Anastasia stood in shock before the doors to the Parish of Healing she had once loved to visit. She had friends here. Or had…
The militiamen at her back cowered together. They were all spooked by what they saw. Weeks old blood and signs of battle lay everywhere. The rotten smell of corpses rose high and thick in the air through the broken gates and doors of the once beautiful country temple. Once everyone in the area had known where to go to get healing, or to safely have a baby. Children would come here in the days around planting and harvesting to learn to read and write. Anastasia had even stepped in time or two to teach mathematics when the temple needed a teacher for an extra class.
So she held tight to her gold inlaid staff, and carefully lifted the heavy material of her Priestess of Light robes over the ruins of the gate. She stepped inside into the yard to be assaulted by the smell of rotten corpses instead of just the blissful smells of the garden. She stepped forward slowly down the paved path straight to the temple doors. They would have been open this time of year to let the breeze into the high arching walls of the main temple.
She stepped onto the door that had been battered flat to the ground and was careful of the other heavy wooden door that now hung twisted and precarious on just one hinge. Inside the white and blue carpet was stained brown and worse leading up to the altar of Istania, which itself had been defiled as well. What was left of its head was now presumably just that broken spray of marble off to the left side of the statue.
The militiamen followed her inside as she stared at a bloodstained litter of some kind near the three step stairs up to the platform of the altar. A rough made bed lay there surrounded by the remnants of meals, a large pitcher of stained water, dirty bandages, and rough hewn herbal medicines.
“Lady Priestess!” One of the militiamen called. They had been calling her for sometime, but she didn't care.
“Ivan!?” Anastasia shouted. “Tanya!? Mother Melda?!” She called and rushed up the stairs to the back rooms.
The militiamen followed, panicked and scared, all with their swords drawn and ready as they chased after her calling her by title alone. Anastasia ran down halls that were now cold and dark where they had once been warm and bright. The rooms of children lay open and empty, signs of the raid against the temple lay everywhere among them.
Children and patients alike had been pulled from beds and gathered in the main hall of the temple. Blankets lay pulled from bed, teddy bears, and other soft things left discarded on the floors among the ruins of objects that had once been sacred symbols to the Followers of Istania. Anastasia ran through the halls uncaring of danger, looking for her friends, for anyone.
What she eventually found was the most hidden garden tucked away from the wind inside a massive inner courtyard. White Lilly's grew around patches of bare earth in almost countless numbers. The light of the sun seemed for once to shine peacefully down again on the temple at least in this place. Birds sang softly. Bees went from flower to flower coming from boxes carefully hidden away in the garden so as to not stand out. A rabbit, unafraid of people, hopped near one of the graves that now littered the sacred ground.
Anastasia fell to her knees along the grassy paths. The militiamen piled in behind her, shield raised and looking every which way, but she didn't so much as pay them any mind.
“Priestess. It isn't safe here. Whole patrols have been going missing left and right around here. Who knows what's tucked away in here--” Their sergeant said to her.
“SHUT YOUR MOUTH! SHUT IT!” Anastasia screamed at him without reserve or hesitation.
The men fell back staring wide eyed at the tears pouring from hers. She took up her staff and swung it at them in a rage.
The men fell back, one deflecting her wild blows with his shield before he was out of her reach.
“Search the parish! Find anyone alive and by the Lord of Light if you hurt them I will burn out your eyes!” She growled at them.
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“But Lady Priestess, they could be dangerous—They killed one of the Knights of Dawn.” One of the men countered.
“PUT YOUR LIGHT DAMNED WEAPONS AWAY THEN!” Anastasia roared at him as she brandished her staff in both hands threateningly. “These people were my friends. Heretics or not now they are now what they were then and I will speak to each and every one of them before you so much as lay a forceful finger upon them!”
“Lady Priestess!” One objected again.
Anastasia clubbed at him with her staff. He caught each blow on his shield, but staggered back under her furious strikes. Hot angry tears ran from Anastasia's eyes as she went after the man. She had been so frustrated. So confused. Finally her God heard reason and the unbelievable order to kill every follower of Istania as a Heretic was lifted. Repentance was still mandatory, but that could be won over in time. Anastasia could at least help her friends reach that point, but if they were all dead she didn't know what she would do.
“We are here to help them! We are to believe our god did the right thing by mankind, but followers of Istania or not they are still our people!” Anastasia reiterated as the man retreated behind the others and out of her reach. She wiped at her eyes with her sleeve and stood straight. She then pointed back into the temple.
“Put your weapons away and go. See if anyone is still here. If you steal anything or disgrace this place any more than it has I will quiet literally burn your eyes out. I mean it.” Anastasia ordered them, slamming her staff once on the ground to display a potent aura of light around her.
When they all left, breaking into pairs 'for safety', Anastasia finally let herself turn back around and go to the graves. Each was surrounded in smooth river stones that had once lined the paths around the outside of the temple. At the head of each someone had carved names. She went to each one, pain lancing into her with each of them she read. The task became more difficult as she went on through the tears and fought to control her sobbing.
Tough little Ral, and eager little Jen. Mother Melda, and Father Julian. Tanya. Other boys and girls who had been taken in by the parish and called it home. She had tutored many of the little ones in one on one lessons and knew them all by name. Even Mother Melda and Father Julian's own children hadn't survived. They were buried next to them, small graves with the girls beside their mother and the two boys beside their father. Each of their names brought another spear of deep and terrible pain into Anastasia's heart.
Anastasia fell onto the grass staining her white robes and fell to her hands. She didn't know how long she stayed there at the foot of Mother Melda's grave, but she got a hold of herself eventually. She had cried enough this week already and needed to be about things now that the order at large was seeing reason. Whatever had happened at least the killing had stopped. She could save anyone who was still alive. She would shelter them away from the Order if she had to kill every Inquisitor to do it.
“Why them Lord?” Anastasia asked knowing Theadus would not answer. He could have heard if he wanted, but there were so many voices among his followers. Like the Militiamen at her command, she doubted if her god even knew her name. A shadow of doubt crept over her mind accompanied old memories. Istania had known her name.
She forced herself to stand and take in the graves and the names upon them once more. She looked them over with something tickling in her mind. Someone was missing. Then she saw his face in her mind.
Ivan, smiling, and laughing with Tanya on his arm either following behind him as he pulled her along or the other way around. 'Big Sister Ana' they had always called her. She was a number of years older than them, and they weren't related, but Istania's temples and the people in them made everyone feel like family. Over the years Anastasia had embraced that big sister role and thought of the two as family. In recent years she had been looking forward to being called 'Aunty' too, but that was just another thought to cause her pain right now. She shelved those thoughts and their pain together.
With a start she looked over the graves again, and then took off at a run into the temple once more. She found the living quarters strangely empty of the smells of cooking and clean living that normally filled them. She passed them by and found the rooms of her friends. One by one she looked through them until she found Ivan's room.
He wasn't inside. His things were gone, and his room out of all the others seemed the most orderly. It had still clearly been raided, the door lock broken and the drawers of his dressers damaged. Yet he had been here to clean it and stayed in the bed at least once. It filled her heart with a tiny hope.
Upon her return to the central living quarters a pair of the militiamen were waiting.
“We haven't found anyone my lady. Just more graves out in the back garden. None of us know them as militia, but there's a great heap of bodies outside the back wall. It's awful, but it looks like at least Knight Tadus's command is there.” The man gulped. “Tadus's head was missing, but we can begin their burials if you like.”
“Do that.” Anastasia said calmly. She took several deep breaths. Conflict rolled in her mind, but she took solace in the fact she wasn't alone in her feelings. Many of the Followers of Light would have stood against this rapid and unprecedented action their God had taken if only they knew. By the time many did it was too late and so much damage had been done.
The militiamen left and Anastasia was left on her own again. Tears sprung from her eyes and soft sob from her lips, but she packed her feelings away again before they could spill out.
“Where are you Ivan...” She whispered softly to herself. She had to cling to that little flame of hope in her heart.
Still, she was troubled. Clearly it was Ivan's hand that had turned the earth of the garden into graves and transplanted the flowers to surround them. Just as clearly it was Ivan who had killed more than a dozen men involved in the raid. Ivan had always been a little determined terror in a fight, but he had never been a killer. He had always asked for training from any and all knights, warrior's and various other adventurers who stayed at the parish from time to time.
Clearly, just like his arena wins in recent years, Ivan had shown his fighting prowess yet again. Anastasia just hoped she could find him, calm him down, and take care of him before he got himself killed with the anger and pain that must be filling him.