God Rising: The Cult of Ainz
Written by: AtheistBasementDragon
Edited by: The Usual Gang of Drunken Perverted Idiots
Chapter 197: Return to Wenmark
...Kami Miyako...
The enormous soldier dragged the unconscious elf and flung his bound body over the back of his horse, a little extra rope and the unprocessed elf meat wouldn't fall and tenderize itself. But for the body of Dominic, he secured a rope to the feet of the corpse, and then tied the other end to the back of his saddle. Quiet but for the fires that raged after the hours of struggle that had gone back and forth, he felt a smug sense of satisfaction come over him.
Soldiers staggered out of the manor, some dragging prisoners, some dragging meat, a few carrying looted property for themselves, small prizes that would buy them what they wanted later. Others of more noble bent, carried wounded comrades or the bodies of the dead. "Let it be proclaimed to all Kami Miyako, Cardinal Dominic is dead!" The behemoth said as he got into the saddle.
He and the survivors began to march through the street, chanting the phrase. "Cardinal Dominic is dead! Long live Cardinal Yvon, who will feed all our people with the food that Dominic has held from us! No more Dominic! No more hunger! No more Dominic! No more hunger! No more Dominic! No more hunger!"
The chant was taken up by the soldiers behind him, they could feel the population salivating around them, citizens with sunken eyes wiped spittle from their lips. Word began to fly around the city of the promise of food from Cardinal Yvon.
The body behind the horse, mutilated, burned, and dressed in the Cardinal's clothing, gave mute testimony to the truth of the claim that Cardinal Dominic had perished, and the word of his demise was paired with the promise of food carried to various parts of the city, from manor homes and guard stations, to barracks and merchant homes. The lines were drawn.
...Neia's Tent...
Skana entered the sleeping tent she shared with her wife. Darkness covered the room, but it was clear that she was thrashing, the faint shadow of her figure, the groaning. "Neia... my Neia..." Skana said and started to approach, then hesitated, and drew her hand up to her throat. "No. Damn it, no. Doesn't matter, not at all, it wasn't on purpose and you're not going to leave her like that no matter what happens." Skana scolded herself, and approached the bedside of her wife, she kicked several drained bottles of wine out of the way and went slowly down to her knees beside her wife, and did not reach to touch her. Instead, she slowly whispered close to her ear.
"Everything's alright, everyone is fine, you're safe, you're safe with me, you're not where you think you are. I love you, I love you and I'll take care of you, and I'll never let go." She whispered gentle words in an endless stream, and it seemed to filter into Neia's mind, as the thrashing slowly began to stop and banish the night terror. She went around to the other side of the double wide cot, and stripping herself of clothing, pressed her naked body against the bare skin of the Scourge of God, spooning her close to share the warmth and comfort of her touch. 'Was that you before... did you reach out to my heart alone, did you even know you'd done it before you passed out, what fresh nightmare could do that to you...?' She wondered, before seeing the crumpled and torn paper that had found its way partially under the pillow during Neia's thrashing.
Skana took it up and read it as she clutched her lover with her other arm. Her eyes widened. 'Oh no... they can't have sunk so low...' She thought to herself and cast the paper aside after crushing it in her fist.
There were no more cries that night. Only the loving whispers in a despairing ear, as Skana fought off her own sense of rage and horror at the news dispatched by the Sorcerer King.
Neia woke up to the feel of warm breath on the back of her neck, and a hand cupping her right breast. She mewed slightly as she understood, "What a woman you are... how long did you stay awake with me I wonder?" Neia gently whispered as she got up out of her resting place and used a cheap throwaway cleansing scroll on herself, then dressed herself for war again, pausing only when a message came in.
"Are you ready and willing?" Enri asked through her message spell.
"I am." Neia replied calmly.
"Where then?" Enri asked abruptly.
"Wenmark. We will discuss this in Wenmark. What is left of it anyway. There is no better place." Neia answered confidently.
"Fine. The gate will be open in a minute, are you bringing anyone?" Enri asked calmly.
"No, just me, let's get this over with, I've got a city to exterminate and I'd rather not slow down the march more than I have to." She said calmly. "I owe you this meeting for what I did to you, but I hope you didn't make any promises on my behalf." Neia said formally.
"No, nothing, just a chance, that is all, but that chance got an army to surrender entirely, please keep that in mind." Enri asked politely.
"I will, but that is all I'll promise." Neia said in a neutral voice as the gate opened, and she stepped through it, leaving Skana to rest behind her.
...Ruins of Wenmark...
"Well, this place looks as shitty as I remember it, maybe even worse." Neia cursed it as she looked around. Toppled, crumbled buildings, timbers burned and blackened, many with sharp edges protruding out into empty, broken streets. Cold wind howled, and snow mixed with ash and soot. "It's just like Wheaton was." Neia said as she reached out to a beam and broke off a sharp protruding end and tossed it aimlessly away into the distance, where a faint clatter echoed in the silent city of the dead.
"So... you did this to Wheaton too, did you?" Raymond asked as he stepped out of the gate behind her.
Boabdil, Nua, and Enri fell in beside him as they too, stepped out of holes in reality.
"No, not quite, it was like this, but then," Neia said with a hard stare at him, "I burned the rest of it last night, the river will be turning black outside your city in a day or three, depending on how fast the waters flow."
"I see." Raymond replied with a heavy voice.
"Is he treating you well?" Neia asked the demure looking elf girl. "If he's hurt you in the least, say the word and I will rip his body apart and get you to safety." She stared at a bruise around Nua's neck, her fingers twitched to reach for her bow.
Nua shuddered as the blackness dominated Neia's eyes the way she remembered. "No, I told you, I'm not his slave. He's really on... your side, our side? I swear! He's truly working with the Sorcerer King. This bruise is from... well I guess you'd call it a disguise."
"Hard to believe." Neia said icily, "He's a cardinal of the Theocracy. How can any of those be anything but evil?" The resentment in her voice was palpable.
"I understand... I asked the same question for a long time but... it's true. He's good, and I won't let you hurt him." Nua said boldly and moved to stand in front of the Cardinal.
Neia felt her anger thaw out a bit as the elf put herself between her and the Cardinal.
She bowed her head apologetically, "I apologize, it is just difficult to accept. I should know better." Neia said gently.
"It's fine, given our history, it isn't hard to understand." Raymond replied optimistically.
"So... you're really her, aren't you? I thought you'd be... I don't know... taller?" General Boabdil said passively.
As she turned her eyes to him, he felt a faint caress over his heart, and then it was gone. "An arrow is short, but it brings down the tallest monsters when it strikes true." Neia said with a powerful reverberating voice.
"Fair enough." Boabdil said as the chill swept through his soul which had nothing to do with the winter.
"So, I'm here. What do you want from me?" Neia asked, and her hostility seemed to vanish.
"I want you to spare my people." Raymond replied simply. 'Better to be blunt, games will only anger her.' He thought to himself as he spoke.
Neia laughed bitterly. "Spare you? Spare you?!" Her head tilted back and her every syllable dripped mockery. "Look around you!" She exclaimed and slowly turned around on the balls of her feet, her arms outstretched to encompass the dead city.
"What must I do to get through to you people?" Neia asked with bitter wrath. "Why have you not understood, why have you not listened?!" She grabbed at her hair and tugged it hard enough to hurt.
"I understand why you want your revenge, why you hate us but..." Boabdil began, only to fall silent as her head snapped up and her glare ripped at his guts like the claws of a hungry beast.
"No, you don't! If you did, perhaps you'd have listened! I left the head of Justicar nailed to a wall. I had Wenmark annihilated, I tore Yanana apart down to its foundations, I sent severed ears in a bag with an inquisitor, I sent the mutilated living overseers back to you, I sent the child survivors of the owners of a great estate to tell you what you were dealing with, I slaughtered the Golden Fortress, I turned the river red and now I've turned it black and destroyed the greatest city in the south of your cursed country... and still you do not understand. Still, your people do as they have always done and aspire to worse!" Neia shouted with fury and pressure began to build around her.
"You want to negotiate for the survival of the source of nightmares? I am weary of warnings, so it's time I showed you what you are truly dealing with, then, maybe... just maybe you will understand... all of you." Neia said, letting her eyes linger momentarily on Enri, who trembled in spite of herself, but did not flinch.
"Follow me, we have a little while, and perhaps... if I show you this, you will begin to grasp your circumstances. It is only a short walk from here, and even if I should live to be ten thousand years old, I will never forget the way to it." Neia said, and started to walk, not looking behind her to see if they followed.
So through the ruins they walked, occasionally stepping over bodies still dressed in exquisite armor and bearing marvelous weapons, they had obviously died where they fell, held in place by the weight of their remarkable gear, all facing away from whatever they had tried to flee that had ultimately killed them.
"It is true, I hate your country." Neia said casually as she stepped on and then over a corpse. "If my god allowed it, I would exterminate it, and with only the army I myself created and command, I could wipe out your six hundred year history in... maybe two years, three if you hid in the mountains." She snapped her fingers sharply beside her head. "Just like that, you'd all be gone, nothing but a few fragments of art and a handful of coins beyond your borders."
There was a silence behind her except for their footsteps.
'She means it, she really means it, I mean I don't know if she could or not but... you don't get that confident with that much experience without good reason to have it.' Boabdil thought anxiously as he traded a look with Raymond, the glance alone revealing that they shared the same thought.
Neia folded her hands behind the small of her back as she went down twists and turns on the street. Eventually, they found themselves walking over blackened, dead grass that pockmarked dirty snow, and standing in front of what was once a large and luxurious building, now a cracked, blackened and ruined husk of its former glory.
Neia spun around to face them and held her arms at shoulder height and spread wide apart. "Welcome, to what was once that most luxurious nightmare in Wenmark. The Golden Roan, where the wealthy could rape and beat the beautiful, as long as they could afford to pay the price. Welcome, to the natural result of your beliefs. And the cause of the despair I bring to you in judgement."
Four throats swallowed anxiously. "Before we go in, let me ask you... have any of you ever seen the rebirth of a soul? Seen it begin right in front of your very eyes?"
Boabdil shifted uncomfortably. "I don't really know what you mean."
She ignored his response, and went on. "I have, I did. I saw it happen, I saw, inside this beautiful hell, a precious light that had been dulled by tortures unimaginable, broken and hopeless... she came back to life. Born like a spark in an endless dark. I and... the woman who is now my wife, we held her as her soul came back, like a new life just entering the world." Neia slowly turned and walked toward the entrance. "We hugged her, taught her, trained her. Can you imagine it? Me? Clutching some slender elf prostitute as she sobbed out a half a dozen lifetimes of pain in hours as she was finally free to do so? Watching the light born in her eyes again as she remembered she had value, worth beyond being just some obscene living doll for rich humans to rut with and hurt."
Neia's voice became demonic in its hatred, "Together, my wife, my best friend, and I... we watched her come alive, have hope again. Watched her think about her future as she believed she had one... because she believed me, because she trusted me, us... that we would get her out no matter what." Rage began to swell and the two Theocracy leaders felt for a moment as if some dread monster was tracing a claw over their beating hearts.
As she walked through a once luxurious entryway, they couldn't help but notice the scattered bodies and countless bloodstains that lay where they too had fallen before.
"Together, we put everything we could into not just her, but hundreds of others, and I saw so many beautiful souls begin to shine. But none were as close as she was... and is, in a way. Can you understand that much, Cardinal Raymond?" Neia asked in a wounded whisper as they went down the red carpeted hallway.
"I can, actually, there is at least one I see that way." He said as he looked over to Nua, who instinctively came closer to him. "But I have seen much the same emerge out of others as they learned they didn't have to live in fear at every moment."
Neia kicked aside the fragments of a door as he answered her, it flew through the room and shattered against the stone wall. "I saw that precious soul, who I had come to treasure so much... that I had seen reborn to the world... die. Right here." Neia whispered softly as she came to the bloodstain.
"When my plans went all wrong, I rushed to this place, thinking to save her, along with Skana and CZ. I got here in time to see that she'd killed two of those who came for her, guards, soldiers. But those who had overpowered her, were taking turns raping her, holding her down as she wailed for mercy that didn't exist in their black hearts. We killed the guards, and she got one more when they let her go as we caught them by surprise. But then one of them got a lucky strike in, killed her with a thrust from his spear, straight through her side."
Neia went to her knees in front of the stain and touched it lovingly. "She died, naked, terrified, in agony, in my arms, in this place that she hated." Neia's voice became empty, all but broken and the hand that touched the stain shook as if in pain.
She looked at the General and the Cardinal, but spoke to Raymond alone when she said, "You, Cardinal, said you knew the sight of a soul being born."
"I do." He nodded gravely.
"Tell me, Cardinal Raymond Zarg Lauransan, what would you do if you returned home, and found that soul enduring a series of rapes–crying for help–just to die in your arms? What would you do to those responsible?" Neia asked as tears began to stream down her cheeks.
Enri was frozen as she watched the impossible, 'So... this is it. This is where the monster was born.'
"Dead to the last man." Raymond answered without a second thought as he tried to imagine Nua in such a desperate situation, and found he could not bear it.
"And what would you do to the religion that spawned a belief that such actions were not only acceptable, but were entirely right and an expression of the will of the worshipper's gods, that their followers have this dominion over everyone like her?" Neia asked further.
"Wipe it from the face of the world." He answered with dawning understanding.
"Then you begin to understand," Neia replied, "Why I plan to kill you all. Your country might not have killed her, but your country spread the worship of the six, the ones who lived in this city, in particular, were closely tied to Kami Miyako and were just as fanatical. I see no reason why I should leave a single pair of living lips to send praises to those deities. I would sooner cut those lips off and shove them down the throats of their owners, let them choke on their own words." Neia said with loathing in her voice that a sea of blood could not satisfy.
She stood up and turned around, and pointed passively toward General Boabdil, "Maybe, if things had been different, I wouldn't be this way. I wouldn't hate you as much, maybe... if 'you' had been my opponent, instead of Jaldabaoth, Handor, Remedios, and Suchala... then I might be more kindly inclined. But that isn't what happened, is it?" Neia asked and looked squarely at Enri.
The Peasant General shook her head. "No... I'm well aware that I was 'lucky'. General Boabdil, General Heikeren, Vice Commander Ira... they're good people who happened to be on the wrong side. Maybe they've... done some things they shouldn't have, but nothing like those things you faced. I admit, I wonder what I'd be, if I... if I knew that my followers were being set on fire while alive. If someone close to me was abused like that, if I'd been forced to kill my own people to save them from a fate worse than death."
"No. Your country saw me as a demon, so I became worse than a demon. I think I have a higher body count now than Jaldabaoth." Neia gave a black-hearted laugh as she looked at the Slane Theocracy remnant leadership, "So, you want to negotiate with the demoness of the west, to talk me out of exterminating the last bit of resistance and eradicating the worship of the old gods, which robbed this world of that precious little light? Alright, we'll negotiate, and I know just where we'll do it." Neia said with a clearly twisted voice that warned them that some dark humor lay behind her cryptic words.
"This way. I hope, however, you understand just how weak your bargaining position is now." She said, looking behind her once more at the red stain as she left it behind for the second time.