for Mary’s daughter demand a scapegoat for them, someone to blame?
The man gagging Bella yelled and pulled back his arm. Blood was smeared across the woman’s face from biting him.
“I didn’t do it!” she shrieked at the top of her lungs. “They’re liars, all of them, I didn’t do it!”
Her words struck him like a sledge. She spoke truth. Beaten, mocked, hated…and innocent. Yet despite his arrival, men had continued building, frantically setting up the pole with a hook at the top for them to loop the rope about. The other end would be for her neck, to snap her spine and crush her throat.
“She’s innocent,” Ezekai said, first softly, then louder. “Innocent. Don’t you all know what it is you do?”
“Are you calling us liars?” one of the supposed witnesses demanded.
“I am!” Ezekai roared. “I call you fools. I call you bitter and petty. Release that girl, and let those who laid a hand on her in violence step forth.”
“You aren’t in charge here,” David said, and the cries of the crowd affirmed their agreement. “Be gone, angel. We know why the babe died, and we know who did it. Fly away.”
Just a babe, then, not even a child. Fury continued to grow in his breast. Was it an illness? Was it something he could have prevented if only they had swallowed their pride and used their scepter to summon him? How many would die because of their hatred and mistrust?
“Stop it,” Ezekai said as a third man wrapped the end of a rope around Bella’s neck. “I said stop it now. I will not watch an innocent die!”
The crowd yelled louder. The men surrounding Ezekai pulled out whatever weaponry they owned, hatchets and knives and field-worn scythes. They’d been ready for him, the angel realized. They knew he might arrive. For Ashhur’s sake, they probably saw him circling above.
“I said stop,” Ezekai insisted. “Don’t do this. All of you, you’re sick, you’re caught up in this ugliness, this hatred. I won’t allow it. I
They flung the other end of the rope around the hook, grabbed it as it fell back down. Such insolence. Such blatant insult, to continue on before him. His law meant nothing to them, he saw it so clearly now. The men stared, weapons ready, there to defy him in saving an innocent life. Bella continued sobbing, her voice strained by the tightness of the rope.
Slowly Ezekai drew his sword. An emotion bubbled in him, one he couldn’t quite place. He looked to these people he loved, these sinful creatures, and realized he didn’t love them anymore.
“If this is how it must be,” he whispered.
He flapped his wings, lunging forward as three men grabbed the rope in preparation to pull. David was the first to step in his way, but with a single, powerful cut Ezekai sliced his body in twain. A step, a spin, and his sword arced out, cutting down three more men before they could bring their weapons to bear against him. Panicked screams echoed from the crowd. Half the mob turned to flee, the other half rushing the angel. Ezekai cut again and again, keeping them at bay so they could not overwhelm him. Meanwhile the three men pulled on the rope, lifting Bella into the air. She clutched at her neck, gasping silently as her face began to turn red.
“Damn you all!” Ezekai roared, taking to the air. His sword sliced through the rope, and before she could fall he caught her in one arm. When he landed he pulled at the noose around her neck, trying to loosen it so she might breathe. Before he could, he felt something sharp pierce his side, and he let out a cry of pain. Spinning about, he cut the head off the man who’d stabbed him, then tried to turn back to Bella. Men leapt atop him, pulling at the tender bones of his wings, wrapping their arms about his neck. He yelled for them to stop, pleaded as he flung them aside. The rope, it wasn’t loose yet, it wasn’t…
Another stabbing pain, and he had no choice but to turn. His sword did its work, their pathetic instruments nothing compared to his blade. Still they rushed him, and still he couldn’t understand why. Why this anger? Why such hatred and loathing? Even their fear was obvious, yet they wouldn’t flee. Like dogs they died, rabid dogs, and he put them down. Words flashed in his mind, thoughts he didn’t want to think. Killer. Reaper. Demon. Was it their thoughts or his? Could he even know?
The bodies around him grew in number, until at last none stood to face him, the rest fleeing back to their homes or the fields beyond. Bleeding from a multitude of wounds, Ezekai turned around. He still had healing magic in him, knew there was always hope if the woman lived, but kneeling before Bella he found her an empty shell. Her soul had moved on, and he prayed it went to a far better place than this miserable world.
“Innocent,” he whispered, touching her cooling face with his bloodied palm. “An innocent, murdered…and why?”
He stood, flared his wings and lifted his sword as he cast his judging eyes upon the village.
“Why!” he screamed.
He took to the air, flying faster than an arrow. Like a ram he blasted into the nearest home. Sword drawn, he looked upon the family within. People who had shouted out their anger. People who had done nothing to stop the bloodshed. He judged them, as he did to those the next home, and the people who fled down the streets. Looping into the sky, he found those in the fields, those who knelt begging and pleading as if it might mean something anymore. He judged them all, until his armor was soaked with blood and his sword felt heavy with the weight of a hundred souls.
Judged until there were none left to judge.
Outside their village he landed, nearly crashing to the ground in delirium. He crawled to a nearby stone, pulled himself atop it, and sobbed. He slammed his sword into the dirt, he beat his chest, and he let his tears flow. Why had they done it? What monstrosity filled their souls that they would let such a thing happen? He was supposed to protect them. Was that not why Ashhur had sent him to this world? To chase off the demons and safeguard the populace before it was all lost to darkness? But the darkness was already there. It’d already won, long before he and his ilk had arrived. In every heart he’d felt their sin, felt their anger, jealousy, lust, and fear.
He didn’t know how long he knelt there. It might have been minutes, might have been hours. Slowly he felt himself returning to some shred of sanity. There, before that forest, he realized that it was quiet. He no longer felt their presence like a thorn in his mind. He no longer heard their cries of anger. There were none left to sin. None left to spit in the face of their god and deny the gifts freely given to them. There was nothing. No weight on his shoulders. Just…emptiness. Absolute, blessed emptiness.
A shadow crossed over Ezekai, marking someone’s arrival. He looked up, the blood fresh on him, his actions clearly revealed. The words of the newcomer broke the silence, and they were so sincere, so seductive.
“I understand.”
31
“I’m sorry for the long flight,” Ahaesarus told him, shouting to be heard over the whipping wind.
“My arms hurt,” Harruq shouted back. He hung beneath the angel as they flew over the land, his life literally in the angel’s hands. Should Ahaesarus let go of his wrists, he’d fall, and no matter how strong he was, Harruq knew he’d splatter upon hitting the ground below.
“It is not far now.”
Not far still meant another ten minutes, and Harruq endured best he could. His shoulders ached, feeling like they were about to be yanked from their sockets. To get his mind off the pain he watched the land below, the hills slowly flattening as they traveled farther south. The grass grew taller, wilder, and soon he saw clusters of trees that grew thicker and thicker until they were full-blown forests. Idly he wondered what would happen if he were to be dropped onto those trees. Would the limbs spear him dead, or perhaps the leaves slow his fall?
He really, really didn’t want to find out.
“How far again?” he asked.
“You have the patience of a child.”
“The temper, too.”
Ahaesarus’s wings spread wide and tilted downward.
“Then for both our sakes I am glad we are here.”
‘Here’ was a village bordering the northern edge of the forest. Other than being on the smaller side, Harruq
