Colin Tabor - The Fall of Ossard

I gasped.

“There’s more; they’re raising an army of Kavists, and they’re on the other side of the Cassaro rallying their Flet brethren to war!”

My father gaped in horror. “If you go, Newbank will be defenceless!”

I said, “You can’t, Kurgar has banned crossing the river.”

Sef shook his head. “They say the Guild has retracted the ban. Regardless, fighters are already being ferried across!” His voice quaked with excitement, at once fearful, but also euphoric.

“Proclaimed amongst the new saints? Sef, is this a trick, or are they willing to allow any faith into their reformed church? Will Schoperde be next?”

And that was when I noticed the air’s growing edge.

Sef shook his head, as veins stood out at his temples, and bulged about his neck. His eyes sparkled with excitement, while spittle flew from his lips. “Look into the celestial, look and see!”

My perception dipped into that other world, and there it was; the change I’d felt. Divine blessings were again about.

He called out the truth, while his hands clenched into trembling fists, “A rain of blessings! It’s true! We’re raising an army to reclaim the city!”

With his soul energised, I wasn’t going to be able to stop him. Still, it was a chance to cross the river. “Sef, you’re free to go, but you need to take me.”

“No! This is a sacred duty, a pilgrimage!”

“I just need you to help me cross the river. Once done, I can search for Maria and Pedro behind your faithful line. Sef, you’ll be free of me to do what you need. I won’t have you mind me.”

He wanted to refuse, and started to shake his head.

I glared at him, making it plain there was only one answer I’d accept.

In the end, desperate to get going, he gave in. “Alright, but I can only guarantee your crossing. On the other side, I won’t be serving you, but Kave.”

My parents rose to protest, but we left them.

Sef and I hurried towards the river, from where cheers rose along with the wail of horns. We spotted Cherub on the way, the big Flet greeted Sef by taking him into a great bear-hug, the two of them sharing their euphoria. I was all but ignored.

Moment by moment, they were both becoming more distant to me, and well and truly focused on the task at hand – Kave’s task.

Thousands of Flets crowded Newbank’s river shore, the mass thickest by the bridge. They cheered a group of Kavists at their heart, the big knot numbered in the hundreds. From there the warriors waited to cross the Cassaro by way of a dozen boats that ferried eager loads to the edge of St Marco’s Square. The landing Kavists wasted no time on arrival; they climbed the river-wall, waved their battle colours, and drew their weapons.

Yet if Newbank presented a spectacle, the city-side did doubly so. On that other shore, tens of thousands of Heletians cheered a gathering of a couple of thousand devotees to Kave – they new, fearless, and raw.

The Flet Kavists arrived to be embraced by their Heletian brethren. They gathered to kill together, to shed blood and battle, yet on their faces played nothing but joy.

Watching it, I couldn’t doubt that Kave sanctioned this. His warriors held his glory in their eyes and his strength in their arms. Kave was of the new saints, and with that acceptance came a realisation; in the end, despite how honourably combat might be conducted, it was nothing but bloody violence with death at its core.

Death…

I’d been blinded to the truth by a childhood awash in tales that celebrated the bloody defence of Fletland. Somewhere in all that, while the defence was necessary, my people’s culture had become twisted so that we revered the bloodshed and tragedy, instead of the life it sought to protect.

Today, the god of battle had come to Ossard and raised an army, and now he’d go on to expel the Inquisition. Kave didn’t do it because it was just, but because he wanted people dead. It was simple greed, nurtured and driven by the divine addiction of soul-feeding. He was in league with Death because of it, or more so, the great and mighty Kave was Death’s bitch.

I was appalled.

Truly, the goddess of life had no allies, and now the divine war spoken of in the Book of Truth had come to rage openly on my own home’s streets. And worst of all, Death would win here too.

Unless someone stood against it.

But how could you do such a thing without bringing more death – the very prize the war-gods sought?

It seemed like a riddle, something frustrating and confusing, and for an answer I only had hope.

There had to be others willing to make a stand?

In a city that found its nights haunted by the sombre notes of Schoperde’s Song as surely as its days came veiled in smoke’s grey, there had to be more than a few souls who shared allegiance to the goddess of life. If they were out there, I’d have to find them.

That realisation stirred another, one built of chilled whispers.

Grandmother hung close by.

I’d still not talked to her. Now, while being put into a boat with Sef and Cherub, didn’t seem ideal, but it’d just have to do. So I passed my perception from one world to another.

I called into the celestial, “Grandmother!” And thus began my search.

Her cold blue spirit, gaunt and neglected, soon appeared. It seemed she was always close by. Long strands of spectral hair stormed about her illuminated face, rising like a halo in contrast to the dark pits that were her eyes. It gave me caution, especially after sighting her other halo.

Faint enough to be almost missed, scores of skulls circled her with each of them joined to her by a thin, silvered chain. They stared at me, and in an instant I knew them; it was the chorus of whispered voices I’d so often heard, the innocents who’d perished with her at The Burnings.

What had she become?

I’d been told that she’d once been a caring woman, wife, widow, and mother, but that was a lifetime ago.

She was changed.

I looked into the deep pits that should have held her eyes, but they only gaped darkly at me. “Greetings, Grandmother.”

She gave a curt nod. “And to you, Granddaughter.”

“You’ve watched over me all my life, haven’t you?”

“Yes.” She smiled afresh, but in the blue hues of the celestial, such a thing held no warmth.

“I’m no Cabalist.”

She nodded. “I’d hoped you were, but it’s not to be.”

“I’m aligned to the gods, to Schoperde.”

Her smile faded. “I’m surprised.”

“Why?”

She sneered. “Because I thought Schoperde only took virgins, and not sluts who gave themselves away at the first sign of a gifted drink!”

The comment hurt, but I didn’t reply.

She waited.

I said, “I don’t have time for insults.”

She studied me and then relented. “I apologise for the slight.”

“It’s alright, I’ve greater burdens.”

She nodded. “I’ve been here a long time and it’s not been easy.”

“I can’t imagine.”

Again, she nodded. “This would’ve been easier if you’d been a witch, but I guess I have to live with that.” She sniggered at her own joke. “And of Schoperde as well! A pleasant calling, but with no real power.”

I waited.

She shrugged, a movement that stirred her haunting skulls. “Juvela, I’m more friend than foe. Over time I’ve lost my chance to be reborn, but I can wander, yet this realm isn’t safe. I can’t survive it by myself. I need to stay near you.”

“Me?”

“Don’t act surprised, you know that you’re special – you’ve had a whole morning of your hulking bodyguard telling you that very thing. He’s right. Your soul is old and powerful, and being near it gives me sanctuary.”