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Chapter XIX - Doom and Desserts

Cardinal Tyvorus Dorshen sat on his ceremonial throne, running a bare-skinned fingertip along the fine engravings that sat just below its armrest. He was dressed in his ceremonial vestments, white on silver on gold cloth laid in layers to show the splendor and variety of the Grand Cathedral of Many, the organization he had spent his entire life working to lead and glorify.

Atop his head sat the crimson and silver-striped tall cap that was the most important symbol of his position, given only to the fur who could achieve agreement amongst all of the various faiths under the Temple's protection, whether through strength of belief or power of intimidation. Mostly, he had used bribery, courtly politics, political connection, and intimidation, and it had worked well for many years. The Cathedral was peaceful, the Temple without major apostasy or heresy, the Paladins orderly and powerful.

All was as it was supposed to be, he mused, and moved his paws to the golden-capped crosier that laid across his skinny old legs. The elderly mouse stroked it, playing sensitive fingers along the buttery-smooth metal with its notches and grooves for the traditional swirling designs symbolizing the unity of faiths. All had been as it was supposed to be, until this civil war had started.

If only, he mused, Callian had chosen to marry the Casso girl. If only Callian hadn't secretly held no care for the female form. He sighed, and raised the crosier to press against his aching forehead, enjoying the soothing touch of cool metal. If only Verenax had listened to him, and waited as the old priest had told him. Things would have been much cleaned if Callian had died of the poisons he'd arranged. It would have appeared natural, and Verenax could have assumed the throne without this bloody war - and given the clergy the power it deserved.

Then Sir Cel, paragon of knightly virtue and hero of the people's vivid imaginations, had raised an army in a matter of days and ridden to war. Cel smashed three Ducal armies in rapid succession, crushing the high nobles who had been in collusion with the Usurper King. Then, Sir Cel had met in battle with Casso and finally, of all times, lost, but not before taking Verenax's fool heart and ripping it out his back with a well-placed lance.

Now Casso was king, along with his bloody-minded hedonistic sadist sons. Not that the elderly mouse gave a flying damn for their private affairs, despite his regular public sermons about moral rectitude and ethical acts. Just that they were unpredictable, amoral, and enjoyed their power far too much to be easily controlled.

In the meantime, the six other duchies all rebelled, and Casso did nothing. He was too concerned with consolidating his ruined power base, and unwilling to share the task as he ought to. As Cardinal Dorshen had again and again asked him, cajoled him, and come just short of threatening him.

Meanwhile, some simpering prat of a nobleman was knelt in front of the ceremonial dais, paws raised in supplication as he yammered on about his sins. As was tradition, the dozen clerics in attendance wore masks to hide their faces, pretending symbolically not to know whose confessions they were hearing. Dorshen couldn't believe this moron was trapped inside with them, after he'd ordered the Cathedral shut up tight upon hearing of the riots and uprising. The urge to kick the fool in the face to shut him up was becoming overwhelming, and he rubbed at the bridge of his snout despite the breach in propriety it might constitute.

Just as he was about to bark something unfortunate, anger and aggravation boiling in his gut, the doors to the resplendent main nave confessional were shoved open, one of the black and silver-armored paladin commanders striding through it. The nobleman sputtered to a stop, and gave a look of outrage at the interruption, turning toward the armored warrior.

Dorshen's brows shot up, then beetled down as he noticed the tall plate-armored wolf and the ten paladins arrayed behind him. Their demeanor was beyond the nervousness he expected from such furs in their situation, and he stood, grasping a wizened old paw around the Finder's Star where it hung cold and heavy around his neck.

"Paladin-Commander, what is the meaning of this?" His voice held no reproach. If anything, he was grateful for the interruption, though worried at its cause.

Ever-zealous, the wolf behind the plate mail answered in a harder tone than the old pontiff had heard him use in years.

"Eminence, there is no time. Come with me to the barracks. We are overrun from beneath."

Dorshen blinked, uncomprehending for a moment. His mind was sharp, powerful, but he felt the cobwebs of age slowing him, and it took a moment to register that fact that his own confusion was delaying him.

"What in all the hells? I thought your paladins sealed those tunnels a decade ago!"

Despite his protestation, Dorshen wasted no time, and immediately followed the Paladin in black. Around him, the ominous order of warrior-monks closed ranks, their armor clattering and clinking as they strode past lesser temple guards, volunteer peasants looking terrified and pale in their leather jerkins. He could feel the fear, nearly smell it, and as he was escorted, he leaned forward to speak in a soft voice so that others wouldn't hear over the tromping of boots in the echoing hall.

"What's going on, Commander?"

The paladin was ready for a fight, Dorshen could see it in the tension of his walk, the way his paw never strayed far from his sword's handle. The responding voice was gruff and matter-of-fact.

"The incident in our infirmary. After you ordered the chamber sealed, the things inside somehow made it out. I told you we should have burned them. Fire is the only way to be sure."

The Cardinal scowled. He knew his Paladin-Commander was right, but it rankled to be proven wrong in such a way. Luckily the wolf was an old paw at this, and knew not to embarrass the Cardinal publicly. The wolf had shown others the folly of such things plenty of times in the past, on the Cardinal's implicit orders.

"How many? Where are they in the Cathedral?"

He got a grunt as immediate response, as a door was shouldered open for him so the warrior in question could keep his sword drawn. The hall beyond was long, dark, the sconces gone unlit for years. Since the last time serious unrest had threatened the Cathedral. The Paladin-Commander's voice was ominous and echoing in the darkness, and Cardinal Dorshen frowned, hugging his ornamented robe close. The Finder's Star rested heavy and cold against his chest.

"No idea how many, but they overwhelmed four guard posts before I found out. They're...Near as I can tell, they're bloody everywhere."

Dorshen stared at his back in non-comprehension. Then, he was abruptly hurled backward by a powerful blow as something crashed into the Commander's breastplate, hurtling through the darkness so fast he had no chance to spot it. With a roar, the Paladin-Commander righted himself and struck back at the blurring shadow, and Dorshen was lost in a chaos of shouting paladins, armored paws grabbing at his fragile elderly flesh, and the dissonant cacophony of screams and swords.

Suddenly he was clear of the brawl, behind it, as a black-armored warrior fell back behind his brothers with his shield up, sticking close to the prelate's side.

"High father, stay cl-COMMANDER, BEHIND!"

Eyes wide, Dorshen ducked down, paws over his round pink ears as the warrior turned and struck over his head, shield passing over him to protect the elder's back. From behind them, a terrible warbling, gurgling laugh, as if from a slashed throat, echoed down the halls. The paladin, undeterred, armored in faith more than even his considerable steel, met the onrush of undead by planting his boots and bracing himself.

The crash was deafening, and Dorshen was pitched forward as the shield caromed off his back, spilling the old mouse to the floor. A shock of pain shot up his arm as he rolled awkwardly, and as he came up to a sit, he grabbed at his wrist, crying out with an airy squeak as he saw his fragile old wrist bones were broken, bent at a wrong angle.

Thunderous noises of combat echoed down the dark stone halls, and Dorshen crawled to a wall, head twisting to and fro to stare into a forest of legs to his left, and at a single warrior trying to hold back a tied of clawing, shambling paws to his right. The one rear guard yelled out again, and two warriors broke off of the left-paw group to support him.

Cut off...We're cut off...We're trapped!

To his left, one of the warrior-monks screamed out in agony, and Dorshen's head whipped about to look not out of sympathy or fear for his companion but out of fear for himself. One of the black-skinned abominations had latched onto his shield arm, and was dragging the warrior into its gaping maw. The paladin struggled and screamed, as his arm simply vanished into the hole between its teeth, slipping into it at a grotesque speed as the thing yanked him in with brutal strength. Other dead, looking more like corpses than a monster from nightmare, had pushed the paladins back, preventing them from rescuing their companion despite frenzied attempts.

He stared in horror, as the thing's yawning maw stretched, teeth gripping and dragging like tiny paws. The back of its head didn't swell, nor did its gut, as the paladin's head passed the gripping teeth, and in moments the warrior was simply gone, leaving behind only the sword he'd dropped and a few drips of blood.

A moment later, the Paladin-Commander smashed through the horde of shamblers clawing awkwardly at him, and drove his sword through the black-faced monster's eye. It slumped, sliding up along his blade until the wolf yanked it free in a spray of pus and gore and brought it down again, cutting the beast's gut open in the hopes of rescuing his companion.

Its gut gaped open, empty as a fresh-dug grave.

Growling prayers under his breath in place of curses, the big wolf swatted a shambler's arms aside and sliced its head off a moment later, before bellowing an order in his thunderous parade field voice.

"Close ranks! Protect the Cardinal! We move to the apartments!"

As Dorshen was helped up off the floor, he peered through the forest-dense cluster of warriors before and behind him. The halls were strewn with butchered corpses, most fresh enough that their blood was dripping like cold molasses, others old enough that they were bloating and starting to spill maggots. Among them, as the knights quick-marched in formation, any number were getting back up, their wounds not enough to slay them despite gaping gashes to bellies and throats.

The old cleric yelled out, pointing as a fallen black-armored paladin began to shamble back to its feet. The thing's helmet had been torn off, and a chunk of its face torn away by the gnashing teeth of the dead. Now, as it stood, its blood didn't flow, and its tongue lolled from the ragged hole where half its jaw once was.

The paladin closest to it just stared for a moment, unable to reconcile the fact that his brother in arms was now a foe, and paid for it when the creature swung its arm with terrible force, caving in his helmet and skull with a sick crunch that turned Dorshen's stomach and sent the paladins to yelling and striking, stabbing it again and again. As they did, the old mouse turned and tried to run, the urge to scream bubbling in his throat, only to run straight into the Paladin-Commander and his stern paw clasping down on Dorshen's shoulder.

"No, father. You're safest with us."

As the fighting continued behind them, Dorshen was taken by the arm, curt orders from the Commander leaving half his remaining eight behind to block the hall. The black wolf in his plate mail led the party, as one of the other monk-knights clapped a paw on Dorshen's elbow.

They're worried I'll panic and run...They're probably right.

Two more turns, and another of the black-faced monsters leapt out at them from a crossing hall. This time, the paladins were ready, and it was caught on a shield, bashed to one side by a potent two-pawed blow from a second warrior, then cleanly decapitated by the Commander. A less-disciplined warrior would have spat in derision on the thing. The black guards of the Temple of Many simply marched on, hurrying but cautious, looking about like meer cats on the western savannah.

"Commander, black-skinned ones are faster than the others."

"Noted, leftenant."

"Heads. When we take their heads, they stay down."

The paladins grunted out their traditional acknowledgment, as one. To Dorshen's ears, it sounded out as "ar-grath". He made a mental note to check on its origins, when he was safe again.

Finally, they reached an end to the great network of monk's cells and musty storage areas, coming to a short stair that led to the Cathedral's grand courtyard. On the other side, as the Paladin-Commander opened the double doors, he could see the balconies and pennants of his expansive, defensible, ostentatious personal chambers.

Between him and the chambers, the courtyard was choked with clergy and servants, nobles and mercenaries, and as he looked on in staring horror, swarms of the undead that were pouring like floodwater from many of the dozen entrances to the courtyard. At his side, the Paladin-Commander merely grunted, quickly evaluating the situation with a few twists of his neck.

"Holy father, we won't reach the apartments through this, and we can't go back into the tunnels. Our best option is to stand and fight."

Tyvorus Dorshen was shaking, from footpaws to knobby knees to his withered bent back, and he felt the acid burn of tears in his eyes. He was terrified, unable to fight, unable to run, his only weapons having long been a cutting wit and vicious command of politics and blackmail. Now, against this implacable foe, no move of words would save him. He was, he suddenly realized, well and truly a dead mouse.

The Paladin-Commander turned his plate-armored body towards the prelate, and grabbed him by the shoulder, shaking him lightly for fear of injuring the aged creature. When the Cardinal didn't respond, he began barking orders.

"Seal the doors behind us with whatever you can, see the enemy can't come through! Leftenant, stay here with his eminence! Carby, guard his blind side! Eleis and Tyvor, to me!"

All around Castle Amarthane, Duke Casso's soldiers rushed about like confused ants, hunting everywhere for escaped prisoners and those who had dared assault their lord. The wolf who thought of himself as Cumslut was 'captured' half a dozen times, shoved roughly into whatever room was convenient, then abandoned as whatever guard was left with him was called away to search another area. Each time, he wandered out of the unlocked closet or storage room or servant's bedroom he'd been shoved into, trudged a short distance, and found himself grabbed again and roughly shoved someplace for safekeeping.

Finally, after an eternity of aimless wandering, the wolf once known as Ranos hissed in pain and covered his eyes as bright firelight burned into them, leaving streamers of color across his vision. Though he was aimless, utterly without goals, he was still averse to pain, and instinct had him stumbling back into the shadow of a building and away from the blazing bonfire he saw in the court before him. He crumpled there, all will finally gone, and just lay on his side half-curled with his paws over his ears to drown out the crashing, thudding sounds of armored furs running to and fro.

Get up, get up, get up...

The filthy wolf stared about with bloodshot eyes, blinking. The words should have made him afraid, he dimly knew. They sounded sinister, skirling about the edge of his consciousness like faint night-time mist, perceivable then not. His limbs felt dead, as if his empty heart had run out of fuel for them.

To stay laid down would be so much more comfortable than to get up. Maybe, he thought, if he could just find a way to stop breathing, the last bit of exhaustion would go away and he could rest. Drawing breath took too much energy, and he was so tired.

Get up, silly thing. Have you no pride left?

The cumslut wolf sniggered to himself, as his cheek rested against the hard stones of the castle floor. His tongue slid from his muzzle and licked at his snout without energy. It came away with the fetid, sour taste of days-old dried seed, a yellow cracked glaze on much of his body.

No pride, then. Perhaps revenge will motivate you better?

His ears perked, though the sounds did not come from without, but rather from within. The cumslut wolf closed his eyes again, tightly, until he could see the swirling in his inner blackness. With a heady giggle, he felt something finally stirring in his breast. A sickly, wriggly feeling that soon spread outward to his limbs, and had him shifting about with an anxious energy he couldn't seem to be rid of.

He was once known as Ranos, he abruptly remembered, as his body stood up seemingly of its own accord. The naked wolf soon found himself wandering, listless and wobbling, through an ancient ill-used door that squealed as he pulled it open, and down a long hallway that hadn't seen life in many years by its blanket of dust's accounting.

When he pushed against the door that ended his hidden hallway, the door swung open as if it were oiled and new, and the wolf simply flopped through the old refuse door, sliding into a stone chute slick with mold and ancient filth long rotted black. Into the darkness he plunged, down and downward faster still. Cumslut couldn't think of a reason to be worried. Dying by landing in a great vat of horridness and garbage would be no different from what he had left. He would be among kindred spirits, he thought, and laughed at himself as he slid over century-old trash with increasing speed.

Cumslut's face slammed into something hard, his entire weight pushing behind him, and whatever it was broke with the impact, giving off a loud clink-crunch of rusted-through steel giving in to age and impact. Then he was flying free, tumbling through the chilly snow-filled dark until he slammed into the river with an impact that blew the air from his lungs.

Sinking quickly, his fur sodden and muscles fatigued, he put together a supreme effort and forced out the thoughts. What now, oh voice in my head?

Now? Swim. Swim with the river. South.

Cel slammed her icy sword through another of the ones she'd come to think of as 'Black Devourers', kicking it aside as her sword pulled free of its gaped-open skull so she could twist to the side and cleave the head off a lunging shambler dressed in grey clerical robes. They were looking fresher, she realized, as she looked back and saw the shambling, moaning swarm hot on their tails.

Timid and Quiet were struggling, the smallish monk tiring quickly after days of imprisonment and fear, and Timid was in no shape to walk on his own with his torn footpaws and tortured limbs. Seeing her eyes turned to him, the brave little housecat grinned encouragingly, and Cel felt a rush of warmth to her face as she turned away.

Her next two steps brought her to a heavy wooden door, bowed in by the weight of whatever was piled against its other side.

"Is this the door?"

Quiet responded, growing quickly hoarse and high-pitched with fear as he looked back towards the undead that shambled no more than half a minute behind them.

"Yes, and hurry!"

Cel closed her eyes a moment, centering herself for what she had to do, and in that moment remembered the many pains and complaints that radiated from all over her body. Her knee was a mass of agony, no doubt swelling all over again, and her scalp itched as if a million ants had been poured into her skin. The stub of her tail burned with strangle prickles, as if she could feel the long, lashing thing that had once been so beautiful and given her such wonderful balance.

With a sigh of regret, she pushed it all away. Her shoulder hit the door so hard the timbers cracked, chips of wood spinning away through the air as the weight holding their portal to victory shut refused to budge.

"H-hit it again! They're getting close!"

She heard Timid trying to shush the supposedly-'quiet' monk, as she slammed the door again, and then a third time, hurling her terrible strength against the portal. Here, she found, was a good place to test the extent of her new potency.

"Tim! Focus your power on me! See if you can enhance my strength!"

The cat blinked at her, as she looked over a shoulder at him. He looked pale, suddenly, and afraid, and the look on his face made her heart clench up with sympathy and worry. Timid's bandage-wrapped right paw went to his chest, where the Finder's Star ought to have been, as he closed his eyes in a fearful, hopeful prayer.

"Finder, in your glory, please see fit to help us save ourselves. Grant us your might, that we might see through the shadow-illusion of our own limitations, as you saw through Hao's illusions and knew of his corruption. Grant us the might it took for you to smite him low!"

Cel felt a strange sense, as if something were growing in her chest, her very heart seeming to swell as if to break free of her ribs. Grimacing, as it built to the point of pain, she opened her scarred muzzle and let forth a roar that shook the very air, sending dust to flying and stone chips rattling away from the old stonework. As the roar reached its terrible crescendo, a rolling call of her ancient people that once terrified their enemies across the snow-capped plains of her homelands, the swollen sense surged into her limbs, and she whirled like a pirouetting dancer, striking the door back-pawed with her great icy blade held in both white-knuckled paws.

The explosion of shattering wood and ironwork knocked her back, and she stumbled into Timid and Quiet, knocking the little priest down as the monk squealed and leapt back from them. The door had hurled free of its moorings, scattering a hail of loose stone and shattered furniture as it bounced across the crowded courtyard, slamming into the massed ranks of struggling undead from behind.

Under her back, Timid laughed, then moaned in pain.

"It worked! I did magic w-without the Star! ...OW!"

Cel rolled to the side and to her feet, only to throw herself back atop the half-risen Timid as she heard a terrible buzz that thrummed her heart with the experienced terror of a veteran warrior and made her yell out.

"Get down!"

Quiet wasn't fast enough. A dozen and more crossbow quarrels buzzed in like raging wasps as the defenders on the other side of the horde fired into the newly-opened door. The little monk didn't even shriek as a pair of bolts struck him in the chest, the air blown from him with a little wheezy "uh!" as he stumbled backwards.

Cel rolled to the side again, grabbing Timid and yanking him to his feet. The little cat looked back into the hall and froze, as their monk companion was grabbed and hugged almost tenderly by a waddlingly-fat rabbit in clerical robes, before its buck teeth came down and tore into his throat.

Quiet's eyes shot wide, and blood sluiced from his open muzzle as he met Timid's eyes. The monk looked sad, somehow, more than afraid. Then he was gone, as the undead pulled him back into their teeming mass, replacing his soft words with the horrible sound of tearing flesh and breaking bone.

Cel yanked Timid forward, and the cat stumbled as he was dragged on pain-shrieking footpaws, as the snow-leopard knight charged the gap. In the courtyard, night air was full of snow, skirling and falling in a chaos of white amidst the blood and stormy violence that shrieked through her ears as she turned and ran away from the door and to the side, parallel to the monstrous horde and away from the thrumming crossbows.

She released Timid, and planted her right footpaw, bringing her icy blade up as she grabbed it with her second paw again, and brought it down through the skull of a shrieking black-skinned creature, cleaving its skull in a graceful descending arc before it could leap on the both of them.

"Tim! Get up and move!"

The little priest struggled, grabbing onto the gore-spattered stones next to him, torn fingertips screaming in pain as he tottered after her. In front of him, he watched as the slender woman cleaved and smashed her way through, a whirlwind of destruction that laid low any undead that got within reach of her swirling, dancing blade.

Find the slaughtered knight.

Bear her from the dark within.

Be to her solace and succor,

For you will need all her mightiness

"Gah!" Timid wobbled and grabbed at his head, as the Finder's words burst behind his eyes in a thunderclap that left his vision full of shadows and specters, swirling through the rampant chaos.

In an instant, everything seemed to slow around him, and then stop, leaving the world hanging in silent stillness like falling leaves in amber prisons..

In front and slightly to one side, Cel was paused with one footpaw up off the ground, her great sword raised in both paws straight over her head, surrounded by a pillar of golden-blue soul light, as she was preparing another of her perfect, graceful, bone-smashing strikes to deal death upon a black-skin that was surging towards her with its long claws held down to either side.

Behind her, a tight-packed block of soldiery presented a wall of resolute steel between themselves and the devouring horde. Here, he saw streamers of iron-grey light, one for each warrior that stood in honorable defense of his charges, shedding blood and life in their desperate fight.

At their center, he saw the Paladin-Commander, a towering paragon of iron will. His Sarellas was as steely as his sword, no vestige of compassion or kindness in his cold hard soul. As if seeing it replayed in his mind, Timid replayed events.

The nobles and guests within the Cathedral of Many had run to the courtyard, likely chased from their meetings and chambers by the growing numbers of undead, newly-turned from the thousands of clergyfurs and servants within the sprawling complex. The Commander had arrived, and somehow taken command, quickly whipping the guards and paladins into a strong defensive line that, against all logic, was holding against the enormous swarm.

In their center, a withered, rotting aura shot through with putrid green avarice and rusty-brown corruption sat like a tumor within a strong muscle, and Timid felt his hackles rise when he saw the gleaming beacon of the Finder's Star there, resting on the breast of the corrupt Cardinal Tyvorus Dorshen as the pontiff cowered and sought a route of escape as his faithful followers fought and died.

Timid pushed away from the wall, and as he moved, the stillness exploded back into a whirlwind of motion and slaughter. Groaning creatures flailed and slammed at the resolute shield wall protecting the helpless among the survivors. The Slaughtered Knight cut a path through them, that Father Timid limped through with steely determination, over the mounting piles of rotting and chewed bodies.

Something seemed missing, and in his mind's eye, he noted a mound that Vanyal would have mounted, and used to fire down a blistering barrage of deadly-accurate arrows into the undead host, picking off the monsters that hung back and seemed to be somehow directing the others. He saw where the large, dense clusters were slowed by their own weight, that Tomasj could have blasted asunder with the horrible hellfire of his Nastasia. He also saw a spot in the center of the formation, where he somehow knew someone was missing. Someone who had no qualms about slitting the throats of furs who were risking all the others with their stupidity.

You shall need his darkling heart,

Know him by Her hatred.

He expected the booming mind-voice this time, and it didn't stagger him. Timid simply stomped on, plowing forward against the terrible resistance of his injured, exhausted body, powered more by his will now than any force of muscle.

Cel reached the shield wall, and with a shout of surprise, warriors parted ways for her to slip past. She backed off, instead, and grabbed Timid by the shoulder, pushing him into the gap before whirling away to cut off the charge of another black devourer, striking it such that it flew back into the grasping arms of its compatriots. The shield wall slammed shut, as Timid picked himself up out of the mud, glaring inexorably towards the Cardinal, despite the dozens of legs standing like a blinding forest in his way.

All around him, taller furs in armor struggled, moving into positions as others were wounded or became exhausted. A staccato series of yells seemed to coordinate them, the Paladin-Commander barking out commands, rotate, shift left, dress the line. Timid shouldered his way through them, a growl building like thunder in his chest as his bare, bloody footpaws left a pink trail in the trodden, slushy snow.

Finally, Dorshen came into sight. The old prelate's robes were dirty, bloody, covered in splotches of mud that destroyed their white veneer of purity. His face was dressed in arrogant anger, laid like a concealing curtain over the terror and hatred Timid saw limning about him. At his heart, swirling in and out of his chest, Tim could see a black smoke, swirling, subtle, and in that moment knew that the stories had more truth than he'd wanted to see in them.

His voice rang out clear and quiet, yet audible to those nearby despite the roaring clamor of battle.

"And so it was that Tauriel, general of Hao's great celestial army, discovered the corruption that his lord and god had brought upon them. Knowing himself to be less than Hao's great and terribly corrupted might, Tauriel began to slay the corrupt among his brothers, taking their names and ending their reigns of subtle terror upon the mortals they had once sworn to protect.

"When Hao realized what his servant had begun to do, it was too late. Tauriel found Hao in the halls of his corrupted castle beyond the stars, and there they did battle. The sky was rent, and rain and thunder cascaded through the sky, as the very elements warred in the battle between them.

"For time unknowable, the Shadow Masters withdrew, to watch in startlement as a celestial, for the first time, knowingly stole their power and wielded it against their greatest pawn. For Tauriel had discovered something they themselves had not thought to try; he had so many names, so well-hidden and secret, that the Shadow Masters were unable to take and use them, for though they could use many at once, his names were more still, and his will too strong for them.

"In the end, Tauriel stood victorious, his great sky-azure sword dripping the black blood of a corrupted god as he smote off Hao's head. Thus was brought to an end the creator of us sentients. Incensed at the slaughter, the Celestial Hosts came upon Tauriel, and tore away the feathers of his wings, and cast him to the dark Abyss, telling him to find there his own kind and be among them. Only later did they come to discover what had truly come to pass.

"In darkness, Tauriel the Fallen was meant by his former allies to die, lonely, alone, without purpose so that he could never be reborn among them. But there, in that place of devouring dark, he discovered the Shadow Masters' true plot; to take the souls of mortals and twist them, steal them away, and he swore to continue his duty as a righteous Celestial. He became Tauriel, Finder of Lost Souls, savior of the unrightly damned.

Timid had no attention to spend on the furs who had turned to stare at him. The nobles, bedraggled, terrified, and bloodied, stared at this little cat who had come among them, who seemed to glow when viewed from the corner of their eyes. Many had fallen to their knees, begging for salvation, for before them they saw what just might be their only hope.

Timid's eyes were only on Tyvorus Dorshen, as the old cleric found some steel in himself and stood straight, grasping the Finder's Star where it lay, resplendent, against his breastbone. He held it forward, and drew back his lips to show his many white teeth in a sneer of hatred.

"Fool! It is I who lead the faithful, not you! How DARE you presume to preach to me?! Paladin-Commander, I want this cat slain! NOW!"

The Paladin-Commander, who Timid had last seen during his capture in that alleyway, what seemed an eternity ago, looked back and forth between the Cardnal and this tiny unknown country priest, and for the first time in many years was uncertain. Father Timid took a slow step forward, finally finding some steadiness somehow despite his wrecked toes, and Dorshen took a step backward as if hypnotized into matching the cat's steps.

Timid realized he was stalking the mouse, moving forward a pace for every pace the mouse moved away, clutching the Finder's Star's shimmering layers of precious metal like the charm they were.

"It will not save you, Tyvorus. The Star is not meant for your greedy paws."

"CARDINAL Dorshen to you, priest! Lowly scum!" Dorshen's face was turning red, beneath his pale fur, his eyes bugging out in desperation as he backed along the line of soldiers behind him, their backs turned to him as they fought the undead host.

"Give it to me, Tyvorus. Give me the Star and step down. I will spare your life. We will need every living fur if there's any hope of surviving this."

The Cardinal's nostrils flared, and with a scream he ripped a short sword from the belt of a soldier faced away from him to charge at Timid, shrieking and hacking the blade downward in a clumsy arc.

Timid stepped inside the swing, having learned that much from his battles and short time training with Tomasj. His fist came up, and slammed into Dorshen's chest with an audible crack as his many years of hard labor for the Church gave him more strength than his small frame looked to hold. The Cardinal's breath blew from his lungs in a wet gust as the sword dropped from limp fingers somewhere behind Timid's back, and the old prelate slammed into Timid's front.

Tim grabbed, and his fingers found the Star, warm and pulsing in his grasp, as he turned and allowed the Cardinal to slide away to the ground, grasping at his chest with pale furless paws as he gasped like a dying fish.

The Star felt heavier than before, and as he gazed at it with relief, he saw the shining polish fading away as if the patina of years was re-exerting itself, growing back at the speed of decades in moments like a living thing reclaiming its home. He brought the Star to his forehead, and pressed it there, feeling a warmth suffuse his body as the nobles and clergy looked on in shock at the glow emanating from the unassuming little priest.

"Finder of the Lost, thank you for giving me hope. Please help us how you can. I understand now that you're paws are tied somehow, though I know not the way of it. Lend me strength, that I may save these lost souls in your name."

At his feet, the fallen Cardinal coughed, then gasped, then began to rattle deep in his throat as he foamed from the lips. His heart was seizing, Timid realized, and despite his anger at the corrupt elder priest, he crouched down, letting the Star fall to his chest, and felt gently for the old mouse's racing unsteady pulse.

Blackness filled the elder's eyes, and before Timid could recoil, the mouse had him by the throat with incredible iron-bar strength.

"You will never defeat us, pathetic mortal!"

Dorshen's voice had changed, becoming a hoarse roar that bore within it a thousand screams and warblings, and Timid choked as the potent paw closed his throat. His glare was unabated, staring into the black depths of Dorshen's suddenly-wide eyes, and he knew that what spoke now was not the Cardinal, for the mouse's nostrils no longer flared with breath.

"Shadow take you all!"

A heavy sword blade sliced down, and the pressure on Timid's neck was abruptly gone. He fell to his knees amidst the mud and gushing blood, and gasped, holding his throat as the arm flopped away lifelessly. He looked up then, at a great dark shape that he'd seen before.

The Paladin-Commander stood over him, sword dripping crimson gore as he kicked Tyvorus Dorshen's severed head away with a contemptuous punt, before kneeling to offer Timid a paw.

"Y...Your o...oaths," he gasped out, sucking in cold sweet air as his throat struggled to accept breath again. Timid was shocked by the paladin's move, for the Commander had been known by reputation far and wide to be a zealot, an utter loyalist to the church.

The armored wolf's basso voice rolled out in response, low enough that only they two could hear, as others were busy recoiling in terror at the death of their Cardinal, or shouting and joining the fight.

"My oaths are meaningless before the power of gods, Father Timid. A power you clearly are a conduit for. Tyvorus Dorshen proved his disloyalty to the Church, and had to be destroyed."

To Timid's befuddled startlement, the Paladin-Commander, who not a day or so ago had ordered him arrested and beat him near to death, knelt in the pink snow, paws clasped around the crosspiece of his sword.

"I will follow your order, High Father. I will see that all the others do as well."

The bedraggled, soggy, teeth-chattering Cumslut wolf crawled from the river's edge, shaking and covered in frost that had replaced the dried seed, washed away by the rushing water.

He felt an urge to lay down, to curl up and catch his breath and give in to the cold of the snow. Somehow, there was warmth to be had there, he thought, delicious warmth and peace. The voice, however, had other ideas, and roared in his aching skull to continue moving towards his revenge.

With a crack-lipped smirk, the sodden naked creature clawed at a wall until he was able to pull himself upright, and then began tottering like a staggering drunk toward a shouting mob somewhere ahead of him, fingertips dripping blood.

When he saw the crowd, he dimly registered thoughts his old self might have had. These were peasants armed and terrified but ready to fight, holding their pitch forks and eating daggers with the fearful talisman-reverence a squire might hold his father's sword in the moments before his first pitched battle. Near their front, he saw armed city Guard, in their black cloaks and boiled leather armor, carrying halberds but looking worried, eyes a little wider than they ought to be.

Continue, my pet, my friend, you will have your revenge.

The Cumslut didn't think to ask what he could do against such as these. He was but a naked, frost-bitten wolf, stumbling like a drunk, unarmed and barely able to motivate himself into standing, nevermind fighting. Nonetheless, though he'd never met these furs in his life, he felt a burning sense building in his gut, acid and baleful, and he grinned icily at the thought of having revenge on them all, for letting him be destroyed as he was.

Images of the great bacchanalian ball, in which he'd been the centerpiece, shot through his head. Down on his knees and paws, his ass stuffed full of cock, blindfolded and screaming when his muzzle wasn't plugged shut and he wasn't gagging up seed and vomit. In his image, he saw the entire hall laughing, as he'd heard through the blinder. Then he saw the whole city laughing, all of them looking his direction as if they could see through walls, cackling at his rape and humiliation, laughing and pointing, screaming eyes wide with mind-shattering mirth.

As he shuffled toward the wall, Cumslut saw the guard commander step towards their guarded gate, peering out it with a paw over his eyes. Then, a strange tune began to ring out over the square, and Cumslut blinked in surprise as the hundreds of furs there started to scream and grab at their ears. Many thrashed, clawing at themselves, falling to the ground and kicking. Others simply stood stock-still, chests un-moving and eyes un-blinking, as if all ability to move had been stolen.

A few began to shriek and drew weapons, cutting into each other in a frenzied butchery that lasted but moments until their blood-gouting bodies fell to the cobbles.

He stepped over these fallen, twitching, dying furs, and over others simply paralyzed or screaming and tearing at their headfur, feeling as if he was watching himself from afar and yet from within his own eyes at the same moment.

Through the portcullis' great iron bars, thicker than his arms, he saw a host of the dead. They stood silent, rocking to and fro with the strange song that seemed so terrible to the ears of others, yet to him seemed a haunting lilting lullaby. The singer, a small child, with soft rounded ears and a cherubic face, had his head tilted back and was calling out in those haunting tones with a terrible smile echoing the lullaby's strange melody.

Cumslut felt his paws touch something hard and long, and with a flinch he looked down, expecting to see a shaft shoved into his paws, leaking and demanding his submission and humiliation once again. Yet all he found there was a large iron bar, set into some manner of wheel against the wall's base, partly hidden by a forest of machinery.

Pull it, little wolf. Pull it, and your revenge will begin.

Cumslut squeezed his eyes shut, a horrible, painful laugh of release burning in his lungs, waiting to be released. Something made him stop it, made him grit his jaw and clench his fists on the steely pole.

"Wh...Why? How d-does this...?"

His mind was blown away for a moment, by a rush of images so fast he could not resolve them. One, however, he saw clearly as the day sun. The jailor, the tall tiger named Sir Joren, being torn asunder by the rampaging dead one joint at a time. He saw Toryen Casso buggered with a sword and his skin stripped away by rotting fingers, screaming and squealing and spraying cum until all his cock could leak was blood.

He saw the Duke, that rotten-souled bastard, sitting on a throne with his throat cut, his skin sloughing away to show the corruption beneath revealed for its truth.

Cumslut giggled, and burped up a bit of river water, as he yanked down on the iron bar with all his strength.

The portcullis clanked, then began to shiver. The gates, Amarthane's hope, for which the city had risen against its insane lord and fought so hard, began to rise. The tide of undead swarmed in toward their song-paralyzed prey.

As the dead swarmed into the sundered ranks of Guards, the song was broken, and furs began to scream and fight and be torn apart, their defenses of tactics and weaponry gone against the superior strength of the horde.

Cumslut felt his gut fill with acid, as the dead swarmed past him, ignoring him as so many others had. He watched the carnage, with bile beginning to fill his muzzle, and for the first time in what felt like an age, saw clearly what he had done. The wolf fell to his knees, vomiting up snot and slime and food, and screamed out in fury as innocent Guards fell and peasant soldiers were butchered.

A little boy walked up to him, laughing a delicate, bell laughter, and embraced him, pushing the wolf's face against his skinny frame. When it spoke, its lips didn't move, and Cumslut heard its voice in his head.

Well done, my little wolf. You have your revenge! Glory in it!

Cumslut gurgled on his spume, and spat repeatedly, sobbing so hard his lungs felt unable to open. Somehow, he choked out words, which felt like the first he'd spoken in years.

"Kill me...I don't want to live..."

He heard laughter, tinkling and ominous, and felt a tongue slurp against the back of his neck.

No. You get to see everything. Your Name was taken away from you by what they did. I won't eat a Nameless. I can't control what I can't Name, silly!

Then the boy was gone, capering into the falling snow and rain of gore and body parts as his undead minions shredded through the defenders and poured into the city in a pitiless, tireless, hungry tide of slaughter.