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chapter 1

Magdalene was with God, now, which did nothing to soften the fact he should have been married by now.

Raguel knew this was a sinful thought - prideful, and luxurious behind most of it - but it was true. He liked not to associate God with disease, but he had made the decisions, the priest had said. He'd said that suffering brought her closer to God, and so that made Magdalene's agony - what? Good?

The knight did not voice any of these thoughts. He knew them to be weaknesses, brought by grief and sent by Satan, or some other devil. He wept openly at her funeral, drawing some criticism from his superiors in the Order.

His superiors in the Order were almost happy about this, he thought, inside himself. Now that Magdalene was gone - dead to the same plague of helminths ravaging their South-Eastern frontiers - Raguel was more motivated than ever to leave his homeland behind, to kill demons, to abandon himself to Christ's will, goals, and power.

Worl was supportive, at least. Worl let him cry, in his chambers. Worl spoke to him about how she would never grow old, never feel pain, never be harmed. The elder Brother had a way with the wrong words - somehow, phrases that would have enraged him and led him to despair always came sweetly medicinal from Worl.

So Worl gave him the mission.

The helminths, the Order had decided, were part of a spiritual curse brought down on Earth. This was not a curse from the Lord, exactly (don't), but a result of Paganly thoughts in His realm. A tithe had to be arranged, or else some sort of spiritual co-operation, or the Lord's access to the Earth would be continuedly limited. Raguel himself had experienced this lesser access to the most high: spells and blessings which had worked before now occasionally did not. Sorcery was an allowance the Order could not afford to lose in their battle with Hell, and Raguel knew this from experience -

Lord, Hellminths.

He'd needed the holy water for his battle with that cackling Cambion, Isaac, in the village. He'd needed the salt. He'd needed the incantation to find the rest of Hell's broodstock in the hospital - mainly incubi, oddly - and to exorcise them from the building.

Sometimes, Raguel wondered if he even affected the demons for long. The chants only seemed to scare them, and then they flew. A warrior worked with what he had.

Worl was still talking.

"Little brother," he said, gauntleted hands clasped around Raguel's armoured shoulders, "Pay attention. We have sent dozens of others through the Fiefdoms. We need you to confront the Hierophants, now. We think..." a small hesitation. "We think they've done this, essentially. We don't need you to kill them - but if they refuse to be saved, you must. Show mercy as you do."

"I understand," said Raguel. He was their greatest, now. The best on the field that was left.

-

Centuries before, the Order had held the entire South-Eastern peninsula quite safely. Everyone payed the tithes, and in return for their piety, the Order had cleared out the infestations of demons that kept coming out. A Maw was expected to exist somewhere between the two mountain ranges, but there wasn't enough of a pattern to safely send anyone in.

Then, of course, the Hierophants of the Field came, and with them, came their folk. There were three of them - the lords of Serpent-Folk, Man-Spiders, and the Polypi. They and their forces poured into the territories around the peninsula with harmless but unholy abandon, suddenly filling huge uninhabited areas and serving as immediate protection from the demons from the mountains, tempting the people from God's grace with their protections, their cavorting, their wine. No war had been fought with them since the first crusade, which the Serpent-Folk had resisted easily, being apparently on good terms not just with the Old Dragon, but with dragons in general.

Trade with these now vassal countries told the Order's forces that the dogma of penitence was gone, replaced with a sibilant but near-atheistic utilitarianism. Moral problems were measured and discussed among the monsters and the men to create the law. Thus, sodomy was now embraced, along with a thousand blasphemies, as every man could give himself to whatever Pagan ritual he felt like. People worked on the Sabbath - women worked, and owned property, and served as leaders, and any place a woman did not belong, she could go.

Nothing could be so clearly Satan's work. Now, Raguel had to try to fight this with diplomacy before honest combat - with demonic creatures that themselves had forked tongues.

Well, a third of them did.

-

Raguel began his journey full of hope and with a few misgivings, solely because while he knew he could kill everything from the start to the end of the Hierophants' land, he was less certain of his tongue.

The Roman way seemed the best. He would identify their gods, and he would say he had a different name for them - Mary for the mothers, Jesus for the Kings, and so on - and he would work from there. He would offer goods. Probably in exchange for the Serpents' famous wine, the Spiders' tapestries, the Polypi's meats. It was a good plan. Worl had written it all down.

As he clambered and crawled across the forests and hills to his first village in the Hierophants' territory, Raguel rehearsed his speeches.

Bandits assailed him on the road, thinking him touched (he was talking to a snake that wasn't there). Raguel killed them. His only weapon was a holy rod from the Order: a repurposed ansated cross. It had been enchanted by witches before it was taken by the Order. The nature of the repurposing wasn't clear to Raguel, but he needed magic that wasn't reduced by God's absence, and the extendable blade in the end was forever sharp, so he tried not to think about it.

The forest turned into fen, and the fires of the village were finally in sight. Raguel's clothes showed his noble background, and his Christian beliefs, besides (of course) the skeletal bird's-foot motif on his chest. This might have helped with getting room and board. He had some gold.

Some.

-

The bartender's conversation was entirely fine. Raguel did not bring up Christ, he did not bring up whatever abomination he prayed to as though it would ever save him from Satan. They talked about the weather. About the drink. About Magdalene, after the drink.

"So, you're still...?" The bartender's breath made his leer audible. Raguel was looking away. Doubtless he was picturing a tryst between Raguel and some local whore.

"Of course."

"Well, we've plenty eligible girls here in town," the bartender said. "Rich, even!"

Honesty was best.

"My fiancé was put to rest only recently," Raguel said, "I would prefer not to court again until I feel recovered." As though that would ever happen. As though he could forget Magdalene's beautiful thoughts contorting with the illness, her full body turning skeletal.

"All the best to you," and the tone shifted uncomfortably quickly, "I still hold my old Sarah dear, after all these years. Once, I found a new woman, and I asked her permission, right, and she just didn't say anything, so I was trapped, you see."

The bartender was sweating.

"I --"

"Because she was dead."

The bartender was very red.

"I think I'd like to --"

"Sarah, I mean."

Raguel's hand nearly went to his ankh.

"Sir --"

"Dead as a doorknocker. Never gonna hear anything from her, no sir. So, I imagined what she wanted, right? I imagined her looking down from Heaven and getting that little twitch she got when I seemed like I'd so much as face the same direction as another woman. I remembered how violently jealous she got when she found out I was still writing to my sister. My sister! This was before she got sick, of course - she really had a mean punch, she did."

"Can I just pay --"

"So, I didn't bury her memory, you see. She was important. But - she did bad things to me, you know? Not what a wife should do. Not what a husband should do! I married Joleanne, then."

Raguel made his bed in the woods instead.

-

The warrior knew he was strong. (He killed more bandits on the way from the village, up the mountain, proving this to himself. They were getting bolder.)

He knew he was comely, as well.

Women who did not know him stared when he was out of his armour, all broad shoulders and long, thick legs. Men, too. It was envy, probably, or perhaps submission.

To start the process of courtship again - he had no father to betroth him to anyone, as he was a foundling - would be difficult. He could not barter for a girl's dignity, and as a travelling warrior, he did not need lands. It would lead to the bride being put in charge of her family's affairs, subject to raids, to relatives claiming Raguel's death to get access to her property, to...

No, Raguel would die in the field. To the Folk of the Field, most likely, and young too. Never to see his body crumble down.

After his mission was complete, of course. He'd probably end up massacring all of them and letting the Order retake its lands. A useful life.