The Sheep

"Oh dear God." Lily whispered as the trio looked into the city of Windspire. Like Lily, Amber couldn't believe her eyes. From their vantage point they could see an enormous crowd in the street pressing forward to the palace. At the palace gates, the remaining city guard readied their weapons and loosed arrows into the crowd. On the outskirts of the crowd violence abounded, looters breaking into shops, and assaulting protesters before dragging them off into dark alleys. Amber cringed as a trio of men descended upon a hapless girl.

"Let's go." She commanded, a burning conviction rising within her. "Stick to the rooftops, we won't last long down there."

The trio leapt onto the first rooftop from the city walls. Like many cities that had steadily grown over the years, Windspire was predominantly high density housing and the buildings were tightly packed and double story, which meant negotiating the city by rooftop was at least relatively easy.

As they began to get closer to the palace, the level of devastation became even more apparent. There were bodies in the street, victims of muggings or more heinous crimes. Homes and shops had been firebombed, and many burned unchecked, their owners either long dead or long gone. A child barely four years old was shaking his mother, who had been trampled to death by the crowd, crying for her to get up. The raw emotion of the carnage threatened to overwhelm Amber, so she and the Rosecults kept themselves focused on their goal, the palace.

Like the city walls, the housing had butted up against the palace walls as a result of population growth. This made it easier to climb, however the guards patrolling along the wall did not. The trio of women waited until a patrol had just passed before using their climbing hooks to scale the wall. As Amber finished climbing the wall, she found herself only a few paces behind the patrol.

Looking back down at the crowd, then at the trio of guards walking away, the rage overcame her. Without pause she snapped the neck of the first, impaled the second on her blade and threw the third off the wall onto the rooftops metres below. When Lily and Jasmine finished scaling the wall, they found Amber on her knees, breathing like a rabid animal.

"This ends now." She growled.

The three women didn't enter the palace from the ground floor; instead they snuck in from one of the towers, and made their way down towards the main living area. From every report Lyra had managed to obtain the Governor spent most of his days in his bedroom, presumably with this Alana woman. Quietly sneaking into the main areas of the palace, Amber could see a lot of servants tending to the house, all men. However they moved almost like they were sleepwalking. "They're enthralled." Jasmine whispered.

Walking through the halls it became apparent that the servants were ignoring them, or simply didn't realise they existed. They moved as though the trio weren't there, and they found themselves hugging walls just to avoid running into people. Following the hallway they came into one of the dining areas. The Governor's room was on the other side and down the hall, so they were close, but something about this room disturbed Amber's trained senses. Her fears were confirmed when Lily screamed.

Turning around, Amber could see Lily was under attack by a young woman. The woman didn't fight like a human however, she fought like a wild animal, swinging and slashing as though she had claws. Try as she might, Lily was unable to defend against such a feral onslaught. The woman grabbed Lily's wrist and sunk her teeth into Lily's arm, before grabbing her around the chest and biting deep into her throat. Lily's screams turned to gurgles as the blood left her body and she slumped to the ground, blood pouring from her wounds.

Jasmine's cry was unlike anything Amber had ever heard. Drawing her two swords, she swung at the woman, who had paused for a moment to survey her kill. Reacting inhumanly fast, the woman dodged the first blow but was unable to avoid the second, the blade severing her left arm. Blood poured from the wound, but it was black. Amber expected the woman to drop to the ground in agony, but she did not.

She laughed.

Lunging at Jasmine she prepared to tear her apart the way she did Lily. However Amber intervened, stepping in-between and impaling the woman on her blades. The woman didn't stop however, biting and tearing at Amber and causing her to bleed from a dozen wounds. The adrenalin kicking in, Amber spun, sliding the woman off her blades and throwing her to the floor. As she started to get up Amber quickly swung and severed her head from her neck. Finally the woman hit the ground, dead.

Amber made sure their attacker wasn't getting up before turning to Lily. Jasmine was on her knees cradling her dead sister in her arms, begging for her to breathe. A silent scream left her lips as she crumpled to the ground, clutching her sister so tight Amber could see her knuckles had gone white. The sound of running feet told Amber they needed to go now, and she tried to drag Jasmine away from her sister to no avail. She turned and ran, tears in her eyes as more women like the first descended on the mourning Rosecult.

Amber ran and ran until she could no longer hear the sounds of those monsters feasting. Then she screamed. An inhuman, guttural scream that shattered her soul. She screamed until her throat was hoarse and it hurt to breathe, before collapsing to her knees to await a gruesome death. But something stopped her. A spark of determination burst into an inferno, and she picked herself up. She could not dishonour those two women who had died only moments before by surrendering. Drawing her blades, Amber moved to the Governor's office and kicked the door in with all her might. Inside lay Governor Torgadden, dead. His stomach was torn open and his innards splayed out over the bed, the sheets soaked with his blood.

However he was not alone. Sitting over him was another of those women, gorging herself on his intestines. She looked up at Amber and smiled gently.

"Well, looks like we have a sheep amongst the wolves." She purred, standing up. She was stark naked, her body covered with the blood of the Governor.

"You monster." Amber snarled. "You will die for what you've done you heathen bitch."

The woman stopped. "What I've done? I gave him the time of his life. He savoured my body for months; normally my victims only get to sample the apple once." She stepped forward and Amber readied her blades. "But I needed to keep him alive, though he disgusted me. But now he's outlived his usefulness. Guess the first part of his body I tore off when I killed him? It was so satisfying."

"Shut up. It's time for you to go to Hell where you belong." Amber swung at Alana, who effortlessly dodged the blow. Amber spun and twirled her blades, attempting to connect, but Alana always managed to avoid tasting Amber's steel. Alana ducked under one of Amber's swings and punched her in the chest. The blow was unlike anything Amber had felt in all her years of combat, and she heard a number of ribs shatter. Fighting through the pain she kicked at Alana, who merely sidestepped, grabbing Amber's right arm and braking it as easily as someone would break a twig. Alana kicked Amber in the back, sending her to the ground before sitting on her back and ramming Amber's head into the ground. Her world spun as the demon-woman continued to assault her.

Eventually the attacks stopped, Alana standing up and kicking Amber over onto her back. Looking through the one eye that hadn't swollen shut, Amber could see that a number of others had joined Alana in the room. Alana motioned at two of them before kneeling down and whispering in Amber's ear.

"It's a shame you aren't a man, I would've brought you to the heights of ecstasy before your demise." She purred. "But never fear, we'll still have some fun together. I will make you wish for death every single day, for the rest of your short miserable life."

And with that, two of the women grabbed Amber's feet and dragged her away.