. “Out with it.”

  “Well, sir, we cleared most of the area with only minor casualties. However, we encountered heavy resistance around what appears to be some kind of chapel, sir. We think it's where they’re hiding the children.”

  A chapel? Out here? Cheron drew in a sharp involuntary breath. Surely the infestation couldn’t be so bad that…?

  “Not one of the Six, sir,” the Voxcaster said, predicting Cheron’s chain of thought.

  A tension that had appeared in his shoulders slackened, and Cheron released the breath. Nevertheless, his thoughts raced.

  The Dominion had suffered hardly even minor incursions within living memory. Their borders were strong, and it was their armies that marched abroad, carrying the Burnished God’s voice to distant lands. It was the enemies of the Burnished God that should fear, not its followers. Yet…

  The last great war on Dominion soil was more legend than fact, an event recalled as the Bloody Breach in stories whispered from parent to child as a warning of what heretics were capable of, and long before Cheron’s time. The stories told of a time of horror and pain, of great curses and even greater miracles, when countless faithful gave their lives in blessed martyrdom to throw back an alliance of others of the Six railed against them.

  What Cheron hated about these stories, though, was not that so many suffered and died. No, for the True Lord such things were necessary sacrifices. What Cheron detested was that none of the stories explained the details. There was no explanation of the build up or how the attack began, nor how it ended. There were no accounts of preparatory logistics or strategic developments, no details of troop movements or enemy tactics. There were just… tales. Myth, and holy testaments. The records of the war itself had been cleansed by church decree, and perhaps only the Prophet himself knew the true account.

  And now, the idea that the poisoned tendrils of one of the Six (how Cheron detested that term - there was only one true god, with the other five false deities) could have again penetrated so deeply into the Dominion, this time defiling the Lord’s land without even being noticed, made his spirit revolt.

  Not one of the Six.

  He repeated the phrase in his mind, feeling relieved. The vermin here were fools who had strayed from the Lord’s path, not ones who walked a different road entirely.

  “But, uh…” the Voxcaster continued. “They do possess sigils, sir. Sigils and other idolatorous countermeasures.”

  A flash of white-hot anger passed through Cheron. Was this Voxcaster a fool? Did he think him a fool?

  “Do not contradict yourself, Voxcaster,” he snapped. “If they are not one of the Six, then…”

  “Sir, apologies sir,” the Voxcaster interrupted, voice shaking and clearly terrified. “If I can… If I can explain?”

  Cheron paused, taking in the man’s wild-eyed nervousness. He even fidgeted despite standing to attention, and snapped off another salute though there was no reason to.

  “The sigils, sir,” the Voxcaster continued at Cheron’s nod, licking his lips worriedly. “We have no record of them, and we can’t ascertain their purpose. We’re not even sure that they have a purpose.”

  False sigils? Cheron wondered. That was a new one.

  “You said they have other countermeasures?” he said, keeping his expression stern.

  “Yes, Sanctifier,” the Voxcaster replied, visibly relaxing now that the most problematic part of his report was past. “Protective ones. Notably, reductive plating. It’s why we can’t get into the chapel, sir.”

  Reductive plating?

  Such plating was rare, and the process to make it expensive in both time and resources. Within the Dominion, only craftsmen ordained by conclave were permitted access to the forges that could produce it, and it was used only as cladding for the most strategically significant forts and church buildings. Much of the Eternal Palace itself was wrapped in it.

  It could also withstand immense punishment. If the heretics in this nest really did have such material in their possession, it could be… problematic. At least for those who hesitated to do what must be done.

  “I think…” Cheron said thoughtfully. “I should see this for myself.”

  He gestured for the Voxcaster to lead him. The relief on the man’s face as he did so was as clear as the Lord’s star.

  The cries and shouts of battle grew and faded again as they made their way through the trees. Not the sounds of battle burning bright with untempered charge, but the sounds of desperate last-stands and futile resistance by an already-defeated enemy. Cheron was familiar with such sounds.

  His horse maintained its steady pace beneath him, equally familiar with and unconcerned by the noise. Broad-shouldered and battle-trained, the deep black steed was one Cheron had taken to riding often in the past few years. Well over twenty four hands high, she was one of the larger warhorses in the stables but not so large as to need further church-granted blessings simply to stand for long periods of time.

  No, this steed was blessed only with nightsight and a pouch of needlepins containing something the whisper-priests called maiaglo binbondas, which the stable staff administered every morning. These gave her boundless energy, and made her run so hot that steam was visible rising from her haunches even in warm weather.

  She didn’t have a name, of course. Names were granted only by the Lord, and bestowed by a church official in his Voice, usually upon a child’s third birthday. No one save those who accepted the Lord could truly possess one.

  Cheron was aware, however, that in more remote parts of the Dominion some of those less well-versed in the Word gave names to animals. Some part of him found this custom quaint, amusing. Another, more central part, however, knew that the seeds of heresy grew in such seemingly innocent soil. He knew his duty, should he ever encounter such a practice in person.

  But right now his duty was here. The resolve it required, though, was in many ways the same.

  They began passing through open land; not clearings, such as back at the mobile headquarters, but actual hills and folds where the forests were replaced by grass and dirt for substantial distances. Dotting all of these spaces were the burnt-out remains of the heretic villages, now little more than blackened beams and ashen husks atop scorched earth. His men patrolled among these, searching for worthy tribute to give to the church or hidden survivors to give to the blade.

  It took them a good two hours to reach the chapel, and the structure that rose up in front of him really did look like a chapel. The similarities were rendered uncanny, however, by the differences.

  A spired dome rose from a central tower, the body of the building sprawled out below it in all directions to form a bulbous oval pockmarked with patches of dark and light. It stood perhaps three storeys high excluding the spire, and flying buttresses reached from the roof of the building to the base of the dome, though of course provided no structural benefit beyond the stylistic. The whole building was a shade of night sky grey, reflecting little of the afternoon sun still high overhead.

  At least to the eye, the Voxcaster’s statement that the entire thing was protected by reductive plating appeared true. The darker patches, Cheron realised, were now-sealed openings that must have been windows until the attack made closing them a necessity. Even as he watched, one of those patches briefly slid aside, a pale, frightened face glimpsed in the opening behind for a moment before slamming back into place.

  They can’t see outside, just as we cannot see in.

  So no true chapel, then. Cheron had not doubted it for a second, but to have proof settled something inside him. The chapels of the Burnished God - and chapels of any of the Six, he resentfully conceded - contained blessings that granted those within the ability to monitor their surroundings without the need for something as crude as eyes.

  Nothing else seemed to be happening. He swept his gaze around, taking in the razed earth and still-smouldering ashes that told him that once, before his army had cleansed it, this nest had been a good-sized town with this ‘chapel’ standing at its centre.

  A group of thirty men were grouped together off to one side, the hoods of their Soulguard robes thrown back as they sat or lounged lazily on an open patch of unscorched grass that must once have been a communal square. Even as his gaze fell upon them one of the soldiers noticed the Sanctifier, and they immediately began clambering to attention and scrambling for discarded weapons.

  “My node, sir,” the Voxcaster said at his side, indicating the squad. “Though it seems they took my instructions to remain on watch rather lightly. They will be reprimanded, I assure you.”

  Now that they were in view of his men the Voxcaster’s demeanour changed yet again, his face becoming stern and hard as granite. Deference to a superior was one thing, but a node must only ever see their Voxcaster as the Word inviolate. From here on Cheron would treat the man with the necessary respect.

  They dismounted, and made their way to the group.

  “The vermin gave you no trouble while I was away, then?” the Voxcaster said as they approached the group, speaking to a man that was obviously his Echo.

  “Sir, no sir,” replied the second-in-command, throwing a clean salute. “Nothing to report, Voxcaster. The enemy has been laying low.”

  The Echo was clearly just as nervous in front of his superior as the Voxcaster had been in front of Cheron. More so, in fact; you could see the guilt in his expressions and the expressions of all the men behind him, caught like children with their hands in the crackle jar.

  The Voxcaster merely raised an eyebrow in reply, but the awkward shifting of his men made it clear that this was not over. Cheron was sure that once he left, there would be some serious penitences meted out. Now, though, he stepped forward.

  “You have searched for structural weaknesses?” he asked the Echo, as the Voxcaster stepped deferentially to the side.

  “Sir, yes si… Sanctifier,” the Echo replied. “The chapel is well-built, sir, and fully clad in reductive plating down to the foundations.”

  Cheron held his gaze on the man a few seconds longer, watching him try not to squirm, then turned his eyes to the building.

  “Not a chapel, soldier,” Cheron said aloud. “A mockery. But as you say, a well-built one.”

  As he spoke he crouched down and picked up a fist-sized stone, not taking his eyes off the building as if to fix it with his gaze. Then he pulled his arm back, and launched the rock with a powerful throw.

  The stone sailed through the air and smacked into the side of the chapel before immediately falling to the ground without the slightest rebound. As it connected, there was a heavy, flat thunk that cut off a fraction of a second later, as if bitten off. Neither the lack of rebound nor the volume and tone of the sound matched what the mind expected, and Cheron knew the result would be the same regardless of the size, shape, or weight of the object thrown.

  Reductive plating. You could throw fragile glass or shoot a God-cannon at it, and the result would be the same; a complete loss of the projectile’s momentum and the same dull, bitten-off thunk. The only way to properly destroy the material was with the extreme heat found only in the furnaces of the most holy of church forges, or with something truly powerful; and usually, the structure it protected would give long before the plating itself.

  Which meant that, when such blessed means were not available, the only way to defeat a decently-built structure covered in the stuff was to find a seam or joint at which you could force the plates apart. That, or force those cowering inside to come out.

  “What tribute have you collected so far?” Cheron said aloud, not taking his gaze from the chapel.

  There was a moment’s confused pause, then;

  “Sir? Uh, plenty of galnite crystals,” the Echo responded. “Emdust stones, and some silshards as well. Uh, and we found a store of gold thread in what might have been a tavern, sir. Various polims, of course, but the church hasn’t put out a call for them in…”

  “Bring the Emdust here,” Cheron interrupted, not caring what the man had to say. “And the polims. All of it.”

  “Sir?”

  The Echo’s puzzled question was immediately overridden by the Voxcaster’s booming shout.

  “The Sanctifier commands, Tharan!”

  There was the sound of the Echo flinching, then hurrying away with some of the others of the node. They would be collecting the tribute from wherever they had left it on the boundaries of this scoured area, guarded as was standard practice by the remaining 6 men of the 36-man node.

  “Could I ask what you plan to do, Sanctifier?” the Voxcaster asked, as they stood there staring at the still, silent building.

  Cheron didn’t reply for a moment, turning his head to look upwards to the clouds overhead. It was unusually clear weather for this time of year, the sky a vivid blue dotted by patches of pure white cloud. The clouds hung motionless; only the crows, ever circling, marred the perfection.

  He raised one thumb to his lips, wet it, and held it out in front of him.

  “A pleasant day, isn’t it, Voxcaster?” he said. “A steady breeze, but slight. Though, perhaps there is a slight chill.”

  A few more seconds of silence, as the Voxcaster processed this. Then…

  “Ah, I see, sir,” he replied. “Perhaps we should warm things up a bit… for the men. And our guests, of course.”

  Cheron nodded. His message had been understood, without the need for something so crude as instructions.

  Now there came the sound of the soldiers returning. Cheron turned to watch their approach. Behind them came the final six members of the node, pulling with them several carts loaded with loot. Some was stored in crates, but the majority was haphazardly stacked up on itself until it seemed that much would fall off the sides at the slightest bump. Indeed, as he watched a distinctively smooth-edged, square shaped galnite crystal rolled of a pile and was stamped into the dirt by the careless boots of the man behind.

  The Voxcaster’s Echo paced quickly ahead of the main group, halting in front of Cheron and the Voxcaster and saluting.

  “I brought everything we got from this area, sir. It’s a little… disorganised, but we’ll sort anything you need out in a minute.”

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  “You know what the Sanctifier wants, man,” the Voxcaster barked. “Emdust and polims! Now!”

  Cheron allowed himself a slight smile as the Voxcaster began issuing orders.

  “Stack it up in front of the structure,” the Voxcaster ordered, gesturing to the chapel. “Not too close, but make sure the pile is upwind. And the rest of you, gather combustibles. We need a staggered burn.”

  The men of the node began moving, sorting themselves out into groups of those who would build the piles of emdust and polims, and those who would spread out to gather enough fuel to create the high-temperature burn. As they did so Cheron could hear them murmuring among themselves. It was clear none of them understood what Cheron planned to do. Those that thought they did sounded mystified.

  Of course they did, because they assumed he wanted to burn the heretics out… and reductive plating would allow no such heat to pass.

  The pile grew quickly, and at its core went the emdust. Emdust, formed of coarse spheroids like wetly clumped sand made solid yet incredibly light. Hymnals said that once, long ago, these had been the stuff of Angels. Motes of the divine, falling from the servants of the gods as they did battle among the stars.

  Around and between these lumpy shapes went the polims, the catch-all term for the various rough, soft rags of varying width, breadth, and shades of sooty grey that dotted the land and filled the seas. These would catch at a lower temperature than the emdust, but swiftly increase in intensity.

  This would have been a worthy tribute, Cheron thought.

  The emdust especially would have been prized by the church forges, and though polims were scarcely a rare material across the Dominion, the furnaces would never truly lose their hunger for the easily-blessed material.

  No matter, he thought. There will be plenty more, and what we do here is also for the Lord.

  Around this now chest-high pile, the node placed kindling. This consistedof anything they could gather, from the fallen branches of the great trees themselves to the remains of timbres and furnishings that had somehow escaped the first round of burning. In short order a shell of flammable material was built up around the core.

  “Masks on, men,” the Voxcaster ordered upon seeing Cheron raise his own, once he judged the pile ready.

  He checked the breeze again. It had not changed.

  More murmurings, this time of dawning realisation. The soldiers finally understood. So too, it seemed, did those within the false chapel.

  A darker patch of plating slid aside on the nearest wall, a pale face visible for a moment. Then it closed again and, seconds later, the main door opened. Cheron raised a hand to halt his soldiers, already readying their swords and stepping forward to take advantage of the chance.

  The darkness inside the chapel contrasted deeply with the bright day outside, making it impossible to see inside, but Cheron waited, making no move. He knew what was coming.

  Moments later, and a figure stepped out from the darkness. A grizzled man, the white smattering of his beard declaring him too old to fight but still spry enough to guard the weaker. The man looked across the space between them to take in the missionary-soldiers, before his gaze settled on Cheron.

  As the man stepped forward the door slammed shut behind him. Though he tried to hide it, the man flinched a little at the sound. Now he was truly alone. Alone and vulnerable. To his credit, though, his steps faltered only slightly, and his eyes never fell from Cheron’s own.

  The weapons of the node rattled around him as the heretic made his way over, but Cheron did not reach for his own. The man was not here to fight.

  No, he was here to beg.

  Now that the man was closer, Cheron could make out the lines of hard living on his face. They told of a life outside, likely working the land. Honest work, in another life. In this one, the thought of this heretic befouling the Lord’s earth with his labour made righteous anger roil inside Cheron’s chest. He held this in, though, keeping his face impassive.

  The man carried something in his hand, Cheron noticed. Whatever it was, it was small enough to be concealed within a single clenched fist and Cheron couldn’t make out what it was, but the way the man’s knuckles turned white told him he was holding it tightly. He allowed the man to see that he had noticed, then lifted his eyes back up to meet his gaze.

  “A Sanctifier, all the way out ‘ere?” the man said. “The polished one accords us that much significance, does it?”

  Cheron did not react to the man’s disrespectful tone - the man’s blasphemy. He could see through the false bravado to the scared, desperate figure beneath.

  “The Burnished God accords you no significance at all,” he replied coldly. “And a Sanctifier goes where he is needed.”

  “Well, you ain’t needed ‘ere.”

  Cheron almost felt admiration for the man. Despite the weapons arrayed against him, despite the armies marching all around and the destruction of everything he had ever known, the heretic managed to somehow summon up such defiance.

  “In a way, you are correct,” Cheron replied. “I am not needed here. This is the Lord’s land, and we tread these forests only at its forbearance. Once my work here is done, I will leave.”

  “And that work is massacring innocent folk, is it?”

  Cheron gave a thin smile.

  “The innocent do not trespass on forbidden land,” he said. “They do not build profane temples on sacred soil.”

  The man turned his head to glance back at the false chapel.

  “It ain’t a chapel,” he said. “It’s just… just that some of those that come ‘ere, they don’t feel comfortable without summit like that. Summit that reminds ‘em of where they came from.”

  Through his thick, curious accent he sounded almost apologetic.

  “I see,” Cheron replied, for all the world as if he understood. “But it is very well-built. Tell me, where did you get the reductive plating?”

  The man shifted uncomfortably under Cheron’s gaze.

  “I… uh… I can’t tell you… But you can ‘ave it,” he added hurriedly.

  Cheron tilted his head, just a fraction.

  “I can have it?” he asked, making it appear like a genuine question.

  “Yes,” the man nodded. “It’s yours. Take it all, an’ everything inside. There’s… there’s more blessings inside. Jus’ let these people leave.”

  More blessings. Interesting.

  “Leave?” Cheron asked. “And where would you go?”

  The man’s eyes darted around now, a bead of sweat appearing on his forehead.

  “Uh… we’d just go. Into the mountains, somewhere the Dominion don’t rea… don’t want.”

  There is nowhere the Dominion does not want, Cheron thought.

  Into the mountains? That was also interesting. The man was clearly feigning ignorance; he knew exactly where they would go.

  So, there were more heretics, deeper in. Perhaps that was where the plating came from, too.

  “Jus’ let me take ‘em away,” the man continued. “Please. There’s women and kids in there.”

  Cheron raised his eyebrows in feigned surprise.

  “Children? By the Word, how many?”

  The man looked unsure for a moment, then answered.

  “Close to four dozen, all told.”

  His shoulders slumped, and his eyes fell.

  “It’ll be a hard journey, but I’ll get ‘em out of the forests. Out of the Dawn Dominion,” he finished.

  “You believe I will let you go?”

  The question caught the man off-guard. His eyes grew wide and he stepped back, raising his hands reflexively. He held out his fist in front of him, still tightly gripped.

  A weapon, then, Cheron thought. Whatever the man was holding, it must be one of these blessings the man had mentioned.

  But Cheron did not fear. The Burnished God would not provide sinners such as these with his gifts, and there was no sign that one of the other of the Six was here. Whatever the man held, it was as false as the profane building behind him.

  Cheron raised a hand again to stop his men from pincushioning the man with their swords.

  “I cannot let you leave,” Cheron said. “But The Lord can be merciful. Though there is no hope for you, nor any of those who knowingly renounced it, I could take these children back with me. The church can cleanse them of your sin.”

  He watched the man thinking this over, considering. Then his eyes fell on the pile of stacked material nearby.

  “You were goin’ to choke us out,” the man said. “Nasty way to go, that. Can take hours.”

  Cheron turned to the pile as if noticing it for the first time. Then he turned back.

  “Well, it got you to come out, didn’t it?” he said with a smile.

  The man was right - it was a nasty way to go. The fumes of burning polims could be bad enough, but with a decent filter-mask the worst of their toxins could be avoided. Emdust, though…

  It would start in the lungs, the soft tissue slowly collapsing in on itself. Then the throat would close up and the lining of the mouth begin to peel. Next would come the coughing; wet, heaving gasps that made the victim want to tear their useless mask off. Then, finally, it was a race to see if they died first from suffocation or drowning in their own blood.

  Nasty.

  But not as nasty as what awaited them in the next world.

  Cheron didn’t let his expression change. The heretic watched him for some time, then gradually allowed his fists to fall. His gaze dropped with them.

  “You’ll take them back, then?” he asked, sounding defeated. “The children? You’ll take ‘em back with you?”

  “You have my Word,” Cheron replied. “I will bring them back with me. I will demonstrate the Lord’s mercy.”

  “An’, an’ the others?” the man asked, looking up at Cheron with little hope. “The women, and the old?”

  Cheron shook his head.

  “They made their choice. You made your choice,” he replied, with real regret. “There is no repentance. There is no reversion.”

  The man stared at him for a moment, then seemed to come to a decision.

  “I will send ‘em out. The children,” he said determinedly. “Then… do as you will.”

  He turned, taking a step towards the false chapel. Then he paused and turned back.

  “It doesn’t have to be like this, you know,” he said with a sigh. “We jus’ wan’ed to be free. To live quiet lives, away from the church and... an’ the angels and the eyes of uncaring gods.”

  Cheron felt anger flare.

  You will have your quiet, he thought. You will have silence, forever.

  Fury made his collar burn despite the heat-wicking properties of his Soulguard robe. He pushed it down, hoping that the redness of his rage was not visible on his face. This heretic thought to lecture him…

  So he watched silently, stone faced, as the man strode back across the singed grass to stand once more in front of the chapel. A moment later and the door swung open. They must have organised some kind of signal for this, because Cheron saw no hint of another face looking out. The man disappeared inside as the door shut firmly behind him, less than a second later.

  The clearing was still again, even the crows silent now. The breeze was all that remained, unchanging and ready to do its duty if called on - though Cheron was confident that this would not now be necessary.

  “Sir?” said the Voxcaster at his side. “Are we really going to…”

  Cheron hushed him, watching the false chapel with narrowed eyes.

  Nothing happened for so long that he began to worry he had misjudged the desperation in the heretic’s eyes. Perhaps they would need the breeze, after all. Perhaps if he gave the order to…

  The door to the false chapel opened.

  This time, the dark opening remained empty for more than a minute, betraying no hint of what was happening within.

  Then, one by one, the children came out.

  They held each other by the hand, the taller leading the smaller, the older the younger. Barely a one of them looked past their tenth birthday, and the majority far younger. Several infants, yet unable to walk themselves, were swaddled in the arms of those that could. There seemed to be more boys than girls, but with their crudely-cut short hair and soot-streaked features, he couldn’t tell for sure.

  The lead child, at least, was male, and appeared to be on the cusp of his Twelfth - the age the Dominion judged to mark transition into adulthood. The boy stared at Cheron with a fierce look, defiant even as he led the terrified, quietly sobbing children towards the waiting missionary-soldiers.

  “Learto said we was t’ go with you,” he said.

  The boy spoke with the same slurred accent as the older heretic… Learto, apparently… had.

  “That is correct, boy,” Cheron replied. “You are to return with me to the Valley of the Dawn. I gave your ‘Learto’ my word.”

  The boy eyed him suspiciously, sensing no warmth in the reply.

  “And what about mama?” came a small voice from behind.

  Cheron looked up, past the boy to see the small, sandy-haired girl who had asked the question.

  “And papa,” came another voice nearby, a boy even younger. “He said he’d be back!”

  Cheron raised an eyebrow, wondering if he were about to witness a hundred children break into tears, when the boy who led them spun around.

  “Quiet, all of you!” he snapped, and Cheron was impressed by the authority in his voice. “Now, you promised. We all promised. Promised to be good an’… an’ if we’re good…”

  Cheron could see the boy struggle to get through the final part of his sentence.

  “If we’re good, we’ll all see our families sooner.”

  Cheron almost clapped. The boy was very convincing, at least as far as the children were concerned. He sold the lie well, though clearly did not believe it himself.

  “That’s right,” Cheron said with a smile. “What’s your name, boy?”

  The boy gave him a considering look.

  “Sucan,” he said eventually, though it sounded as if the word was being dragged from his throat.

  “Sucan is right!” Cheron said, turning his smile on the children arrayed in front of him. “That is what your families told you; that if you’re good, you’ll see them again.”

  He crouched down, reaching out to touch the chin of the closest child. They stared at him, unable to understand even half of what was happening.

  “Because that’s what heretics do, you see,” he continued. “They lie. They’ve lied to you your whole lives, right from the moment you left the godforsaken womb.”

  Cheron gently stroked the child’s cheek once, then shifted his weight to turn to another. Around him, he could hear the soft shuffling of tiny feet, a hundred tiny faces straining to see.

  “But I don’t lie, you see,” he continued. “I bring the Word, and the Word is truth. So I will bring you back to the Dominion, as I promised. I will show you the Lord’s mercy.”

  He stood, stretching as he did so to remove a knot from his back.

  ”Voxcaster,” he said coldly. “Have your men ready their weapons. Once we start on the children, those inside will come running.”

  “Sir?”

  Cheron said nothing as the Voxcaster looked from him to the children and back.

  “Understood, sir.”

  Cheron nodded.

  “Good.”

  He caught the fist before it could land. Small, weak, and clenched tightly around a jagged piece of flint that did more to cut the palm that held it than the flesh it tried to pierce. Cheron had seen Sucan surreptitiously pick it up as he spoke with the Voxcaster.

  “A good try,” Cheron said, staring down into the boy’s eyes.

  Sucan refused to flinch even as Cheron twisted, bending the child’s arm until he was forced to his knees. Around them, the other children began to scream.

  “Cleanse them!” shouted the Voxcaster. “Make it quick!”

  As the sound of sword tearing flesh rose and terrified screams turned to cries of pain, Cheron knelt and put himself face to face with the boy whose arm he still gripped tightly.

  “You think this is wrong,” Cheron said. “You think this is cruel, but this is kindness.”

  Though Sucan was clearly trying to hold them back, tears began to brim and fall from his now red, puffy face. His breathing became ragged, short gasps of fear.

  “Their souls are stained,” Cheron said. “Stained with the sins of those who raised you, warped by your parents' lies. Glitched.”

  He spat the final word, one of the most powerful and revulsion-inducing words there ever was.

  “This is mercy. I will take their bones back, to bury in the Dominion so that the Burnished God can judge their souls, and save them.”

  Sucan’s eyes were wide, the pupils so dilated in terror that they were little more than black void. To him, Cheron was the whole world. And yet…

  There was still force behind the arm, still a will that sought to drive the flint into Cheron’s neck, to slice and cut and take revenge for what the boy saw as injustice.

  “Keep this one alive,” Cheron said, standing and casually flinging the boy to fall sprawled at the feet of the Voxcaster. “There’s a chance for reversion, I think.”

  He turned to look at the chapel, the boy already forgotten.

  “Ah,” he said, satisfied. “Here they come.”

  As he knew they would, the heretics in the chapel came boiling out, women and old men, wailing and frantic yet holding no weapon better than a heavy timbre. It was almost comical, the way they threw themselves onto his men’s blades.

  In very short order, it was over. The square beyond the chapel was peaceful again, though there remained the gurgle of blood still dripping from the dead and the sounds of men wiping their swords. Only one heretic remained.

  Learto.

  The old man stood in the door to the chapel, panting heavily. His eyes were ablaze with fury, and this rage seemed to have returned him a strength from younger days because his muscles bulged beneath leathered skin. The beast-like, unholy violence of the damned threatened to burst from him at any moment, yet for some reason he didn’t…

  “Shall I send the men at him, sir?” the Voxcaster asked.

  Cheron shook his head, not taking his eyes off of the heretic. It was clear he was waiting for something.

  “SANCTIFIER!” Learto screamed, not moving from the chapel entrance. “Sanctifier! If you truly do believe your bastard god protects you, then face me. I will show you how blind you are.”

  “Sir?” The Voxcaster said. “Sir, it's clearly a…”

  Cheron cut him off with a wave of a hand. Of course it was a trap; the heretic believed that whatever he held in his hand possessed some kind of power. If not a way to undo what had been done, then a way to get revenge.

  But this was a heretic’s belief, which Cheron knew was false. Indeed, to hesitate for even a second only opened Cheron himself up to blasphemy; he must not falter in his own faith, must not show doubt in his devotion to the Burnished God.

  So he stepped forward, drawing his sword.

  The heretic charged forward with a speed that belied his age, closing the gap before Cheron could fully raise his weapon. Nevertheless the blade moved, its divinely-guided weight shifting and guiding Cheron’s hand to where it needed to be.

  Learto’s eyes bulged as the blade pierced his side, flecks of blood appearing instantly at the sides of his mouth. Nevertheless, his berzerker-like rage gave him strength, and heavy fists landed blow after blow on Cheron’s armour. The Soulguard robes dissipated the force, of course, but it was still impressive.

  It seemed Cheron’s blade was hungry today, because it did not go straight for the kill. No, following its insistent shiftings Cheron allowed it to slide out and slice inwards again, maintaining a shallow depth that caused the heretic to groan in pain but remain standing. It had been some time since he had permitted his sword to play like this, especially against an unarmed weaker opponent.

  Was this it? Cheron wondered. Was this all the old blasphemer had, for all his posturing and cries? A pang of disappointment pierced his chest.

  The blast took him off his feet. One moment he was standing, shrugging off the blows of the increasingly frantic Learto as his blade danced, then he was halfway across the clearing on all fours with vision white and ears ringing. He struggled to replay what had happened.

  My robes…

  The heretic had got a blow in under his Soulguard robes, striking at his chin. Cheron had allowed him the blow, confident it would be nothing he could not stand. Instead, the moment the fist struck flesh instead of metal, it was as if the world had shattered.

  His teeth tingled and his mouth was filled with the taste of metal. Not the metallic taste of blood, though there was that too, but the sensation that his jaws had clamped down on some heavy, rusting sheet of crumble-iron. Worse, the left side of his face had gone numb, and his eye refused to fully open.

  It was when he once more raised his sword, though, that true shock set in. It took a moment to process the change, but once he realised what had happened his chest tightened until it was difficult to breathe.

  The church-forged blade, wrought under angel light by the finest master craftsmen in the Dominion, was heavy. Cheron had never known such a thing. The Sanctifier’s sword was a weapon that had been passed from one Sanctifier to the next for generations, and in all that time it had danced and sung and played in the holiest of spirits. It was a divinely-guided blade, and its weight was only ever felt by those it cleansed. To the wielder, it felt as light as a feather.

  Until now. Now, it felt as crude and as heavy as the most common soldier’s blade.

  In the distance, Learto yelled something. Perhaps it was vengeful gloating, or spiteful triumph. Perhaps, even, it was just the ravings of a man driven mad at the sudden loss of all hope. It didn’t matter, and Cheron didn’t listen. Instead, he stared at his dull, lifeless sword.

  “They told me your kind were snakes.”

  As he stared at his sword a shadow was cast across the ground in front of him, Learto’s words merging into clarity as the heretic came closer.

  “They tol’ me you weren’ human,” Learto hissed. “Said you were all brainwashed fanatics and hardcode hatred. I shoulda listened. Shoulda got who I could out and left ‘fore you arrived.”

  Cheron slowly raised his head, the world moving as if through thick oil, to see Learto looking down at him in disgust. Something small and golden glittered in the man’s open palm as he wiped blood from his mouth.

  “This should’ve warned me what you were gonna do,” Learto said, glancing down at the tiny disc. “Should’ve picked up on your murderous intent, but you don’t even consider killing these kids murder, do you? Don’ even see them as human, do ya?”

  Cheron stared up at him, head still spinning, unable to properly grasp what the man was saying. Unable to understand how the man was even still standing. His sword had torn through the man a dozen times, the crimson coating the blade and the heretic’s side a testament to its wrath.

  He was still staring in mute incomprehension when warm blood sprayed suddenly across his face, the heretic spasming backwards as the tip of the Voxcaster’s sword emerged from his stomach. Learto’s face contorted in pain, red mist flying from his mouth to contrast curiously with the pure, blue sky above.

  Still no thought came. Nor did it come as the heretic’s lifeless form fell to the ground. All there was was the sound of the blood drumming in Cheron’s ears, and the cold, awful knowledge that something had happened that should not have been possible. That was not possible.

  A blessing of the Burnished God had been cleansed.