Heretic Ch. 03

With a kick to the creature's face, Maelice got her sword free in time to swipe at her side. The second ghoul had its lifted hand severed. Its scream was cut short as the sword's tip tore the beast's throat open. Blood gushed out from ragged flesh and dangling veins as the ghoul stumbled away.

Another bolt snapped by and punched into a ghoul's gut. It double over and shouted in pain as Melice moved to one of its brethren. This one was ready for her and caught her sword with its axe. A swift tug had Maelice's sword swing out wide. She drove her knee upwards and struck the ghoul's stomach. The beast grunted and Maelice crashed her pommel into the side of its head.

With a heavy swing she aimed for its neck when something hit her. Pain flared just above the hip beneath the mail and padding as she stumbled to the side. As she regained her balance Maelice spun, pulling her sword in a tight arc. The edge crashed against a ghoul's arm, rusted links of mail splintered and the blade continued through to strike the ghoul's chest.

The beast stared down at its arm laying upon the ground in shock, and even Maelice was surprised. The hesitation cost her a strike against her shoulder blade. With a grunt Maelice stumbled forward, and lowered her shoulder to smash into the ghoul in front of her. She spun and swung at the backstabber, but the new fiend caught the strike and stabbed with a dagger in its off hand.

Maelice twisted and the dagger cut the cloth along her stomach. She caught the beast's wrist, twisted it, and slammed the hilt of her sword against its elbow with a loud crack. The ghoul screamed and hacked at Maelice's arm. She pulled back and struck the fiend in the face with her pommel to stumble it backwards.

As it recovered she slashed again at the shocked ghoul and took its head clean off. Blood splashed across her face, and Maelice went back to the one she'd kneed in the gut, who had recovered. It charged her, and Maelice dodged its attack and plunged the point of her blade into the back of its head. Its skull burst inwards as Maelice's blade rammed out its nose in a shower of blood and bone shards.

Another bolt snapped across the yard, and felled another of the ghouls, as Maelice kicked the dead one off her blade. It fell to a heap as she rubbed the back of her hand across her face. She ignored the smeared blood as she saw the remaining two ghouls in full flight. One clutched at the side of its head and Maelice sneered at its back.

She stalked after it, sword at her side. Blood dripped along the steel, leaving a pattered crimson trail in her wake.

The ghouls fled through the gate, and vanished amid the shadows of the forest's trees. Maelice stood in the opening with a frown. The log that usually rested in the gate's brackets had been removed, not bashed in. She moved to close the gates. Sword in one hand she had to push with her shoulder. When they were closed she looked up to where she'd seen the sigils

They'd been scratched out. Someone had defaced them, weakened them, since she'd seen them the night before. With one hand, Maelice traced the old designs, smeared ghoul's blood through the faded carvings. She hoped it would work, but only one would have the answers for her.

Maelice wiped her sword clean and sheathed the blade before she bent to pick up the log on the ground. She grunted as she lifted it up, feeling the pull in her muscles as she set it in the brackets.

Now, it was time to find out who had betrayed them.

~***~

The church echoed with the quiet sobs of the grieving, and blood was smeared along the tiled floors. A few of the lay sisters had been hurt in their flight, and the nuns had taken them to be tended. Maelice stood in the nave and looked over the scene.

Emilie was among the sisters, giving directions as Rochelle inspected all among them. All looked up though as Maelice stepped past the nave and walked among them, her habit drenched in the blood of their foes.

Rochelle quickly approached her then, and took Maelice's hands, uncaring of the mess upon them. She started to lean in, then hesitated, and stood straight.

"Elke is not here. Nor was she supposed to be outside. I asked, and she had not reported for her chores this morning either. Everyone else has been accounted for. In here or, out there," Rochelle said, and Maelice frowned. Had Elke been the one she'd seen on the grounds this morning?

"Thank you. I think the time has come to stop hiding though," Maelice said, and leaned forward to kiss Rochelle. There were a few gasps among the sisters. Maelice let go of her lover and strode towards the Mother Superior.

"Maelice. What are you plotting?" Emilie asked in French.

"I need to speak with her. We need to set her free," Maelice said in German and the sisters all whispered among one another. Rochelle stared at her lover even as Emilie's expression hardened.

"There are dangers Sister Maelice," Emilie said, and Maelice glanced about the gathered women around her. The way some clutched to one another.

"Is there any here who do not know of the succubus in the cell?" Maelice said, and not one of them raised their hand. Not one of them spoke up. Maelice even watched two of them pull each other closer. So the warrior continued. "Is there any here who have not proclaimed themselves to Lilith?"

There was hesitation now, as the sisters all looked to one another. Slowly one, then another two raised their hands. All three among the choir nuns. Emilie glanced between the three women and Maelice.

"What are you doing?" Emilie asked in French.

"Seeing where we stand. You brought me here to save this convent. Please, let me do what you've asked of me," Maelice replied in French as well. Emilie watched her a moment, then simply nodded. Maelice turned to the three women. "Please, come with me."

The three nuns rose from where they were on the floor and followed Maelice out from the church and into the cloister. They huddled close, but each of them stood with chins raised. Dark circles rimmed their eyes.

"Why separate us? You, the demon hunter brought here to save us," one of the sisters said.

"None of you came to me before. You say you have not given yourselves to Lilith, but only Sister Elke came to me. Why?" Maelice asked, and the sisters glanced at each other briefly.

"Because we are no strangers to inquisitions. The innocent burn as easily as the guilty. We have heard the teachings the other sisters preach, and while they may be sinful, I struggle anymore to see the wrong or evil in them," the second of the three said, the other two nodded with her words before the first spoke up again.

"We have denied Ankhta's protections, we are loyal to God and will give no prayers to any Devil but...," she trailed off as her eyes flicked to the gardens. Maelice looked back, but there was nothing there, though she wondered if the nun did indeed see something.

"We turned the other cheek to the lusts of our sisters, for that is what Christ preached. We are healers here, and I for one, will not condemn another to damnation. That is God's judgement, not my own," the third said, and Maelice turned to lean against the railing. She peered into the garden for a few moments before she spoke.

"I can't blame you. What do you know of Sister Elke?" Maelice asked.

"It is not well to speak ill of another. But Sister Elke clung to the church's words. She quietly condemned the others and I've heard her speak to shadows that were not there. All of us see things Sister, for sleep rejuvenates the mind, but we are haunted for our loyalty," the second sister spoke.

"I fear for her. She would not even pray with us. She distrusts us as she distrusts the others," the third sister said.

"Will you three stay here, when this is done?" Maelice asked.

"Yes," all three said at once.

"Emilie has promised this to still be a house of God. We may not let a false idol into our heart, but we will pray to God as the others pray to their Goddess. A church and temple together it can be," the third said, and Maelice smiled at the three. Their youthful innocence warmed her heart, even as the three of them struggled with whatever plagued their mind.

"Good. The world needs more like you in it. Then perhaps someday, there'll be less need for those like me. Please, return to the others," Maelice said, and the three women bowed before the immediately scurried away. The first of them though paused and turned. She walked up beside Maelice.

"You are a good woman," she said, and Maelice looked to her.

"I am not. But, I will serve God better in Lilith's service, more than in his own," she said. The nun frowned for a moment, then nodded.

"I wish I did not understand, but I do. My elder brother was on Crusade. You may think me naive sister, but I would rather keep that," the woman said.

"As would I. Pray for us, for my own go elsewhere now. And she offers something else," Maelice said. The nun nodded, and gave another curtsy before she left to join the others.

Alone in the cloister, Maelice sighed. Elke; she was the only one unaccounted for. Was she capable of unleashing the ghouls? Before the crusade, Maelice supposed she hadn't known what horrors she was capable of. Dark days drove folk to darker deeds.

After she fished free the key Maelice moved to the cell door. She pushed the key into the lock when she heard Emilie from across the cloister.

"Maelice. Are you sure of this?" she called as she moved through the garden to stand beside Maelice. The warrior glanced over at her friend.

"I am no prophet, or seer, so no. I'm only sure that we need her help," Maelice said, and Emilie sighed.

"Then do what you must."

Maelice nodded, and turned the key. The click of the lock sounded in her ears as she pulled the door open. The smell of sex and the heat of the succubus poured out from the cell. Tentacles of black flesh slithered out around the door frame as Ankhta stepped forth with no concern of modesty.

"And thus did the witch hunter stare too hard into the abyss, and found she enjoyed what stared back," Ankhta said as tendrils slithered along the walls. Their slime dribbled along the brick as Maelice stood her ground.

Ankhta stepped directly in front of Maelice and cupped her chin. She smiled then, as a tentacle reached out from the wall and curled itself over the warrior's shoulder. Still, she didn't move but stared up at the succubus.

"The ghouls got in. Your gifted sigils were defaced. I tried to redraw them, but I do not know if they will hold. We need your help," Maelice said. The tentacle at her shoulder curved up, its phallic tip sliding along her lips. She made no effort to stop it, nor to encourage it. It brought a slight smile to Ankhta's face.

"This is your crucible I am afraid. I am a scholar, not a huntress. I study, I teach, I am not skilled in the arts of war. You however. Your steel is blessed by the priests of God, and a daughter of Lilith both. Your soul shielded by celestial and infernal," Ankhta said, and Maelice could not help but feel the bitter touch of disappointment. She looked at the succubus for a moment, before she nodded and turned away.

"Where do you go now?" Emilia asked after her. Maelice paused and looked back to see tentacles slithering upwards around the mother superior's legs and under her habit. It did not take long for her eyes to widen, and Maelice knew the tentacles had thrust their way inside the woman. Ankhta smiled, moving behind Emilia to danced clawed fingers along her shoulders. Fear and excitement coloured the woman's expression.

"To the forest. To face whatever lurks out there," Maelice said.

~***~

The forest was darker than she remembered. The trees seemed to loom over her, as if waiting for her to turn her back upon them. Very little sunlight managed to break through the canopy, and the little that did was dull. Maelice heard scuttling in the shadows, and so walked with her sword bared. Nothing came for her, but she felt eyes that watched her from the darkness.

She came to the site from yesterday. The bodies of the cultists still lay where they had fallen, though there was little left of their flesh. The scavengers had taken their meals from them, and had left behind mostly bone and gristle. Flies buzzed about the few strips of meat that clung to the teeth scraped skeletons.

Maelice knelt near the patches of thick black blood where she'd struck the demon. Tried to find any pattern to show her where it had gone, but saw nothing. Instead she would have to depend on the single direction she'd seen it flee, and hoped that led her to something.

She moved around the bodies, and plunged into the forest once again. Each step the light grew more dim, until Maelice could only see directly ahead of her. She heard something snarl behind a tree, but saw only shadow when she turned.

Then a whisper slid into her mind.

"Closer still. She waits for you," it spoke, echoed softly by others.

Maelice flexed her fingers around the hilt of her blade and let out a long breath. She did not stop, but followed the voice. Twigs snapped underfoot, and things followed her out of sight, but still Maelice pressed forward.

A distant scream reached her ear.

Maelice paused, sword crossed in front of her, ready to strike as she tilted her head to listen. She could hear the breaths of monsters about her, claws against bark, the snap of fallen branches under twisted feet. The scream soon came again, one of agony, a woman. Maelice almost broke into a run, but something shimmied along a branch somewhere overhead. She frowned, and started forward again, patient, trying not to let those screams gnaw at her.

She spotted a glow ahead; the wavering flicker of a flame. It pulsed within the dark, struggled against it, but Maelice moved towards it.

Hot breath brushed her neck, and Maelice spun with her blade in a tight arc. She struck nothing, only saw a flutter of inky shadow in the black. A laugh taunted her as the whispers returned. She couldn't hear the words, but she felt them as they scratched at her mind. At her soul.

She started towards the fire once more. Towards the piercing screams of agony.

Maelice stepped into a clearing, a pyre built in its centre. She could not see beyond the trees that ringed this place, but the tip of Maelice's sword touched the ground as she stared at the grotesque idol the demons had made of Elke.

"Oh God," Maelice whispered.

The nun was strung up between trees by chains that were hooked into her wrists and ankles. In the form of the crucifix she was suspended half her height above the ground as she screamed. Her clothes had been torn away, leaving only wimple and veil, though they were stained with blood. Her stomach had been torn open, sheets of skin and muscle pinned to her sides with nails. Her intestines glistened in the firelight as they hung from the near empty pit of her gut to the ground. Maelice could see up under the glimmering white bone of her ribs, to where her heart pounded.

"She will not die, though she wants ever so much to be a martyr," a whispered sounded in Maelice's ear, carved its way to her awareness.

Maelice tore her eyes from the sight, but none of the fiends were in the circle.

"So she will scream, and scream, until someone can give her what she craves beyond anything," another whisper.

"Will you be the one to feed her greed Maelice? Oh you reek of lust. Even now her pretty young body calls to your loins... but not just that is it? There's another hunger that even the succubus couldn't see," another fiend, and a shadowy hand pulled Maelice to face Elke again.

The woman's skin glistened with sweat, as she panted between screams. Her breasts rose and fell with the ragged breaths. But Maelice's eyes fell again to the string of guts that spilled before her. She felt her mouth water as memories of Ma'arra flooded her.

The sun hot on her face as she ran through the hell swept streets. As men gave themselves to wickedness as they butchered and consumed. As they carved the flesh from the fallen to stave off the hunger that plagued them.

As she turned the corner to see Safina's corpse, chunks of her cut from her hips, her buttocks. As blood dribbled from the wounds, and pooled around the deep gash across her throat, the crusaders laughed. They laughed as they hung chunks of Safina over a fire, and her flesh blackened under the touch of the flame.

Rage. Rage that Maelice had never known took her. Her sword hacked into the men that thought her friend. Their blood painted the walls of the back alley. She had severed heads and limbs, hacked into the cavities of their torsos. Then she had sobbed as she cradled the corpse of her lover. As she cradled the corpse of her sweet Safina.

Cradled her, unable to ignore the gnawing pain in her stomach. Wept as she prayed to Safina for forgiveness for not being there to protect her. To save her. Sobbed as she prayed for Safina to forgive her for what she was about to do.

Elke screamed, and snapped Maelice to the present. She looked up, to see one of the fiends behind her. It floated on the edge of sight and reality, one hand curled around Elke's body to grasp a breast. It's claws dug in and drew beads of crimson that dripped to the ground. Wisps of the demon wavered off its arm like smoke, there and not there at once.

"How many have you consumed since then? How often have you gorged yourself?" a demon's voice cooed in Maelice's ear, but she did not turn to it. Instead she watched a claw descend to Elke's thigh, and press to the skin just above her knee.

"Shall we carve her for you?" another purred, and that claw pushed hard into Elke's flesh while a fresh scream tore itself from her lungs. Blood welled up around the shadowy claw, flowed over her knee and down her shin. The demon pulled upwards, and sliced down to bone. Skin and muscle splayed open, and Maelice found herself near drooling.

"Come forward. Feast," one of the demons said, and Maelice took a step forward.

Elke threw her head back and began to shout as blood poured out from her.

"My comfort in my suffering is this: your promise preserves my life. I am the martyr that has cleansed the filth from your holy house. Through this pain I will endure for your love oh Heavenly Father," she screamed before blood began to pour from her mouth and patter across her breasts.

Another step and Maelice was just before her. This was the fate that Elke wanted, to be a martyr, to suffer for the sins of others, so why shouldn't she savour her own desires?

"That's it, feed Sister Maelice, take what you crave for yourself," one of the whispers said as Elke continued to scream above her.

Maelice pulled away as crimson soaked through the side of her wimple. She stared up at Elke, saw her lungs deflate and grow with each ragged breath. She could not see the demon that had lingered behind the strung up nun just a moment ago.

"Do you think yourself pure and goodly by refusing our offered feast?" a whisper stabbed at her, and Maelice winced in pain. She stepped back closer to the fire. Its heat sunk into her back and legs.

Sword held before her, she looked about the clearing. Sought out her foes as Elke's screams continued to echo through the forest. Words spilled free, but they had become little more than ramblings.

"Tear out her throat. You crave ever more, we can see it."

"Tear out her throat. It will give you the calm you need to fight us."

"Tear out her throat. Take what you want."

The whispers stabbed at her. Dug into her mind like sharp claws. Maelice felt her eyes pulled back to the splayed thigh. She drowned out Elke's screams, and put a foot forward.

"Yes. Just a bite."

As the whisper clawed into her ear, Maelice turned and swung her sword upwards. The blessed steel swiped through smokey flesh and sprayed blood across the grass and sizzled in the flames. It had been like she'd slashed water.