IX.

Blood geysered out of the priest.

It sprayed across Jonas and pooled at his feet. It spread quickly underneath the pews. The blood continued to gush, more than the squire would’ve thought possible. _Will it fill the whole church? _He was caught by an image of himself treading in blood, pressed like a drowning rat against the stone ceiling of the sanctuary.

Luthen smiled happily.

“Thank you — thank you so much. Now it falls to you to treat with him.”

The priest coughed. Blood continued to seep down the front of his tunic. He ran a hand over his face, smearing red across his eyeless face.

“I know something, something he didn’t want me to know — God told me the devil’s name — whispered it to me, ever so delicately…his name is fair…Fair…”

The priest fell silent and spoke no more.

Jonas pulled his sword free and numbly wiped off the blood. He felt cold. Luthen was a demon — wasn’t he? If not — I just killed my first man. An unarmed blind man, sitting in a church.

The squire would have vomited, had there been anything in his stomach. He fled.

His sword was heavy as he ran, finding stairs leading upward by pure chance. He pounded through empty rooms and hallways, seeking a way out — a way up. He battered through the last door, and fell to his knees in the rain. A small balcony near the roof, open to the heavens. The dark stone of the church was mute behind him, Jonas blinked into the rain and tried to regain composure. He had an unbroken view of all of Gilead. The streets were black, scatters of movement caught his eye but not his interest.

Jonas had come home.

On the edge of the city the lord’s keep stood. Green light flickered from the windows, seeming to beckon him. No…no….I…don’t want to see any more..

The squire looked down at his feet, and saw his sword. The rain beaded on the good steel.

VIII.
Luthen continued as if the squire had responded.

“I knew it was the devil, when he walked into the church. His smile told me, and the too-loud clank of his iron shoes. He burned the eye, like sun-pain — reaching back into your head even as you blink. I looked into his green-grass eyes and knew.”

Jonas reeled back, and stumbled towards the linen-draped dead. In the uncertain light shed by the priest’s eldritch flame he tried to pick out faces. Was his father here – his sister? The sickly sweet stench of mulberry hung about the corpses.

“He walked up and took my right hand and stroked it with his left. ‘There now’, he said, ‘Seen a little too much haven’t we?’. He touched my face, so gently.”

Collapsing onto his knees, the squire looked over his shoulder. Luthen spoke quietly, blank face illuminated. Something twanged in Jonas’ heart, and his fingers tightened around the blade.

“As Gilead burned, they came. One at a time, then in droves — so eager to escape the flames. I poured the golden water for them, and kissed their lips once -twice – thrice! It was so good to save them — so right. “

The dark-haired boy rose and spun.

Jonas spoke at last. He screamed “Monster!”

The squire’s good steel punched through the priest’s chest. Luthen looked into his eyes with surprise.

“Are you the Hand of God?”, he whispered longingly.

VII.
The young squire stood up, keeping a tight grip on his blade.

The man’s face could not be seen in the darkened church. He had silver hair, and a light gray robe. He was neither slim nor fat.

“Who are you?….”, Jonas grimaced. His voice had shot out too fast and high.

The silver hair bobbed. “My name was….Luthen?”

“Don’t you know?”

“Yes, I’m fairly certain it was Luthen.”

The squire stared across the pew, willing his eyes to pierce the shadow. Was this man mad, or perhaps changed by whatever had fallen on Gilead? He seemed to be wearing a priest’s robe. Father Krohm was master here three years ago — and he was in the prime of life. Who is this stranger?

At the thought of Father Krohm, Jonas unconsciously pushed back his hood. Thick black hair, like a sheep pelt dripped on his shoulders.

“Can you tell me what has happened? What are you doing here?”, Jonas said.

The supposed priest, Luthen, answered calmly.

“I am waiting for God.”

Luthen’s right hand straightened a fold in his robe.

“What happened here? It’s quite simple. The devil came to Gilead. He walked right through the front gates. And now the city burns and burns and burns.”

The priest’s words came to a halt, and the roar of the rain filled the silence.

Jonas leveled his sword at the strange priest, the blade-tip shaking.

“What..what are you talking about?!? What happened to all the people? Tell me!”

The silver-haired man laughed. He held up his right hand and whispered an odd word. A faint yellow light sprouted in his palm, like a shimmering flower petal. Jonas blinked, allowing his eyes to adjust.

The priest had no eyes.

Not even sockets where eyes once were, just smooth featureless skin from brow to nose.
Luthen smiled, his face creasing.

Jonas screamed and backpedaled. His elbow hit the pew behind him, causing his hand to release the hilt. Without thinking, he caught the sword with his other hand, glove wrapping around the blade. The priest had not moved, just calmly raised his hand to allow the golden light to spread through the chapel.

Bodies wrapped in white linen were stacked like cordwood. Piled along the far wall, in front of the door, and arrayed around the altar in neat rows.

What …who..will..where…what is happening?

“These are the blessed,” Luthen said, “God allowed me to save them from the devil, before he could taint them. They drank the golden water and slipped free to be with God. I was left behind to tend to their mortal forms, and keep them safe. Until God takes me too.”

The priest stood and reached towards Jonas.

“This is the only safe place. Every other place in Gilead is tainted by the devil’s touch. Let me prepare the golden water for you, so that you may be at peace.”

VI.
Jonas took a careful step forward and jabbed through the broken window. The steel blade punched neatly through the closest skull. A few more careful attacks and the first skeleton fell. The other dead quickly closed the breach, and continued to pound forward against the broken window. The squire nodded to the dead. Like cutting firewood — one log at a time.

Several minutes later the last skeleton fell. A pile of bones lay outside the window, each dispatched one by one as they clawed their way through the opening. Jonas leaned on his sword, and felt pain and relief.

His head jerked up — footsteps coming down stairs, somewhere across the darkened church. Not the bony clack of the skeletons — but the slow, measured pad of booted feet.
Jonas dropped behind the pew.

“I know you’re there.” A still voice, barely echoing. The slow tread continued down the center aisle, approaching the far side of his pew.

“I heard you fighting the dead. There’s no need to hide, you have nothing to fear.”

Jonas heard the rustle of fabric as the speaker sat down on a pew bench, one row over.

V.
Fingers touched steel.

Calm descended, like a weighty blanket dropped across his form. Jonas curled his hand around the hilt of the sword, and rose to face the dead at the window.

He backed away, unconciously. His eyes skated from skeletal hand to shattered glass, and his left heel thunked against the pew behind him.

Think, damn you. Like he taught you — stop breathing and look at the pieces on the board. What do I have — what can I use?

The stone pew was far too heavy to be of any use. The young squire made himself look beyond the terrible, dry rotted forms. His temples burned with concentration. The once-men could clearly see him, the grasping arms bent in his direction as he moved. And shouting in the streets had brought the clacking horde running through the rain. But, they didn’t seem very intelligent. The mob of seven or eight skeletons just kept throwing themselves at the hole in the window, attempting to break their way through. The back of the mob could barely be seen through the rain, but none of them seemed to be trying to find another way around to get to him.

A fresh bolt of sorrow struck him. All of his old friends, people he’d known all the short years of his life reduced to this. Mindless, animated death — flung tirelessly forward. Do they know what they want? Jonas wondered. Do they want to kill me, or drink my blood, or make me like them — is there enough of a mind left to even …want things? To know this moment from that moment? Are the souls of my people still inside these things?