Chapter 18 Repost (Patreon)

Realized that I cut this off from the last PDF I exported, so read this version instead. Going to start getting used to these single Patreon posts and figure out what I can and can't do with formatting. They seem a little hideous tbh. 

***

The outrider who had been assigned to gather King Mudt’s most worthy captains found his first man standing before the walls of Infinzel with his sword belt in the dirt.

For the first time since the siege of the pyramidal city had begun a decade ago, the battlefield was peaceful. The scorched ground between the Orvesian camp and Infinzel’s walls was littered with bones and hungry blackbirds. There were fresh corpses there, too. Men who had been killed just that morning. Terrible timing, on their part.

“Captain Sulk,” the outrider said. “The king summons you. The parameters of our war have changed.”

“Ah. Now he summons me?” Captain Sulk asked without turning. “The king and I were just together, though he was too bloodthirsty to notice.”

Sulk had been young and handsome before he’d been moved to the frontlines. Now, his eyes were hollow and his complexion pale, his hair falling out. He’d sent thousands of warriors to crash against the walls of Infinzel. Often, he’d been amongst them. On three occasions Sulk had been buried beneath mountains of corpses that had required days of digging with bare hands through rotten meat and juices to free himself. He had a reputation as a man who simply refused to die.

“I believe my war is over,” he said, turning to the outrider. “I am leaving this place.”

And the outrider saw that Captain Sulk had not been marked with the blackbird of Orvesis. Instead, on Captain Sulk’s neck, there was tattoo of a round shield. Sulk held a quill and inkwell, just like the one the king had carried.

The outrider put a hand on his sword hilt. Sulk raised an eyebrow. Even with the legendary captain already disarmed, the outrider quickly decided not to test the man. He would not arrest Captain Sulk. The man’s bravery across the years had saved nearly as many men as his orders to assail the wall had gotten killed.

“What should I tell the king?” the outrider asked as he stepped aside.

Captain Sulk considered this for a moment. “Tell him that I wish him a bountiful harvest.”

--Record of the First Granting and Dawning of the Second Age

Lyus Crodd, Scribe of the Dead Kingdom of Orvesis

***

--DRAMATIS PERSONAE—

Sara Free, Paladin of the 10thRenown, The Ministry of Sulk, back on her own two feet

Tabitha Gentlerain, Quill of Ambergran, having a rough month

Battar Crodd, Death Knight of the 13th Renown and Quill of the Orvesian Witnesses, about to see a ghost

***

6 Hazean, 61 AW

The village of Ambergran, North Continent

264 days until the next Granting

The Ministry of Sulk arrived in Ambergran at sunset, dog-tired and filthy from the road. The oxen they'd purchased in Noyega had revealed themselves to be sick with worms via spraying bouts of diarrhea. One had almost died from dehydration on the road north. The mission had purchased their wagon from the same Noyegan merchant, so it was little surprise that one of the axles had broken once they’d gone too far to turn back for a refund. At that point, the mission had wasted a half-day double-checking the rest of the supplies to make sure there weren't any further swindles. Repairs were made, healing of beasts conducted, and purifications undertaken.

Sara Free should've known better. People in the coastal cities had an ugly habit of trying to rip off the Ministry when they passed through. The cities had worthy champions and quills with goals. They fought for wishes every year, not a boring but bountiful harvest. Because of that, the city-folk thought themselves above the protection of Sulk's Few, and thus felt entitled to extract some other value from the Ministry. Sara was in command of this mission, so it was down to her to make sure their coin was well spent. Under normal circumstances, she would've more thoroughly shopped around, or chosen a different port from Noyega entirely. But she was in a hurry.

There was a man in Ambergran who had hacked her leg off. Sara was eager to show him that she still stood.

The High Minister would not have appreciated that thought. It had taken two days of rituals to fully restore Sara’s leg. She’d been sedated through most of it, but when she awoke her hair smelled of pig’s blood, burnt wood, and mage sweat. Sara recovered within the artificially cooled walls of the Ministry’s hospital with only an unconscious Gadgeteer who’d suffered head-to-toe burns for company. She gritted her teeth against the wrenching tautness of new muscle bonding with bone.

“A costly procedure,” High Minister Denavon Brunner had said when he came to visit.

The High Minister and Quill of Sulk was a balding man in his fifties who seemed to do everything slowly. Like most of the Ministry, he'd been born with a different loyalty. Brunner had been a gambler in his younger years, his affectless face and unhurried style giving him a natural advantage in cards. He'd been driven to join the Ministry after witnessing the horrific treatment of Noyega's debtors. His election as High Minister was no doubt due to the same cool disposition that made him such a terror at the tables.

“I’ll repay it,” Sara had told him.

“I suspect you and I have different notions of how that might be accomplished,” Brunner replied. He paused for a moment, to let Sara think about that. “I am sending you to Ambergran.”

Sara’s face lit up, but she kept her voice steady. “As you wish, Umbo.”

“This is not a mission of vengeance,” Brunner said.

“Of course not. I have my leg back. No hard feelings for the bastard who cut it off.”

Brunner studied her. Sara flexed her knee joint under the covers. “You lost a sword fight. The people of Ambergran lost half their village.”

“Would have been more,” Sara said quietly. “I killed one of those Witnesses myself, before I fell.”

“I would not expect gratitude.” Sara looked away. After a few long seconds, Brunner continued. “This is not a mission of vengeance,” he repeated. “It is a mission of forgiveness and healing. You failed these people. Now you must face them.”

Weeks later, sitting straight in her saddle as the mission clattered along Ambergran’s main road, Sara wondered if there would be anyone here to accept her apology. The farmland had been quiet coming in. She'd seen lifeless farmhouses and razed fields, half-demolished buildings, and disintegrating laundry still swinging from lines. But she hadn't seen any people. Rumors said the Orvesians had taken up full residence here, but outside of a few black feathered tents on the outskirts, Sara saw no sign of them either.

“We may have bought too much dried meat, Umbo Sara,” said Murph Carter from his seat atop their rickety wagon.

Sara shook her head, then pointed to fresh footprints in the dirt road ahead. “Someone still lingers, Umbo Murph.”

“I hope they’re hungry.”

Including Murph, there were eight other people in Sara's mission. Two healers, a mason, a carpenter, a pair of unskilled laborers, an archivist, and a chef. They were all Umbo – there was no other rank within The Ministry of Sulk. Only the High Minister was given a special title, mostly as a way to display authority to outsiders, and although Brunner had occupied the role for as long as Sara had been a member, he could be put aside by a simple majority vote. Sara was a champion and had been appointed to command of this mission for the sake of logistics, but the men and women alongside her were equals, not subordinates.

And anyway, she suspected the people of Ambergran would have more use for a healer like Murph than a paladin like Sara. She only got to showcase her skills once a year. The rest of the Ministry—with their supplies and knowledge and town-building skills—they were useful all year round.

The mission followed the dirt road into Ambergran's ramshackle town center and there found the first signs of life. The day was fading, but someone had seen fit to light torches outside the meeting hall. The faint hum of many voices was audible within, though the building's double doors were closed. An indistinct, huddled shape sat next to the doors, as if standing guard or eavesdropping through the window.

There were carts lined up throughout the village square. Some contained piles of lumber, sawed to size and ready to be installed. Others contained bundles of wheat, freshly harvested and ready for transport.

“Looks as if the town is already getting back on its feet,” Murph said. “We might not be needed here at all.”

“You’re just eager to get back to that wife of yours.” Sara eyed the meeting hall. “We are needed. If Ambergran's been offered a helping hand, it's one soaked in the town’s own blood. I intend to wipe this place clean.”

“Brunner asked me to scold you for talk like that.”

Up ahead, a man rolled out from beneath one of the wheat wagons where he'd been tightening the fasteners on a wheel. He started at the sight of the mission, his jaw slackening further as his eyes lingered on Sara.

“Crucifalian,” he said.

“No,” Sara replied. “Ministry of Sulk.”

The man shook his head like he didn't believe her. He set about a series of pointless gestures–smoothing down his greasy hair, wiping dirt from the front of his pants. Sara stared back at him coldly, ignoring the snickering from the rest of her mission.

“I heard the stories, but never seen one of you in the flesh,” the farmhand said. “The flesh…”

“Umbo Sara,” said Murph in a stage whisper, “perhaps you could go shit behind a tree for this man. Your sounds disabused most of your present traveling companions of any poetical notions.”

More laughter from her mission. Sara forced herself to smile. She knew what effect that might have on the leering farmhand, but she wanted to be polite.

Even after days on the road, a broadsword strapped to her back, wearing shapeless plate armor and dung-caked boots, Sara Free was beautiful. She was tall, with a regal neck, and perfect bone structure. Her hair was wavy, blonde in a way that somehow invoked morning sunlight, her skin perfect, ears and nose meticulously proportioned, lips suggestively full and pink, her eyes like chips of emerald. Sara Free was artwork, breathtaking in her impossibility.

All the women of Crucifalia had been wished this way by their husbands. Sara's beauty had not diminished when she'd lost her loyalty for her homeland. In the lands beyond Crucifalia and the Silver Lake, her looks were a curse.

“Where is everyone?” she asked the gawping farmhand. Sara was used to being ogled. She was long past the point of lashing out during these exchanges; she had outgrown trying to temper her physical beauty with verbal ugliness. The initial awe would wear off eventually, as it had with her friends in the Ministry. It always did.

“Witnessing,” the man said, gesturing toward the meeting hall even as his eyes roamed across Sara's armor.

“Not you?”

The man made to spit in the dirt, but remembered his manners. “I haven't forgotten what those bastards did to us. I'll let them do the work in the dead’s fields and I'll pocket coin from their labors, but I'd sooner gouge out my eyes than listen to their sermons.”

“Good man,” Sara said.

He positively quivered. “You mean it?”

She left it at that with the farmhand, turning instead to Murph and the others.

“Set up over there, by the bulletin board,” she said. “I am going to announce our presence.”

Murph raised an eyebrow. “Is that a good idea, Umbo Sara?”

She flashed him a smile and saw the way he swallowed at her perfect rows of white teeth. “I've come too far not to say hello.”

Sara dismounted and tossed Murph her reins. As she started toward the meeting hall, the farmhand reached out to touch her arm. Without a thought, she activated [Radiate] and the man jerked back his hand as sudden heat rolled off her plated shoulders. She was of the Ministry and thus believed in charity and protection of the weak, but she would not be touched without permission.

The hunched body by the doors of the meeting hall stirred as Sara approached. The thing turned out to be a woman, albeit one who looked like she’d been living in a tree for a month. At first, Sara thought she wore the ash stripes of an Orvesian, but on closer inspection that turned out to be just old-fashioned dirt.

The woman turned her face up to look at Sara, and the paladin stopped short.

"I know you," Sara said.

Tabitha Gentlerain quickly looked away. Her reddish hair was caked with mud and she stunk like she’d been without a bath for weeks.

"I have seen the power of the gods, and it is terrible,” Tabitha mumbled.

"Only when we choose to make it so," Sara replied. She snapped her fingers in the other woman’s face. "Tabitha, right? You're the Quill."

"I have seen the power of the gods, and it is terrible," repeated Tabitha. "I have seen the way they wield it, and it is galling."

The woman’s mind had broken. Sara considered her for a moment longer before using [Purify]. The sorcery manifested in a flash of light that emanated from Sara’s eyes and mouth, the cleansing rays soaking into Tabitha. The Ink was meant to eliminate corruptions and restore the natural. Sara had no idea what effect it would have on a heart lost to mourning. She hoped it might bring some relief, at least.

Tabitha gasped and shied away from her. After a moment, she blinked and finally made proper eye contact with Sara.

“The Crucifalian,” Tabitha whispered.

“Sara Free,” the paladin replied. “And you, Tabitha Gentlerain, the Quill of Ambergran.” She took Tabitha gently by the chin, turning her head. “The wheat stalk remains. Your village still needs you.”

“What…” Tabitha reached up to pull a twig from her tangle of hair. “What are you doing here?”

“I am here to express the Ministry’s remorse,” Sara said. “And also, its resolve.”

With that, Sara shoved open the doors to the meeting hall.

Inside, the huddled remnants of Ambergran sat in rows, flanked on all sides by the black-feathered and ash-covered Orvesian Witnesses. The relationship between the conquered and the occupiers was immediately clear to Sara. The farmers were slump-shouldered, hands folded tightly in their laps, trying to swallow back their bile. The Orvesians, meanwhile, were all solicitous smiles and patting backs, passing around wineskins and bread.

Sara shuddered at a memory that bubbled up unbidden. Her husband—her former husband—whispering hard into her ear. “Isn’t it easier to give in?”

She winced as some of the faces in the meeting hall turned in her direction. There were some round-faced, tawny-haired farmers who had smeared themselves with ashes in the Orvesian way. The Ink had changed to the blackbird on some, but not others. She was not entirely too late.

And there, at the front of it all, on the meeting hall’s low stage, was the man whose blade had chopped through her leg.

“I see you here, my dear, in his memories,” Battar Crodd spoke theatrically.

Battar’s head was titled back, in the midst of an Orvesian vision. Witnessing, they called it. A small middle-aged woman of Ambergran stood next to him, shivering despite the mugginess of the room, Crodd’s hand on her shoulder. Sara walked toward them, straight down the center aisle. She made no effort to soften her heavy footfalls. Most eyes were upon her now, but not Crodd’s.

“The ashes remember a half day’s hike to a waterfall,” Crodd said. “You surprised him there. His heart swelled—”

“Be still your mouth, sir, and let the dead be freed of your pale prison!” Sara shouted.

She extended her hand and activated [Healing Water]. A jet of soothing warm water shot forth from her palm, spraying Crodd in the face just as he whipped his head down to find the source of this interruption. Any wounds Crodd had suffered, any physical ailments bothering him—they would’ve been healed as the water splashed into his mouth and up his nose. A price Sara would gladly pay for washing away his stripes of ash.

“My name is Sara Free of the Ministry of Sulk and I come to pay restitution to the people of Ambergran!” Sara yelled.

Battar Crodd’s bright blue eyes flared. He sputtered, his face dripping, black flecks on his lips.

“You,” he said. “You live.”

There was commotion then. The stunned people of Ambergran stepping clear of the scene, staring at Sara, even as Orvesian Witnesses closed in on her from all sides. They grabbed her by the arms and dragged her backwards.

“The Orvesian Witnesses are poison!” Sara bellowed. “They commit atrocity and wallow in its wake. They murder your loved ones and then try to gift the corpses back to you!”

“This woman is confused, my friends, lost--”

“The Ministry is here now!” Sara continued at volume, proving her lungs were larger than any ash-sucking Witness. “We will help Ambergran to live again, not to succumb to these ghouls!”

Crodd’s followers almost had her to the door when Sara simply planted her feet and stopped. The Orvesians let out a collective groan and stumbled as she accessed [Strength+] and [Immovable]. A dozen hands were like nothing to Sara. She shook her arms and Orvesians staggered back from her, tripping over each other.

She pointed at Battar Crodd and smiled with all her cursed beauty.

“I pledge to Ambergran, in less than one year’s time, I will kill this man.”

With that, Sara turned on her heel and stepped out into the darkening evening. She did not look back, but was pleased to hear the plaintive voices of Orvesians trying to restore order, begging the people of Ambergran to stay. Some people, she sensed, were filing out behind her.

Murph waited for her a few yards away. Tabitha Gentlerain stood with him. No doubt they had heard everything.

“Ill-advised, I think, Umbo Sara,” Murph said. “But entertaining.”

Sara said nothing. Instead, she met Tabitha’s eyes. The woman’s gaze had sharpened considerably since Sara’s burst of purification.

“Do you want to hurt him?” Tabitha asked.

“Crodd?”

The other woman nodded eagerly. “Before the Granting, I mean. Do you want to strike him a blow now?”

“Yes,” Sara said. “Yes, I very much do.”

“There’s a boy with no mark,” Tabitha said. “A boy the Orvesians are keeping prisoner.”