Larka nodded her head, taking
Gannis’ suggestion and going quiet. The focus should be on this assignment and this assignment alone. And so she prepared, as much as she could mentally. Physically she felt good, capable in all the ways she wanted to be. But she slowly beginning to learn that this job took a mental toll.
Hours passed. And then, like a whisper, they came. It was easier to see them than to hear these cloaked figures, walking in a long sinuous line, each carrying a red-wax candle. Faces were obscured and their walk was uneven, hardly a march and more like a drunken dance in an attempt to be sober. Their feet, despite the unevenness of their steps, made little noise. An inhuman silence that trailed around these dozens of people like smoke.
The line filed into the church, the people at the front beginning to walk to the right or to the left, each switching off to the other side in an orderly fashion. While it was strange to see so many cloaked people enter a dilapidated church, it was nothing as strange as those at the end of the group.
While all these people had varying heights, nothing was too alarming. Not until what Larka saw could only be described as the priests trailing behind. Each were taller than they should be, and their hands illuminated by the flame were darker than a night sky with no moon.
Larka’s nose twisted up. Despite having a poor sense of smell compared to other venari, even she could smell this rot and ruin: sulfur and ash and as if a whole city had burnt down. The sickly sweet scent of burning flesh, the metallic tang melting metal and a heaviness like being stuck in a room of smoke. Larka could only imagine how Gannis felt about this stench.
The three “priests” were adorned with feathers, bones, and metals twisted in strange shapes. Necklaces that clanked against each other as they took heavy steps, their large hands completely steady despite red wax dripping all over them. The priests went to the front of the church, and that was when Larka saw on their large, broad backs were heavy metal helms that would belong on a large ship. Spikes jutted out in various and painful looking ways, and these spikes and studs were stained in blood.
Behind the priests were more normal cloaked people, but without holding a candle. Instead they were shackled. Behind these shackled cult-members was a figure with their hood down. A normal looking woman, for the most part. Except the smile on her face, showcasing black gums, and the red glow of her irises. Everyone got into their places, the three priests lined up and holding onto those who were shackled. Six people.
The last woman went to each person, yanking their hoods down and showing their faces. She turned her back to the chained and look at all the others. She took a ornamental dagger and a strange looking book out from somewhere in her cloak. Raised both of these items up high for all to see.
“Tonight!” Her voice was hardly a human voice. Far from human, far from female, even. It rang and echoed despite how gravelly and hoarse it sounded. “Sargasso shall never hunger again! The iniquitous seed shall sprout forth tonight, it only requires a bit more fertilization.” There was a pause as the women handed the leather-looking book to another and brandishing her dagger, she stabbed at a shackled person’s heart, before then slitting their throat.
She brought the bloodied blade up to her mouth and licked at the crimson drops. Then she dropped her cloak. She was naked, but it was hardly a welcoming sight. All throughout her body were pulsating cuts, cuts that connected and circled around each other. Her back was like a detailed map but with symbols that Larka had never seen before.
But perhaps the worst part was the fact that this woman was quite obviously pregnant, but with no human child. She could see some strange form press up against the taut skin, squirming inside.
Gannis
