CHAPTER 53

Katarina held the woman close as she broke down. She'd found the woman in the deepest, most rancid pit of squalor in the back of a cave inhabited by a group of cannibals. The horrors visited on the woman were unspeakable, but despite the atrocities committed on her flesh, she'd been alive. Katarina had carried the woman out of the cave and to her own camp, grimly and stolidly ignoring the rancid stench of decay.

She'd washed the woman, who thrashed about, flinging her gnawed and rotting limbs. After giving the woman a short rap on the head, she'd severed the woman's arms and legs with her hatchet and tossed them into the fire.

The woman was so far gone she barely bled. She didn't even cry out, which was unsurprising, given the state of her limbs. She'd been fed upon without regard to cleanliness or the fact that she'd still been attached, and when they had grown tired of her, they'd thrown her into their refuse pit.

Katarina had among her possessions a ring of regeneration and she'd severed the woman's limbs so that they'd grow back clean. Her job at this point was simple: Keep the woman alive long enough for the regeneration to be successful. Once she was restored, Katarina could take her home.

Katarina rose to her feet, watching the other woman sleep. The woman had nearly died several times in the past two weeks. Regeneration placed a heavy strain on the body, and Katarina had to keep feeding the woman a meaty broth to fortify her.

Katarina chewed the meat and vegetables to a pulp and fed her as best she could, but the few times the woman had wakened, she'd wished for death, over and over again.

"Do you think she will live?" Ollara asked her quietly one night, as they sat around the fire.

Katarina eyed the sleeping woman. "Wrong question, I think." She replied. "She'll live. Whether she wants to however, that's another question entirely."

Ollara nodded. The horrors the woman had gone through were beyond imagining.

"You killed them all, right Katarina?" the giantess asked, her voice brittle, the undercurrent of savage emotion obvious.

Katarina nodded. "All of them." She replied quietly.

Ollara nodded. "It is your turn at watch." She reminded the Witch Hunter. "Wake me in four hours." She added, and crawled into her bedroll.

Katarina patrolled past the camp's edge, lost in thought. Out here on the plains, the campfire lit the grasslands in every direction, making them a tempting target for anything that happened to catch sight of it. They hadn't been attacked yet, but the possibility forced them to keep a watch at night.

Ever since they'd retrieved the woman from the mountain caves, they'd retreated away from the mountains, and yet even so, the mountains loomed, scraping the heavens.

Katarina wrapped her arms around herself at the numbing horror that chilled her bones.

"I'm... dead?" She despaired, and then blurted, "Again?"

Alicia gaped at her. "Is this a regular occurrence for you?" She asked with a puzzled laugh.

"Well, sort of." Katarina began, and then corrected herself. "Not really, no."

Alicia went off into gales of laughter at that, dropping her spear and clutching her armored belly. After the laughter tapered off, she wiped her face.

"You have a choice, and not much time left before it's made for you." Alicia urged. "Can you go on? Do you want to rest?" She asked gently, holding her hands out like scales.

Katarina took a shaky breath, held it, and let it out. "I'm ready to keep going." She decided, and Alicia nodded.

Katarina pondered this as she walked a circuit around the camp's circumference. Something had happened when she'd picked up Alicia's sash from the podium. She'd slipped and fell and struck her head on the edge with lethal force. She'd died, and the Golden Lady had seen fit to bring her back. The Golden Lady didn't often bring anyone back. Even her prized Saints weren't resurrected. So what did that mean for herself?

She was just a Witch Hunter. There were thousands of paladins, hundreds of clerics and priestesses that lived and fought and loved under the eyes of the Golden Lady that were far more important than she was. No one mourned the passing of a Witch Hunter. When they died, they died in the line of duty. Their names were recorded, and the great machinery of the Empire churned on.

So how should she respond to this? Should she be humbly grateful? Out of everyone in the Empire that carried Her will, the Goddess had chosen her. Should she be upset? After all, the natural flow of her life had been disrupted not once, but twice. Saved from death. Should she strut with ostentatious arrogance and a flashing eye? After all, for some reason beyond Katarina's ken she had been spared from the fires of the crematory. Should she not be saucy in her assurance that the Golden Lady was looking out for her?

As she contemplated these thoughts, she glanced at the campfire and jolted. A figure stood by the fire, backlit so their features were obscured. Katarina took a step back in shock, hand dipping for her gun before she realized who it was she faced.

The angel that possessed Katarina's gun, the spirit of the thunderstorm, the Angel of Thunder, Simurgh stood next to the fire, stormclouds of gray and silver, black and white raced across her eyes.

"You-" Katarina blurted, and the angel raised her eyebrow interrogatively.

"I thought I couldn't invoke you." Katarina reminded the angel, who laughed, the crumbling thunder of distant storms.

"You haven't." She replied pointedly. "I am not here for you." Simurgh added, and reached into the folds of her dress. "I am here for her." She added, gesturing at the sleeping figure of the woman Katarina had rescued.

Katarina gave her a baffled look. "Her? Whyever for?" She objected, and cringed a little at the line that drew down between the angel's brows in anger.

The angel's jaw thrust forward stubbornly. "I was... sent." She hissed bitterly and drew out a hand-and-a-half sword from the folds of her dress that was difficult to see in the low light. "This blade is for her." She casually tossed it to the ground and half-turned as if to leave.

"Simurgh." Katarina called, and the Im Adad turned.

"What is it, human?" She asked curiously.

"You came all this way to drop off a sword?" She asked, and then shook her head. "That isn't what I wanted to ask."

The Angel of the Storm folded her arms beneath her bosom and waited expectantly.

"If she wakes, what do I tell her about the sword?" She asked. Simurgh smiled, then. "Ask her the story of Evangeline Blackwood, Katarina."

"I don't know that name." She replied, and Simurgh shrugged indifferently. "You wouldn't, but she will." The angel remarked dismissively. "Evangeline Blackwood was from this ones' homeland." She said by way of reply.

"That sword is known as the Church of Saint Evangeline." She added. "When it is thrust into the ground, the ground is hallowed and consecrated in the name of the Golden Lady in the same manner as the great cathedrals of your precious Church." She invested that word with as much scorn as was possible. "It has been..." She paused, and there was that sense of tense frustration in the angel's voice. "It falls to that one to carry that sword into battle."

She turned to go, and Katarina called her back.

"Wait, please."

Simurgh rolled her eyes ostentatiously in impatience. "What, human?" She demanded imperiously.

Katarina stepped closer and wrapped her arms around the angel and pulled her into an embrace.

"You are a strange human." Simurgh breathed as Katarina wrapped her arms around the angel. "You cannot hope to bind me." She threatened, and Katarina shook her head. "I haven't tried."

The angel's expression softened. "Good." She returned Katarina's embrace.

"You are frustrated?" Katarina murmured gently and the angel dug her fingers into the taller woman's back painfully for a split second before relaxing.

"It is nothing." Simurgh murmured back. "I am simply not used to... carrying messages." She replied. "I will go now." She whispered, and like that, Katarina was standing in the grass, arms encircling nothing.

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"You're awake. Good." The woman's voice was rich and smooth. Elizabeth turned her head and focused on the speaker.

"I had the most bizarre dreams." She murmured huskily.

"I imagine so." The woman replied, and held out a bowl of soup. "You should be able to sit up, but I'd suggest you do it slowly. Your recovery took a while."

Elizabeth sat up slowly. The woman was right, there were no hurts or aches, but there was a draining weariness, a heaviness to her limbs, as if they'd been filled with sand.

"Are..." Elizabeth began, and straightened her back.

"You should eat first. You've got questions, and that's fine, but you need to eat, first." The woman forestalled her, and gestured with the bowl of soup she was offering.

Elizabeth took the bowl and sniffed the contents; it seemed to be a meaty broth with vegetables. Suddenly hunger seemed to scream up from her very being, she was ravenous, famished, starved. She gulped down the contents quickly and wordlessly thrust the bowl back at the other woman, who smiled wanly and filled it again.

"There you go." She replied, and Elizabeth gulped the second bowl down as quickly as the first. She devoured two more bowls before the urgent, slavering hunger disappeared.

"Better?" The woman asked, and Elizabeth nodded. She took her time in examining the other woman, who was strangely dressed. She raised her eyebrow- the woman was dressed like a man. There was something in the way she spoke that seemed off, too.

She wiped her mouth. "Are you an angel?" She asked, scrutinizing the other woman, who surprised her by bursting into laughter.

"Far from it." the woman replied, flicking her braid over her shoulder. "My name is Katarina lon Pavlenko. I'm a Witch Hunter in service to the Golden Lady." She said by way of introduction, and then chuckled. "Angel? Where'd you get that idea?"

The woman's- Katarina's accent was strange. Similar in ways to her own, but faint.

"It's just you were in my dreams. You kept me from the embrace of the Golden Lady."

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Katarina rolled her eyes. "I was trying to save your life." she replied pointedly.

"And the other one?" Elizabeth questioned. "The woman with the black dress and eyes like thunderclouds?"

Katarina eyed her wordlessly for a moment and then took a drink from her canteen. "You said it yourself, you were dreaming." She replied, arching her eyebrow at Elizabeth.

"I've a question of my own." Katarina began. "Who are you?"

Elizabeth sighed. "I'm Elizabeth lon Nemescu." She replied.

"What were you doing before you ended up in that abattoir of horror?" Katarina asked, and Elizabeth frowned.

"Patrolling the Sterious. All sorts of blasphemous things come down from the highlands." She replied simply.

"Ah, you're a paladin, then." Katarina replied, and the woman shook her head. "I'm just a warrior." She replied. "I haven't the funds to travel all the way to Hesperia to receive the blessings of the Church."

Katarina rolled her eyes at that. "Elizabeth, what is a paladin?" She offered.

"A warrior consecrated in the light of the Goddess." The other woman replied quickly. "A warrior fortified with wisdom, patience, and discipline."

"Is the Golden Lady only present in the Alstroemeria?" She asked, referring to the Grand Cathedral and central capital of the Empire of the Golden Lady. Elizabeth rolled her eyes. "Of course not." She snorted. Katarina nodded. "In your heart then, do you think of yourself as a paladin?" She asked, and Elizabeth eyed her suspiciously. What sort of question was this?

"I can't be a paladin." She repeated. "No matter what I wish."

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Katarina awoke once to a feeling like liquid fire searing across her back. She screamed, or thought she did, and faded away into unconsciousness again.

Awareness seemed to steal over her. It was hard to tell if she was awake or not. She blinked a few times; she was surrounded by complete darkness. She turned her head, and the feeling of cloth pressed across her face. She tried to move and discovered she was spread-eagle, facedown on a bed that wasn't much wider than she was. In fact, her feet and arms seemed to hang off of the mattress. After a struggle where she tried to sit up and failed, she realized her arms and legs were bound, too.

"What-" She started, and then stopped. She was hooded, bound, and naked. There wasn't much that needed to be said to the sort of people that would do such a thing.

"Peace, human." A strong baritone voice urged gently. "If you struggle too much, you will reopen your wounds."

"Release me." Katarina replied flatly.

"Stop." The voice commanded in a voice that brooked no opposition. "You were wounded. It was my decision to treat you. The nature of the wounds on your back required me to tie you down in this fashion. Your arms and legs should be at their most relaxed. If you struggle, then the muscles in your back may tear."

"Release me." Katarina repeated flatly.

"Certainly, just as soon as you heal." the baritone voice agreed, with a hint of amusement. "But we can't have you running around just yet." the voice added.

"Healing." Katarina replied.

"That's right. Your back, neck, buttocks and legs were severely injured."

"I remember." She replied reluctantly. There had only been a eyeblink's warning before the ground heaved. Katarina let out a breath. "Let's say for the sake of argument that I believe you." She began, and the owner of the voice let out a polite chuckle.

"Of course. Let's." the voice invited.

"The hood?" She offered pointedly.

"To protect you." The voice replied immediately. "And to protect us as well."

"Why?" She demanded. The voice chuckled again, but it was weary and strained. Forced.

"Because my people and your people have been killing each other for uncountable years." he replied softly. "Uncountable for us because our history is all but lost to us." He added. "Our sacred temples have been smashed, our elders put to the torch, our tava leaves burned." He continued relentlessly. "Our nation was not a large one, but it was a peaceful one." He recounted wistfully. "Until your people came. You marched on our city and your people called us blasphemers and abominations and cut us down." A tight anger entered his voice then, and he took a shaky breath and let it out. "And you kept coming and kept cutting us down, until our homes and cities were desolate. Not one stone stood atop another." He added. "So much of our history and culture lost. I weep for that, if nothing else."

Katarina was silent for a while.

"Beastman?" She offered, and he chuckled. "Nothing so uncivilized, I'm afraid." He replied. "But forgive my outburst. We were speaking of your healing."

"If our people have been fighting so long, why not simply kill me?" She offered calmly.

There was a long moment of silence, and Katarina strained her ears to listen for the tiniest detail.

"We have been killing each other for ... a very long time. Maybe hundreds of years. Maybe thousands. I don't know. It was the same in my father's time, and his father before him." He mused. "But I will tell you a story, if you would hear it." He offered.

"I suppose." Katarina replied grudgingly.

"One part of our culture that has survived: When you become a man, or a woman, you and your brothers and sisters all come together, and a great fire is built: a sacred fire. You walk through the fire, and in the heat and flames you are given a flash of insight, a vision into what your purpose is. Some become carpenters. Others become smiths, or stonecutters, you get the idea." He added, and took a long breath.

"And when it was my time to step into the sacred fire, I thought that maybe I would be called to be a warrior. My father's father dreamed of the spear, my father dreamed of the spear; surely it was my destiny as well."

"It wasn't?" Katarina asked, her voice muffled.

"It wasn't." He confirmed. "Instead of seeing a vision in the flames, a voice spoke up in my chest and asked a question." He barked a laugh. "I went to our shaman to understand what happened."

"What's a shaman?" Katarina asked. The man chuckled. "A wise old man... or woman, who knows the mystery of dreams, the ways of healing, and walks the paths of wisdom."

"So what did the shaman tell you?" She asked.

"To find the answer to the question." He replied. "So I became her apprentice, and when she died, I became shaman, and now it is I who heals and reveals the mysteries." he laughed. "The question was, 'what is evil?'" He finished.

"And what is it?" She asked, and there was a long pause.

"I believe that evil is hate and anger that has lost its meaning." He said after a while. "When used properly, anger and hate are powerful tools of motivation. Ambition, greed, lust, envy, desire, all of these things can be tapped in positive ways. But when the purpose behind them is gone, when all you do is hate, when all you do is growl with furious anger and beat your fists against the wall, and the only reason for it is hate itself, then you know you have seen and felt evil."

Katarina nodded. "I cannot find fault in your argument." Katarina replied after a time. He laughed. "And now you mock me." He chided. "I require neither your approval nor your agreement, human." He snarled, and caught himself. He took a breath.

"I am doing something that no other of my kind has tried, human." He added. "I am trying to destroy the hate between my people and yours." he explained. "I could kill you, yes. I am no warrior, but it takes no degree of skill to slit a throat. But you cannot destroy hate with hate, therefore I shall crush it with... kindness." He let out a long, slow breath that was shaky.

"I have tended your wounds. Fiabel is repairing your clothes. When it is time for your wounds to be tended, she will apply the unguents. She will feed you, and she will bathe you." He explained. "And it's my hope that our conversations will ... help heal the hate between our peoples. If I can lessen it, even just a little, then I will have accomplished my life's goal."

Katarina lay in silence for a while as she digested this.

"I have two questions." She decided. "For now."

The baritone voice laughed. "Of course. You can do little else but speak for the time being. Ask what you will."

"You can't cover me up at all?" She asked.

"Ah. I hear the real, unasked need: You fear for your virtue." He observed, and then snorted. "There is no desire in my body for your flesh. Our peoples are too dissimilar."

Had she the ability Katarina would have nodded in confirmation. She was dealing with a nonhuman species. Perhaps elves. She loathed elves.

"To answer your question properly, you must understand you were grievously wounded. The skin on your back, from neck to thighs was scraped away. I had a tree brought in here, I bound it in bedding, and I bound you to it. If you move, the muscles will tear. The skin will not heal properly." He paused. "It's ugly to look at. But if I cover you with a cloth, there is a risk of the cloth attaching itself to the wound."

Katarina exhaled. "I understand." She agreed reluctantly. The ground had heaved in an unexpected tremor, her horse had bolted and she had slipped. Normally a master horseman, she'd fallen off of her saddle, and her horse, maddened by fear, had dashed away, dragging her along behind it.

"Good." He finished. "Your second question, then?" He asked, and she smiled a little. "What are tava leaves?" She asked, and he chuckled.

"Great leaves from the sacred tava tree. If treated one way, they become leathery. We use them for our clothes and armor. Sliced and boiled, they release a powerful healing salve. It's what is rebuilding your shredded muscles and skin. If you boil and scrape the leaves like a hide, and then stretch them out in the sun they become fine as parchment. We use the scraped leaves as parchment."

"Useful." Katarina remarked. The voice agreed.

At some point the hood was removed from Katarina's head so that the wounds on her neck could be treated. All she was able to see, however, was the unrelieved brown of a hard-packed dirt floor, and the colorless bedding she lay on. Her chest and pelvis ached from laying facedown on what was described to her as a tree trunk that had been wrapped in bedding.

Whoever they were, it felt like they were rubbing a salve into her wounds, which burned and itched maddeningly, eliciting a moan from her. The rubbing stopped, and that seemed to make it worse. Her whole neck and back seemed to crawl with itching.

"Are you awake, human?" A low, husky voice intruded on her suffering. It was somewhat pleasant and feminine, thick with accent. The previous one she'd spoken to was easier to understand.

Katarina tried to answer but only uttered a feeble croak.

"Here, some water." the voice invited, and a pair of cupped hands appeared in her vision. Katarina twitched involuntarily, causing rippling fire to sear across her back. The speaker's hands were the light, powdery gray of ash. Whatever they were, they weren't human.

Katarina forced herself to drink. She was in no position to refuse anything, and her body, as much as she was loathe to admit it, needed to heal. For now, she would be forced to cooperate.

"Thank you." Katarina forced herself to express gratitude.

"The salve will sting at first." The woman warned as the hands were withdrawn. Katarina briefly spied a thigh just as gray as the hands that had offered water. "But it is necessary. I'm sorry for any discomfort." She apologized, and Katarina suddenly felt a thick splash of cool liquid hit the middle of her back, immediately followed by insistent, aggressive kneading massage that worked the unguent into her back. She screamed hoarsely as her aching nerves sizzled with a new stinging pain.

When it was over, the burning, itching feeling was gone, replaced by a blissful, cool lassitude that washed over her. She dozed. In her dream she held Ollara's head to her bosom as the giantess sobbed the loss of her husband.

Katarina. Katarina. She opened her eyes in the darkness of the hood that had been replaced.

"Katarina. I asked if you were awake." the male voice intruded on her.

"I am now." She complained, feeling the reflexive shame at being so exposed and vulnerable, coupled with revulsion at what might be looking upon her bare body.

The voice chuckled at that. "Sleep is good. When you sleep, the body directs its energies to healing."

"Then why wake me?" She complained, and he chuckled again. "You can't heal if you don't eat." He replied. "Your body craves nutrients."

Katarina sighed.

"Today, you have a stew of meat and vegetables cooked soft." He explained as the hood was removed. Directly below her line of sight was a wooden bowl heaped with mushy carrots and what might have been potatoes. Lumps of meat spotted the meal.

"What meat is that?" She asked, and he made some noise in his throat. "It's goat. I would have given you chicken instead because it's easier to digest, but you have been without food for a couple of days."

Katarina grimly suffered the indignity of being fed, mistrustfully eyeing the gray hands that helpfully spooned the stew into her mouth.

The first few bites were the worst. After so long without sustenance, the food was too rich and her body wanted to sick it up. She grimly fought down her gorge until the urge to vomit had passed. Even then her body seemed reluctant to digest it; the food lay in her belly like a greasy lode.

"Before I let you sleep, Katarina, I have a question."

"What is it?" She asked wearily.

"What Gods do you serve?" He asked with unfeigned curiosity.

"I serve the Golden Lady." She replied immediately. "Who do you serve?" She asked.

"Our gods are mostly forgotten to us." He replied. "There is a War God we remember, but he is capricious and fickle. He does not care whose blood is spilled, only that it is spilled, and spilled in combat." He replied simply. "Not one to pray to for wisdom or guidance." he added. "Tell me of your Goddess." He invited.

"She goes by many names." Katarina replied. "She is the Goddess of the Dawn. The Lady of Spring, The Teacher, The Mother, The Golden Defender."

"Those are titles Katarina, not names. You announced to me once that you were a Witch Hunter in service to this Golden Lady, but 'Witch Hunter' is not your name." He argued patiently. "What is the name of your Goddess?" He asked again.

A shock of adrenaline froze her heart. "It's blasphemy to speak her name." She replied warily. "She is a jealous goddess, and invoking her name irresponsibly will invoke her wrath." She warned.

"In the Divine, names are sacred, and hold great power." He agreed solemnly, and she bristled. Was he making fun of her?

"She teaches us many things." She began. "As children we are taught her three Aspects: The Lady of Spring, who teaches us the joy, importance, and reverence for fertility in all its forms, from growing crops to having children. That Aspect is represented by a Lily." She summarized briefly. "The Kneeling Woman Aspect teaches us the value and importance of lessons and wisdom. Our healers revere the Kneeling Woman." She explained simply. "The last of the Holy Trinity is the Golden Defender. Our warriors revere her. She teaches defense of the weak, preparedness against our enemies, and swift retribution for our enemies." She explained. "The symbol of the Golden Defender is a shield with two swords sheathed behind it, reminding us that protection does not come from a shield alone; we must be prepared to draw our swords against those that threaten us." She finished.

"Your Goddess is as wise as she is powerful, Katarina." He replied reverently after a long moment.

"You mock my Lady." Katarina replied, bristling. She struggled against the ropes that held her, setting her back aflame.

"I do not." He replied curtly. "And do not struggle, you will undo the healing that has begun." he reminded her.

He was silent for a while. After she settled down and began to doze, he spoke up again.

"I remind you that we have forgotten our Gods and Goddesses." He said softly. "I'm sure that if we could hold them in our hearts as you hold your Golden Lady in yours, our people would be all the stronger for it." he finished, a note of sadness in his voice. "Sleep now. We will speak again when you wake."