The Song of Roland Ch. 17

"Carl!" He shouted, kneeling as he held her again. Her body convulsed, a yawning stare coming to her eyes as she seemed to lose focus. Another upsurge of flesh-tinted skin undulated across her face, distorting her appearance as her horns warped and bent in chaos atop her head. This time it stretched across a broad swath of her right cheek, crawling like a disease down the side of her neck. Her dead arm flashed in color, shifting like a half-revealed mirage between the perfect, manicured fingers of her Demonic aspect and the more neutral, slender extension of her human limb. Her hand clenched as the muscles locked, the fingers clutching at the air like a dead spider curling up. "Carl!" He bellowed at the top of his lungs.

Kelsea shivered in his arms, her body heat dissipating like the wispy steam rising from a hot spring on her body. He hard a muffled gasp of air enter her lungs. Carl came trotting up, his face grim as he slowed to a stop in front of them. "S'happening again, is it?" He said. "That's a nightmare, and no mistake."

"Help me carry her!" Roland snarled, throwing her purple arm over his shoulder as he hefted the faltering female with the strength of someone whose adrenaline made the weight of her negligible. Carl scoffed but moved to comply. He put her other arm about his shoulder, shrugging into her armpit before the two taller men stood her off the ground, her feet dragging as they moved onwards. Her head hung down, her hair a veil behind which the shifting hues of her afflicted skin continued unabated.

"This is a right fuckin' mess, eh?" Carl said, casting a sly grin in Roland's direction. "Have to say: after watching her burn the rest of the Dogs out of their mortal coils, I don't think I'm as torn up as I ought to be about her getting stuck with a bit of equal treatment."

"Carl," Roland said, continuing to stride with a madman's mania, he barely felt the cold anymore. "So help the Gods. If I hear one more word from you, I'm going to shove that knife of yours beneath each of yer fingernails and pop 'em all off, one by one."

"You're a dour man, Roland." Carl replied, shrugging as he tried to keep up with Roland. "Levity's all we've got in this, now."

After several more minutes of painful progress, they heard a sudden commotion above them. The Harpy swooped down, making a raucous racket as she skimmed over their heads before swooping upwards again; they had come to the edge of the forest. There was something waiting for them on the other side.

Beyond the final swaying branches the party espied a tall palisade, made of wooden logs cut from the surrounding forest and sharpened to a point at the top. Each had been dug into the ground, and were arrayed in a haphazard fashion of height, with smaller stakes being several meters tall to the highest being over four meters at their zenith. All of them were lashed together by perpendicular logs that ran horizontally across the upper third of the palisade. Immediately Roland knew that this was no military settlement. The logs were too irregular in size, their placement too inconsistent to be useful for much more than keeping wild animals out. It didn't much matter to him: they'd found sanctuary.

Kelsea groaned, her head lifting as she stared dully around. "Gods, what's... what's happening to me?" The two men set her down, leaning her up against one of the final trunks between themselves and the stockade line. She'd regained the uniformity of her demonic visage, and Roland went down on one knee to touch her chest. Her heartbeat was back to its unholy speed.

"Kelsea, we need to get you help for this." He took her hand in his, "But you know what will happen if we bring a Demon into town." She looked at him, nodding slowly. "...Do you think you can manage to make yourself look human again?"

"I can try." She said, closing her eyes and whispering something on the edge of hearing. Her features began to shrink down to her delusive deception, but the process hiccuped. A pained frown came to her face as her eyes shut. "Aagh!" She said, stifling a scream as she bit down hard on her lip, drawing blood. Her horns slithered into her head like a pair of hesitant viper tails disappearing down a rabbit hole, moving with a grating slowness that made clear her abject agony. Her skin flickered and flashed, but she managed to shift it away. Her breath came in sharp bursts; she sounded like she was in labor. Her face softened, her breasts shrank, and her body adopted her more lithe appearance. Finally, her blue eyes faded into place over her red gaze. "It..." She shook like a leaf on the ground. "It really hurts to do this... My head feels like it's in a vice."

"I know." Roland replied, stroking her hair. "You're going to have to keep it like this though, at least till we can figure out what's happening. We'll get the help you need."

"-Assuming there's any help to be had." Carl added graciously.

Roland ignored him, reaching down to pick Kelsea up in his arms. He balanced her between the crook of her knee joints and the flat of her back, holding her like she was sitting in a reclined chair. "Don't worry about walking." He said; the Succubus stared up at him, a hard concentration in her eyes as she sat cradled in his arms. "It'll help sell the disguise if we tell them you're injured."

"...From what?" She said, her voice quiet and empty of energy.

Roland looked out at the gateway, starting with squinting eyes at the lone, wooden tower that sat as a marker for the entrance. He started to walk forward, out of the treeline. "From a rider on a white horse."

They went together as a group, Kelsea in his arms as Carl brought up the rear. Strangely, Roland felt no worry, no concern as he moved around the side of the wall to where the hooded, brown tower with wooden shingles sat imposing the threat of its murder holes at the party: a wide window in its inset, which allowed potential archers to peer down with impunity. They came towards the front slowly, from a direct angle as they moved upon the man made dirt track. There was a large, wooden gateway, nailed to the side of the fencing in a rough, frontier fashion. It was wide enough to let two men or more through at a time. Away from the town in the opposite direction, a road stretched outwards towards the lip of the plateau just next to the mountain, descending down into Gods know where.

At the keystone of the arched doorway, there sat a lone, iron slab hammered into the planks. Upon the front of it was a crest: a forged image of an angular, black arachnid, its legs moving out in separate, octagonal directions. It was uniform in its appearance, save for the bottom right-most leg, which was cut off at the knee joint, looking deformed, or crippled. Roland stepped up to the gateway.

"If this doesn't work-" Kelsea whispered, her hand reaching up to touch his face. Roland didn't look down at her; he thought of Calexi and the twanging bow. "I love you."

His brow tightened. "You say that too much." The sound of a frantic voice above them in the tower echoed through the wall. Roland glanced at Carl, nodding with his head in the direction of the sounds. "Talk to them."

An annoyed look tinged his face. "You talk to them, prick!" Carl muttered, stepping forward. His voice rose as he called out. "Erm, Lords? Ladies? Whomever is in charge of this lovely little gatehouse?"

A head popped out from the wide window: a helmeted young man, with a nasal cap that pointed to a tip at the top. He could not be more than sixteen, his peach fuzz beard half-grown and ill-fitting on his homely face. He looked foolish in his helmet and armor, like the assorted forged bits did not fit his small body. The boy's eyes widened as he saw all three standing there, immobile in the cold.

"W- who're you?" He asked, his voice quavering. He had a gap between his incisors that made certain phonetics whistle like a gale wind through his large teeth. "Are you them mercenaries Almyra bought? Where's the rest of you?"

"Tardy, sadly." Carl said, composed and unruffled as he slid easily into the lie. "We're the scouting party."

"Really?" The boy said, his eyes widening. "You was all supposed to be here days ago."

"They should be along shortly enough." Carl continued, lifting his hand palm up to gesture at the boy. "This damn trail you've had us marching on is murder."

"Who's the girl?"

Carl glanced over at Kelsea. Roland returned him a heavy glare. "She's my wife." He said, causing Roland to scowl. "She's hurt; something bad. We wanted to get her here ahead of the others, so my attendant and I volunteered to go on ahead. D'you have a healer on hand?"

A second head poked out from the open window, this one a wizened face with thin, white whiskers on either side of his face and a dark leather cap whose edges stretched down like a set of hunting hound's ears to his chin. "You bring your wife to a war zone?" He grunted, "You're not with that mercenary company. What's your real business here, stranger?"

Roland piped up, "Apparently talkin' ta prissy guards who don't want the men they paid for." He felt Kelsea tremor in his arms and pulled her tighter to his chest. "You think we brought this woman with us just to stand here and jest with you? Let us in!"

"What's your business here, strangers?" The old man repeated, spitting off the side of the tower. It landed with a plop at Roland's feet.

"If you don't open that gate, our 'business' will be freezing to death in these Gods-forsaken conditions!" Carl snapped. "What's your business here?"

"Guarding the gate from ruffians and lying heathens. No mercenaries said nothing about bringing their womenfolk to war."

Roland felt a thread of panic through his body. He looked up at the men. "Please," He said, gesturing at Kelsea's precarious position in his arms, "She's been hurt."

"By what?"

"The fuck are these probing questions all about?" Carl said, "By a rider on the road, he attacked us after we killed a Hautviech yesterday! What do you care?"

The old man paused, exchanging a surprised look with his younger companion. "...You slew the Hautviech?"

"Shot an arrow through it's eye." Carl said, holding up his bow. "Care to test my accuracy? Stick your head out a little further, I want to nick your chicken neck."

There was a flutter of mumbled conversation between the two guards. "Can you prove it?" The old man said, his voice speckled with suspicion. Carl laughed, gesturing towards Roland.

"Well, my manservant here is missing his sword, his cloak, and his pack. His shirt has got a hole the size of its toe claw near his ribs, and my wife's been hurt. If you were looking for the thing's head, I'm sorry to say I forgot to bring rope and a team of horses to drag it with us." Carl grinned with a disarming magnanimity up at them. "Should it please you, you can march over to the other end of the plateau where we came from and stare at its dead corpse, rotting on the High Road."

There was more unintelligible muttering from above them. The young man's head retreated from the window. The old man spoke to them, "You stay there, then. My boy's off to fetch the Priestess."

"Tell him to fetch a glass of wine for me as well, will you?" Carl called up. "I'm parched beyond drought in this frigid hellscape." The old guard did not respond.

They stood there, shivering in the cold as they waited beneath the tower's glare. Kelsea's breath was strained but steady, her eyes closed as she focused her attention on maintaining her appearance. Roland spared a glance down at her, observing the Succubus with a repressed expression. It was strange to think of how much power such a small creature had over him. "Stay focused." He murmured, "Whatever happens from here on out, don't drop the illusion."

"You worry all the time." She whispered, "I guess you and I both do certain things too much."

"If you'll stop dying, maybe I'll stop worrying, you randy woman." He replied, his hand rubbing at her back as he stood. There was a sudden creaking racket, and they watched in silence as the arachnid-bedecked gate peeked open in front of them, allowing a thin figure to sidle through the narrow gap. It slid shut behind him, latching closed as the tall man took a moment to compose himself.

He was a gaunt, pale human: dressed in a thick smock-frock of ebony colored fur, with a grey brimmed cap atop his head and dark leggings. Beneath the seams at his temple, small trails of thin, white locks flowed down the side of his angular visage. His cheekbones held the high ground on his face, pulling upwards in sharp relief like handholds on a mountain cliff, betraying the only true exhibit of maturity upon his venerable, yet ageless face. He was clean-shaven, immaculate in his appearance save for the bloodlessness of his lips and the flatness of his gaze. The only hint of color upon him was the dot of purplish red that poked the tip of his wide nose with a cold fingertip of aged frostbite.

He moved with the sort of calm rectitude that bespoke a man of intense self restraint. Every movement, every shallow footstep was calm, calculated and deliberate. He carried himself as a person attending to a grim procession, his small hands and long, bony fingers held empty at his sides as he moved with a spectre's glide across the snowy ground towards them. The hanging curtain of fog seemed to bend about his person, a literal representation of the impermanence that his skeletal structure bore within itself. He held them at bay with a queer expression, his dark eyes staring unblinkingly, turning back and forth within their orbital cavities to take in the two men standing in front of him. He paid not a moment's notice to the shivering girl in Roland's arms. Instead the man stood there, waiting without words, allowing the wind to blow coldly through the swaying pines.

The peculiar quiet spread like an effluvium from his person, leaving Carl and Roland inarticulate in the sonic lull. "...My apologies." He said at last, his voice as inert and colorless as his appearance. "I know that Orin promised you a Priestess, but he was not aware that she is in prayer, leading a sermon with the other godly folk. She will not be finished for some time." His pale hand lifted, opening in greeting to them. "I am Bogdan: the Volkhv of our commune." The hair on the back of Roland's neck rose immediately; the man was a Priest of the Void, a death-worshipper. "By the Seven who are and the One who is no longer, I welcome you to the Cloister."

"Greetings." Carl said, nodding his head in an manifestation of halfhearted deference. "Where's the wine that I asked for?"

Bogdan's expression did not shift in the slightest. "Whether you are allowed inside these hallowed walls or not will be determined by your next words. I would take prudence in which you choose, sellsword."

"What is this place?" Roland asked. Bogdan's dark eyes rotated to him.

"...A strange question for men who affirm allegiance to the company we hired." He said, "Is your vaunted captain so tight-lipped that he does not share the details of his contracts with his subordinates?" Roland stared him down. "This is the refuge of my people: a place to worship and display piety to the Gods who made us all."

Roland took a deliberate step back from the man, whose very presence was unsettling. Had he not been so encumbered with the burden of his Demonic follower, he'd have considered running; Roland had experienced enough horrors in his life from those who worshipped the Void. "I did not know the Priests of Gosvin allowed for necromancers to preach gospel to humans." Carl's body language took a decidedly more taciturn stance after Roland's assertion. One of his hands calmly moved towards the quiver at his back.

A ghostly simper came to Bogdan's face; it was almost as expressionless as if he'd made no change at all. "You misunderstand me, if you name me a defiler of the dead. A man can worship those who have passed on, yet not debase himself with petty thaumaturgy. The Cloister is not a death cult, but your ignorance of that attests to the fact that you are not a part of the company we hired." He took a step forward. Both men stepped back. "However, the desperation of the moment compels me to offer you succor regardless." Bogdan gestured at the blonde bowman. "You: what is your name?"

"Carl." He said, his eyes narrowing on the Death Priest. "Carl Hale. These are my companions: Roland and Kelsea."

"And did you kill the Hautviech?" Bogdan said.

"I did." Carl said.

Bogdan stared at him. "Indeed? It has been a plague on our livestock for weeks. If such is the case, we are in your debt."

"Who is this 'we?'" Roland said. "Who are you people?"

Bogdan smiled. It was a harrowing experience, like looking into the eyes of a stalking predator. "We are a rare thing in this world, Roland: a community unshackled by the binary choice of worship. Eight Gods dwell in this reality, one for every sentient race. Yet to whom do the humans direct their worship?"

"Gosvin, Lord of Fire." Roland answered easily; he'd been brought up to venerate the fiery crown as much as any human, though he was at best an abstract believer.

Bogdan continued the thought, "-And the Dwarves worship Dorthanc, Lord of the Deep Earth, and the Beastfolk Excellia, Lady of the Horned Savages. One God for one people; yet didn't each have a hand in creating this world? Why must we divide ourselves like squabbling children in the face of the Divine?"

"Oh for the love of-" Carl groaned, understanding flashing across his face. "The town's a bunch of Unitarians, Roland! Those lunatics who worship everyone and everything like it's a damned whorehouse for the Gods."

Bogdan affixed Carl with a stare that made the bowman wither. "It is easy for a fool to judge from a position of ignorance; it is foolish for a beggar to judge from a position of desperation. Would you take the support we offer, in exchange for holding your noses in our presence?" Bogdan's hand reached out to point at Kelsea, "-Or would you rather risk the empty road behind you? Those are your options, Carl, Roland, and Kelsea."

Roland heard a voice from beneath him. It was weak, but carried in the air. "I... always liked the churches where I grew up." Kelsea said, "S-something about a sermon..."

Bogdan looked at her, appraising the woman for the first time with his heavy gaze. His eyes flicked up to peer at the red-maned man holding her close. He spoke as though he were talking to Carl. "May I examine her? Your wife. I wish to see the extent of the harm that's been done to her."

"Go ahead." Carl said, ignoring the way Roland's body tensed in place. "Though I don't think she's bad enough yet that she'll need a Volkhv violating her corpse."

The Priest of the Void ignored Carl, stepping softly across the ground as he approached Roland. There was an aura about him, a creeping haze that seemed to fill the air around his person with something otherworldly, as if peeking through a curtain in the veil of mortality. He met Roland's eyes, the dark circles around his sockets making his face seem more angular than it really was. "May I lay my hands upon her? I promise you, I mean no ill will. I only wish to see what is wrong; where the injury lies."

Helpless, Roland acquiesced, nodding in silent agitation. He shot a look to Carl, whose hand casually moved to the dagger hilt at his hip. "She was... she was attacked by a rider. It touched her, and ever since she's been having convulsions. They've been getting worse since it happened, yesterday." Bogdan extended his long fingers, fanning out across Kelsea's body from sternum to stomach. Kelsea's eyes opened, and she looked at him, though the Volkhv paid her no more mind than he had Carl. With gentle pressure, he prodded and poked at her physical form. As his hands moved back and forth, he spoke to them.