Twenty-Sixth Verse
Abel knelt inside his cell, hands clasped together, elbows at rest on the wall-suspended plank that served as his cot. Even through the horsehair mattress, he could feel the hard surface of wood. So worn had the cushion become after decades without ever being replaced, it made the vicar’s bones ache just looking at it. Sleeping on it did worse. His predecessor’s soul must have been weightless of sin to lay there, day after day, and not break himself in body or spirit. To Abel, it was an altar of penance. The pains it brought kept him awake to his cause. They reminded him who he was.
David, pastor of the parish burned to ashes in Babylon, prayed for his son, for guidance, and for forgiveness. He’d lost his only child, and now he was lost to save another’s all because, in his arrogance, he’d once believed that he’d done enough to pay penance for his sins. He would not make that mistake again. Every evening since the massacre, the pastor knelt and remembered the depths of his crimes.
He was no older than Adam when he committed to Lucius’s legion, swearing on his soul exchange of coin for blood. One of eager thousands making their way on the Valley Road. The promised pay was good, at least till they got news of the massacre: nine of every ten men dead at Crusader’s Canyon, including most the knights sent by Aestas and the Enclave and all seven paladins of the Saint’s Cross. The third siege against the Mephistine had failed, leaving the capital filled to the brim with poor, young, bloodthirsty men. Attentions turned south to the undeveloped Impii and the gold and bronze in their rivers and mountains. Given the state of the Cross, the Temple Guard took charge headed by their new ruthless captain. Lucius gave the command; the men were shipped out.
Orders were to take no prisoners. The morning of their attack, two-fifths of the city fell, then another two the following day. The Impii had no walls save for the Bridge of Babylon, they wore no armour, their arms were leather shields, bronze swords and spears—for them to repel the Messaii army was impossible, until the demon woke from his dreams of peace. The third morning it rose, the Red Dragon Light Bringer, breathing fire over their host making ghosts of all it touched. David saw firsthand the dust that was his companions irreversibly melded into dunes of blackened glass. He saw it and ran and would have kept running had their commander Leonhardt not rallied the remaining men.
The Red Lion contrived a plan from records made by the Babylonian missionaries. It seemed the natives worshiped this demon as a hybrid form of priest and king. And of course that meant the demon kept a queen hidden in his palace in the city’s southmost ward. So Leonhardt sent a detachment of twenty young men east and south into the mountains of Horeb and led the rest of his men as a diversion to the north. David hadn’t been sure if he was blessed or cursed to be among the detached men. There wasn’t much to be sure of that night spent traversing the weather worn rocks, goat hills, and slot canyons till the twenty of them were dead south of their mark. Dawn had yet to break, so they waited shivering in the dark. David considered running then; a few of the others suggested it openly and not a man blamed them. By their every measure, they’d be rushing to their deaths—only they’d be second. The commander and what remained of their fellow men would face the fire first, all for their sakes.
Fools that they were found themselves duty bound, so at the earliest hint of warmth on the blue-black horizon, all twenty raced the sun under cover of fleeting night for the sandstone vaults and the queen hidden inside. The attack to the north had already begun—too far off to hear the screaming, it was the gasp of white light that stoked them faster into the fight with the palace guards. They were no better equipped than the Impii soldiers and no better discipled. The Messaii men chewed through them like a maw of steel teeth: two lines joined at the back, open at the front as to swallow each Impii and rend the meat from his pagan bones. Looking back now, David couldn’t help but think that he and the other soldiers must have seemed their own kind of demon to the natives they slayed. Impervious in maille shirts and soaked in Impii blood was how they came upon the throne room. And as suspected, there she was, the demon’s pale queen heavy with child.
Quickly as they could, the twenty Messaii brought the captured queen to the battle field. Word must’ve gotten ahead, for the fighting had ended by the time they arrived. Commander Leonhardt was alive, as were Sir Pyke and perhaps half of the remaining soldiers. The rest lay in glass graves, their murderer nowhere to be found. But in the demon’s place stood an angel of a man: tall and built like polished bronze, dark wavy locks, and eyes that stared right through David’s soul when he approached his commander and told him the task was done. It was no news to Leonhardt. The parlay had already finished; the conditions were set. The demon would give himself over if the commander would swear an oath to never harm his wife and unborn son. Leonhardt agreed and performed the execution himself. The demon’s queen’s screams shook the pastor still.
He’d never believed that the Impii would truly be spared, not even once the Messaii were back on their ships sailing home for Pareo. He would’ve been willing to kill them himself. He couldn’t understand why the merciless Red Lion would hold to a pagan oath. No, it wasn’t until later that David understood, not until he had a child of his own.
Before
