Chapter 10

The priest yearned to return home, to embrace his wife, to sit under the redwoods. He imagined her waiting for him in her way. While they were apart she'd keep herself busy, not allow herself to speak of him, not give herself time to wallow too deeply in his absence or imagine a world where he didn't return. She was like that. He loved how diligently she focussed on what was right there, her hands working a dough, or clearing the chimney. She'd fend off conscious thoughts of him, refuse to even mention him when the neighbors stopped by (to check on her, but they knew better than to state that intention outright). And still, he would be the ghost behind all her thoughts, a quiet haunting.

He knew what he would find when he reached home. She'd be consumed in some chore as if unaware or unbelieving that he was finally home. But She'd know. Someone would tip her off, see his approach and race ahead with the good news. Or maybe she'd spot him coming up the trail to their home, and see his approach. And then she would dive into some task, eyes averted, an excited disbelief that her person returned, they would be together. And as much as she didn't want him to know how badly she missed him, she also didn't want to admit to herself how much she missed him. Which is why he expected to find a stern look on her face, blame for being away for so long. And when he embraced her, her arms would hang limp at her side. She'd say, "Yes, yes, you're home. Enough of that. So-and-so needs a healer. Don't let him swindle you with twigs or berries. Payment, you hear me? Real payment this time." Then he'd release her from his embrace but still hold her shoulders and look into her eyes. They would be glassy with tears as her happiness at their reunion fought to find a way out. And he would feel the sobs of joy knot up inside his throat. And then, only then, would she smile and admit it: "I missed you."

The priest imagined the scene so often that it became a memory of the future. A promise that time would fulfill if he kept up his end and made the return journey.

He wanted to return. Then the miller's son said, "We wasted enough days lugging around some twigs. Let's head home." Those handful of words struck a vulnerable spot the priest didn't know he had. A strange defiance heated his chest. His mind knew it to be silly, but something more primitive, visceral within him silenced reason.

They stood outside their inn. The clamor of the daily business of the city filled the streets like the hum of locusts back in Nemheim. Horses knackered and neighed. Wagon wheels squeaked. Somewhere a bit off a man was heard singing in a strange, deep, buzzing sort of way. A young woman stood not far from the priest and the miller's son, at a wagon filled household goods, and shouted, "Rushlights, rushlights, rushlights". Answers to her call rose over din: people who leaned out windows, people further up the street, they called over the clamor for her attention, some waved their arms. The young woman pulled a small crowd together.

The priest pulled the miller's son into the street, away from the young woman and the growing crowd. The slights from the Neokaerus, Zaephorus, the miller's son, they stung the priest. He believed beyond the need of faith that there was something important, even powerful, that coursed through that wood. All this questioning, dismissing and mockery felt directed at him, and not at his find. He wanted to show the miller's son, Look, what we did mattered. I know what I’m doing.

The priest responded, “I need to be certain that the Archaegus receives that boon." Even as he spoke those words he regretted having said them. He wanted to go home.

Shouting erupted from farther up the street, around a bend and the miller's son turned to locate the source. Without returning his attention the priest, the miller's son said, "What?" He felt bad for the priest. He knew the priest wanted to be home. He also knew that the priest was outmatched here. He wanted to leave to spare the priest further embarrassment. The shouting, however, concerned him. This city scared him. So many people, like a wave that could crush him.

"We're headed back to the shrine," the priest answered with a resolve.

The shouts grew louder. A wave of panic washed down the street. The shouts roared closer. Thundering footfalls echoed. The miller's son couldn't imagine how many people it took to make a sound like that. Then they appeared, clogged the street, running and stumbling over each other. The miller's son stepped back, against the wagon as the mob swarmed past.

The priest ignored the eruption and strove against the tide of people, back up the street, back towards the temple. He had tunnel vision. He saw the street, the stairs that led to the temple. He saw nothing else. He picked his path through this strong. Until a great flash of light. A crushing feeling. His mind lost all sense of orientation. The air forced from his lungs. His eyes intermittently reported back to his mind a flash of images. The street. Stones. A flash. Blackness.

"Aego, roll over damnit. Tilst you're a fat fuck. Come on while the streets are clear." The miller's son's voice sounded both near and yet remote, unconnected.

He felt rough hands. He heard the stampede of boots. His thoughts started to clear. He was on the ground, face down. He rolled over onto his back, with the miller's son's help, he propped himself up on his arms.

Soldiers, imperial soldiers, gleaming breast plates of tawny metal glistened. Black cloaks fluttered behind them. Spears pointed forward in a flawless uniform curtain of points above them. Shields rose and fell with each uniform step. A hundred soldiers, in three columns, ran with such speed and in perfect unison. A whistle sounded with every third steep. "Wooo". Stomp. Stomp. Stomp. "Wooo".

"Move, aego," commanded the miller's son.

"What?" The priest was unsure what just happened. He didn't know how he got onto the ground. Where the soldiers came from. Where did the crowd go? He had a black spot where his memory should be. His head ached. He reached up to rub it and it felt wet. He looked at his hand, he saw his hand print through a smear of blood.

"Look," the miller's son pointed skyward. "Move, damnit. We gotta hide." The miller’s son pushed the priest towards the inn.

The priest looked up and he saw it. His mind split into two. One half experienced something that didn't conform to what he understood to be real. A sight beyond even the conceiving of the gods. What prior to that moment only existed as a dark myth, a metaphor for an impossible danger, flew above him, real, tangible, visible to all.

The other half of his mind cataloged what he saw. Connected it to knowledge gathered from priestly tomes and gave it a name: Agnar. A devil. Then a moment later, his mind revised that classification. And he gave it the proper name it deserved: Agnardane. A great devil. One of thirteen known great devils. A body as black as the void between the stars. Great wings, each as wide as a wagon, bat-shaped, that flapped slowly, pushing the air aside to allow a long, serpent-like, spindly body sway like a snake through the air. Its limbs were terrifyingly long and ended in over-long fingers with claws like blades. But the most terrifying aspect was the head. It had a skull that appeared stretched, painfully, while features agonized and were stretched to its limits. With two red ember-like eyes that pulsed. It glided across the sky casually, like a threat with no concern for a response.

The dwelvlings had lore around these devils, the Agnar and the Agnardane. And for a long time, the welklings mocked them for their primitive myths which the welklings dismissed as propaganda used to scare a citizenry into compliance. A boogeyman manufactured to foster fear. Until the first time the welklings saw one for themselves. Agnar lurked in the great mountains to the east, mountains the welklings learned to avoid. The priest read about them. He was taught of them. Part myth, part reality, hidden in legend and tales.

And there, above him, was one, circling.

"Ulso's fucking left hand, aego. Come on!” The miller's son grabbed him by the elbow, yanked once more, but the priest wouldn’t budge. The miller’s son’s mind raced. His heart pounded. Panic turned his chest hot, squeezed his lungs, flooded his vision so that he saw nothing of what he looked at -- the panic left no room to process what his eyes reported. He was reduced to an impulse to hide. He looked for the first place -- he had no time to consider -- he looked for the first place to hide. The wagon parked along the side of the street, the one that young lady sold rushlights from, that was what he found first. He dove under the wagon. The wagon cast a slanted shadow which allowed the sun to peak beneath one side. The miller’s son escaped that light, and buried his head in the dusty ground, his hands covering his head, his ears. He cowered there, making silent sobs.

“It’s real," said the priest in awe of what his eyes beheld.

The streets had emptied, save the priest and the imperial soldiers. The soldiers were stopped and formed into a long, three person-wide column, packed tightly. Those in the middle held their shields overhead. Those at the side held held their shields to the side. They locked their shields together, a block of imperial timber and iron. Their spears poked out like needles in neat rows.

The priest got to his feet. He stood still, his head tilted back, transfixed by the vision of darkness circling above him. Endlessly, silently, circling above him. For how long was it there, he wondered. If it were hidden in the clouds, would I even know? Deep in his mind a voice screamed, RUN, but it sounded so distant, remote, puny compared to this great devil that circled above. He couldn't turn away from it.

A soldier shouted at him.

The miller's son, still under the wagon, called to him with a muffled shout, loud enough to be heard but quiet enough to hopefully avoid detection from the Agnardane. If only the priest were next to me.

The priest remained enthralled. He watched it circle overhead. He wondered why it was there, if it had a target. It was hard to tell, staring straight up.

The Agnardane continued its circular glide. Every few rotations, its massive wings reached to the heavens, then flattened and pushed endleland away. As it crossed the sun its shadow swallowed the priest.

The miller’s son shouted again, but the priest looked as if he heard nothing. Fael fell silent. Wings and the breeze from the sea were the only sounds, as if they had been transported back to a time before the city existed.

The miller’s son was wrapped in the wagon’s shadow, far from the edge. His arms crossed behind his head. He peered up to locate the priest. He was desperate. He needed the priest to hurry over. If only he was with him, the miller’s son felt, they would both be much safer. The priest stood so far off, so much open ground between him and the aego. He feared the Agnardae would land atop his wagon. Or atop the priest. Should he hide elsewhere? Where? Would the priest follow? How would he get out of the city without the priest? He picked his head up, looked towards the priest. He saw the hem of his cloak, the wrap of his boots over his pudgy feet. The sun painted a stark shadow before him. Then the Agnardane swept past the sun and its shadow consumed the priest. And as the Agnardane’s flight passed across the sun, the shadow over the priest stretched until it ripped away, and the dark smudge of the priest’s own shadow was again painted on the ground. The miller’s son sobbed, silent, gaping grasps of breath. His chest jerked in staggered breaths. He wiped tears away with dusty hands that scratched his face. He grew more desperate for the priest. He thought of crawling out from under the wagon, of running across that expanse to grab him and pull him back under the wagon. If only he could get the priest under the wagon, with him. He nudged forward then retreated back again, his head shaking, his eyes fixed on the ground. He saw the pebbles, the sand, the rocky soil in vivid detail. He laced his fingers behind his head, his hair slick with sweat. He told himself he had to, had to get the priest, he had to get him and get him close or he wouldn’t make it through this. Whatever courage the miller’s son possessed had abandoned him, fear was left to motivate him. He scampered forward, to the edge of the shadow, to where the sunlight carved a perfect line across the dusty road. He stuck his head out, then he wondered where the Agnardane was. And slowly, tentatively, like a frightened tortoise fearful of drawing attention, living in a slowed time, he looked up, at the Agnardane. When he did, when his eyes passed over the devil’s eyes, he found he couldn’t turn away. His mouth hung open, his jaw slack, his eyes wide, blank.

The Agnardane imperceptibly descended. It drew closer to the priest. To the imperial soldiers. Even the miller’s son who hid beneath the wagon. And they all watched, mouths agape, fear in their hearts, but helpless to escape. But then a horn sounded, a long trill note whose feeble sound echoed off the buildings.

The Agnardane’s head snapped to the side, away from the priest, from the imperial soldiers and the miller’s son. With a suddenness so fast that it seemed they heard the rush of wind from its massive wings push after they saw it, the Agnardane dove to the ground behind the buildings east of the priest.

A collective gasp escaped from everyone there, the imperial soldiers in their box of shields, the priest who stood alone in the middle of the road, the miller’s son who remained partly under the wagon, and all the other poor souls who cowered at the foot of buildings, their eyes fixed on the sky above where only a moment before the Agnardane circled.

A cry sounded from the direction of the Agnardane’s dive, shrill and awful, the sound of a soul ripping.

The priest looked about, confused.

The miller’s son gulped so much air at once that he felt his stomach rise up in his throat. He scrambled out, his feet kicked up little clouds of dust, his hands dug into the loose, dusty soil. He ran just far enough to stretch at the very limit of his reach, and snatched the priest’s hand in his own, then pulled him towards the inn.

The imperial soldiers lowered their shields. Their spears wavered, like a tangle of branches that swayed overhead. A whistle sounded and the soldiers, as if remembering they were soldiers, formed up.

The priest followed limply behind, almost stumbling. He felt the miller’s son grip tight around his hand.

A shout rang out, in aen, from a soldier at the head of the imperial line, “Close the gates!”

Just as the miller’s son reached the door to the inn, the Agnardane returned. It shot into the sky like a black, fleshy spear. Its tail whipped from side to side. It clutched a person in its claws. The person writhed, screamed terrible high-pitched sounds.

The miller’s son yanked on the inn-door and it held firm. His sweaty hand slipped from the handle and he tumbled backwards.

A long cry pierced the skies when the Agnardane, now at a terrible height, released the person. The person screamed as they fell, arms flailing like a panicked swim stroke.

The miller’s son crawled to the foot of the door, he sobbed, “No, no, no.” He was defeated. He saw no other fate than the Agnardane.

Until the door swung open. A young woman, the woman who before all this began was selling rushlights, held a candle and beckoned them inside.