David Dalglish - The Prison of Angels

Moments later he saw the horse, and he was glad to see both had survived. They landed with a burst of wind, both the elf and the girl hopping off.

“Are you all right?” she asked him.

“I am, thanks to you,” he said.

“This isn’t good,” said the elf, a frown locked across his features. “Sonowin cannot carry the three of us.”

“Then we run,” the girl offered.

“Indeed.” The elf turned to him. “Except for you. Get back on. Sonowin will take you to safety, if you guide her.”

“No,” Daniel said. “I won’t be a burden like that.”

“You’re not,” said the elf. “I need you to raise an army, and send out warnings to all the nearby villages. At least three towers have fallen from what we’ve seen. It won’t be long before the rest are gone, and the entire North is being overrun.”

Reluctantly, Daniel climbed back atop the horse, wishing there was at least a saddle. The creature swung her head side to side, neighing loudly.

“Head southwest,” he told her. “Can you understand southwest?”

The horse bobbed her head, snorting. Her wings flared wide, and he guessed the intelligent creature did. He looked down at his rescuers. They each stood tall, with long bows in hand.

“What will you two do?” he asked.

“Don’t worry,” the elf said. “Sonowin will come find us. And until then, well…”

He glanced to the girl. Her face was haggard and scarred, and despite looking like she’d endured a nightmare, she smiled.

“Until then, we go hunting,” she said, lifting her bow.

Sonowin’s wings beat harder, and away into the air they went. Daniel watched the two vanish into the forest before turning his attention to where they flew. Leaning closer so the horse could hear his words and see his actions, he pointed in the direction where he thought the nearby castle waited.

“Fly on,” he said, and the horse obeyed.

Daniel settled back in, his arms wrapped around the creature’s neck to keep him secure. Still exhausted, he said a prayer for his dead men, as well as his saviors. It made him sad when he realized he’d never even asked them their names. Perhaps, he thought, if the world was kind, he’d get another chance.

The old soldier shook his head. A kind world. What an insane thought.

Onward they flew, as far behind him the bird-men emptied out from the walls of Blood Tower and continued on, heading for where the farms and villages slumbered.

Ezekai circled, staring down at the town of Norstrom as the wind blew through his hair. He should land. He knew he should land. Though no scepter had called for his aid, his fine eyes could clearly see the mob gathering below in the square. That they did not call him was unsurprising. Whenever he talked with the rest of his kind, they said the same. The use of the scepters was dwindling, and exclusively for those in need of healing. Ever since that one night they’d given the humans the justice they desired, things had changed. Deep down, Ezekai knew it’d never be the same. He saw the way the people looked at him. There was fear now, just fear. No love to match the love in his own eyes. That Ahaesarus had repealed the decision, and revoked their right as executioners of the guilty, seemed not to matter.

Still, the mob below was growing, and he could not ignore what was happening. Ezekai dipped his wings, and down to the square he flew, landing with a gust of wind and dust. Over a hundred men and women gathered there, and they begrudgingly made room for his landing. To call the reception cold did not give the icy feeling justice. Quickly he took in his surroundings. In the center, still being built, was another pole. The nearby rope showed its eventual purpose. In the arms of two men knelt a woman, her face beaten and her clothes torn.

“What is going on here?” Ezekai asked, trying his hardest to keep his temper in check.

“None of your concern, angel,” said the same man that had denied him before, back when they’d hung Saul.

“And who are you, to challenge me?”

“Name’s David,” he said. “And we don’t want your justice. We’re capable of doing that ourselves. Bella here’s guilty as sin, and we all know it.”

The crowd gave its enthusiastic support to the statement. The bound woman, however, did her best to rise to her feet, though the two men prevented her from going to him.

“Please,” she yelled to Ezekai. “Please, help me!”

“For what crime do you capture and beat this woman?” Ezekai asked.

“Bella poisoned my little girl!” another woman yelled.

She spoke neither truth nor lie, only an accusation she firmly believed. There’d be nothing useful from her, but Ezekai prodded anyway.

“Poisoned? Why?”

“Jealous,” David said. “We all know it, too. Jealous of Mary’s girl. Bella has no girl of her own, and she’s whored herself about this village trying to get one.”

Bella opened her mouth to speak, but one of the men holding her wrapped his arm about her head, shoving his forearm against her mouth to muffle her words. The crowd took up shouting, demanding her life, demanding she hang. Others called out for her to suffer, and the feeling of loathing and hatred made Ezekai physically ill. His wings shook behind him, tiny vibrations he could not stop.

“Let her speak,” he said, hoping to at least make things right. “Let me hear her words and judge the truth of the matter.”

“We don’t need your truth,” David said. “We’ve got people who saw her doing it.”

“That’s right,” another man said, stepping forward. “I saw her putting shit into the girl’s cup.”

“Me too,” said a third, a heavyset man with a beard. “I asked her what, but she said she didn’t do nothing, but I know what I saw.”

Ezekai’s eyes widened, and he felt pain in his chest. They were lying. Both men, lying about what they saw, all to justify the hatred in their heart. What had this woman done? Was it because she was a whore? Or did the love for Mary’s daughter demand a scapegoat for them, someone to blame?

The man gagging Bella yelled and pulled back his arm. Blood was smeared across the woman’s face from biting him.

“I didn’t do it!” she shrieked at the top of her lungs. “They’re liars, all of them, I didn’t do it!”

Her words struck him like a sledge. She spoke truth. Beaten, mocked, hated…and innocent. Yet despite his arrival, men had continued building, frantically setting up the pole with a hook at the top for them to loop the rope about. The other end would be for her neck, to snap her spine and crush her throat.

“She’s innocent,” Ezekai said, first softly, then louder. “Innocent. Don’t you all know what it is you do?”

“Are you calling us liars?” one of the supposed witnesses demanded.

“I am!” Ezekai roared. “I call you fools. I call you bitter and petty. Release that girl, and let those who laid a hand on her in violence step forth.”

“You aren’t in charge here,” David said, and the cries of the crowd affirmed their agreement. “Be gone, angel. We know why the babe died, and we know who did it. Fly away.”

Just a babe, then, not even a child. Fury continued to grow in his breast. Was it an illness? Was it something he could have prevented if only they had swallowed their pride and used their scepter to summon him? How many would die because of their hatred and mistrust?

“Stop it,” Ezekai said as a third man wrapped the end of a rope around Bella’s neck. “I said stop it now. I will not watch an innocent die!”

The crowd yelled louder. The men surrounding Ezekai pulled out whatever weaponry they owned, hatchets and knives and field-worn scythes. They’d been ready for him, the angel realized. They knew he might arrive. For Ashhur’s sake, they probably saw him circling above.