AN: This is a branching story off of 'God Rising' if you have not read that story, (Reading 'Training in Time' would also help by the way) the events of this one, and the degree to which Remedios has changed, will not make any sense to you. But...if you have read that story, and this makes perfect sense to you...then I did a good job on the last one and I hope I continue to do so in this one.
Remedios stood at the gate of the little village, pickings had been slim lately, somehow Black Justice had gotten people ahead of her and warned off much of her prey, but not everyone. No...not everyone.
A young man stood over the bodies of his parents, he was dressed in something akin to Black Justice attire, and he held the sword out in a most unprofessional manner, his family must have been recent converts that left him with little time for training. She saw him shake slightly in the firelight as much of the rest of the village was burning around him, she approached with cold eyes and moved with the smoothness of wind over leaves, drawing out her sword, she fairly dared him to come at her with a sneer forming on her face.
His charge was reckless, it was amateurish, he fought very bravely, and he died very quickly. She stepped out of the way of his desperate overhead slash, moved forward, then spun towards him, severing his head from his body from the back of the neck to the front.
"Fucking heteromorphs. Fucking monsters." She said and spat on the corpse.
To anyone who was listening, her words would have made no sense, these were human beings after all, mere village peasants of the sort she was desperate to save when Jaldabaoth's invasion had begun.
Now? This was her eighth massacre of peasants out of nine attempts...including the failure to put down Neia Barja and Black Justice in the capitol. Several other paladins and squires were busy killing off other villagers, and they made quick work of the untrained novices, when it was over, there were a handful of children left, in other villages there had been people who were willing to take the children of the dead, or the adults had died buying time for children to flee, but this village seemed to have nobody who was not a member of the undead worshipping evil cult.
Faced with this new situation, the paladins and squires herded the young ones into the center of the village, near where Remedios Custodio stood, and when they met her gaze, they started to cry and call for their parents, some knowing that it was to late for that already, having been dragged from clutching the corpses of mother or father.
"What do we do with these?" One of the squires asked her.
Remedios was quick to answer, she remembered the expression the man she'd met with the day of the failed attack on Neia's people has used about the children of Black Justice members. "As nits make lice and sheep make sheep and wolves make wolves, the child of a monster allowed to grow up, becomes a grown up monster."
She looked them over briefly and then said, "Put down the monsters before they grow up and destroy humanity."
Swords ran them through with merciful quickness, keeping their cries quick to come and quick to go.
"Now gather whatever supplies you can, and lets move!" Remedios snapped at her followers, "I want to be near the next town before sunrise tomorrow!"
They were quick to move after that, snatching up food, refilling water skins, and stealing small valuables that they could trade for supplies when they needed to. Some of the men and women wore troubled expressions on their faces over the deaths of the children, but troubled or not, orders were orders, and the gods demanded no less in the pursuit of piety than the totality of obedience in the act of bringing divine justice down upon heteromorphs, be they monsters in body or in spirit.
As they rode away as fast as their horses could carry them, Remedios gripped the reigns of her horse tight enough that her knuckles turned white, here eyes were narrow with rage, an entire village dedicated to the worship of the undead, it was horrible. Tears wet her eyes, "Calca..." she said softly under her breath, "It makes me almost glad you are gone, so that you do not live to see any of your people sell their souls to evil, that they should become heteromorphs by choice...its so wrong, so evil, I know it would break your heart to do this...but don't worry my beloved...only continue to look away in death, I will do this for you, I will cleans the Holy Kingdom, I will make our Kingdom great again, the stain of that undead monster will not linger one day longer than it takes for me to wash it away in the blood of his treasonous converts..."
It was an ugly thing to say, but it was now an ugly world in her eyes now, worse than during Jaldabaoth's invasion, and thinking about all that helped distract her as she and her group raced on until they reached the relative safety of a large forest outside a small to mid-sized town. They camped deep in the wood for almost a full day, the deep thick folliage allowed them to hide from the Sun, letting them feel like it was night so that they could rest for awhile, and when they woke, the Sun was near to setting.
One of her squires dressed in peasant clothing, set aside all military equipment, and gathered the small plunder from their raids into a pack and walked to the main road, once there she turned in the direction of the town and followed the course to the gate. No guards were present, which was something of a relief, and she walked to a booth that was open late, and she traded trinkets for coins, little was of much value, a few rings for ears or fingers, the odd small decoration, nothing of significance, so the trading was quick and merited no conversation. No sooner was she done than she went to her true destination, a tavern. The noise was as plentiful as the beer, and th quality of patron was...about the same as that, so...not great, not as far as the squire was concerned.
Still, she bought a mug of the swill to avoid standing out even a little and went to a private place to wait. It was not a long wait at least, and a man approached and sat down across from her at the same table.
"You're late." She said.
"No I'm not, I got here when I planned to. I don't care when you arrive, as long as you do." He said flatly.
"What can you tell me?" The squire asked.
"Not much, this town has very little Black Justice presence, we're only two days from the border to the South so, so that shouldn't surprise you, an inquisitor priest should be able to turn the population against any heretics with relative ease, no need to raid this place." He said softly.
"Are you sure?" She asked doubtfully, "There was a village full of heretics barely a day or so from here."
He waved his hand dismissively, "That was an anomaly, probably started expressly by worshipers and converts from the capitol looking to start new lives, this town has been here for years, and they're not sympathetic, honestly even if you'd done nothing, they probably would have rioted on their own eventually and attacked the place." He said with utter confidence.
"Blessed be the six." The squire intoned with eyes downcast.
"And their blessings upon us." The man intoned in turn, eyes similarly downcast.
"But listen," he said, "We've started to see inquistors go missing or turn up dead, Neia Baraja is responding, and I know Gustav is out hunting for Remedios. I don't know how sincerely, but hunting he is, and that is a problem."
"Will it stop you from providing is more weapons, supplies, and additional volunteers? We lost twelve people at the last fight, not great people, but every one down weakens us a little more."
"No, not yet, I can keep bringing people in from the South to reinforce you, and its easy to bring supplies through the wild country still, nothing but a few bands of surviving demihumans there, and most of those are not worth mentioning. Neia hasn't realized you're getting support from us yet, I'm certain of that, but listen, we're not alone, the Slane Theocracy has recently dispatched its scriptures, they're already moving around the Holy Kingdom." He whispered excitedly.
The squire's eyes lit up excitedly.
"However..." He said.
"What..." She asked, her excitement becoming caution.
"You have to move South, we need to get you close to or across the border, let things die down in the hunt for you for awhile, not long, a few weeks, we'll outfit you through friendly nobles and us one of the corrupt northern nobles to plant a few stories about where you've gone. You'll cross the border again soon, once you've resupplied, rearmed, and we've given you some time to train more of your recruits. If you really insist, we can smuggle people over like we have been doing, but it'll be a lot easier if we base you over the border." He said emphatically.
She frowned. "Remedios won't like that, she's hellbent on burning out the heresy immediately no matter what it takes. She will not like a lot of travel time between actions, and she won't like anything that looks like retreat, not with this kind of enemy."
"Convince her. Tell her there are people willing to smuggle her farther north where the worst heresy is, but she'll need to meet her contact in the South, that will have her attention." He said.
The squire nodded, "I'll do my best, that might appeal to her at least. What else do you have?"
"Nothing good, Neia has created her sacred text, approved by the undead monster himself, a copy is due to be presented to King Caspond soon at a ceremony a month from now, and from there it will go to the temples, and from the temples to all the lands controlled or influenced by the Sorcerer King or beyond." He said.
The color drained from her face. "No..." She whispered.
He nodded.
"No..." She said again.
"Yes. But also no, he'll never get that book." He said, "Just get Remedios to move South, let the Slane Theocracy handle Neia Baraja and King Caspond, and when you come north again, it will be with the means to set everything right." He said.
"I'll do what I can, but I can't promise she'll listen, she's unhinged, she was always a zealot, but...I don't know, since the failed attack in the capitol she's been different, I wish to the six that Gustav were around, he could talk some sense into her, the rest of us it is hit and miss." The squire shook her head and stood up, "Thank you for the information, we'll wait on a supply deliver in the woods overnight for now, and well...I guess the next contact you hear from will tell you which direction we went." She sighed in frustration, and downed the swill that passed for beer in that lowly establishment, and then walked out, leaving her southern contact behind.
When she returned to her camp, after carefully ensuring she was out of easy sight for anyone entering or leaving the town via the road, she gave Remedios the news she'd learned, and the blazing eyed Remedios was just about to scream in frustration, only for the brave squire to shush her. "Its not all bad, we did suspect scripture activity, so this is some good news, plus there are more inquisitors coming, and we've got people waiting to join us in the South."
"Not good enough." Remedios said, and waved her away, "Leave me alone, I have to think." She said with distress in her voice and on her face.
With a doubtful expression, the squire bowed and walked out, leaving Remedios alone.
The former Paladin commander, the symbol of justice in the Holy Kingdom, the most powerful Paladin in the kingdom and perhaps the world, the slayer of children and the destroyer of villages, cried, she covered her face with her hands to stiffle the noise, and cried bitter tears into her palms.
"You failed me again, didn't you?" A familiar voice said to her.
Her head snapped up. "Calca?!" she said, responding more to the sound of the voice than to the words. She looked around frantically until her face fell onto her sword, there reflected in the mirrorlike surface of her blade, was the face of Queen Calca.
"You disappoint me." The Queen said to her.
"I-I'm trying." She said softly.
"The undead is worshiped everywhere, I am remembered nowhere. What is that if not your failure?" The queen in the sword said harshly.
"Bad enough you let them kill me, you let me be used as a weapon, you let them tear down my people, all my work was undone, and now they praise a monster as a god." She said to Remedios.
"No...you're not forgotten everywhere, I'm hunting down the heretics, those spiritual heteromorphs who wear the skins of men and praise the undead, I am killing them all, I will purge this land of all evil, I will restore the gods place here, you will have your legacy back." Remedios said frantically and rushed to the upright blade, she knelt in front of it and grasped the cross shaped hand guard, she looked into the reflecting steel at the face of her queen, "I swear, I swear on my love for you and all your work that I will see this through to the end. Only please, forgive me for failing you before, for letting that damnable demon touch you while I was still alive...please...forgive me..." She pleaded frantically as the face of her queen faded, and an exhausted Remedios collapsed beside her blade in a dreamless sleep that went undisturbed for hours.
AN: Feed the beast, give me reviews, I hunger for reviews like PervySageChuck does for innuendo. (If you know who I'm talking about, you read reviews and probably leave them, so...thank you.) By the way, I know this is short, but its meant to just introduce the story, the bulk of writing takes place on the weekends. Think of this as a dealer giving you a free taste before unloading larger quantities of product. Addicted yet? ;)