Wrath of the Fallen

  Kai had a dirty rag wrapped around his head, depriving him of his sight. Someone was holding him tightly by the shoulder and dragging him down confusing paths. That's what it seemed to him. At some point he felt himself being lowered down. A musty, disgusting odour hit his nose, despite the cloth. The air grew colder and wetter. Kai's feet sank into something hard that crunched beneath his steps.

  Soon the sound of crunching footsteps was repced by the hum of the crowd. Kai felt the warmth and movement of air being dispersed by bodies. The door creaked, he was stopped, then creaked again, and the draught disappeared. Kai stood for a moment, then pulled the rag off his head. Nothing had changed - the merciful Darkness still hugged his head in the same way. He began to cautiously explore the space and quickly identified its boundaries. The stone room resembled his own, but with a massive iron door.

  Kai sat down on the cold floor. Everything had been taken from him, including Arn's artefact, except his clothes. To distract himself from the thoughts tormenting him, he listened. At first he heard only the sound of the water and the roar of the crowd. But then he regretted that he had chosen to listen. He heard the faint but disturbing sounds of a chorus:

  ?In crypt-born ash our wrath endures,

  The worm in rock the truth devours.

  Free thoughts will tear through every lie,

  Tyrants shall fall like ashen sky.

  The wrath of fallen — our endless scream,

  Light shall pierce the deathly gleam.

  We’re shadows of the mirrors torn,

  Soul-shards betrayed, by world forsworn. ?

  A litany of horror-bringers, pure heresy. Something so unnatural that even hearing it made it hard to believe his ears. But the ears couldn't go crazy separate from the mind. Kai covered his ears and y on his side with his legs tucked up. Damned heavens! ‘Serves you right, Kai,’ his mind's voice said mentally. ‘That's for doubting and lying to your mentor. That doesn't happen to good servants.’ Kai had no words to argue with himself. He cried again, like a child to whom no one would say ‘enough.’

  After an incomprehensible amount of time, the door creaked open again, and Kai quickly wiped away his tears. The light blinded him, but he saw two people enter. One was a scarred man with a smoking torch, and the other was an unknown man with deep-set small eyes and a long, hooked nose. His facial tattoo went across his eyes, just like Arn's.

  The new horror-bringer squatted down in front of Kai and, without a wish for fruitful service of course, spoke hoarsely:

  "This man," the speaker nodded at the scarred man, "thinks you will join us because you have no other choice. But you are a servant. You can betray, even at the cost of your own life."

  "I'm just an apprentice..." Kai also wheezed.

  "It doesn't matter. You are either with the tyrants or with us. You can't have it both ways. And servants have your minds darkened in a special way."

  "I have no loyalty to... tyrants. I have always hidden other people's dreams of freedom," Kai decided to embellish reality, because his life depended on its beauty.

  The nosed man looked thoughtfully at the scarred man.

  "I heard that yesterday one of our men had his execution postponed, though I don't think he was dreaming about kissing lords‘ asses," the scarred man said.

  "He's younger than me?" Kai's voice strengthened with hope. "He had a dream of freedom with the nature and the wind, but I said it was a dream of Darkness."

  The horror-bringers looked at each other, and Kai thought the corner of the scarred man's lips lifted.

  "A servant, even an apprentice, has more knowledge from within the system," said the scarred man in the voice of one who had won an argument. "And this one is also connected to a dream artefact."

  The nosed man frowned, but stood up and held out his hand to Kai. Squeezing it, he lifted Kai to his feet:

  "You are now the Resistance. Don't let us down, servant," The nosed man said and turning to the scarred man added, "Ger, keep an eye on him. You are now responsible for all his actions."

  He walked out, and the man who turned out to be Ger patted Kai on the shoulder approvingly.

  "You have deyed the death of my friend's son, Dan. Thank you."

  "Erm... Thank you for your patronage," Kai said in embarrassment. He wasn't used to thanking a human, not a Lord.

  "Don't worry. Fok is a sullen paranoid, as a leader of the Resistance should be. If you prove yourself, he'll accept you as his own son," Ger said cheerfully, inviting Kai to leave the room.

  "What can you tell me?" Kai cautiously accepted the invitation.

  Kai saw bones. Lots of bones. So many bones that Kai didn't realise at first what he was looking at. There were more bones than non-bones in front of him. Hundreds of them. Thousands. Columns made of skulls, tables made of ribs, torch holders made of phanges, just mounds of bones among which people walked quietly, stepping over and sometimes kicking the white remains. The ossuary beneath the city, also serving as a sewer. Kai could have guessed that, if he'd wanted to.

  "We are the Sons of Light, the st to remember and avenge. We are the remaining Light. We are the Resistance. We are the wrath of the fallen," Ger said solemnly behind Kai's back.

  The bones released Kai's attention, and he could see the rest of the cave's contents: tents made of tattered robes swayed in the breeze, bonfires made of bones smoked, pots of gruel smelled mouldy. The horror-bringers, children among them, cleaned tools and bones, carried crates, talked quietly in groups. One child wore a neckce of teeth. The Litany of the Wrath of the Fallen quietly but insistently filled the space.

  "My name is Ger," Ger said, stepping forward.

  "And I'm a servant... Ex-servant Kai," Kai mumbled, stumbling over a bone.

  "Don't worry, it's hard for many people to start a new life in the beginning," Ger reassured him, "But you'll quickly rebuild, because this is real life, not the lies of the lords."

  For Kai, real life looked unsavoury at best. Ger led Kai around the camp of the horror-bringers, talking about their everyday life. The kitchen, connected to the forge, breathed heat, smoke billowing upwards in pipes. The sleeping areas were just a pile of robes. At the men's toilet, Kai wrinkled his face when he heard men's voices. The toilet itself was a wide hole in the floor where an underground river flowed. Kai asked himself how they could get water for drinking, but wisely didn't find out. He did, however, find out what the horror-bringers ate: wall mushrooms, moss, and bck vegetable mb.

  Ger was constantly being called by the horror-bringers, and he exchanged words with them, introducing them to Kai. He didn't remember a single name. Most of the horror-bringers cast concerned gnces at Kai, sometimes whispering as they looked at him. Kai felt out of pce, which was a correct realisation.

  Ger walked over to what Kai could only identify as a massive altar, wedged between stactites and stagmites, in the distance from the camp. Yes, that's right: Litanies and Mantras need silence. On the altar y the stolen artefacts, amongst which was Arn's artefact. Ger picked it up and showed it to Kai.

  "Do you know what this is?"

  A shard of dream stabbed into his neck, as if tearing at his brother.

  "No."

  "But you have one coming out of your neck."

  "It's a different artefact," Kai said, pointing to it. "The shape is different, the lines are concave. And the spike is shorter, believe me. This is not a shard of dream."

  Ger tossed the artefact disappointedly and caught it in his pocket, where it remained.

  "I'd give it to you, honestly. But Fok would tear me apart for it. Earn his trust and it's yours. Okay?"

  Kai nodded. Arn, too, half-questioned-half-acknowledged future events with that ‘okay’. But the Darkness... Light had its own pns.

  "Arn, is he...?" Unsure of his audacity, Kai asked.

  "Was he close?" The horror-bringer said sympathetically.

  "My neighbour. But he was kind of, well.... It's hard to formute a definition..." Kai hesitated, unable to find the right words. Ger understood his hesitation as grief and fear at the recognition of Arn's importance.

  "Arn was a hero!" Ger answered too cheerfully. "Almost one of us. He sourced artefacts for us. He truly believed in our great cause."

  Kai remembered that Arn had never shown much enthusiasm for service, at least in words. And just before settling into ashes, Arn had tried to warn Kai about something. He forgot the exact words, but it was clearly a warning about the Lords.

  Ger and Kai walked back to the centre of the camp and approached a group of horror-bringers who sat in a circle and shouted, ‘Their names were Via, Dir and Gam!’ Their energy reminded Kai of the ‘Life!’ at the dragon's tearing.

  "And here is my and, by extension, your squad. But you already know them," Ger said, "This is Kai."

  Of course, Kai didn't know anyone except the horror-bringer he was riding the bicorn with. That horror-bringer looked unkindly at Kai and tossed:

  "Does this servantboy have the guts to do what he's supposed to do?"

  "You should have seen him hit the Hydra, Ham," Ger stood up for Kai, mercifully not mentioning the dropped hammer.

  "Even its own mother would have done the same," Ham snorted. "What if he had to get his hands dirty with the blood of the darkened people instead of the monster? What about then, servantboy?"

  Kai wanted to keep silent, but everyone, including Ger, stared at him, waiting for an answer.

  "If I may... I wouldn't want to kill innocents," Kai whispered, but everyone heard him.

  "Innocent?!" Ham was outraged, jumping up. "Are they those who protect tyrants? Who serve them? Who do nothing to overthrow them?"

  "Who have done nothing wrong..." Kai lowered his gaze.

  "Calm down, Ham. Kai doesn't know anything yet," Ger said, stepping between them, then turned to Kai. "You are still young and don't realise that sometimes you have to use all means to achieve an end. You cannot do without sacrifices in the big, brutal cause of revolution. The Redeemer will forgive..."

  "I... I'm just saying that if you have to do something like this, you should do it only after all other restrained means have been tried and the sacrifices minimised," Kai tried to justify himself." I don't know everything yet, but from the outside, your horrorings only evokes hatred and fear. You won't be supported that way."

  "I hope you didn't vouch for him with your head, Ger," Ham grinned. "Otherwise you're done."

  "Who says we need support?" The silent horror-bringer with a tattoo resembling a snake's mouth intervened (seeing it made Kai shudder with memories of the Hydra). "Killing the tyrants' sves doesn't matter."

  "They matter to their kin," Kai thought to himself. The faces of his parents appeared before his inner gaze.