Landon comes back to the inn and sits at one of the tables. The deacon's words echo in his mind. Until this morrow, he was an ordinary doctor going about his business as usual, aiding the people and providing his valuable advice to them. Now? He is complicit in a treacherous scheme. A scheme that would lead to his demise and to all the villagers he sought to serve. Margery comes out from her chambers, Dorian's note in her hands. She sits next to the doctor and hands him the small piece of paper.
"They wrote that for me"
"Have you read it yet?"
"No. I do not wish to, it will only bring more unwanted involvement"
Landon is quite surprised by Margery's poised and collected demeanor. He always knew her to be smart and sharp witted, just like his dearest friend and her late father. But now he is discovering a new side to her.
"True that, we should throw it away"
"Let's burn it. I want to. I need to"
Landon nods, and looks at her as she stands up, the note in her hand, heading outside to burn it. She wanted to forget those purgers. Forget they ever existed. Getting reminded of them only reminds her of her blood soaked hands and her involvement in whatever brewed between the deacon and the constable. She now stands in the same square where the purgers bathed steel in blood, cutting down men of the faith. She gathers small dry wooden pieces and stacks them together. Picks up two stones and hits them together. The friction sparks a small, defiant flame. She takes the small note, and gets it close to the burning heat. What if she reads what's in it? No harm could be done as long as she burns it afterwards. She hesitates. She thinks and thinks, the note between her slim fingers. Will she find words of gratitude from the two murderers? Or maybe some apologies for not finding her father? Either way, she did not wish to know. She finally throws the note into the fire and watches it get engulfed by the flames.
Landon gathered the villagers near the well and shared the deacon's words with them. They were terrified but mostly tired. Tired from all the conflicts and political plays this village had suffered.
"I won't bulge an inch from here", shouted an old villager.
"My family has been here for centuries, I won't let those slimy bastards take my family heritage away from me. It's the deacon who should pay the price not us", added another. They all shout in approval.
The villagers, as scared as they are, refused to flee and ignored Landon's warnings. In a last ditch attempt, he rallies them again.
"Please, brothers and sisters, come back to reason. Death is the end of the road, we cannot recover from it. Why would we waste our lives and our children's when the opportunity for salvation is at the grasp of our hands? Why waste it all? Mooston is a peaceful vast place, we can always start over, as long as our hearts beat with blood. Exilement? Running? Hiding? We could always recover from those. We could recover from anything but death."
The chilling passionate speech of Landon set the whole village in silence. The man is right, undeniably so. They all bow their heads and head towards their frail houses to gather their things. It is time to run. Their way to salvation.
The deacon Andres, followed by what remained of his armed militia, are closing in on the keep. Dusk is falling, and the sky is getting darker. Surprisingly, none of the ghouls or the looming shadows have appeared yet. Not that they would cause much trouble to the armed militia, unless they appear in overwhelming numbers, which is unlikely as they are far away from the Bloom river. Perhaps the rotting body of the beast has something to do with it. The deacon finally arrives at the keep. He finds the same guards at the entrance of the gate, but this time they do not welcome him in.
"Halt!", shouts the guards.
They walk towards the cart and open its wooden door. The heat immediately brushes on their iron helmets.
"Deacon Andres, order your men to help us carry this inside to the main hall".
The deacon nods to his men and they do as ordered. The beast' carcass is now laying inside the hall of the Keep of the Hammer. Eerie silence is filling the air. The disciplined and rugged Murdokian guards are standing tall like statues. The Keep's subjects are all gathering to witness this unholy creature. The armed militia of the faith, standing close to each other, tense and nervous, and in the middle of it all there is deacon Andres trembling like a feather. Will the cruel constable show mercy?Will he refrain from trampling Little Lady down? He would be foolish to believe so. The silence is finally put to rest upon the arrival of the governor of Bloomheaven. His footsteps felt heavy, trembling the floor around him. He slowly walks to the veiled carcass. With a click of his fingers his guards rush to the beast and finally unveil it. An unholy spectacle unfolds before the audience. Immediately, they all feel the heat oozing from the body, brushing their skins. The constable is in awe, he never saw anything like this before. He expected a much smaller figure with less frightening features, such is the nature of an incubus. But that was not an incubus. It had a red skin, now rotten and cleaved through. It had claws and wings made of bone and flesh, and its face was dangerously seductive, even in death.
"Andres, what in the hells have you brought in here"
The deacon takes a step forward, "My lord, that is the beast the two purgers had slain, it terrorised our village for over three months."
"Have you no idea what an incubus looks like? Did your faith not teach you?"
"Apologies my lord, I know only of the depictions mentioned in our books and scrolls. They all refer to it as being oddly similar to a woman in nature, which is what the body here used to look like".
Deacon Andres' words made total sense, to someone who never had the misfortune of coming face to face with the beasts. But constable Marlon was different, he knew these beasts all too well. Every Murdokian does. They roam their lands more frequently than elsewhere. Every man and woman in Murdok is taught a bestiary guide that is mandatory in all cathedral, monastic and noble schools alike. But even then, constable Marlon could not identify the nature of what lay before him nor the source of the heat oozing from its cadaver. All he knew is that it was not what he expected. It made him unsettled, frightened even. He recalled old myths and tales whispered by crones and witches of the end of times, when demonic and hellish horrors would rise and lay waste to the lands. Was this one of them? No. He couldn't afford to believe that. Not here. Not now. He quickly regains his composure and sends his subjects out with a click of his fingers. All who remain are armed and armored men.
"Deacon Andres, you mentioned the purgers killed whatever this is?"
"Exactly my lord"
"Details"
"They came at night, when the storm was its strongest. Then they rested in the village's inn for a brief moment and headed out again. It was midnight. In the morning when the storm had passed, we found them near the Drowning Well, our village's center, near the defeated beast. One of them was lying on the ground affected by his wounds and the other barely standing. That is what the villagers who witnessed the scenes told me, my lord."
The constable moves around the dead body, examining each of its features. Truly he never encountered anything like it before.
"It took two purgers a whole night to defeat this monster. An incubus would have taken them thirty minutes. Hells, even one purger is enough unless it's a werewolf or an ogre.", said the constable while fixating his eyes on the beast.
"Is that so my lord? I mean yes! Those murderous bastards massacred half of my armed mi ....". He suddenly stops realizing the mistake he just made. The constable, with a cold cruel look, approaches him slowly, making each footstep resonate in the hall.
"Excuse me for a moment deacon, perhaps I misheard you"
A fatal slip. The deacon, completely overpowered by the constable's words and presence, made a fatal mistake. His nerves could not handle that much stress and tension. Now he reminded the constable of what he was supposed to forget
"I..Im. My lord forgive me I.."
Before he could utter his begging plea, the constable grabs him by the jaw and slams him on one of the pillars of the hall.
"You useless old bastard, how could you lose them? They are the key to understanding all of this". He looks at the dead body again. "Do you know what could happen to us if more of those things started spawning out of nowhere?
The deacon could not speak, he was powerless. Held against a pillar with the constable's tight grip on his jaw.
"I know what punishment befits you", said the constable while letting go of the deacon."
"My lord, I beg of you, I can go look for them if you could just allow me. I swear on my honor I will find them", said the deacon falling to the ground, tears and mucus falling down his face.
"No, I will look for them myself". The constable turns back to his guard,
"I want a search party issued for the entirety of Bloomheaven. Find those damn purgers."
The guards bow, then leave the hall to spread the word. The constable leans into the crying deacon.
"You know which stop I would make first?"
The deacon knew all too well what this vile man was planning. His fear and paranoia turned into blinding rage. He had enough of all the humiliation and taunting.
"You heartless turd. Do you think you're getting away with all of this? I will curse you and curse your bloody king and kingdom even after my death. You won't see a good day.."
Before he could finish his words, the constable plunges his blade inside the deacon's mouth, tearing through his throat. Blood flows everywhere on the white floor of the hall. The deacon takes a final look at the constable's grinning face as he draws his last breath.
The whole force of the Keep of the Hammer is unleashed. The first half is scattered through the whole province, searching for the still missing purgers. The second, under the constable himself, is heading towards Little Lady. The sky is darkening up, terribly so. Perhaps another storm is paying Bloomheaven a visit.