Chapter 6: Chapter 4: Blood Given

The piercing light of dawn lanced into Gazmere’s audience hall, bright rays burning my eyes like a blast of hot smoke. Over the course of my near-sleepless night, my hair had wilted into stringy, greasy strands, and now hung limp around my face. The damp of the dungeon hadn’t allowed my clothes to dry, so my skin was wrinkled, soft, and pale. I stood, hands manacled behind my back, still unable to shake the chill of last night’s storm. In some ways, the burn of dawn was welcome. In time, it overtook the cold. But without the cloak of darkness, I saw the pitiable thing I’d become. The light of dawn laid bare my deeds.

My tired eyes drooped to consider the floor. My ears were open, though, catching every word and whisper that I could.

There was a crowd assembled in the room. People clung to the walls, keeping their distance from me in the center. Some were fearful. Others angry. A few, even apathetic. But none dared touch me except for the two guards that held my shackled arms.

Near as I could tell, the whole town was in attendance. Word had spread quickly that morning, that the local blackblood had slain seven men. That she now awaited trial, and would likely hang. They watched with bated breaths. The justice of it all did not dampen the spectacle.

I figured my father was in that crowd, too. I decided I’d rather count the floorboards than the ruts on his weary face.

Eventually, the grand entrance doors thundered open and shut, and the crowd fell into silence. I lifted my eyes to see Lord Gazmere standing under the threshold. He wore a dark doublet laced with the sky-blue colors of his house, with folded and frilled fabric that showed off his station. His hair and beard were a bright blond, slicked and styled with utmost care.

Azareth stood by the lord’s side with a face of expressionless stone. He looked at the people assembled, then met my eyes. Maybe… a smirk touched his lips, if only for a moment.

Gazmere stepped forward, hands clasped behind his back. He paced toward the wooden throne, situated atop a small platform at the end of the hall. He sighed as he sat, nodded to the guards on either side, then gestured for me to be brought forward.

My escorts shoved me, and I fell to my knees at Gazmere’s feet. My tail twitched, dragging across the carpeted floor, but I didn’t meet the lord’s eyes.

“Azareth, of the Order of Eventide, has declared that he wishes to speak on your behalf,” Gazmere said, his articulate voice filling the room. “Is this acceptable?”

I felt Azareth's presence by my side, and shuddered as he loomed. His mouth spread in a wide-toothed grin, and I fought the urge to decline. Rather, I nodded my head.

“Very well,” Gazmere said. “Please, Azareth, come forward.”

Something gleamed in Azareth's unsettling eyes. His body dipped in a brief bow as his confident voice sounded. “Of course, milord.”

Gazmere waved the gesture off. “Let’s make this quick, shall we? The accused stands trial for the murder of seven men. How does she plead?”

“Guilty,” Azareth responded, without pause.

“If that is the case, we have no need for this affair. Only the hangman.”

But Azareth raised his hand to interrupt. “If I may, I do not believe this situation is as… black and white as it may seem. The direling was not the aggressor. By her account, she acted in self-defense. This was the same mob that beat her father halfway to death.”

“Self-defense?” Gazmere frowned, leaning on his hand. “Those men were… cut to pieces. This manner of brutality is… not done by necessity.”

“I would be inclined to agree. Although, a dire threat warrants dire action. Outnumbered, seven to one, hellbent on protecting her father… perhaps that brutality was appropriate.”

His face was straight, spine rigid, but something about his demeanor indicated that he enjoyed this. That this was… some sort of game.

“It does not matter,” Gazmere said, tapping impatiently.

“Doesn’t it?”

“I have… scarcely seen such violence. Those men acted in violence first, yes, but I cannot tolerate butchery on the wide city streets.”

“I understand.”

“And did you not say that she was responsible for our recent problems with undead? The creature that has been terrorizing our farms and families?”

“Where the horned folk tread, undead tend to follow,” Azareth affirmed.

I looked to him, mouth come open. That… was a blatant lie. He glanced at me, raised his brows, and mouthed a single word. Faith.

Gazmere sighed. “Then she has brought nothing but death to this community. And it is time… we wipe the stain clean.”

“I agree, milord.” He looked to be deep in thought.

“Yes, but… I can tell that you object.”

Azareth kneaded his hands. “No, milord, I do not. You are correct, on all counts. However… you well know that the dead tend to linger. To wipe the stain… I’m afraid the gallows would not suffice.”

Gazmere’s face creased further. “Wouldn’t they?”

“None know the dead better than I or my Order.”

The lord stared for a long moment. “Then what would you suggest?”

Azareth’s face broke into a full-fledged grin. He paced in front of me, held my gaze, then watched my horns. He followed my tail as it lashed, then offered his palms to Gazmere.

“The Order of Eventide could make use of a direling.”

I gritted my teeth, closing my eyes. I breathed in deep and almost spoke, but thought better of it. Murmurs rippled across the assembled crowd.

Gazmere perked. “You’d induct this… murderer?”

Azareth shook his head and resumed his pacing. “You misunderstand me. She is not to join the Order. She is not to be given a life of comfort. She will not be an agent, but…” he smiled when he found the right word. “A tool.”

I twisted my wrists in their cuffs. Gazmere’s voice drew out, deliberate and slow.

“You must understand, Azareth, that I have reservations about letting her go free. Her victims had wives, sons, daughters—would you deny them justice?”

“I’ll deny justice to no one. The restless dead… I feel them. Those slain by her hand. They are angry,” he said, looking up. “My work in this town is not yet done, but when it is… the living and dead will both have their justice.”

“How is that?”

“Life and death are… two parts on a scale. They are a system of push and pull, give and take—weight on one end pushes the other off-center. This means that if we can deal as was dealt, last night…”

“You said her death would not suffice.”

“No, milord, it would not. But a direling needn’t die in order to bleed.”

I watched Azareth’s every movement in the corner of my eye. He stood at ease like a man in his own house. First, I felt anger, like a predator lured into a trap. But I remembered that night. The blood, the brains, the viscera. The frantic eyes and deathly screams. I let my head hang and thought, just maybe… peace could be found in my own blood given.

Gazmere thought on it for a while. “Her life is not something I can trade. The law makes abundantly clear the penalty for murder.”

“The law, too often, falls short. Too many deaths, even right and just, dealt… only haunt the land on which they fell.”

“The law is the word of Elthys herself—”

“Perhaps, but even the Divine cleaves to my order on matters of the dead.”

Gazmere’s stare weighed on me. There was a heavy, pensive silence that accompanied his deliberation. It was as though the whole room held their breath in wait—they’d see me die or see me beaten.

“I find your terms agreeable, necromage,” Gazmere said. “Cleanse those slain by her hand. Remind her of her horrible deed… and crimson, carve her penance.”

“As is my duty,” Azareth said.

“Do you require time to prepare?”

“I do not. Only… a whip. The families of the dead. And, perhaps, the aid of your wife, the Lady in White.”

Gazmere nodded. “You shall have them. I am eager to be done with this.”

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

“As am I, milord. As are, I wager, we all.”

“Then the verdict is passed. The town of Gazmere thanks you for your service, necromage. May Elthys light your path.”

Azareth gave a shallow bow, then Gazmere gestured at his guards. They formed a circle around myself and the necromage. Two gripped me by my manacled wrists and wrenched me to my feet as the townspeople burst into a quiet commotion. Some grieved. Some raged. Many seemed to be satisfied. They would see me punished and bled.

Hunched, I stumbled after the guards that were pulling me along. I tried to find my father’s tired eyes, maybe for a bit of comfort right before the ordeal. I think in the end I was glad I didn’t find him. I would rather he not know… the horror I’d endure. The thought of the scourge ripping me open touched me with dread, but deeper, I figured it was due. And if the lashes would stop my horrible actions from bearing horrible fruit, I would have wielded the whip myself.

But I couldn’t imagine my father agreeing to such action. I remembered how Azareth had heaped the undead’s blame upon me. Something… my father never would have stood for.

“He agreed… to this?” I asked, and Azareth spared me a glance.

“Who? Your father?”

“Who else?”

The necromage pursed his lips. “He agreed that there was no other recourse. That you could not stay in this town, and that my Order alone could protect you.”

“You lied,” I muttered. “About the undead.”

“I did. But allow me to ask—would you want the truth to come out? Your father would suffer untold persecution… and you would not be here to protect him.”

He was right, I knew. My name was already tarnished. Better to blacken it further than ruin my father’s life.

“As for your punishment,” Azareth continued, “I will do my best to make it quick. Your father awaits you at home, to see you off. He said… there was much he had to tell you.”

I closed my eyes, letting the ironclad guards lead me outside. I wondered what words my father possibly had. He had, so often, not dealt in words. It was uncharacteristic that he would reveal the things in his heart so plainly. I supposed it wasn’t every day that a man relinquished his daughter to something little more than exile.

I think I wore my fear and sorrow plainly. When Azareth looked at me, his face seemed to soften.

“The dead catch up with us all, Valhera, one way or another. Better to get it done with.”

Silently, I nodded. I wouldn’t allow my mistakes to spread misery any further. I would not hide from my deeds as my father had.

If only it were that simple. I would learn, in time, that the chains of suffering and death are not so easily broken. That bloodshed stains not only the killing blade, but also, the hand that wields it.

That sometimes, healing requires more than a bit of blood given. That, to erase the knotted scars… there may not be blood enough.

* * *

I stood, shivering, at the place where I had dealt in death. Beneath me, a morass of mud, blood, and rain seeped through the cobblestone. I felt its chill, come up from below like the hands of the buried dead. I saw the ghosts, and it was if they gripped my ankles. They kept me anchored, unable to move.

Behind me, Azareth conversed with the Lord and Lady Gazmere. Around me was Gazmere’s town guard, to protect me or protect the townsfolk, I didn’t know. A few stones, cast in anger, slipped past their ring to strike me in the flank. Jeers and curses filled the air, and I did my best to block them out.

Then, Azareth stood by my side. He held a whip—seven-tailed, with metal spikes studding the leather. It was not an axe or sword or spear, fine-tuned for efficient and deadly strikes. It was a cruel instrument, designed to cut deep enough for mortal pain, but not deep enough for mortal wounds.

“This was the site of tragedy,” Azareth began, pacing in the space between myself and the townsfolk. The guards surrounding us began to disperse, keeping a looser ring. “Seven men, slain by steel.” He held up the scourge, and its metal studs clinked. “Just as this woman made your husbands, brothers, fathers bleed, so too will you make her bleed. Just as death cannot be undone, so too will these scars be eternal. Let the dead not haunt the ground on which they fell… rather, the flesh that cut their mortal coil.”

Azareth nodded at the guards. Two of them jostled me forward, pulling my manacled arms with force that sent me stumbling. Another shoved me to my knees, clenching a horn in his tight fist. One more undid my metal binds, only to press my hands against a fencepost and tie them down with rope. He pulled the knot so tight, the blood became stuck in my fingers, swelling and turning bright red.

One of the men cut my shirt away, baring my tensed back. I hung my head and thought I smelled the imminent blood. That, or last night’s lingering stains.

“Bring me the widows, the parents, the fatherless children,” Azareth said. “Let their lashes return what was dealt. The anger, grief… the lust for revenge.”

I waited, listening to the shuffle of feet and the quiet murmurs of the crowd. I felt the stares, and glancing behind me, saw a growing mass of people. First, a dozen mourners, then another. Some cried, some seethed, some refused to look at me.

I knew how far a single life’s influence could spread. One life touched many—and one death did the same. But seeing all of them together, every victim of my deed… my eyes were raw, my brain was sore, my heart was growing weary. A deep, hollow void had opened within me, and the scope of what I’d done served to feed the darkness.

The first mourner stepped forward. I recognized her. Irene Levy. Don’s widow, and… I supposed, someone who could have approximately been called a friend.

“One lash isn’t enough,” she muttered, eyes going wide. “My husband, my daughter…”

Azareth dipped his head and spread his fingers between her shoulder blades. I felt something, then, similar to what I’d felt the night before, nestling my childhood doll into an undug grave. Nameless, invisible, like the air grown heavier. Although… where I’d felt grief and love, considering my father, I felt Irene’s anger bleed into the wind. Hot, burning, righteous, and raw.

This was the tinge of necromagic. It seemed the widow felt it too, as her face contorted and ran even redder. She raised the barbed lash, a primal scream escaping her lips as she brought it, dreaded, down.

“You took everything from me!” The steel stung into my back and ripped away my skin. I staggered, wheezed, and made a sound that could have been a groan. Hot blood erupted, oozing and dripping while my nerves begged for release. I realized I was clenching the post, fingers turning purple as they dug into the grain. The rope burned against my wrists, and I struggled to uncoil my hands.

This would only be worse if I tensed. I breathed consciously, intentionally, and willed my racing heart to slow.

In an instant, the woman’s anger was gone. She looked at my bleeding back, saw how I shuddered with every labored breath. She dropped the lash and put her hands over her mouth. Wordless, she turned, and vanished into the crowd.

Azareth waved the next one forward. A boy, maybe seventeen years old, but in my current state I couldn’t remember his name. I did, however, remember removing his father’s head. This one yanked the lash off the ground, snarled, and brought it down with all his might.

The strike dug in, peeling along the first wound and carving its own bloody ravine. My breath escaped me, stuttering, and I couldn’t keep myself from coiling again. My head slammed into the post. I gritted my teeth to contain my trembling voice, but an animal sound slipped through.

Two lashes, and the blood already ran like scorching rain. Two lashes, and I feared the hideous scourge like a whimpering dog below its master’s cane.

Still reeling from the second cut, I didn’t sense the third approaching. This one caught a shoulder blade, spraying a red streak across the street.

I gibbered and frothed, tail twitching while my muscles all smarted. The blood ran down my sides, now, soaking into the fabric of my pants. My demon-fire started to burn, a hot coal lighting amid that void within me.

The fourth lash cut its searing swath. Black ichor rose in my throat. I almost started to laugh, manic, as the curse came over me, but I gurgled and choked instead.

The lash cut again, white-hot. Blackness spurted from my mouth, hissing like acid when it met the post pressed against my face. Droplets touched my binds, and the rope began to smolder.

A hand took me by the horn and snapped my head back. I met Azareth’s stark, sober eyes, and spat when he spoke.

“Calm,” he said, simple and commanding. Something moved into my head—memories brought under the light, like fish, caught and pulled from the depths. I thought of the farm. Quiet moments with my father. Hillside breezes keeping me cool, comfortable enough to doze in the sun. The smell of morning dew.

For a moment, his command rang true. His magic dislodged some shade of calm from the raging, rigid turmoil. Just as his magic pulled the victims’ anger into the whip, so too did he push away my demon-fire.

Another lash, and while I gasped, I spat blood and saliva instead of black ichor. Another lash, and my eyes kept their blue, rather than turn red. Another lash, and I shook while I cried, flesh in crimson tatters. My nails cracked where they dug into the post, bleeding alongside my chafing wrists.

Another lash, and my eyes glazed over, delirious in their agony. Another, and I would’ve fallen into the dirt if not for the rope holding me up. Another, and I shrieked despite my burning breath. I tried to pull myself up, away from the scourge, but my muscles would not comply.

More lashes, but my mind had retreated into its fog. My voice faded into a whimper, then silence. After the twentieth, I don’t think I flinched. My face was wet with silent tears, my back with silent blood.

Someone cut my hands free of the rope. I fell in a pile, jaw clacking as it cracked against the cobbled stone.

I saw the world as fading colors and flashes of light. Laying there, I could just barely see Lady Gazmere step forward in her perfect white raiment. She crouched over my limp body, a look in her eyes that ill fit a servant of the goddess of mercy.

Her slender fingers dug into my back. I lacked the breath to react, but my bloody teeth bit down harder.

“Mother’s mercy… be upon you,” Lady Gazmere muttered, almost begrudgingly. Tiny tendrils of light wisped around her fingers, settling in my back and running along my opened veins. Warmth followed the light—billowing, to displace the pain.

I didn’t know how long I laid there, silent under her healing hand. The effort was obviously taxing the priestess as she continued to channel Elthys’s light. I knew how rare it was to be healed by the Mother of Mankind. How this power, poured into my skin, was not freely earned. It would take weeks, or even months, for the Lady to regain her healing touch.

And I knew how she felt the Mother’s mercy was wasted on something like me.

“It… is finished,” Azareth said while the guards tried to force me to my feet. “The dead ask a price, and the living have paid.” I couldn’t stand on my own, and they nearly let me fall. One grabbed me by the horns, and my eyes lolled as my head snapped back.

“Blood given… a payment, for blood unjustly shed.”

Eventually, I did something that resembled standing. The blessing had been enough to null much of the pain, but my back still burned with the bite of recent wounds. I managed to take a single step, arms crossed around my chest, covered as they were with my own blood. Shaking, shivering, I tried to take another, only saved from falling when Azareth took hold of my arm.

“The priestess’s healing will hold, but only if you keep steady,” he said, offering my sodden cloak from the night before. He helped me hang it around my shoulders, closing it to cover my bare chest and mangled back.

I looked at Gazmere, blood in my hair, blood in my mouth, my blood all over the street. I saw less anger in those faces. Less hatred. Maybe Azareth’s magic had worked, or maybe… there was something about seeing a woman strung to a post and beaten to a pulp. Something that put pity in the hardest of hearts, even for the sake of a killer. Or maybe they’d enjoyed watching me bleed, watching me writhe.

It didn’t much matter. I felt, deep within, that those lashes, done to cleanse the town of my filth, had cleansed me of them in turn.

Azareth walked me to his horse. Mounting, he gestured for me to follow.

“Come, then. Your debt to the dead is paid. Your debt to me, however… has only begun.”

I looked back at Gazmere one last time. In the onerous silence, people started moving again. Returning to their lives.

The blood of the past had come full circle. All that was left was the endless road ahead.

I climbed onto Azareth’s steed, gasping as the gnarled scars barely kept my blood inside.