God Rising
Chapter 111
Written by: AtheistBasementDragon
Edited by: The Usual Gang of Drunken Perverted Idiots
AN: Hope you enjoy a double release day. :) Tell you what, if bdgiving dot org gets $100 in donations, I'll do an entire WEEK of double release days. I've got some down time coming to me, and I'm happy to donate it to providing you with entertainment.
…Remedios's Encampment…
"I can't believe they did that?!" Suchala said with disbelief in his voice.
"I can." Yuri said flatly.
"I…" Remedios started to speak, then trailed off.
When Neia and whoever was with her casually killed the people bound to stakes, it had an immediate effect, and not the one desired. The intention had been to terrify the city, but the result of their choice had been to terrify the soldiers of each of the three armies as word spread that they were dealing with a general that would casually execute her own if they were captured, to prevent them from being used as pawns.
Anxiety about just what they were dealing with was going up. Very few came back from their forays to the walls, and those that did were not the same as when they'd gone there in the first place.
"It doesn't matter." Remedios said, in a voice that said she was forcing herself to believe it. "When we attack, we'll attack with overwhelming force."
"If numbers were all that mattered, this would already have been over." Suchala said through gritted teeth.
Remedios waved that away, "Doesn't matter, wait until tomorrow." She said confidently, "Right now, I have someone I want to go and see."
She walked out confidently as stares of contempt drilled into her back, though she noticed not a one of them, a vicious plan formed in her mind. She went to the prisoners delivered by Astraka as a 'special gift' of appreciation. Most stared back at her defiantly, they hadn't been poorly treated, but one man was dejected and sat in pain.
"Hello, Tinamoc." Remedios said to him with a pleasant smile. "Do you know who I am?" She asked.
He nodded in small, rapid, jerking motions.
"Heard about me from Neia, did you?" He nodded again.
"Wishing she were here?" Remedios asked as she taunted him, tapping on the top of the cage that held him.
He didn't nod, but she could feel that he wanted to.
"Well, the good news is, you get to see her again." Remedios said warmly.
His eyes brightened.
"The bad news is, she's going to kill you." Remedios said with equal warmth. He stared at her with accusation and disbelief in his eyes.
"You don't have to believe me, but see, I know she will. We put up a few people on stakes, we were going to burn them in front of the city, but…" Remedios shrugged heavily, "She and one of her little demonic helpers killed them all. Looks like a little bonfire wasn't to their liking." She crouched down and stared at the overweight, middle-aged merchant. "You'll burn nicely, whether you're alive or dead, but the best part is, you let slip that she's your friend, so when you die, it will tear her apart, and that…" Remedios grabbed the cage hard with both hands and shook it with her entire body, "that will feel so, so good to me…"
She let go of the cage and walked out, Tinamoc could only make furious noises of frustration, grab the bars of the cage that held him, and shake it impotently.
…Prart…
Neia didn't go back to her room, instead she walked the streets with her hood down and cloak closed. She didn't want to be recognized, she didn't want to speak to anyone, and she didn't want to feel anything. Rain had started to fall, and it felt like a curse. It was cold, everything was cold now, for snow would be coming soon, but nothing was as cold as her heart in this moment. That was frozen through and through, and deeply cracked. "It's fine, everything is fine. I just did what I had to do, nothing more, nothing less, they'd have been burned alive. If I'd tried to rescue them, it would have just created more in their place even if I'd been successful." She said those words over and over again, but they were like ash on her tongue.
"You're fine, you're fine, you're fine. You're made of stone, you're not tired, just deal with it, what're six more, or twelve more? If it has to be, it has to be, and if I have to, I have to. You're not going to crack, you have to keep it together. Just focus Neia, focus." She snatched and clutched the side of her head with her hands as she talked to herself.
"God… Skana saw… the way she… looked at me… God, what do I do, what if…" She gritted her teeth. "Of course, it was one thing when I was a hero… but who could watch that, who could look with love at a child killer, I wish I'd told her before, then she wouldn't have to regret…" Neia looked down at her hands, they were ordinary enough, a bit more calloused from the use of bow and sword, they were not the delicate feminine hands that poets of love wrote of in their sonnets, and they were soaked in so much blood and pain that she felt she could smell the copper and salt, the fruits of both, stuck to the very tips of her fingers. How would her wife feel about them now? She wondered if Skana would take a bath, as if to wash her touch away. She shook her head vigorously, "It's fine, whatever she does, she's not wrong, I can't blame her for her feelings, I just have to do my job, that's all there is, just focus on the task at hand and let everything else happen as it will." She straightened up and walked without destination, all over the city, for hours.
CZ and Skana walked next to one another, they took their time getting back to the manor. "You are bothered." CZ said flatly.
Skana let her expression speak for her.
"Why?" CZ asked.
"The day she talked about, on the wall." Skana said, and cut herself off.
"Yes?" CZ probed.
"That was the day I fell in love with her, with all that she is, her valiance, her courage, her unbreakable will, her relentless drive to protect even my then worthless empty headed self. And now I learn that she shot children, that she ordered others to do the same? And I just saw her shoot our own people, giving the order to you like she was ordering tea at a cafe. I… It was like looking at another person. Like she didn't care about who she killed or why. I think she did, I saw her reaction afterward, but… I don't know, I didn't know she was capable of being so cold." Skana said in disbelief.
CZ was quiet. "She loves you." She said after a moment.
"I know." Skana said, hanging her head.
"That is not cold." CZ added.
"I know." Skana bit her lip and was quiet for awhile, "But when we go to bed tonight, and I kiss her, I'll be kissing a child killer, when I touch her hand, I… and I'll think about how easily she killed our own people… maybe all those things were necessary, but to be so calculating about it, she seems so… normal. I couldn't be, not after that, so how is she?"
"She is not." CZ said.
Skana looked at her doubtfully.
"She is not." CZ reiterated in almost the same tone, only Skana's familiarity let her detect the subtle emphasis that she placed on the repetition.
"I-" Skana started to say and CZ's stopped in her tracks, turned to Skana, and her hand darted out to Skana's shoulder and grabbed it hard enough that it hurt, she whirled the vice commander to face her.
"She. Is. Not." CZ said, an octave higharder than she usually used. "Look closer."
By then they were nearing the base of the stairs leading up to the manor, and any further conversation was cut off by the sudden descent of a demoness landing in front of them.
The demoness had them at her back, and she folded her wings in gracefully as she approached the guards at the entrance. She spoke in a very sweet, cooperative voice with her hands above her head in a peaceful gesture.
"Hello, I'm Vanysa, a servant of the Sorcerer King. I need to see General Neia Baraja or her vice commander, and Queen Calca, and I need to see them now." She said firmly.
It was almost a relief to have the distraction.
"Well, Skana stands behind you." Skana said, putting on the airs of enthusiasm, "And I can take you to the Queen immediately."
"Thank you CZ, I'll talk to you later." Skana said and walked away from her as Vanysa looked over her shoulder towards the advancing Vice Commander.
"You remember me, I suppose?" Vanysa asked.
"I do." Skana said.
"Good, then we'll get down to business." The beautiful erinyes said as she walked by the stunned guards. To Skana's surprise, she paused and took two steps backwards, then she turned to one of the guards and touched his face with her talons. For a moment the Vice Commander thought violence was going to occur and her hand went instinctively to her sword, but the touch was gentle, even 'tender' and the fury leaned in and spoke just loud enough for himself, and for Skana to hear, keeping her cold gray eyes locked with his. "If you keep cheating on your wife, you'll make your daughter cry, and if you break her heart, I'll have reason to visit you." She licked her lips, and he went pale. Vanysa smirked, and then folding her hands behind the small of her back, she skipped back over to Skana.
"What was that?" Skana asked, mystified.
Vanysa gave a happy demonic smile, "He was easy, he was guilty, but he was very proud of himself. People who are proud of the things they do, are like open wounds on a naked body."
"I see." Skana said in a neutral voice, privately wondering what Vanysa got from her, or got from Neia. She wanted to ask, but she didn't want to know, so she let it pass and walked to the Queen's room. Lakyus was outside.
"Lakyus, I need to see the Queen." Skana said in a smoothly professional voice that neatly concealed her inner thoughts.
The adventurer knocked on the door behind her, "Visitors, Your Majesty." Lakyus said loudly.
"Enter." Queen Calca said in a light, airy voice.
The door clicked open and the demoness entered with the Vice Commander.
"What can I do for you?" Queen Calca asked, gesturing to a pair of chairs at a small table.
If she was bothered by the fact that she was asking that of a demoness, she gave no sign, though Skana was fairly sure her heart was pounding.
Vanysa sat down in a very ladylike fashion, and then the demoness was gone, and in her place sat a beautiful blond girl no older than Skana herself.
Skana sat and remained very quiet until the Queen sat down. Only then did the now 'human-looking' woman speak.
"How'd you like to leave here?" Vanysa asked the Queen.
"I'm sorry, but I do not understand." Queen Calca asked, and Skana looked at Vanysa in surprise.
"I'll rephrase, how'dja like to take Hoburns?" Vanysa asked. "You know, getcher throne back?" She asked with a broad smile that was somehow not less predatory on a beautiful human face than it had been when she'd been a gold-skinned sharp-fanged demoness.
The pair of them stared at her in open-mouthed surprise. "How?!" They asked in unison.
"Ah took care of it." She said with shining gray eyes. She then explained everything she had been up to, down to the finest detail, though she left off the subject of what had driven her to that point.
"I think I never want to make you angry at me." Calca said with a laugh.
"No, you do not." Vanysa said without a trace of humor in a deadpan voice.
"Now, I need a few things." Vanysa said, looking at the Queen.
"First, I need a letter of pardon for every soldier of Astraka's that deserts him for you. That is really the only thing holding his army together, the knowledge that they're already bound to hang, though some have gone already, the rest are there out of fear of being hanged, leaving them no other option but to fight. I want to give them a third option, if they join your side and fight for you, they will keep their lives." Vanysa said, "From the looks of things, another… oh, I don't know exactly how many he has, maybe thirty thousand or so, defending your walls would do a lot of good."
Skana felt her heart pound at the possibility of such a numeric increase. She looked at Vanysa, stunned, and felt a meteoric rise in her estimation of the buxom belle.
"How do you know they'll desert, even with everything you've done?" Calca asked dubiously. "He's kept them together so far after all."
"I'll be 'helping' their decision along, so don't worry about it, Your Majesty. Just promise them amnesty, their last month's pay, this month's pay, and a place in the fighting for your army, and you'll have almost all of them." Vanysa said with a loving smile on her face.
"I see, well it is worth a try. I'll write it right this instant." Queen Calca said, getting up and taking a blank sheet of paper, she quickly wrote the offer and placed her seal on it, then slid it over to Vanysa after blowing on the wax a little in order to cool it off.
"Thank you, Your Majesty." Vanysa said, "Next, I need both you and Skana to come with me. Robel will be at Hoburns very soon, and when he is, the gates will open. Then the city will be yours, and you can sit on your throne again. Would you like that, Your Majesty?" Vanysa said with a happy shine to her storm gray eyes.
"Very much so." Queen Calca said with an edge to her voice. "I only wish I could watch Astraka when he finds out his capital is now my capital. It would be such a wonderful sight to see."
"I'll have a picture drawn for you after everything is over, Your Highness."
"I'd like that." Calca said with a malice that Skana did not think the Queen possessed.
"Do you really need me?" Skana asked hesitantly, "There is a lot going on here and it is a critical time."
Vanysa frowned slightly, "I suppose I can manage without you, but this is the capture of Hoburns, either you or Neia should be present for that to officially restore the Queen to her throne."
Skana sighed and ran her fingers anxiously through her hair. "Fine, but I shouldn't be away for long."
"Good." Vanysa said, and a gate opened a moment later.
Calca got up and walked to the door to her room. After she informed Lakyus of the current events, the adventurer spontaneously rendered a salute with an ecstatic smile on her face.
…Road to Hoburns…
A moment later, the three women were gone and they found themselves standing in front of an army that was steadily closing in, but they didn't move from their path in the road, they just waited. Robel didn't even slow his army down, he trotted ahead of it a pace, and they quickly saw that he was leading several horses behind him in anticipation of their arrival. They mounted the horses quickly and fell in so that they were now four abreast in front of the army.
"Good to see you again, Vanysa." Robel said politely.
"The same." She replied.
"You're right, you do look different." He said.
"Better or worse?" She asked with a teasing sparkle in her eye.
"A beauty of another sort." He said in a charming tone that drew a little laughter and a polite blush from the blond little monster in disguise.
"Quite the charmer you are." Queen Calca said with a laugh, "After I ennoble you, I'm sure you'll find a bride in no time."
His face turned to one of astonishment. "Me?! A nobleman?!"
Calca looked at him with pride. "Absolutely, you defended my people, saved countless lives, defeated an army of the usurper king, and are about to take back my capital and put me on the throne. If you don't earn a nobility for all that, well, what the hell do you earn a nobility for?!" She said passionately.
"I guess… I guess I never thought about it." He said quietly, "I just did what I was supposed to do."
"And that too is nobility." She said affirmatively. "We'll pick out a decent estate for you when the war is over, but for now we'll settle things with our mutual enemies."
"Speaking of," Vanysa interjected, "When we get within reach of the capital, by a few minutes, I should venture there to make sure everything is as it should be. I doubt Baron Stono would make the mistake of holding on to Astraka. I was very persuasive." She smiled brightly enough that she rivaled the sun and the moon, but the way she said it told them all that they really didn't want to know just how she'd 'persuaded' him to switch sides.
They were quiet until the walls loomed in the distance as they crested a hill. "That'll be my cue." She said and jumped off her horse. She started to run ahead, her long hair flying behind her, then she shifted, her wings popped out from behind her back, and she took off into the air.
Vanysa soared over the city with joy in her demonic heart, admiring the vast layout of the capital below. It was beautiful. Cities, she had found, were hotbeds of guilt, the perfect environment for someone like her. Where others sensed nothing, to her it was like the scent of freshly baked cookies or warm bread straight out of the baker's oven, or a perfect view of a vast sea from a high cliff at sunset. It was spectacular. She could see all the guilt below, the hate, the lust, the rage, it glowed like a warm fire to her eyes. How she longed to sweep down and take someone for her own amusement, someone fit for punishment. But not tonight, no, not tonight. She found the palace again with ease, and the room she sought. She likewise found the space where the window was, only now… it was all bricked up.
She pursed her lips as she clung to the window sill that was still there, and then she started to giggle. "Oh Baron Stono, I do hope you're not going to disappoint me." She whispered to the cold air, watching her frozen breath appear and vanish as if it never were. She smiled wickedly and punctured the cement holding the stones together, using five talons at a time, it was easy to separate and remove the blockage brick by brick. She'd pull one and toss it behind her, then do another. The soft material might have been inconvenient and difficult to chisel away, but for the talons of a fury, it was no tougher than pushing knives through paper. Soon she'd opened it up all the way and crept through the window. The baron was sound asleep. She walked to the door and used a sleep scroll on the guard outside, then she placed the same chair next to his sleeping form.
"Wake up, wake up, but don't fuck up!" She said with a winsome and terrible smile as she tapped his cheek lightly. His eyes fluttered open and he saw the demonic face staring down at his from beside him. He was about to cry out when her talons hovered over his face, all pointed down at him. The scream died in his throat. "Hi there! So, now is the time to play your part. I trust we're still… friends?" She cocked her head to one side and looked at him with the sort of curiosity a child might have when looking down on a kind of bug they'd never seen before.
He didn't say anything.
"You may speak, as long as you don't scream." She clarified.
"Yes, I d-did everything. There are f-f-five in p-prison, a-and I h-have been throwing a l-lot of parties lately. L-Lots of people are drunk. Th-The soldiers, they're also expecting you at the gate, I t-told them a beautiful demoness would give them orders to follow." He said with his voice pale with fear.
"Good, then you have nothing to fear, and I thank you for the praise." She said politely and withdrew her talons.
He relaxed bodily as she stood up. As she was walking to the window, she paused, then turned to ask, "Incidentally, is the interrogator, the torturer still here?" She asked. "Piggish or orcish looking human, foul breath, dirty and fat? I have a history with him that requires a reckoning, and I thought maybe I could pick him up tonight."
Stono shook his head. "No, he was called away, there were prisoners that Astraka had that needed questioning."
"I see." Vanysa said with a frown, "Well, I'm going back anyway after this, so I suppose I'll visit him then."
She leapt out the window and spread her wings, flying straight to the gate. She landed inside of it, just a few feet away from the guards.
They immediately adopted a defensive posture as the fire cast flickering light and shadow over the face of Vanysa.
"I'm your contact." Was all she said, and they relaxed.
A moment later, one of the guards ran up and notified his comrades that the time had come. By the time he had returned, Vanysa was already at the enormous wooden bar, a thick and sturdy beam that took a number of full-grown, physically fit men to lift it.
She stood at the center of the great gate, taking deep, slow breaths as she savored the moment when she took Astraka's home away from him, then she put herself beneath the bar, crouching under it, and began to lift. It was a strain for her, but doable; it inched up, and men moved to help her.
"No… this is for me to do." She said with an ache in her heart as she put every muscle in her body to work, and finally she got it up over the bracers that held it in place, and cast it to the ground with a thunderous crash.
"Open the door." She said with a heavy breath. The soldiers rushed to either side of her and began to push the gate open, she stood and watched as her people came nearer, when the gate opened, they wasted no time, Robel ordered a cavalry charge, and with Skana beside the Queen, they rushed to the opening Vanysa's revenge was giving them. She flapped her wings so that they would pass under her, and she laughed to the midnight sky with absolute bliss in her heart. She flew higher as they passed her by, they rushed to all corners of the city. Fighting was almost nonexistent. What little of the city's military that was not in on the ploy was asleep, drunk, or otherwise completely caught off guard, not to mention outnumbered thousands to one and scattered everywhere. The city had almost completely fallen within an hour or two and Black Justice banners, along with those of Queen Calca, were going up everywhere as fast as they could be raised. Soon there wasn't a tower in sight flying a flag not her own, and they had reached the palace. Vanysa watched it all unfold, just the way she'd wanted it to.
The Queen mounted the steps of her home for the first time in what felt like forever, it was not done without trepidation, she remembered her own demise here, the way it had all ended for her, but she kept her response to nothing but a rapid heartbeat, and remained otherwise the picture of what royal dignity truly meant. Skana held her sword ready to defend the Queen, as did Robel, and they walked through the halls of her home, unsurprisingly they met very little resistance. A handful of Astrakan loyalists tried to make a stand at the door to the throne room, however.
"Get out of the way." Skana said without a hint of mercy in her voice.
"For the Queen who failed?" One man said, "Never."
"Then die where you stand." She said, and as the Queen took one step back, Robel and Skana rushed forward, there were only four, and though they were not without skill, Skana the Bold had slain heroes, and Robel was many times a veteran by now. They made short work of her last remaining opponents.
Skana and Robel then moved the corpses aside so that the Queen would not have to step over their remains, and they walked in to 'her' court once again. She walked with slow deliberate steps towards the throne, until she was standing right in front of it, Skana and Robel hung back a few paces.
"I can't believe it." Queen Calca said as she looked at the empty chair.
"Believe it." Skana and Robel said firmly, in sync together.
"It's been so long…" She said, and touched the arm rest.
"It's going to be longer still, we have to finish Astraka, kick out the remains of the Slane Theocracy, defeat Remedios…" Skana said, listing off their tasks.
"But this is a big step forward, enormous even." Robel said confidently.
"It is, but still, so many dead for a chair." She said with a somber voice as she looked down at it.
"Not for the chair, but for who deserves to be in it. Majesty, I admit I had my doubts about you at the outset, but you convinced me you belong there, and Astraka convinced me he didn't. All I can say is this…" Skana said in a gentle, but very serious voice.
"Don't let all that death be for nothing." She and Robel spoke the same thought as one, as all the loss ran through their minds. Calca was clearly thinking something similar.
She turned her back to the chair, and slowly sat down in her throne again. "I won't, and if I do, kill me, because no more bad monarchs should sit here, not ever again."
"Yes, Your Majesty." Skana and Robel said as they took a knee before her and turned their eyes down in deference, the rest of their leading soldiers began to filter in, and took positions around the throne room. Then one by one and two by two, they slowly knelt before the monarch.
"Long live Queen Calca! Long live Queen Calca! Hail the Risen Queen!" The chorus of voices bounced off the walls, and from the window outside, a demoness smiled happily, and pushed off into the darkness, bearing with her, joy in her soul, and Astraka's doom in her hands.