We had interrogated ‘Blue’ the feral several more times for information, but as it turned out, he was not aware of the exact goings on of his home.

I had tried to get information regarding Silika, but he simply retorted that he wouldn’t know, since he hadn’t been staying at the hideout much for the last few days as he was busy ferrying goods to and fro. By Blue’s account, her being kidnapped would mean that she wouldn’t be hurt as they only took back people either as ransom prisoners or to become new ‘mothers’...

I tried to focus my mind on the prior. She was too young by all accounts for that, but the mere idea made my mind drift to the worst of places…

The actual preparation for the mission was quite hasty, in other circumstances, a week or more would have been taken to plan, but as soon as reinforcement arrived from Jilbeck’s Crossing, we had come to the the planning table.

It was agreed that the raid would take place tomorrow at dawn. I hadn’t slept in 3 days and I could feel my vision wavering as I stared at the planning table.

All together, we had forty abled men and women who volunteered for the mission. Composed predominantly of Jillbeck’s Crossing and my own garrison, as well as some local hunters and residents.

At the centre of the table was a cube representing the entrance to the buried castle and at its south, a sharp mountain face. The original plan would have had bowmen stand at the ready on top of the hill to rain down on the enemy as the ferals came out of their hiding spot, but after Blue’s interrogation and my own men’s experience, we came to the conclusion at their tactics seemed to be based on ambush instead of outright confrontations. This meant that they were likely to retreat to the relative safety of their base.

The idea of using smoke or gases like for rat dens had been considered, but as this doubled as a rescue mission, the risks were too high. Although we knew they were low on food, starving them out was also out of question for that same reason.

Our last remaining option was an all out assault, but this carried the most risks.

I gazed up from the board toward my comrades. In truth, I didn’t even properly register the garrison leader’s name due to my sleep-deprived state, and so, I simply referred to him as ‘Captain’.

“So what’s your opinion, Captain? Can your men handle this sort of close quarter combat?”

The man scratched his greying beard as he stared the board.

“I believe they are aptly equipped, but I’m worried about the rest of our troops. My men can’t take them all on their own and the volunteers won’t be able to make much use of their bow indoors.”

I turned to my uncle.

“Thoughts?”

He nodded.

“We spring clean.”

Marlot then explained the details of what he had in mind. After going over what the strategies entailed, I left the room exhausted.

My mind was more troubled than it had been for a long time.

I could feel the heavy thuds in my chest and every thought running through my mind felt coated in molasses. It hurt to think, as, no matter what, my mind inevitably went back to one thing.

Silika.

Every moment since her disappearance, my mind has been filled with horrible thoughts about what might have happened to her. Thoughts I wouldn’t even be able to put into words. Horrible, disgusting, the mere fact that they came to me made me feel repulsed with myself.

I was grasping at the hope that she was being treated well and only kept as a hostage, but every hour we didn’t receive any type of ransom, made me doubt this pragmatic outcome.

The familiar hand of my uncle placed itself on my shoulder.

“You’ve been standing here for a while now.”

I turned to him. His expression was unscruitable as ever. For a man with such expressive features, it was a wonder how he was so adept at disguising his thoughts.

“I must have spaced out.”

I said pitifully. Not even having the energy to come up with a proper excuse.

“That you have.”

He looked at me for a moment before speaking again.

“It will be alright.”

He simply said, but the words somehow made me feel worse.

“I know, I know. It’ll be fine, Silika will be alright and we’ll be on our way to Clotop to…”

“No.”

He interrupted me before letting out a sigh.

“Sometimes, I forget how young you are, barely any older than my own son and daughter. Perhaps it is a parent’s curse to never feel as though we have imparted enough of our wisdom to our children, or maybe it’s because you were so young when you left for the battlefield… But there is still much for you to learn, not only about the world, but about yourself.”

He released my shoulder and motioned me to follow him.

Although slightly annoyed at his condescending words, I followed him. Marlot, if nothing else, was a wise man. Only my cousin was fooling enough to dismiss him.

As we leaned against the wooden balustrade he began speaking again.

“We mann are the recipients to a curse. Through our mortal condition, we are victims of the eternal dance of the gods. Life and death, love and hate, order and chaos. Through the way the gods designed this world, we are bound to suffer endlessly the result of their design. We are all blessed with life, but will inevitably experience death. We are all bound to experience love, but just as well, we are bound to lose it. We strive for a perfect life, but we will never fully experience it.”

He took a deep breath and turned to me.

“We’ve all learned of these things in church so many times over, but many of us forget what this truly means. Although we are all bound to suffer, we are equally bound to experience happiness. In the day-to-day life of us small creatures, life may seem unfair and difficult, but we must remember to not let it get the better of us. There is light at the end of this tunnel...”

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Marlot raised himself and stretched.

“...But we must continue to believe that there is something waiting for us, for when we accept our fate and give up, that is when the dance of the gods will reach its end and our soul will return to the immaterium.”

He turned to me.

“From the bottom of my heart, from my soul of soul, I believe that Silika will be alright, because if I don’t, then there is no chance that she will be.”

With those words, he left.

I remained there for a moment, gazing out at the stars.

“I must believe that Silika will be alright…”

It felt foolish somehow. As though I was supposed to trick myself into believing a lie, but I shook myself.

It’s only a lie if I believe it’s a lie…

I can’t say I slept soundly that night, but I slept. Which was more than I had done for the three prior days.

The sun had yet risen when we departed for the steppes as the scouts led us toward the entrance to the lair.

Despite what I had been told through their reports, this place felt… Underwhelming. It was a simple hole in the dirt, wild grasses grew around it making it almost imperceptible at a glance. It was probably how they had avoided detection for so long while still being at such a close distance from civilization.

Marlot raised his hand and immediately the men arranged themselves into two lines. Two archers moved forward as we walked down silently toward the cave entrance and released arrows into the dark. Although I hadn’t seen what they had shot, I could hear the surprised gasp of the victims. We closed the distance and found the sentry, dead at the entrance with two arrows piercing its body.

I couldn’t help but glance at its twisted corpse, how absurd and corrupted it looked… Yet somehow pitiful in its diminutive size and emaciated form.

I almost felt an ounce of sympathy for its cursed existence, but I shielded my heart as I looked up from the corpse and continued my way deeper into the cavern.

As the men lit up their torches, I was relieved to discover that Blue’s information had turned out to be true. The cavern eventually led to a broken stone wall beyond which laid the remains of a buried castle.

The halls were empty although we could hear voices echoing in the distance distance. We walked slowly and eventually, the men reached the a door.The first knight placed his hand on the handle and looked back at Marlot who simply nodded.

With that, he opened the door and 5 of them stormed the room before closing the door behind them. Some sound could be heard from beyond, obviously, they’d encountered someone or something, but a simple 2 knocks sounded on the door. The signal that they were handling it.

We continued on the corridor and repeated this process multiple times, at first it worked well, but eventually, some of the ferals were able to scream out and their curious breathren started poking their head out of doors and by the time we reached the main hall, we were swarmed by all sides.

Luckily, it was all according to our expectations and the soldiers quickly cleared out the room in order to take control of the central area. The soldiers who had stayed back clearing out the previous room rejoined us and we were able to establish a perimeter.

The battle was won, now it was mostly a matter of proceeding with the ‘spring cleaning’ Marlot had talked about. They would be hiding, hoping to catch us off guard, but we wouldn’t let them.

So far the attack was a success with no casualties, but the real danger was still to come.

We had lost the element of surprise and every second they would be mounting greater resistance… And most worryingly still no sign of Silika or the so-called ‘mothers’.

Marlot, who had finished giving out orders to properly establish the perimeter, met back with me toward the centre of the room and began eyeing the same door as I was. It was central and large.

He and I were probably thinking the same thing.

All the creatures we had met until now, the ones we called ferals, were in fact only bastards of one progenitor. The true heretic at the heart of this operation, the one who had gone against the gods and made these bastards, was probably standing right on the other side of this door.

I looked down at my sword, still clean. I don’t know if it was cowardice or luck, but it hadn’t struck a single enemy yet. The idea somehow terrified me, the sight of blood, its scent, watching as the life drained from their face…

I took a deep breath. I had to do this. I had to protect Silika.

I turned to Marlot who nodded meaningfully, we approached the door where three other men were already waiting for us.

I gripped the rusting iron handle and flung the heavy wooden door open.

The first thing that came over me was the stench.

It was indescribable. It wasn’t a good smell, but it wasn’t pungent or particularly stomach-churning. It was simply the smell of something wrong. Like the smell of smoke in a cave or blood in a bakery.

As my eyes adjusted to the darkness and the flickering light reached deeper into the chamber, I didn’t know how to react. Saying that the room was covered in a mix of flesh and iron would have been making light of the scene in front of us.

Scattered about were half-formed things. Things that looked like men and like blades, but all of it incongruous and misshapen, like the poor souls that we had slaughtered today, but somehow more raw… And there was something or maybe someone, in here. I could feel its anger, its thirst for blood, yet I couldn’t see them.

It wasn’t until it moved that I realised he was in fact the one we had been looking for.

his body was draped in long stained canvas, beneath which patchy scarlet skin could be seen with 2 large horns protruding from his skull and countless limbs poking out of all sides of his body…

The heretic. He looked… Grotesque… But the word couldn’t even convey how disturbing the sight was. It wasn’t simply abnormal, it was impossible.

I watched as six hands gripped the chair handle, only to slowly push himself up.

I raised my sword, but that was in nought as it simply took the chair and slung it in our direction with the strength of ten men.

I only narrowly avoided the attack by diving to the floor and was horrified to find the chair had been turned into splinters.

I turned back to the cmonster just as one of the knights sweeped his sword at the him, but the warlock’s hands simply grasped the sword before it could make impact and crushed it into pieces making them fly out across the room. He then slowly started rotating toward the right.

When I understood it was preparing to hit the man, I tried to get up to intervene, but Marlot was faster.

With a roar he rammed into the creature with his shoulder throwing it off balance long enough to allow for the knight to retreat.

The hands grasped for his body, but Marlot was able to invoke a blessing fast enough to shield himself, but that didn’t stop the creatures from trying to pummel him which Marlot could do very little to protect himself other than protect his body as much as his shield would allow, but the denting was becoming more extensive by the second.

As the creature focused its attack on Marlot, I noticed the arms rearranging themselves forward to focus on Marlot, leaving its back exposed.

Using his distraction, I slowly made my way behind the creatures and then focused all my thoughts on the tip of my sword before rushing forward.

It went through.

It slid and knocked against impossible bones, but by some miracles it slipped all the way through until the hilt of my sword was right against his scarlet skin.

He let out what a scream of pain. A strangely mann-like scream.

As it begun thrashing about, I released my sword while it tried to grip the blade in vain as the strength in its arm weakened and the pool of blood grew beneath him.

He bled a lot. Too much. It was illogical, inhumane.

Lilika… She bled like that as…

Before finishing the thought I began hurling.

“Marshal! Are you…”

I waved him off and wiped the corner of my mouth.

“I’m fine.”

I then pointed to the heretic.

His body had somehow deflated. The arms that moved across his skin so grotestly up until now hung limply like excess skin, yet it continued screaming.

“You imbeciles! You ruined it! You ruined it all!”

Marlot spat on the ground.

“You got what you deserved, you filth!”

“You’re a fool! You’ve all been fooled! The gods will take everything from you and leave you to rot! We must fight it, we can't let their laws control u…”

Marlot ran a sword through the warlock’s throat.

“May this poor sinner find a fair judgement in Solomon’s embrace.”

Marlot quietly prayed before removing the sword from its throat.

The room fell in an odd silence and in the silence, when we heard a light whimpering sound.

“Silika!”

I rushed toward the sound and found a door toward the back of the room, but what I found was not Silika.

It was the mother.