chapter seventeen
Starving Faith
Ayla met Butch in the War room. She sat in his chair, legs folded under her as he and Deetra knelt before the model of the storehouses at the edge of the docks. Butch stretched his back and stood.
“The garrison must have gone to Moonvale after Hillside, then ran into Tor’s troops on the East Road on the way back to Hornstall.”
The sun had set an hour earlier and the torches burned on their stands, shrouding the taxidermied heads in ominous shadows. Ayla shuddered and wiggled her toes in her boots, remembering the way they blistered on the pyre.
Butch stood up and smoothed his heavy brow with his fingers. He’d complained of a headache and Ayla could sympathize. It was from hunger. They’d been so busy in the War Room arguing and trying to piece together a plan, they forgot to eat.
Butch’s stomach rumbled loud enough for Ayla to notice from across the room, but no one mentioned food. Ayla guessed they thought the same thing she did. Better get used to it.
The orc moved to the edge of the Map Room and sat on a step. “We won't be able to attack in a few weeks. They’ll use the river, hunt in the woods. They brought wagons of supplies. We’re not outlasting them.”
Deetra stood up, still in her armor. It took three attendants to remove and don. She stretched her back and something caught her eye on the floor. “The canals,” she said, pointing to the markers along the street for the drains. “They’re filled with rats.”
Ayla rested her face on her hands, elbows on Butch’s desk.
Rats. The new strategy for survival was eating rats. She shook her head. Deetra came over to the desk and ran a hand over Ayla’s hair.
“We’ll get him.”
Ayla tried to imagine the thing on her plate as a tiny rabbit. She sat at a square folding table alone at the foot of her bed. Cooked, it could pass for a baby rabbit, if not for the smell. Her new room in Hornstall’s squat little castle stunk of booze and sewer. The castle chef had doused the meal in moonshine while cooking. He said it disguised the smell. Ayla disagreed.
She had not seen the outside of her room in two weeks. Butch and Deetra had insisted that she stay hidden, for her own safety. Deetra held the gatherings at the arena to the best of her ability in the Priestess’ absence. The Knight of the Goddess could lay her hands on the injured and heal them, but it did not fill their bellies, so attendance dropped off. For the past two days, only two hundred faithful showed up.
Today, as Deetra told her how the gathering went, she let information slip about the level of starvation the people suffered. Ayla, who had also lost some weight, found out she had eaten two to three times than the average soldier since she arrived. They moved her to the room when the rations ran out for the people of Hornstall.
Butch had saved an amount that would feed Ayla for the next two months. He and Deetra lied to her the entire time. When the Priestess uncovered the truth, she found out that after two weeks, the people had run out of options and ate rats. Tonight, Ayla would too. She insisted.
Ayla bit into the side of her skewered rat. It tasted like it smelled, like someone pissed on a burning racoon in a pile of garbage after a night of drinking moonshine. Ayla’s throat closed. Her body heaved.
She slapped a hand over her mouth. Her throat wouldn’t let it down. She choked. Bits of masticated rat lodged in her sinus. Ayla forced the bite to stay in, barely, kicking off a perverse game of backwards tug of war with her body over the food. Each time - her body, stomach, lungs and throat fought harder than before to expel it. Her eyes watered and bulged with each violent gag.
Grey rat mush and water spewed between her fingers. It sprayed on her plate and across the square folding table. Ayla reached for her glass of water, but a blob of rat floated in it. She fished it out with her fingers and another tongue-curling gag.
The priestess drank with trembling hands. She threw up every morning anyhow. At only four weeks, she noticed a small bump of a belly. Last week, the vomiting started. The arena surgeon told her she had to eat her rations, or at least three rats a day.
She rinsed off the rat with her water and took another bite. Ready this time, she took a small bite, chewed it twice and swallowed. Her eyes watered and she took another bite. The Priestess continued until she’d finished half of it.
Sick, Ayla walked across the carpeted floor and knocked on the steel-banded, arched door, big enough to fit Tor without ducking his horns. It opened and Butch stuck in his head from the hall.
“How did it go?” He asked and looked over her shoulder at the mess on the table. “Will you eat your regular rations now?”
Ayla shook her head and wiped her nose with her palm. “No. I ate.”
Butch nodded. Whenever he looked at her now, his eyes wandered to the growing bulge of her belly. He noticed that she caught him looking and cleared his throat.
“I’ll clean that up,” he said, then gently grabbed her chin. “Priestess, I'm sorry we lied to you.” He rubbed something off her cheek with his thumb. His green hand stunk of rat and she pulled away. He walked in and headed for the table.
Ayla couldn’t forgive him. She loved him like an older brother but the hypocrisy he made her live made her feel like she betrayed her people. She imagined the emaciated bodies of the children, her little acolytes.
“You betrayed me.”
Butch knelt in front of the table and used his fingers to clean bits off the carpet. Then he ate them. Ayla covered her mouth.
“Could you not do that?”
The orc wiped his dark lips with the back of his hand. “Sorry,” he said and used the napkin instead. After a moment of silence, he looked up at her.
“I would never betray you.”
His words sparked an idea. “Butch, I need you to be honest. No more lies. Can you do that for me?”
Butch nodded like one of her acolytes, eager for approval. “Of course. I only lied be-”
“Do my people want to see me dead?”
Butch tightened his jaw, looked at the floor, then continued picking up rat bits from the floor. “There’s talk, but I'm on top of it.”
Ayla came and stood next to him. She offered him a hand up. “Do you want to be forgiven?”
He picked up more of her mess and gathered it all on the plate. “Of course.” He placed it on the table and took her hand as he stood.
Ayla held his orange eyes with her own. “First, I want you to bring the acolytes to my room, as many as will come. Tonight at sunset, I want you take me out of here and into the courtyard.”
His brow lowered. “For what?”
“To give the people what they want.”
Ayla walked down the main road in shackles, under a cloudy multicolored sunset. Butch had tied a gag around her head, so she would be unable to speak or pray. She wore a filthy dress for working in the fields.
From the moment she stepped out of the castle, word spread. By the time they reached the arena, only a few hundred yards away, people crowded the road. She didn't recognize any of the soldiers, or the other faces in the street.
In twenty-nine days, the people of Hornstall had withered. Their faces, gaunt and angry, screamed at her as soldiers held them back. No one threw food, but a rock hit her in the chest.
A soldier hunted down the man who threw it and shook his frail frame by his collar as Ayla passed. A glob of spit landed on her shoulder. More soldiers in armor came out of the arena and preceded her down the street. They wore armor but their scabbards hung empty at their sides and they carried no weapons in their hands. They didn't need them to surrender.
The statue of Tor stood, crooked and cracked, but complete, in front of the arena. Butch ordered it put back together as a sign of goodwill to Tor and evidence of their defeat. From what Ayla heard, no one objected.
There had been more than talk. Butch lied to her about that too. Her people, mad with hunger, hated her. Just as Tor promised.
The crowd followed on either s
ide of the street, growing larger by the second. All of Hornstall came out to celebrate the surrender. Chants of ‘burn the witch’ made the rounds. One man pointed out her belly and called her a whore.
Ayla hung her head and looked at the road as Butch manhandled her down the road by the arm. She could no longer bear their hateful, betrayed looks. She’d promised them freedom and brought nothing but misery.
In front of the inner gatehouse, Butch turned to address the people as the soldiers went up the stairs and took their places atop the inner keep wall. Ava passed her without looking, helped by two other soldiers. The twice doomed woman’s legs were like sticks. Her pregnant belly had doubled in size, belly button poking out under the fabric of her dress. If she had carried a human child she would be ready to give birth.
“I sent a messenger to Tor and he returned unharmed. I will deliver the priestess and the knight to Tor. They and our soldiers will die today, but you, the innocent, will all be spared.”
The innocent, bloodthirsty masses cheered, filling the world around Ayla with joy over her and Deetra’s demise and that of the three hundred soldiers that remained. Tears spilled over her cheeks. She reminded herself that hunger had driven them all mad. They watched their children starve. For them, this was justice.
The portcullis opened and Ayla took a long last look at roof of the temple. Over the heads of the crowd, it was the only part visible. The raucous crowd chanted again: ‘Burn the witch.’
The portcullis ratcheted open and the remaining guards held back the crowd as Butch threw Ayla in and onto the stone gatehouse floor. She fell on her hands and knees at the feet of a scowling group of soldiers. One of them kicked her in the face.
Ayla flopped onto her back, her head ringing. Blood trickled from her top lip. Butch pushed the man out of the way and picked her up by the front of her dress. Ayla stood, her head spinning, the taste of copper in her mouth.
The second portcullis opened, clanking in rapid rhythm, the noise painful inside the wide, arched gatehouse. Butch escorted her into the courtyard. In the center stood a stake atop a pyre, same as the one Dylan made for her in front of the temple. This time, Deetra, stripped of her armor down to just her Freeman tunic, stood tied to one side.
The acolytes played in the courtyard, separated into groups, just like in the temple a month ago. Their emaciated bodies, some with swollen bellies, crushed Ayla’s heart when she first saw them in her room. She’d held each one in turn and begged their forgiveness.
Afterward she had Butch give her rations, all of them, to their families - with the condition that the children did not eat before sunset. They skipped and held hands in circles scattered around the courtyard, singing a chant they came up with themselves.
“Mother of Rest and Succor, your children are in need.
Let Tor come, so we can eat.”
Ayla’s throat tightened in fear and her hands trembled in the cuffs behind her back. Deetra looked up and saw Ayla. The fallen knight kicked and strained against her chains, screams muffled by a gag in her mouth.
Ayla couldn't look at her. The Priestess had no idea what Butch had told her. Ayla had told him to use his judgment.
“... and Succor, your children are in need.”
Butch put her back to the stake and tied her throat, arms, and ankles. He waved to the children as he walked towards the main gate. The portcullises each opened as the drawbridge lowered. The children sang on in unintentional rounds.
Ayla closed her eyes and prayed with her heart. Deetra’s fingers touched Ayla’s back, trying to reassure her. The smell of pitch brought back the memory of the fire on her toes, blistering them in her boots.
Hoofsteps echoed from the drawbridge, dozens of them. Tor spoke but Ayla didn't understand the words. Butch replied, his tone one of reverence. The same he used with her the first time he witnessed the Goddess’ healing power.
She lifted her head, her eyes flooded and cheeks streaked. Tor came with an attachment of half-beasts in full plate armor - his knights. He and Butch cleared the gatehouse first, the orc with a torch to light the way. The others followed behind in a semi-circle, weapons sheathed, shields on their backs.
When the crowd behind the portcullises of the inner gatehouse saw Tor, the other chant started up again. ‘Burn the witch’. The uplifted voices of close to a thousand slaves shook the barren courtyard, drowning out the children.
Butch presented Tor his prize with one hand, Ayla and Deetra. “Your Priestess, and Knight of the Kissfish, as requested.”
Tor stopped and stared at the children. “What in the Hells is this?” The knights rested their furry hands on the pommels of their swords, wary. Their eyes scanned the courtyard and walls.
The sun set behind the western horizon, bringing the winds. With the clouds, the only light left came from the torches on the inner keep wall above and the gatehouses. The children’s shadows played on the walls as they danced in circles in the patchy grass and dirt of the courtyard.
Butch took a knee before the ten-foot minotaur, holding his lit torch out to the side. “My Lord Tor. I ordered the children be present. The Guardians of the Light said that our slavery is a penance that will only end once we have renounced the Dark Queen.”
Butch held out a hand to the nearest circle of singing children. “If we ever want it to end, we must start with the children. I told them that when Tor came, they would eat. They wanted to honor you. The song was their creation to mock the false priestess. Listen.”
“Mother of Rest and Succor, your children are in need.
Let Tor come, so we can eat.”
Tor’s laugh boomed and bounced off the walls of the courtyard. The crowd stopped chanting but the children continued to sing.
“Your kind has always made me sick, orc. But I'm a man of my word. Your life is spared. Where is the temple?”
Butch pointed past the inner gates. “Through there, fourth building against the wall. It was disguised as a storage room. The altar kept it hidden somehow.” The orc stood up and handed Tor the torch.
Ayla stared at Tor as he approached, torch illuminating his face and making his eyes shine like a demon. Deetra pressed something into Ayla’s palm from behind her. She gripped it, and turned it in her fingers, careful not to drop it. The first minotaur, Tor, stood before the pyre, torch crackling as the children danced and sang around him.
“I told you what would happen. I did not choose for you to burn. That is the will of your people - again. Your own general offered you up to me. He asked only that I spare his life and let him serve a true child of the Goddess.”
Ayla cursed at him through the gag. Tor handed the torch back to Butch.
“You do it. Prove your sincerity to serve me. Burn the kissfish whores.”
Butch met Ayla’s eyes for an instant, then walked to the edge of the pile of wood. Ayla narrowed her eyes at Tor, accusing him. Butch lowered the torch to the wood. The pitch at the bottom caught.
Tor stayed the orc’s hand and kicked away the burning piece of wood.
“Wait. I think the Priestess has some final words.”
Tor walked up to the pile of kindling. The wood splintered and cracked under his weight. He pulled the gag down out of Ayla’s mouth.
“Something to say?”
Ayla pressed her throat against the rope, making her voice almost inaudible above the chanting children. Tor checked over his shoulder. Looking at Butch, he swept a hand over the singing acolytes.
“Would you shut them up?”
Butch shrugged. “I can try. Kids don't like me much.” He yelled over the chants. “Hey! That's enough!”
“Mother of Rest and Succor, your children are in need.
Let Tor come, so we can eat.”
Tor shook his head at Butch and leaned in close to Ayla, their noses almost touching. “Last words, Priestess?”
Ayla turned the key in her cuffs, coughing over the sound. Ayla pulled the dagger tied to the pole. The cuffs fell wit
h a clank and rattle of chains.
Tor’s ear twitched. Too late. Ayla brought the dagger from behind her back. She sliced his throat with a violent swipe and a grunt of effort.
The sharp blade cut deep. Blood sprayed over Ayla’s face. Tor’s hands went to his neck, but the blood pumped between his fingers with every beat of his heart. His eyes rolled as he choked and chortled. Ayla cut the binding on her throat.
The half-beast knights behind him drew their weapons, wearing expressions of shock and disbelief as Tor dropped to his knees. Butch threw the torch in the center of their half circle, and hit the ground - marking them for the archers.
The air filled with the hiss of arrows hidden in the dark sky, fired from the inner wall. The experienced minotaur knights, recognizing the sound, went for the shields on their backs. Arrows peppered the ground and others struck metal and flesh. Tor’s guard bellowed as the arrows and bolts rained on them. One went down with an arrow in his eye, another took one in the throat. They twisted and jigged in the volley of arrows.
Ayla cut her leg ties as she chanted with the children. Free, she joined Tor on his knees, her face covered in his blood, a grin like a jackal on her lips. She sang it to him like a lullaby.
“Mother of Rest and Succor, your children are in need.
Let Tor come, so we can eat.”
She whispered in his ear and pointed to the still chanting children with the dagger.
“Circles. The serpent eating its tail. It’s not mockery. It's a prayer, for food - cow.”
The acolytes had served as Ayla’s voice. She knew the gag would make Butch’s betrayal more believable. To take her captive he would have to stifle her prayers. Tor knew that, as he’d slain many priests.
Ayla licked blood from her lips. She’d never enjoyed its coppery-iron taste before, but the calf in her belly hungered. “But it’s more than that.”
Tor’s eyelids drooped. Ayla held him at the base of one horn and shook him to know he heard her. She wanted him to know his legacy would die with him.
“It’s a prayer from one of your bloodline to break the curse. I used the symbol of the Goddess written in the joy of children.” Ayla cradled his head and pet his cheek with the blade, blood coursing down the front of her dress. She whispered in his ear. “Only one thing remains.”
She stabbed him in the eye with the dagger and twisted it.
“Sacrifice.”
Tor fell over to his side on the wood, dead.
Butch got up from the ground. He pointed at the front gatehouse. “Raise the bridge!” He picked up the torch from the ground, then pointed at the inner one with it. “Second house guards, get those people out of here!”
The drawbridge clicked and clacked its way back up. Ayla ran around the side of the pyre and cut Deetra free. She took the key Deetra handed her from the cuffs next to the stake and unlocked the knight’s wrists. Ayla sawed through the ropes and searched the pile with her eyes.
“Where are the cups?”
Deetra rubbed her wrists. “In the temple.”
Ayla slapped her hands down at her sides, exasperated. “How in the Hells are we gonna get his body to the temple?”
Butch marched over to them and handed Ayla the torch. He pulled out a cleaver and a large ceramic bowl from under the pile of wood at the base of the stake.
“Butch,” he said as he spun the cleaver in his hand. “Is short for Butcher. That’s what I was before I became a Freeman.” He lifted his chin toward the inner gate. “Get those kids to the temple. Those catapults will be laying into the -” A section of battlements on the west wall, close to the tower, exploded inward. “… walls.”
The singing stopped and the children all screamed. Ayla yelled over them. “Run! Get to the temple!”
A second and third shot hit the same area with the deafening crack of breaking stone. Sections of the wall tumbled into the courtyard. Little girls and boys shrieked and covered their heads as they ran for the inner gatehouse.
Ayla checked on Butch and Deetra. Deetra stood over him with the torch, giving him light to work. Butch cut from between Tor’s ribs.