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?

III.
The squire’s elbow punched through the stained glass. Jonas gasped in pain. The glass was nearly an inch thick, and the lead that lined the panes had little give. He jabbed his steel blade in the small hole and worked it forward and back. The pounding rain did not slow, its roar almost masking the approaching dead.

A skeletal hand entered his field of vision and ripped him away from the broken window. The sword hung limply from the hole.

The green eyes of the once-man shone sickly with light. A bit of flesh still clung to its lower jaw, a gray flower. In a frenzy, Jonas grabbed the thing by its rib cage and lifted. The squire felt his shoulders pop in dismay as he flung the skeleton back. Panic fueled, he turned back to the window and worked frantically at the sword. He continued to saw as he heard the skeleton begin to pick itself up.

The central lead line gave with a pop. The bottom third of the window gave way, showering Jonas in a rainbow of glass. Without hesitation, he flung the sword inside and pulled himself up onto the window sill. The opening was small.Damnably small, the thought skated across his mind.

The bleeding youth pulled himself through the opening, gasping with exertion. He felt his cloak rip, caught on the narrow opening. His shoulders burned. Half in and half out, his eyes widened in shock. A bony hand curled around his leg, almost delicately.

Jonas kicked with animal fervor. The skeleton’s grip slid, then fell away. Bile rising, the battered squire tore a runnel of flesh from his right hip — the thick glass cut deeply. He tumbled forward onto the stone floor, landing squarely on his shoulder. Without pausing, he scrambled away from the shattered window and pressed his back against something wooden. A pew.

His heart beat once – echoing like a drum beat in his ear. Then the pain.

II.
The words hung hollow in the street.

Jonas skidded across the cobblestones to engage the next once-man. Right boot slipped, dropping his guard. His teeth rattle as the bony hand rakes across his face with surprising force. The squire’s vision blurred, making his blood appear purple as it landed on the front of his cloak.

Without stopping to think, Jonas lashed out — the sword’s pommel glanced off the yellowed skull. Skipping backwards, he swung in panic. Forgetting form in exchange for speed, his breath came quick and gasping. The skeleton fell backwards. Jonas heard the chink of steel on cobblestones as he battered its still form. The ribs crunched as he landed a furious kick.

Eight skeletons now. Jonas felt his blood turn to acid. His war cry had drawn them.

One clutched a dead hen, as if caught on the way to market. Another still had enough hair clinging to the skull for him to recognize Mogrin. She had walked the way-path near his father’s farm, taking the cows to pasture. They had shared kisses and some sweaty moments in the field, hidden from view by the tufted hay bales. The acid drained out the bottom of his feet, and left him feeling channeled out and sick.

Mogrin’s yellow hair had gone green and black with decay.

The squire spit blood and rainwater on the cobblestones. He had only been in Gilead for a few …minutes? An hour perhaps?
_
Gotta get to higher ground — someplace I can fight them and not get surrounded._

His eyes swept the city square wildly. Past two more of the skeletons, a bay window — stained glass, too dark to reveal its design. Jonas stole a quick second to dash more rain from his face, and flung himself at the two rotting townsfolk between him and the church window.