The Creators Ch. 13

"Of course," she whimpered, "I am unworthy to carry the holy water."

"That's the conclusion you drew from this outcome?" I coughed around a bitter laugh, tasting blood.

"Forgive me, Your Eminence."

I looked up at the darkening sky above, and sighed. "I forgive you, Helga Sunscraper. I told you a hundred times already, I forgive you."

There was a long pause, then Helga said, "I'm going to have to amputate your leg."

"The blood loss would kill me."

"If I don't do something—"

"There's nothing you can do. If wolfsbane and willow bark couldn't heal the infection, then I'm fucked." I laughed at the sky again. "Mom could probably pick the cure for cancer out of some mountaintop wildflowers, but I can't even dress a wound. And Brandon made me his health minister. I deserve this."

"Do not say that," Helga muttered.

"You don't know me."

"I know much about you, Justina Autumnsong. I am a scout, and it is my duty to collect information on the gods, and bring it back to my people." Helga opened her pouch, and pulled out a pile of news clippings from the Drastin Times.

"I didn't know they delivered to the Gratoran Wall," I snorted.

"I procured them from a vendor in the princedoms," Helga said, not understanding sarcasm at all. "Once word reached the peaks that the gods were in Drastin, Ofan and Breyta emptied. Without Freydis to lead us, Iona had to stay behind. My people were ravenous for news, and so the scouts flew far and wide to collect it." Helga gently placed the clippings on the rocks, handling them like they were precious. Most of the articles were about the three gods, but there were also quite a few older columns that catalogued Astrid and Mom's fights in the Pit back when that was frontpage news. There was a few pieces about Diamond, several about the reappearance of the presumed-dead Princess Lucilla, and one measly column about me.

"What's it say?" I mumbled, mildly curious.

"It's a speculative article. You seemed to be an afterthought as far as journalists were concerned."

"Thanks."

"The article mostly details witness accounts of the sexual services performed for your patrons." Helga looked up at me. "Do wish me to read it?"

"Not if it makes you uncomfortable."

"We must become comfortable with discomfort," Helga said as she selected a magazine from the pile, and held it aloft. I'd seen it before; I was there when Willowbud contracted the artist to paint the pictures. It was of Astrid being publicly ravaged in every-which-way from every swinging dick in the Screeching Siren. Her tattooed body bent and contorted lecherously; a display of sex so vulgar it even tingled me a little.

"When we saw the statue, we knew Astrid had forsaken her virtue for the service of our god," Helga said, gesturing to the stone figure towering above us. "Most of the Ionans agreed that we would've all done the same. But when we saw this..." Helga sighed, "...there was some contention amongst us. The codes are sacrosanct, but so is the will of our god. It is the duty of every Ionan to both serve the Earth Former, and also guide her to benevolence through the wisdom of the codes. Astrid was the best of us, the staunchest defender of the codes besides her mother, and seeing her like this raised some serious philosophical debate. Ultimately, we reached the conclusion that a winged-warrior could break the codes if directly ordered to by her god, so long as she always deferred to the codes otherwise."

"That described Astrid perfectly," I lied.

Helga beamed at me. "That was what I thought as well. If you look closely at her face..." Helga held up a picture of Astrid with her eyes rolled back in mindless hedonism as she deepthroated an ogre's cock, "...you can clearly see the conflict."

"Yes, it's very evident."

Helga closed the magazine, then frowned at the northeastern horizon. "I suppose it does not matter now, does it? They are dead. Astrid and Her Holiness, and Freydis has not returned either."

"I'm sorry."

"The holy journey passed us by," Helga sighed, her wings drooping. "We were to be one of the blessed generations, our names etched forever in glory. Now Iona will be shamed as the clan who did nothing while Ofan and Breyta served with honor."

"What will you do now?"

She shrugged. "If Freydis does not return, a new High Guard will be chosen after two fortnights. Likely by then the Breytans will have come to conquer us."

"You outnumber them twenty to one, and you are Ionans; they stand no chance."

"Perhaps that is so, Your Eminence, but it matters little. Breyta and Iona are on good terms, and understand the importance of duty—not like those filthy Ofanians." She smiled ruefully. "If Jade Tao demands we bend the knee to Julia Gendian, then we will be honor-bound to do so."

"Even after what Julia did?"

"It is a far greater sin to be useless, then to be a traitor."

I pawed weakly at the magazine, and held open a picture showing Astrid being triply anally-penetrated as Willowbud stuck her entire fist up her stretched cunt. "This is child's play compared to what Julia will make you do."

Helga swallowed and paled, but she nodded resolutely. "We will serve. Whatever it is we must do, we will do."

I snorted. "You're a virgin. You have no idea what you're talking about."

She blushed furiously, and mumbled, "I know... things."

"I'm sorry, Helga, I didn't mean it." I glanced up at the towering cliffs overhead, and let out a long sigh. "I'm just bitter."

Helga stared up at me for a while, then muttered, "you need a man, don't you?"

"My body is self-cannibalizing to maintain the function of my organs, and an infection is running rampant through my immune system. I'm well-past needing a man. I need a doctor. But since there's no hospitals for hundreds of miles, and anyone who touches me will lose all of their higher faculties, right now I just need some company. Keep talking."

"I'm not going to let you die here."

"You don't have a choice!" I laughed, coughing a little blood.

"I am afraid that it is you who doesn't have that choice, Your Eminence." Helga wrapped me in the furs like a burrito, and hoisted me into her arms. I screamed as the pain raged through my leg, crawling right up my thigh to throb into my hip.

"Stop!" I screeched. "Put me down! Put me down! Oh god, it hurts so much!"

"Pain is life, Your Eminence," Helga grunted as she flapped her mighty wings, and launched us into the air. "Comfort is death for you right now. I am sorry, but I must do everything I can to save you."

"Just fucking drop me!" I screeched, but Helga paid me no heed. The pain clawed up my leg, and the fever pounded in my temples. As the wind rushed through my ears, I began to lose my lucidity bit by bit until it was gone.

JULIA

I burned the tribe's steading so that they could never return to it, then I set us out on a journey deeper into the Gratoran Desert. As before, I wandered aimlessly, following my intuitions, knowing that they were that of God herself. Yuntok even offered to show me a map, but I burned it, fearing that it would taint the purity of my path. We had enough water with us for a day and a night, but I did not fear thirst. The Good Mother would provide water when it was needed, and if we were to suffer until then, then that was her will. If some of us were to die—the elderly and the children—then that was also her will.

When only moonlight lit our path, I halted our odyssey, and let my exhausted party set up camp. I lit black fires around the perimeter to keep the predators at bay, and the obsidian flames absorbed the moonlight around them, making their surroundings darker than pitch. As the orcs toiled with tents and kitchenware, I knelt in the center of the encampment, and bowed my head to the sand. Prostrating nakedly so that all could see, I began my atonement for the day's sins.

"Forgive me, Holy Mother, for my transgressions," I whispered. "Forgive me for killing one of your creatures in the hovel. Forgive me for having impure thoughts for some of the orc men. Forgive me for having sadistic thoughts for some of the orc girls. I fear that the poison Passion has poured into me is too strong, and I will break my chastity soon. May she burn in hell forever." I paused, and frowned. "On second thought, please forgive Passion for her heresy, and guide her to your light and..." my frown deepened. "Forgive me again, Holy Mother, for my false benevolence. I truly do hope that Passion is tortured interminably in perdition. I hope that she is shrieking as they stab the hot hooks into her flesh and hang her from the rafters! I hope that they rape her vile holes with scalding serrated blades until her insides are..." I took a deep shuddering breath, and calmed myself. My erection was stabbing into the sand, and my netherlips were moist with readiness. "...Forgive me, Holy Mother, for besmirching this confessional with my twisted desires. I will meditate on this violation, and repent again in the morning. Amen, and thank you."

I rose from the sand, and looked up. Many of the orcs had been watching me, and they averted their gazes the moment I caught them. I was slightly disappointed that none dared to approach me. I considered myself to be a very approachable person. I wondered if I should insert myself into their makeshift camp, and attempt to integrate into their culture. Would we share laughter around the campfire as we sung hymnals? Would we dance in modest clothing, and facilitate the proper and innocent courting of romantic youths beneath a harvest moon? No. These were orcs, and more importantly, I was me. I caught myself wandering along the pleasant curves of the young females, and the rugged bulges of the males. My lust was a dangerous thing. A deadly thing. Imposing it upon my flock would be the worst of sins, and I would punish myself by punishing them. Still, it nagged me—no, it tortured me. I had not felt release since Diamond parted from me, and the sin was beginning to build in my loins.

"You test me, Holy Mother," I muttered to the sky. "I will not fail you; I promise it."

I made a ring of fire around me, and snuggled into the sand. It was cool to the touch in the chill night, and strangely pleasant upon my flesh.

JUSTINA

I blinked awake, and wondered for a second if all my scientific rationalism had been for naught, and that the religious zealots I'd labeled as morons had been right all along, for I was staring up at three angels. They had fluffy feathered wings and beautiful faces, and it took me a moment to realize they were Ionan valkyries.

"Oh, thank the gods!" Helga sighed, and rested her brow upon my blanketed chest.

I was in a sparse stone room with a vaulted ceiling and armaments adorning the walls. Though there were slotted windows, there was no door to this room; only an opening in the ceiling above me. Furs and pelts decorated the places where there wasn't weaponry, and a roaring hearth gave the room a comfortable glow and warmth.

"I'm in Iona?" I muttered.

"You are... Your Eminence," a blonde woman said, seeming to struggle with giving me the title. She was older, perhaps in her late forties, but she still retained the stoic beauty of her race. The other one was a younger woman, a brunette with a scar running down her handsome jaw, and she assessed me with the dispassionate eye of a doctor.

"Her vitals are good," the doctor said, snapping a glove made of seal leather. "Your Eminence, I'm going to need you to open your mouth and say 'ah.'"

I did so, and my serpentine tongue was depressed by a metal prod. The doctor ventured all the way to the back of my throat, and twirled the metal prod about my tonsils and uvula. She frowned, then glanced at the older blonde, then at Helga.

"Wha?" I asked with my mouth open.

"This is supposed to elicit your gag reflex, Your Eminence," the doctor said, turning slightly pink.

"Oh..." I trailed off, then coughed just to ease the awkwardness.

The doctor examined the spittle-soaked prod, and placed a sample of it in some agar. She waited for the agar to turn, and when it turned purple, she seemed satisfied. "The infection is gone."

"Oh, thank the gods!" Helga reiterated upon my chest.

"Third-Scout Sunscraper never left your side," the older woman said to me. "Even when you were flailing about in the throes of fever mania, she risked your enslavement to aid you."

"Thank you, Helga," I croaked. As I shifted beneath the bedding, I realized I'd been put in restraints. "Can you release me?"

"Not until we have some clear answers from you, I'm afraid," the older woman said.

"I already told Helga everything."

"But I need confirmation. Forgive me, Your Eminence, but a rogue succubus can do more damage to a colony than a virus, and since I'm the acting High Guard, I must take every precaution." She offered something close to a smile. "I am Nona Cloudwhisper."

"What do you want to know, Nona Cloudwhisper?" I mumbled with a raspy voice.

Nona held Jade's dagger aloft, and asked, "you say you got this from High Guard Tao?"

"As a parting gift, yes."

"And she now carries the Sword of Iona?"

"She intends to return it to Freydis."

"Freydis Skyborne is missing," Nona held up a note. "I received this letter from her yesterday morning. It is dated for last week. I fear that she never left Drastin."

"Freydis told me she would leave the city. I thought valkyries couldn't lie."

Nona smiled thinly. "We can deceive if the truth is vague. I'm sure Freydis simply ventured outside of the city walls, and then walked back in."

"What does Freydis's note say?"

"She states that Willowbud Autumnsong is a slave of Corruption, and that it is her sworn duty to kill her because of it. She declares herself anathema for the sin she must commit, and relinquishes control of her guardianship to me upon Willowbud's death. If Astrid still lived, I would be the caretaker of her seat until she was ready to take the mantle." The lines on Nona's face deepened as she scanned the note. "Freydis served the Bound One Lucilla for some time. She believed that Her Holiness, Julia Gendian was a righteous and strong woman. Freydis's last act as High Guard was to pledge the Iona Guard to Julia. After what Helga tells me, this will require further consideration."

"You don't need to consider anything, Nona; you're the boss now."

"Neither Freydis nor Astrid have been confirmed dead. We must wait two fortnights before I become anything more than a steward. Freydis's written word still holds more power than my voice."

"You valkyries and your goddamn codes," I muttered.

"Codes are all we have, Your Eminence. If it weren't for our codes, Helga would've left your corpse where she found you."

"Freydis and Astrid are dead. You don't have two fortnights to make a choice."

Nona's lips thinned. "We shall see. Now, you served Brandon Sorenson, correct?"

"Yes," I muttered, then added, "mostly I served his sister."

"Yes, Angela Sorenson," Nona scowled. "She is a spitfire, that one."

"She sure... wait, what?"

"She likes to transform into a great eagle and chase Ionans out of the sky. I understand that being the Bound One has its privileges, but—"

"SHE'S ALIVE?!" I screamed, my heart thundering in my throat.

"Oh my god, she is?!" Angela cried, shooting up from beside my bed and looking around frantically. "Nobody move!" she commanded. "There's an undead slut creeping around here."

"ANGELA?!" I shrieked.

"Where?!" Angela yelled, and whirled around to face me. She tracked my bulging eyes, and donned an expression of exaggerated horror. "Oh my god," she whispered, "she's right behind me, isn't she?"

"YOU ARE SUCH A CUNT!" I sobbed, my mouth breaking into a wide grin as tears poured down my cheeks. Angela couldn't keep up the act any longer. She broke down into an ugly sob, and threw her arms around me.

JULIA

During the daytime, the Gratoran Wall was hidden from such great distance by the pollution of sand and dust, but at dawn, its silhouette drew an imposing figure across the eastern horizon. I watched the sun slowly creep from between the walls of Droktin's Pass. The orange luminance bathed the world extending from that notch, but the rest of the desert was still clinging to the darkness of the mountains, holding onto the last half-hour of night before it was time to rise. I was the only one awake so early. All around me, the orcs lay in various stages of slumber. Some sinners had copulated in the night, and the evidence of their mating was clear on the sand. I would not punish them yet; I would await their confessional in the afternoon, and if they asked for atonement, I would forgive them. If they tried to deny it, then I would have to extract their sin through pain.

A shadow moved across the burgeoning sun. The shadow was a dot, then a line on the horizon, and then the line grew larger until it separated into hundreds of little shadows. I stepped from the perimeter of the camp, and held my arms out to my sides in welcome. The Breytans descended onto the dunes before me, each of them landing in a kneeling position until Jade Tao herself was prostrating at my feet.

"Your Holiness," she whispered reverently upon my toes, "you cannot know the joy it brings me to see you alive."

"And I am joyful as well, High Guard Tao," I beamed, beckoning her to rise with a hand upon her chin. "But it is the greatest form of blasphemy to assign holiness to anyone but God herself."

"Forgive me, Mistress."

"Call me Sister Julia."

"Forgive me, Sister Julia," Jade said, daring to stare into my eyes. There was fear in her almond gaze, yes, but there was also such devotion. That was what I coveted so much, but it was not owed to me.

"Be very careful, High Guard," I said, touching her brow. "There is a difference between being a faithful servant, and a faithless woman. There is only one god, and she is the Holy Mother. Say it."

Jade's bottom lip trembled, and she whispered, "I cannot speak untruths, Sister Julia."

My loins ached with imminent pleasure as the flame coursed through my veins and to the point of my finger. I would melt her alive. I would hear her screeches of agony, and see her flesh peel away from her face to expose the tendons and bones beneath until she was naught but a blackened skull grinning at me. I wanted to do it with every fiber of my being, but I stopped myself. If I killed Jade for her blasphemy, I would have to kill all of them. Would I burn every soul who did not believe in the Maternal Path? If I did that, then God's kingdom would be very small indeed. No, I was to be a teacher. Jade was not like the shaman; Jade could still be molded.

"High Guard Tao, you are a sinner," I said, and lit the end of my finger with a small flame. She cried out as her head began to steam, and though tears welled in her eyes and streamed down her face, she did not move from me. "You are a lecherous, blasphemous murderer, but you are not beyond saving. You have simply been misguided." I slowly drew the crescent symbol into her brow, letting my finger linger until I'd seared her to the bone. "You will lead your flock by example. If I must punish one of them, it is because you have failed. Do you understand what I am charging you with?"

"Yes, Sister Julia!" she screamed through gritted teeth, enduring the agony as my cock grew harder and harder.

"Good," I smiled down at her, and finished my work. She collapsed on her hands before me, and wept. The sight of her pathetic prostration made my erection even angrier, and I was compelled nearly to madness by the enticing shape of her spread cheeks, but I managed to stay myself. I looked up at the other Breytans, and enjoyed their horrified faces. "Everyone please give a round of applause to the newest member of the holy flock, Jade Tao."