Absolution
It was the middle of the night, and the Knight's Sheath had settled. The bar was closed, and courtesans lay in their beds beside blacked-out and satisfied customers. All was at peace. But then, that peace was interrupted. There was no warning, only the flash and roar as a barrage of fireballs was unleashed. They splashed against the exterior of the building, lighting up the windows and spraying flames in all directions, shaking everyone awake.
Those who had been present at the original fire of Galvin's retaliation, those who had survived the flames, released screams of terror as horrific nightmares came rushing back. It was happening all over again. They would be destitute once more, that is, if the fire didn't devour them. However, while this would have been a tragedy months ago, the culprits in the street found their efforts wasted.
"It's not burning!" one of the robed men cursed, watching as the flames simply withered away, as if they were hitting a stone cliff.
Nothing burned, courtesy of the countless wards of protection Cyrilo and Sophia had laid out across the building. Magic circles and runic lines had been written across walls, floors, ceilings, window frames, support beams, and the roof and painted over. It was a fortune in high-grade ink, but the spells were rendered useless.
"Hit it with everything!" another ordered.
The attackers, numbering almost a dozen, raised their hands and unleashed their magic. Bolts of lightning, jets of flame, boulders, water bombs, air blasts, and holy rays bombarded the building like raining artillery, but despite the attackers' best efforts, the Knight's Sheath stood resolute. They could see it with each failed impact, a protective barrier of mana made visible in the darkness, shielding the building from all outside force. This defense kept Uther's armies from breaching the walls of Welindar for so many years.
"This isn't working, we need to go! Hurry and—" An arrow was planted in the man's chest, cutting him off. A second arrow then hit the man beside him in the gut.
"Up there!" a third pointed, directing his cohorts' eyes to a window where Alexis stood, wearing nothing but a nightgown and quiver of arrows, and holding a bow.
"Sorry, we're closed for the night!"
She rained arrows down on the attackers, nailing the men with rapid speed and pinpoint aim, and drawing agonized cries. None of the shots were fatal, not that they needed to be. Each arrow was enchanted with a lightning spell, electrocuting the targets while the paralyzing agent that coated the arrowheads entered their bloodstreams. Her victims were robbed of movement, no longer able to end their lives.
"Scatter!" one of the men barked.
The remaining attackers tried to flee, but Alexis wasn't going to let them go. She dropped a rope from the window, rappelled down, and then took off barefoot through the street. She chased after men, planting arrows in their backs and taking them down like big game. It was over quickly, and Alexis dragged her stunned prey back to the Knight's Sheath, where they were bound and gagged out front.
Windows in all the surrounding buildings were lighting up as citizens, awoken by the sounds of violence, stepped outside to see what was happening. As usual, the knights and soldiers were late to the scene, but this time, they wouldn't simply be hauling away corpses.
"Enchanted arrows with poisoned tips? That is nasty in the best way," said Frigga as the assailants were loaded into a prisoner wagon.
"Dead men tell no tales, so we had to work around it," said Cyrilo, speaking in her cat form with Sophia holding her.
"Are you sure you can get them to talk?" asked Alexis, now dressed.
"Gradius may be gone, but the inquisitors under him are ready and waiting, and Sir Berholm can be pretty intimidating in his own right. You've done well in capturing these guys."
"Will you let us know what they say?"
"Definitely. I'm quite curious myself."
Once the knights left and everything settled, Cyrilo, Sophia, and Alexis went back into the Knight's Sheath, but they didn't return to their beds. Instead, they went down into the basement.
"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Sophia asked as Alexis unlocked the door to a back room. "What happens if the kingdom finds out?"
"The whole reason I'm doing this is because of the kingdom. I trust knights like Frigga to do the right thing, but the church still holds too much influence for me to expect answers through official channels. This is the only way to get some honesty."
She opened the door, revealing a dingy room lit by some candles. In the center sat one of the attackers, still bloody from his healed arrow wound and tied to a chair with a gag in his mouth. A magic circle had been inscribed on the ground around him, preventing him from using any spells. Lucius and Daniel were there, keeping an eye on him.
"How's he doing?" Cyrilo asked.
"He's been struggling against the binds a bit, so I think that toxin might be wearing off," said Lucius.
"Good, let's see what he has to say."
Lucius pulled the gag out of the man's mouth, and he immediately began to swear. "Goddamn beast heathen! My soul will be welcomed into the gods' embrace, but you all will be cast into mud for your sins! Do your worst, you fucking—"
A punch from Lucius interrupted the rant and splattered blood onto the floor. Sophia winced and looked away.
"Sophia, go wait upstairs," Cyrilo said as she hopped from her arms. As Sophia fled the room, Cyrilo walked over to Daniel, and he picked her up so she could speak at the man's eye level. "I hope that punch managed to knock some sense into you. You aren't going to be rescued. No one is coming to save you. If you don't want your bloated corpse to be fished out of the harbor, you'd better start talking. Who sent you? Who is in charge?"
"You think death scares me? I came here ready to die for my beliefs, eager to drag you fucking heretics to the grave with me, so do me a favor: eat shit and choke on it." His words earned him another punch from Lucius.
"Die at your own hand, maybe," said Cyrilo. "At least then, it's nice and quick and in your control. But look at your current position. Do you really feel in control? We have all the time in the world to pull out your secrets."
"Everything you do just proves me right. You're nothing but a bunch of soulless beasts, here in your temple of sin."
This time, Alexis punched him. "You bastards really think you're so righteous?! You kill people and burn down homes and buildings with no respect for life! When did the gods give you the right to act like monsters and still look down on us?!" She punched him again. "Talk, damn it!"
The man spat out a mouthful of blood. "I don't talk to filthy animals or whores."
"I think I got an idea to make him spill the beans," said Daniel. "I just need a rope with a knot on the end, and I'm sure we have a chair without a seat somewhere in this house."
"Just leave this to me," said Lucius. "I know how to make people talk."
"Daniel, take me upstairs," said Cyrilo. "I find myself craving some tea while we wait."
She and Daniel left, but Alexis remained behind with Lucius, standing back and watching him crack his knuckles and crick his neck.
"You know, as a soldier, we were tasked with killing monsters and bandits, not that there is much difference between the two. You hunt them, you trap them, and you spill their blood onto the ground." He kneed the man in the jaw, busting his teeth and drawing a groan of agony. "In order to keep the trail from going cold, whenever we raided a bandit camp, we'd always allow one of them to slip free. Do you know why? It's because they would lead us to the next camp, and we'd start the process all over." He punched the man in the gut, hard enough to make him spit blood.
"There were other times, when the only way to find the next camp was this right here. You had to rip the information out of them by force, and we didn't have any fancy torture devices like the inquisitors in the dungeon. We were out in the wilderness and had to rely on our fists and whatever we had on hand to get the job done, so we had to figure out how to hurt someone without knocking them out or killing them. It was a long, messy process of trial and error, but we got pretty good at it."
Lucius punched the man square in the nose, pulverizing the cartilage. "But you wanna know the real secret? You gotta keep telling yourself that who you're beating up isn't a person. They're just a nuisance, a problem on two feet. They're the thorn in your side, the shit on your boot, the mosquito sucking your blood. Their life isn't worth anything, so you can do whatever you want to them as long as it leads to answers. You hear what I'm saying? It wasn't enough not to mind hurting them, you had to learn to like it, like it a real lot."
Lucius stomped on the man's balls, making him vomit in pain. "Sometimes it wasn't just bandits we questioned, but the people sheltering them, the citizens who knew and kept their mouths shut. And do you know what the rules were for them? Exactly the same as they were for the bandits.
It didn't matter why they did it, whether they were bribed, blackmailed, or threatened. They were just another obstacle in the way. You don't want to know the kinds of thing I did to the people I was supposed to protect, but you will, because I'm going to do them all to you. Believe me when I say it's in your best interest to start talking."
"I'd rather die," the man groaned.
"Oh trust me, you will, but not the way you want to."
Lucius continued the beating, using his fists as tools of torture. There was no hesitation in his actions, and he paused only to give the man the opportunity to speak or pick him up after accidentally knocking him over. Blood splatters covered the room as the interrogation went on.
Alexis, who had initially felt herself burning with such fury, now felt her stomach turn into a bubbling cauldron of anxiety. It was getting harder to watch Lucius pummel the man, and the sounds of his fist striking and blood splashing made her wince. She felt sick and didn't know why. After all the lives she had taken, all the fights she had been in, why was this disturbing her so?
She then realized she had seen this before. It all came flashing back, Noah's fight with Seraph. She remembered Noah's brutality, the punches raining down on an opponent too weak to resist, and the horrors she witnessed in her family's barn. The realization made her sicker, and she silently wished the man would give in and talk, if only so that she wouldn't have to witness any more savagery. She dared not look, and it took everything she had not to cover her ears to block out the violence.
Eventually, Lucius stepped back, dripping sweat and out of breath. The man, still bound to the chair, was wheezing with blood trickling from his face, which now looked like ground beef. "Call me impressed. You're resilient, I'll give you that. Tell me who put you up to this, and the pain will stop."
