Chapter 149:
Cardinal Abeau’s feet angrily paced back and for before the throne of Qaiviel. His fingers were all but bloody tatters, his teeth covered in a thin veneer of diluted blood and pieces of his own skin. He dared not look out the window. Not again. Another explosion echoed through the empty throne room, a roar of fire then the crackle of lightning. Finally, Abeau crossed the near-empty throne room, with only Bishop Moïse and another three priests huddling in the corner, to look outside. As he moved to a large glass window overlooking the city something shattered in the air. The last fragment of the city shield protecting Clausonne fell. Ten giant rings of lightning smashed through the remnants, striking the men manning the outer wall. Almost immediately the shield began to recover but the Principle Mages, the few they had that weren’t mysteriously spirited away or killed, erupted in a flash of lightning or flame. It wasn’t from a Principle Mage, of that he was certain, it was like someone had loosed some sort of enchanted arrow that would erupt upon contact. Abeau cursed the attackers as a blast of flame destroyed the outer wooden wall, small darts of something flew over the heads of the defenders, throwing down lightning upon the few that survived the blast.
The gate protecting the outer wooden wall exploded inward, the fire incinerating the defenders behind.
“That heretic,” Abeau whispered. “He’s here.”
The shield began to collapse along the entire outer wall. A stream of Church forces moved forward to fill the gap but brightly coloured Knights burst through the burning smoke and cleaved straight through the defenders. Spears and pikes were nothing against the massive armoured charge. The sheer mass, the thundering and shaking of the ground, was enough to break their soldier’s morale and nerve. More and more Knights flooded through, tearing through the defenders in the street, followed by thousands of infantry. Siege towers and arrow shields lay abandoned as Leo’s forces charged into Clausonne.
Abeau couldn’t speak nor tear his eyes away as the outer city of Clausonne smouldered. King Leo and Queen Lila’s forces had successfully laid waste to their forces outside of the capital, even with Bishop Moïse’s forces returning almost unscathed. Lila had destroyed their northern subjugation force, which suffered horrendous ambushes that cut the army in half without felling a single enemy. Abeau hoped it would be enough to bolster the defences but that was not to happen. The bloodstained fields to the north were a testament to their monumental failures.
Abeau knew extraordinarily little about war and it’s intricacies but he knew it was over. The next gate burst open in a flash of lightning. Another wave of brightly coloured Knights charged through, almost immediately after he witnessed their forces fleeing through the streets.
Everything had fallen apart so quickly, so quickly that Abeau refused to believe it. There was nothing to do now but wait for the inevitable. There was no way to rebuild their defences or stop the routs. No man, no matter how brave, would stand against a wall of charging Knights or that heretical mage. Abeau’s heart sunk further when he looked to the north. Lila’s forces, led by the Red Salamanders, slipped through the outer northern gate. They had not fired a single arrow, their soldiers on the walls lay dead, their throats slit by a band of infiltrators continuing to slink across the chaotic defences.
Faint footsteps came from behind as Abeau sighed. Moïse approached, his head hung low and his hands gripped tight in front of his stomach. Abeau would have said something about his portly appearance but he wasn’t much better.
“What do we do now?” Moïse asked, his every word was a drain on Abeau’s patience. “I didn’t expect Caiden to lose, let alone suffer a Grade three overflow.”
Abeau sighed. “We didn’t have enough time to experiment with the enhanced Stitch Soldiers. Caiden was an exception, the only one we had managed to successfully create…And you lost him.”
Abeau turned to the panicking Moïse. “If you had been smart you would have attacked immediately, letting Caiden cleave a path and distract them while you attack in force. Or initiating Overflow on all of the Stitch Soldiers with you. Just leaving them to run amok would have been enough.”
“You told us to preserve them wherever possible.” Moïse’s voice wavered slightly. He coughed and looked out over the city, his eyes following a small swarm of crows firing lightning bolts over their fleeing forces. “I thought I was following orders.”
“If Henri had followed my orders, Harold’s orders, and not been a dirty traitor he would have known how to use them. Or he could have just wiped them out…” Abeau gently shook his head. “Nothing we can do now.”
Abeau looked to the throne. “And they’ll be here soon. Very soon. You there!” The three priests snapped to attention. “Tell the men inside the inner defences to hold their positions no matter the cost. Tell them to have faith in The Holy Father, that reinforcements are coming.”
“Are they?” A priest asked softly.
“No,” Abeau smirked. “But they don’t need to know that. And be quick about it. If you aren’t back very soon we will leave without you.”
The three priests quickly ran out of the throne room.
“To the Holy Kingsland?” Moïse asked.
“I’ve been speaking with their priests once we took control.” Abeau smiled. “Something told me we would need it. They will accept us. And our research.”
Moïse leant close. “And what about-”
“Abeau!” A voice called out a small passageway to the side. “Where are you?”
Abeau forced himself to smile, bumped Moïse’s side, as Harold and Valérie entered. The young King was just as scrawny and unappealing as when Abeau first met him. After his coronation, Harold tried to wear kingly attire for but a few measly days before turning to a more slovenly appearance. His shirt was uneven and unkempt, clearly having just been picked up from the floor. Everything about Harold made Abeau’s skin crawl. He almost bedded his own mother right after receiving the crown, and in the throne room no less. Valérie only managed to convince him to take her to their bed, his father’s bed, first. Abeau was all but certain he could hear his pathetic moans echo throughout the castle. Abeau’s sleep was limited, to say the least.
Queen Valérie, on the other hand, was an absolute beauty, wearing a slim ankle length white dress that accentuated her curves. Today she looked especially beautiful, her face wasn’t ruined by disgusting layers of make-up. Didn’t they know the chemicals caused insanity? The Church of The Holy Father had tried to spread the message; it worked for the lower classes, though they could never afford such extravagance, the upper echelons of Qaiviel society paid them no heed.
One of the few things that Terill and I will still agree on.
“Your Majesty.” Abeau bowed low, sweeping his arm to the side in a deliberate expression of submission. “The battle continues, though I must confess that the situation is poor.”
“How can that be?” Valérie cutely placed a finger on her plush red lips, pushing her considerable bosom out. “The angel told me our mission was divine, and that we couldn’t fail. Otherwise the world would fall into darkness and chaos.”
Valérie hugged her son from behind, pushing his head into her breasts. “And not after I’ve finally conceived the next Queen of Qaiviel. I wonder if she’ll bear Harold’s children as well. I know they’ll be beautiful.”
She ran a hand over her stomach and kissed Harold like a ragged whore desperate for a few copper coins.
I…I have no words anymore.
Moïse looked to Abeau who merely smiled, a well practice expression if one wanted to survive this disgusting place.
“Congratulations are in order, Queen Valérie. Unfortunately, there may not be time to celebrate such a momentous occasion.”
“What do we do?” Valérie gently rocked Harold back and forth. “You’ve always been there for us.”
How do we get out of here? They need to stay here and die, preferably without knowing we’ve escaped.
Harold kissed her again before gently pulling away her hands. “Abeau. Where are the Stitch Soldiers?”
“Defending the inner perimeter of the castle, my King. Though the faith of the defenders on the outer wall wavered theirs will not. Their faith will carry them through to victory.”
Harold kissed Valérie again.
Enough with your damned kissing you little shit! They’ll be here soon.
Abeau looked out the open window, the sounds of fighting were growing closer and closer.
Harold broke his kiss. “If only they had faith as we do in The Holy Father. None of this would have transpired.”
I know that I’ve had drugs put into your food but it wasn’t this much…Wait a moment.
Abeau smiled to himself. They had a way out after all.
“Indeed my King.” Abeau dramatically snapped his fingers. “There might be a way to win. But…Only if you think your faith is strong enough.”
“Our faith burns brighter than anyone’s in the Kingdom.” Harold laughed. “No, the world.”
Moïse leant in close to Abeau. “Are you thinking-”
“Yes!” Abeau yelled, startling Moïse. “I believe that they are strong enough to receive the most powerful blessing of The Holy Father. Do you doubt their faith, Moïse?”
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Moïse violently shook his head. “Never. I…I, after seeing them I simply do not.”
“Excellent.” Abeau strode across the room towards the royals as the three priests returned. Abeau raised his hand. “Is everything prepared?”
“I…” The priest looked at Harold then Valérie. “They are, Cardinal Abeau.”
At least you’re not a total idiot.
“You already knew?” Valérie asked, holding her son tight again.
Abeau smiled. “Of course. Your faith is the only thing that will save this Kingdom now.”
---[]---
Abeau descended into the dungeons, moving as quickly as he could without appearing rushed. Where once these iron and stone cells held enemies of the Kingdom they now held the latest batch of unwilling Stitch Soldier recruits. However, over the past few days the process had been accelerated with mixed results. Moïse pushed Harold and Valérie past the piles of dead bodies. Though they had died screaming their deaths revealed much.
“Here we are.” Abeau directed them to two chairs at the centre of the laboratory at the end of the dungeon.
The laboratory, like everything in the dungeon, was a repurposed torture chamber. It held thousands of vials of precious liquids, tomes upon tomes of research notes and the most precious thing of all; the blue jars. Repurposed torture chairs lay in the centre of the room. The most important aspect was the thick leather straps to restrain the Stitch Soldier as they underwent their transformation. Most died here. Twenty men, wearing thick leather overalls and glass goggles, moved through the piles of papers and chemicals, preparing the most important for departure. Upon seeing Abeau, and more importantly Harold, they stopped but he waved them to continue.
“This place smells awful.” Valérie scrunched her nose and waved away the smells of chemicals, alcohol and blood.
If only you weren’t mad. You’d sell for a good price to the Mycean’s, after you’d been used a few dozen times during our flight. Such a shame…The beautiful ones are always the craziest.
“What are we to do?” Harold asked. He slammed his fist into his palm. “I want to see my brother and sister grovel before me, before someone blessed by The Holy Father, to know that I am the rightful king.”
“That you are.” Valérie smothered Harold with affection. “And we will show them why.”
Let’s get this over with.
“Please sit in these two seats.” Abeau, feigning his excitement, waved them forward. “We have little time.”
Abeau looked to the priests, scrambling to assemble the important papers. “Prepare our most powerful blessing.”
“And what is this?” Harold asked, dutifully taking his position. “Is this how you create the Stitch Soldiers?”
“Not exactly.”
Exactly.
“The Stitch Soldiers are those that took in some of The Holy Father’s blessings. But their faith was not enough and their hearts rejected it.” Abeau waved Valérie to take a seat next to Harold. He winked at them both as the other priests tightened their restraints. “But I know that you will not fail.”
“The Holy Father will see us through this.” Valérie held Harold’s hand. Her eyes shot open, full of genuine worry. “What about the baby? Will it be okay?”
It’d probably be a deformed monstrosity even without this.
“Of course your child will be fine.” Valérie relaxed, smiling at her son as she squeezed his hand. “Do not doubt your faith.”
“We’ll be the ones to save this Kingdom.” Harold stared into Valérie’s eyes, Abeau could no longer deny the insanity in her eyes. “Just as you said we would.”
They tried to kiss but the restraints prevented them. Abeau motioned to have the restraints loosened, it would be the last time they ever thought about such things.
“Cardinal Abeau.” A priest, Abeau’s lead researcher, spoke through the leather protecting his face. “A word, if I may.”
Abeau nodded, smiling at the Royals. “Please bear with me a moment.”
Abeau made sure he was as far away as possible, signalled for the other priests to begin, and moved close to the priest.
“What?”
“Are you sure about this?” The priest spoke very softly, even with the muffling effect of his leather mask. “We’ve never tried a whole unit before.” He looked to the two fools, madly in love. “Caiden, our best result, only managed a tenth. And that was very touch and go. So much effort and resources for just one soldier, not that I’m complaining.”
“So?"
“So…” The priest sighed. “We aren’t capable of dealing with that much overflow. I heard that Caiden suffered from it. Grade three too. If we put in a whole unit-”
“We aren’t exactly going to be here when it’s done. Now, is everything prepared?”
“All the research and vital equipment is ready to be moved.”
“Alright. Do it.”
“There, is another problem.”
What now?
“We only have…one left.”
The priest tapped on a glass container filled with a vile blue-green liquid. Inside a small black and white crystal slowly bobbed back and forth. It shone and glittered with every point of light that struck it, making it quite difficult to look at if not submerged. Normally the crystals were just tiny fragments of a much larger whole but this was a complete crystal. They hadn’t touched it since the larger the crystal the larger the overflow, but also greater the strength.
“Are you sure we want to use this?”
“We still have the acid, yes?” Abeau chuckled. “At least the recipe. And there’s never an end to the source of these things, damn things are everywhere.” Abeau smiled at the crystal. “If only they knew where to look.”
“So who do we use it on?” The priest shrugged. “It’ll fully transform one into…I don’t know what. But the other will remain perfectly unaffected. At least by the transformation.”
Abeau pondered the dilemma for a moment. The idea finally came to him like a bolt of lightning. “Remember the ancient kings, sealing their pacts with blood?”
“I…Understand.” The priest drew a small dagger. “We’ll say it’s a part of the procedure.”
“Get on with it.” Abeau waved him away. “They could be inside the castle already.”
The priest approached the royals, they weren’t particularly pleased with the presence of a knife.
“Do not fear.” Abeau approached them. “It is merely a symbol to show your love and devotion to one another. The Holy Father will look more kindly upon those who are willing to take the pain, not that you need it. Still, it can’t hurt.”
“You say that.” Valérie chuckled.
Abeau returned the chuckle as the priest gently cut their palms and bound their hands together with another piece of leather.
“Now we’re truly one.” Harold smiled at Valérie.
I’ll be glad to be done with this place.
Another priest approached Harold from behind. He too held a knife and lifted his hair. “Forgive me, your highness, but I must remove the hair that covers your neck. It may interfere if it present during this…procedure.”
Harold quickly nodded. His hair was swiftly cut away, exposing his soft skin. Abeau moved behind the royals after flashing a final smile. He couldn’t keep a straight face with what was about to happen. The priests removed the black and white crystal, held gently in cloth wrapped plyers. It was not something to touch with one’s bare skin; the first Stitch Soldier had been made that way.
“Please endure the slight sting.” The priest said to Harold.
The priest cut a small incision along Harold’s spine, eliciting a tiny noise from Harold. Valerie held his hand tighter as he smiled back to her.
You have no idea what’s about to happen.
The priest held the crystal over Harold’s neck and looked to Abeau, the last chance to back down. But there was no time. The evidence needed to be hidden. Abeau gave a tiny nod and the priest slowly lowered the crystal until the tip touched his blood. The moment it made contact Harold screamed like a strangled cat, like so many before him. Blood solidified and transformed into the tell-tale fleshy purple worms of a Stitch Soldier. The worms squirmed and writhed, drawing the crystal deep into his body while ripping and tearing through his skin. Fully submerged the worms began to multiply and spread, pushing his skin taught and began to bulge and push his head down. Such a sudden growth in muscle and fleshy mass could not be contained by his skin and deep fissures emerged, the worms attempted to heal them but couldn’t act fast enough. Normally they would descend upon him and begin removing the excess with a special acid they had discovered, one which ate at the worms and preserved and hardened the deep cavities, the easiest side effect to deal with, requiring thick, harsh stitches to prevent the wounds from falling apart.
Valérie looked back to Abeau in panic and fear. For the first time clarity pierced her thoughts. She had been betrayed, but Abeau felt no remorse.
“Move it!” Abeau ordered. “Through the tunnel, right now. If you can’t carry it, burn it.”
The priests, and Bishop Moïse, hurriedly assembled large stacks of paper and small vials of precious substances. They paid no heed to the screaming Harold as they ran to a passageway hidden behind a bookcase, thrown to the side and disgorging its contents over the ground.
Valérie couldn’t find the words to express her betrayal. Abeau shrugged and slowly moved to the passage. A priest began burning what little they could not take. These two would not burn to death, nor die from the smoke. Their fate was far, far worse.
Harold’s transformation continued at a blistering pace. Already he was larger than Bernard, that ridiculously huge Black Rider Knight, and continued to grow and expand. His screams had turned to growls of anger and hatred, his eyes burst only to be replaced with the swirls of worms. The leather straps constricted his limbs and cut deep into his purple mottled skin. The leather straps frayed and began to tear as Harold continued to struggle against the transformation, not that it would hold for long.
As his head began to roll back Valérie struggled to break free but the chairs were designed for men, soldiers, not some frail woman. The leather straps holding Harold’s hand down, and constricting the flow of the transforming worms, broke. Valérie looked on with horror as the last human piece of Harold disappeared, and the worms travelled through his blood and into her.
“So much. So much overflow.” The masked priest spoke with such reverence for the monstrosity being born. “I’d love to see this in full. We never tried to put two together at once. Nor what a whole unit would actually do.”
Abeau gently pushed him into the passageway. Already the others were almost beyond sight in the stone passageway, only a few scant torches to guide their way.
“They said not to use a whole unit at once.” The masked priest shrugged and stepped back further. “Another time.”
Abeau pulled on a lever hidden in the passageway. He spared a final glance as Valérie began her transformation alongside her beloved, so large already that he reached the ceiling and was nothing more than a rough blob of purple flesh moulded into a human shape. As the worms raced through her blood, her skin transforming at a much slower pace, her stomach began to expand and writhe.
“I forgot about the baby.” Abeau mused.
“Pregnant?” Abeau swore he could see the sadistic smirk underneath the mask. “So many variables, so many possibilities…Such a shame we won’t be here to see what happens. Will it be three beings? Or will it be two? Such interesting possibilities."
Harold’s chair smashed and he fell forward, his hand remained connected to Valérie. Somewhere in there a piece of him remained. But not for long. Harold’s body began to elongate, his legs snapped and grew strange fleshly tendrils, bundles of worms twisted together that thrashed about wildly, smashing the remaining burning vials and equipment.
A heavy iron door descended and sealed the passageway. The screams were now nothing more than a faint and distant muffle.
“This will buy us enough time.” Abeau chuckled. “We’ll have to take a ship from-”
The metal door rang with a massive thud. Abeau jumped back, his heart lodged in his throat, a giant imprint forced into the iron. The door buckled towards them, only a few inches kept the door in its stone groove and from flying into the passageway. Abeau held his breath but the second attack never came. The masked priest laughed.
“Such strength. Such strength…But there will always be time for more. So many more tests, with such potential. The stories will be magnificent.” The first priest pushed Abeau forward. “But for that we must leave this place, alive.”
Both men stopped, something was scratching upon the door. Tiny scratches, made by something no bigger than a human finger. But Harold and even Valérie would no longer have such things. One thing might...
“Marvellous. Absolutely…Marvellous. Oh, if only I could see you with my own eyes. I wish you all the best. May the Holy Father bless your battle and carry you to victory.”
Abeau pulled the masked priest forward, ignoring the inane muffled giggling, and into the darkness.