Guardian Angel

The city burned as the boy and the knight crested the first of the hills beyond the cannon-marred fields surrounding the now-fallen walls. The shrieks and ululations of the inhuman invaders resounded throughout the broken parapets and bloodied streets as twisted things scurried through the rubble of what had once been a shining bastion of the lands of men.

“It’s really gone then, isn’t it?” The boy asked, looking up at the knight who walked alongside him. Its battered plate armor bore traces of the elegant filigree belonging to an older, better time, an arbalest tied to its back and a flanged mace fastened to the waist of its cuirass.

“Yes, scribe.” The knight replied, its voice gentle, indistinct, and near-devoid of pitch and tone. “The foe has taken Bascilos. Do you have the relic?”

The boy nodded, undoing the bindings of his leather pack and presenting a bulky package covered in parchment, bound with twine, and sealed with the silver pyre of the Savior.

The knight nodded. “Good. Had I been but a moment later it would have been desecrated by demonry. A pity I could not save your kindred at the abbey.” A heavy pause. “Ah, I have erred. My pardon.”

“It‘s alright.” The boy murmured, memories flashing through his mind of the past frantic hours, the harrowing escape as the men and women he’d known for years were dragged down and butchered. It had only been through the timely arrival of the knight that he alone had survived.

“We’re heading up north then?” The boy asked.

“Yes. Do you know the way?” The knight replied.

“You don’t?”

“...It is not my place to know such things.”

“Right. I’ve studied maps in the abbey, I can lead you to the next city...” The boy replied hesitantly before continuing on in some silence. He had always suspected the modest outpost housed a knight of the church, but to see it in the flesh… he shuddered before reprimanding himself. Such thoughts were unbecoming, directed as they were towards a knight of the church. They walked for some time before the knight spoke up again.

“What is your name? If we are to travel together, I should know your name, I think.”

“...Isatios.” The boy replied. “Isat is also fine.”

“Mm. That name is church-given. You were a foundling, then?” It tilted down its head, masked below the slit visor of his armet, to take a better look at the boy. Typical for the region, black-haired and tan-skinned, with pale blue eyes haunted by the ordeal of the siege. Scrawny, attesting to his life buried in the abbey’s study before the fiends burnt it down, and dressed in the simple robes of a lay scribe. The knight suddenly started, as if struck.

“Ah, my pardon once more. I was named Alcian. You must forgive my impropriety, the years guarding the catacombs have robbed me of my social mores.”

“Is that where you were all this time?” asked Isat.

“Yes.”

“Protecting the-”

“-relic.” Alcian finished, making the Savior’s sign over its head and body. “Yes.”

“You still came to help us though. Why?”

“It was my duty. I am deeply regretful I could not do more, but know your fellows sleep in the arms of the Most Holy.” Alcian replied, turning away.

“I know.” The old abbot had been like a father to Isatios. His grisly end at the hands of the monsters would haunt the boy for the rest of his days, he knew. Still, it would have been easier for the knight to have simply taken the relic and left him to die. He couldn’t help but wonder at that. Why him, a mere layman?

His musings were interrupted by a low bellow, echoing through the hills. More followed it. Alcian held a hand up. “The foe has our scent.” It said plainly. “Hide yourself someplace behind me.” A hand reached up to undo the arbalest’s clasp. “If the Most Holy smiles upon us I shall make an end of them before they may close to melee.”

The boy nodded, looking at Alcian already loading a quarrel into the siege crossbow’s groove. Normally such a weapon came with a crank, the tensile strength of the string being too much for a normal marksman to easily pull back. But as the knight grabbed hold of the rope, a single jerking yank pulled it all the way to the latch at its end. Isat swallowed and took cover behind a ditch.

Some minutes later the first of the fiends arrived, head bowed low and snorting as it followed the scent of its prey. Hirsute in charcoal fur and cloven-hooved, horns curving up and forward as its hircine eyes darted about, its mouth opened into a lolling pant to expose its blood-red throat and jagged teeth. Isat’s breath caught in his throat as it seemed to gaze right through him, with wide eyes devoid of any recognizable emotion save frantic hunger. But it was sent flying as the first bolt struck it, all but pinning its carcass to the earth below. Its dying squeal alerted the others, heralded by the erratic thumping of their misshapen limbs. Another fiend leapt forward only to meet the same fate as the first, struck through the ribs by a well-aimed shot. Three more scurried forwards, brandishing crude iron weapons as they closed in. A third fell to another bolt before the fourth crossed its blade with the handle of Alcian’s mace. It was sent reeling by a gauntleted fist as the armored figure dropped its crossbow to strike with a free hand. The fifth struck true, cudgel leaving a dent on the knight’s breastplate as Alcian stepped back from the force of the blow, mace swinging from the side to catch the foe in the neck. The snap of bone marked the creature’s defeat, but Isat gasped in shock, for the stunned fourth, low from the ground, had plunged its sword into Alcian’s thigh, the blade finding a gap in the armor from its holder’s prone position. A quick stomp of a metal sabaton put paid to the wretch, leaving all five dead and the knight still standing, blood trickling from its leg as it sagged downwards.

Isat rushed out of his hiding place. “Are you alright?! You-” He skidded to a stop as the knight staggered back up to its feet.

“Yes.” It rasped.

Isat stared. The blade had gone deep, surely an artery had been sliced open. Yet the bleeding was a mere trickle, dark and thick like a tree’s sap.

“We must flee. These were but the lowliest of their ilk, and the stench of their carcasses will draw their kindred in. If something worse were to come with them, we would both surely perish.” Alcian spoke again, gesturing to the bodies.

Isat nodded. “Right.”

The sky burned red as the sun began to set, the pair took shelter beneath an alcove formed by the rain-worn rock. No fire was lit, the smoke and light would produce too dangerous a signal. Alcian had insisted on resting, for Isat’s sake. Though it shamed the boy to slow the knight down, he knew in the long run this would be the safest option. Better he had the strength to run tomorrow than be caught exhausted in the night. But sleep fled his aching body as he stared up at the alcove’s ceiling, contemplating the days prior to his flight. The unbelievability of the horde erupting from the earth, writhing like maggots. A menagerie of bestial monsters baying and howling below Bascilos’s ramparts as the defenders rained shots from gonne and cannon upon the advancing horde, the very earth warping with the arrival of innumerable horrors from the pit. Inhuman faces twisted into grotesque expressions of glee and hatred. The men and women who had called them up from the pit, striding through the air and raining death with their blasphemous arts. Demonry had ever threatened the realms of humanity, tempting practitioners of the arcane with its secrets and promises, feeding upon their desires until it became impossible to say who was servant and who was master. Outbreaks such as this were not unheard of, but he had never expected to see such horrible sights himself.

The voice of the knight cut through his thoughts. “Scribe, I require assistance undoing my armor, if you would. I must administer treatment to myself.”

Isat nodded and got to his feet, moving to where the knight stood, arms spread and motionless as he waited for the scribe to assist him. Normally a knight of any sort would have a retinue of squires to handle such things, but given the situation Isat was all it could rely on. The boy swallowed as he stared at the figure, and gingerly undid the clasps of its armor, slowly peeling off the metal shell. He barely realized he was done until he noticed the knight looked down at him with its dull, clouded eyes. Its helmet was held in its hands, and it smiled.

Isat could only stare at the patchwork quilt of mismatched skin tones, marked by lines of precise stitching over scarred tissue marking the boundary where the flesh of various individuals contributed to the knight’s body, taken from the virtuous dead and unrepentant apostates alike. Gray hair fell in ringlets to its shoulders, framing its perfectly angelic face. Isat could almost see the patches of skin part in his mind’s eye, envisioning the priests shaving bone and slicing meat as they sculpted the cadaver’s visage into a work of art before putting it back together, and performing the sacrament of resurrection.

“Does my countenance bother you?” It asked. It did not blink. Its chest did not rise or fall. Only the absence of rot concealed the fact that Isat talked to a puppeted corpse.

Alcian tilted its head to the side. “I apologize if so.”

Isat was frozen. He’d known, of course, that the church’s existence was predicated on such arts. Even something like this was hardly beyond them. But to see such a thing in the flesh… despite the holiness of Alcian’s existence, Isat could not help but feel a chill.

“I had not thought-” He fumbled. What else had he expected? How does one converse with such a creature, with the illusion of uncertainty so stripped away? With Alcian garbed in armor Isat could pretend he had been travelling with a fellow human, but now…

“No.” Isatios finally replied. “It is just the weakness of my flesh, I shall bear it.”

“Very well.” Alcian said, sitting on the floor of the alcove and taking out a needle and thread. With stiff but precise movements it began to stitch up the gash in its thigh.

“Will it… heal?” Isat asked tentatively.

“Yes. I think the brute’s club broke a rib as well, but I cannot tend to that.” Alcian replied. “I would require either many weeks or another rib to spare.” It looked over Isat for a moment, who had grown paler. “It would be a sin to wrest one from a member of the flock, worry not.”

“I thought corpses weren’t able to fix themselves like living people.” Isat remarked.

Alcian continued to stitch. “Usually. That is what separates mortals and the dead, animated or not. Which is why my existence is proof of the Savior’s covenant.” The knight turned to Isat, earnesty writ into its expression. “I take it you were educated on such things?”

“I know the lay teachings. The Savior was born by the will of the Most Holy, and taught us how to bring heaven to earth. He was rejected and burned on the pyre, rose again in a divine body, and founded the church before returning to the side of God.”

“Yes.” Alcian nodded. “His body and blood are sacred, and the Immaculate Resurrection a blessing from the Most Holy. The faithful are charged with the replication of the miracle, so that this world can be turned into a heaven where mankind possesses life eternal and wants for nothing.” It smiled. “I am but a step in that process.”

“You don’t mind it?”

“No.” Alcian replied.

“Why?”

“Because I am a child of the Most Holy. My existence is its will.”

“And that of the priests that made you.”

“I trust in their judgement. Besides, to be is not without its benefits. I… enjoy it.”

“And how long have you, ah, been?” Isat asked.

“Hm.” The knight’s head tilted. “Five years, I think? Yes. It has been three years since I was tasked to guard the reliquary, and I spent two being taught.”

“They- they-” Isat sputtered. “Three years?!” All that time, spent in darkness… Alcian bore no sign of distress on its face. “That doesn’t bother you?! Being trapped down in there this whole time?”

“It was my duty. Why should it bother me?” The knight replied.

“Didn’t you get lonely?”

“Yes.”

“Then why-”

“It was my burden to bear. Such a thing required constant vigilance, which living folk could not provide.”

“So, this would be the first time you’d been outside since then…” Isat just stared.

“Yes. Seeing the sun again has been most heartening, despite our circumstances. As has your concern for me.” It paused. Its expression flickered briefly, as if it had not meant to speak so frankly. “You should sleep. I will keep watch.”

“You don’t need to sleep?”

“I do not.” It said, finishing the last stitches on its wound. “But please help me re-equip my armor.”

“Right.”

Isatios could only lay on his makeshift bed of spread fabric, thoughts running through his head. It seemed terribly cruel to leave someone alone in a mausoleum for three years, and to think the thing had only existed for five! It conflicted with all the stories he’d heard of the church’s infamous angels, their passions, senses, minds dulled by the imperfections of their resurrection, built as tools to relentlessly enforce the Most Holy’s divine will. Certainly Alcian seemed distant, off in both its lifeless gaze and zealous devotion, but it was undeniable there was an individual beneath the lukewarm flesh and stitched skin of the church’s unliving servant.

He was awoken by urgent shaking.

“Isat. Wake up. Wake up.” Alcian’s voice was low and strained. “We must flee.”

“Wh-” A mumbled query turned into a bolt of dread as he shot upright, only to be pulled back down by the knight, who pointed towards the horizon. Seemingly suspended in the air, the black specks seemed to shift and flutter in the wind. His stomach dropped. He could almost make out the figures striding through the air, held up by invisible spirits bound to their will.

“Sorcerers-” He hissed. “Have they seen-”

“No, not yet. But demonry follows behind. We must flee before the bulk of their army overtakes us.”

An image of the loping, gibbering horde flashed through Isat’s mind, and he quickly gathered his possessions, securing the reliquary within his satchel and following the knight who loped stiffly through the winding hills, sticking to the sides and avoiding open ground as they hid from the watchers above.

“Why are they moving now?” The boy whispered.

“I do not know.”

“Are they after us?”

“Most likely not. The relic should not be known to them. But if our paths are the same, we shall surely meet their forces if we do not move with haste.”

The pair moved swiftly through the ditches and valleys, but even so the signs were encroaching on them. A wretched stench sweeping from behind, the booming of manskin drums, the clouds of dust kicked up by innumerable tramping hooves backlit by the red glow of infernal sorcery.

“Are they going to find us?” Isat looked over his shoulder at the rising glow in the distance, panic making his voice catch.

“Perhaps, I-” Alcian’s head jerked to the side, arbalest already in its grasp as it nocked a bolt and sent it flying into the horned head of a pursuer. “Yes.” It said, and took off running along with Isat, hooting and growling resounding from around them.

Isat’s lungs and legs felt like they were on fire as they fled through the wilderness, the terror of the city’s fall endlessly repeating through his mind. More than anything he wished he had brought a dagger, a weapon, anything he could use to end his own life if the fiends caught up with him. He stood no chance in a fight but perhaps could avoid capture if he were swift enough.

Alcian turned sporadically, sending bolts flying at the skittering forms which pursued them. His thoughts turned to the reliquary in his satchel. He swallowed.

“Take it.” Isat said.

“No.” Alcian replied.

“No?!” Isat gasped, barely keeping pace with the knight. “The- the relic is far more important than I am! You should have it!”

“I refuse.”

“Why?!”

“I’ll need to slow them down while you escape.”

“What-” He nearly stopped, staring at Alcian in shock.

“You won’t be able to outrun them if I don’t.”

“What do you mean!? You’re not even tired, you don’t breathe! You could easily just abandon me here!”

“It wouldn’t be right. I can hold them here, and you can flee. You should put enough distance between us that they won’t find you.”

“No- that- that’s not fair! You’ve only lived for five years and you’re going to get yourself killed now!” Isat’s vision blurred with tears of frustration. “You can’t! It- it’s not right!”

“It is my burden to bear. I have faith in the Most Holy’s guidance. Please, go.” Alcian stopped and turned, drawing his mace.

Isat ran on, not looking back. Not when the keening howls of the fiends reached his ears. Not when their triumphant hoots turned to squeals of pain, quickly silenced. Not when the clashing of steel faded into the distance.

He did turn when he heard the panting and thumping of his pursuers, though. A strangled sob escaped him as his legs gave out, looking over his shoulder to see a pack of fiends capering about a larger demon, leonine in countenance with an expression of cruel arrogance upon its bestial features.

“A MORTAL SHEEP WITHOUT ITS FLOCK.” Its voice was a layering of countless pitches, seeming to echo through the air without any source yet undeniably the sound of the hellish emissary. “WE SHALL MAKE SPORT OF IT. DRINK OF ITS SUFFERING AS A FINE WINE.” It barely acknowledged Isat’s trembling presence as he clutched his satchel firmly, a last futile act of defiance.

“IT DOES NOT KNOW WHAT AWAITS IT.” The towering figure grinned. “IT WILL BE TAUGHT.” Its words were met by raucous laughter from the lesser creatures, which had already begun encircling the hapless scribe.

A taloned hand reached for him.

A bolt impaled it.

It reared back, howling in its many-toned voice as another bolt struck it, and then another, until a hail of projectiles were raining down on the pack of hellspawn.

And then the first of the knights charged, great maul swinging down on the head of a fiend, pulping it. Another saw the foe impaled on its halberd, pointed tip erupting from the back of its ribcage. Figures in plate armor, battered and dented, stained with ichorous blood, like tree sap. The pack’s leader, even wounded as it was, sent attackers flying with sweeps of its trunk-like arms, ripping off limbs and dashing bodies against the earth until a streak of light erupted from afar, impaling the monster as it crumbled to ash. The knight lowered a long scepter upon which a withered arm was mounted by the stump, adorned in jewelry and silver filigree, fingers flexed in the Savior’s Sign and radiating smokeless flame.

Isat knelt emotionless in the dirt as one of the knights approached, removing its helmet.

It had an angel’s face.

“Are you well?” The knight of the church asked, its voice gentle yet indistinct, near devoid of pitch and tone. Clouded eyes and gray hair fell in ringlets across its shoulders, it’s patchwork skin marked by lines of precise stitching over scarred tissue marking the boundary where the flesh of various individuals contributed to the knight’s body, taken from the virtuous dead and unrepentant apostates alike.

“I… I’m alive.” Isat replied, voice barely above a whisper, reaching into his satchel with trembling hands.

“Here. We… we were to deliver this to… to safety.” He pulled out the parchment-wrapped object and loosed the twine, the wrapping falling off to reveal the silvered spherical cage that kept the mummified head preserved within. “The… the head of Saint Abasius. I take it you’ve collected the rest of him?” He asked, looking to the scepter-mounted arm.

“Worry not.” It replied. “You are correct. The church shall be making use of many saints for this conflict-” It paused. “We? There are others? We had thought this place had been wiped clean.”

“Another- another one of yours- he protected me- he’s further behind- I can-” Isat staggered upwards. “I can lead you-”

The knight nodded. “Do so.”

Isat led the party deeper into the hills, retracing his steps as best he could until he came across the sight of the battle. Well over a dozen fiends lay strewn in pieces about the area, and what was left of Alcian lay scattered at the center.

He ran forward and collapsed in front of the knight’s body, little more than a head and torso, bearing the mark of gouges and bites over what flesh was exposed. Isat sobbed like a child, head in his hands.

Its head turned to face him.

Isat stared.

Alcian’s empty eye sockets could not see him, and too many of his limbs were missing to move. Isat rested a trembling hand on the Alcian’s shoulder until he saw another of the unliving knights standing beside him, a pair of them lifting up Alcian’s body onto a cot.

“What- what are you doing?” Isat asked with a shuddering breath.

“Taking him to the priests.” One said.

“He needs to be restored to fighting strength.” Another added. “Many have died already in this conflict, we have enough fresh corpses to restore his body.”

“You want even more out of him?!” Isat shouted, earning the attention of the group as they turned to face him with their angelic, placid faces, giving away no hint of emotion. “He- he must be suffering terribly- to still be alive after all that- and you’re not done with him?! Just let him rest already! Hasn’t he been through enough?!”

A knight looked at him strangely. ”It is what we are created for.”

Isat’s hands clenched into fists, frustration building in his chest. He couldn’t bear it! A rational part of him understood that he might be putting thoughts, feelings, into the head of something that didn’t feel them, that was nothing but a tool. But Alcian didn’t talk like a tool. He talked like a person. One that barely lived at all.

“Take me with you.” Isat whispered.

The knights turned to him.

The boy stepped forward. “I’m not leaving him alone.”

A rasp drew the attention of them all. Alcian spoke, barely. “You’d seek to bear the seal of the church? It will be difficult. It may be… painful. I would not wish you to suffer on my account.”

“I’ll do it anyway. Like I said, this- all of this- it’s not fair! If I could make it easier for you- do something to help- even a little…” He stopped. Alcian was smiling, if only barely.

“You will make a fine priest, I think.”

“...Thank you.”

One of the other knights stiffly motioned forwards. “Let us be off. The clergy’s forces already march. We shall meet them by nightfall.”

Isat nodded, following the procession of angels beyond the broken hills, away from Bascilos and the terrors which dwelt there.

Hands clasped over a silver pyre.