Archangel’s Ascension

by Pablo Andrés Wunderlich Padilla

Dancer who whispered in my soul,

  How I once loved you, fair and whole,

  now you’re beneath the ground, my own,

  whom time’s corrosion’s turned to stone.

  “One moment,” the bartender murmured.

  He went quickly to the kitchen and soon returned, together with a woman twice his size.

  “My name’s Tino,” he said. “This is my wife; her name’s Rena. Tell them what you saw, my love.”

  The woman wiped her hands on her apron and prepared to speak. “Two days ago, two ladies came here, a tall fat one and a slim one. Each of them had a child, and the two children were identical. I didn’t see what color their eyes were, but they were twins. There was a strange fellow with a hood with them, bare-chested with a great ax at his belt. There was another man too. Bearded, old, and a talker. He was carrying a dog in his arms.”

  The woman turned around and left.

  Tino continued. “Their clothes were in rags, and they were very hungry. The man in the hood offered me a mule in exchange for accommodation for the night and wyvern fangs in exchange for food. They looked valuable. He said they were in a hurry and he wasn’t lying. This morning I went to wish them a safe journey, but they were gone already.”

  Leandro’s eyes opened wide. The color returned to his features, and sanity with it. “It might be them,” he said hopefully, not bothering to hide his Northern accent.

  This slip aroused the distrust of more than one of the customers. They began to go over the story of this trip and to suspect there was more to it than met the eye. Several men were whispering together, two of them already grasping the handles of their weapons.

  The bartender began to look nervous. “Get out of here right away. There’s going to be bloodshed here.”

  “There’s already been blood,” the grandmother replied. She freed her ax in the blink of an eye and buried it in the table where the whisperers were sitting. “Move one finger, and I’ll melt you with a spell. I’ll expose your skin to a corrosive acid and leave your bodies to be eaten by rats, you understand me? As a ferocious witch, there’s nothing I enjoy more than turning a bunch of putrid imbeciles like you into dry meat for vermin.”

  The Deserters, suddenly pale, raised their hands.

  “Now bring out all the coins you’ve got, everything you’ve stolen from decent people, and put them right here. Get on with it!”

  The Deserters did as they were told. “We’re not looking for trouble, we just want to have a good time.”

  “Oh yes? And that’s why you were going to attack us, eh?”

  Tomasa came stampeding through the door, pick held high and ready to bury it in somebody’s skull. Behind her came Mowriz wielding his sword.

  The deserters were paralyzed. “Here are our coins. Please don’t do anything to us!”

  “Then get out of here. If I see you trying to get revenge for this, I’ll smash you into pulp. Are we clear?”

  The ten ruffians ran out of the bar.

  The bartender was clutching a dagger in his hands. He was shaking. “Please, ma’am witch, I don’t want anything, just to make enough out of my business to live, that’s all.”

  On the table were about twenty crowns. The old woman set them on the counter as an offering. “That’s for the trouble we’ve caused you, plus the food, the drink, and the time your sons are going to spend on our horses. You get to keep the other five crowns I gave your daughter for feeding Saluem.”

  Lulita took a good look at Mowriz with his strength and resilience. “Mowriz, my dear, could you stay outside and watch the door and our horses?”

  “Sun, little sun.” He left to carry out his orders. He would be the most effective watchman.

  Leandro was still trying to take in what had happened. He had forgotten how fierce Lulita could be. Despite her age, the lady had not lost her ability to respond to circumstances.

  “Ever’t’ing okay, ma’am?” Tomasa asked, playing with the pick in front of the bartender’s frightened eyes.

  “I think so,” Lulita answered.

  “Yes, yes! Of course! Everything’s wonderful!” the bar owner cried. He picked up the coins and hurried to the kitchen. “Eight special customers, my dear!”

  Lulita smiled at the general. “I think you can put your armor on now,” she suggested.

  Strangelus came in with his staff in hand, studying the place as if he were trying to identify hidden powers. After a while he stopped sniffing, satisfied. Meanwhile, the general put on his armor again.

  “Tonight we’ll sleep well,” Lulita said, hugging Luchy. “We deserve it after four nights on the run.”

  The girl rubbed the base of her spine. “Oh yes! I need a good rest!”

  “We’ll be off tomorrow at first light, and we won’t stop until we find your family,” Lulita said to the general. “Cross your fingers, Leandro. Let’s hope it’s them.”

  Leandro’s only reply was a smile.

  “Savarb!” Lulita cried suddenly. She hurried out of the tavern.

  Tomasa realized all of a sudden: deeply absorbed in the confrontation, they had forgotten the wounded man. The grandmother dragged him in by the shoulders. He was feverish and delirious, his face already tinged with death. The two girls were under the same sentence of death.

  Tino the bartender came to help. “I have the perfect room for him. It has its own bathroom. My wife and I’ll look after him during the night. Rena! Bring some water and gauze to lower this man’s fever! And boil some chamomile for the infection!” Turning to the travelers, he explained, “Chamomile has healing powers.”

  “The two girls should be in the same room,” said Tino. “Let’s start healing them! They aren’t too far gone for it. Not yet. I was a healer once. I know a trick or two. Come with me!”

  Savarb was shivering, and his gaze was shifting blankly. The two girls were grey. Both Lulita and Strangelus had seen sick people in this state, where the infection has spread to the point of no return.

  Tomasa helped Tino carry the dying man to the room on the first floor. Lulita and Leandro carried the girls. Rena was already carrying a pot full of steaming chamomile with its fragrant aroma.

  ***

  Lomans and the others were heading northeastwards along a road in terrible condition with no sign that it had seen any traffic in days or even months. The greenery on both sides of the road was lush, offering an ideal hiding place for bandits to launch an ambush. The captain guessed that travelers from Vásufeld were taking a different road to avoid the dangers of this particular route.

  They went on at a lively pace without talking. Silence in this hostile environment was their main strategy of defense. Luckily, they were rested and had regained their strength after the stop on the volcano. The Márgades river's tributaries offered crystal clear water which they stored in the skins Lombardo had made with the pelts of the game they hunted. They advanced tensely, ready for any possible attack. But they were alive. They had survived the horrors of Némaldon, and they knew the importance of their mission, the importance of going on, and spreading the news of the encroaching war. Now more than ever, the fact that the God of Light had come back encouraged everyone except Argbralius, who could not rid himself of his deep unease.

  Lomans raised his fist in the air to bring the group to a halt. “Did you hear that?” he whispered. “I could have sworn I heard something. Get your weapons ready.” He took out his morning star and spun it. The others grasped their swords.

  A stampede was on them all of a sudden. Ten coursers with well-armed riders appeared on the road. On their breastplates was the emblem of the city of Vásufeld. It did not take them long to surround the group and threaten them with their long spears.

  “You’re prisoners of Duke Tenos Domaryath. Drop your weapons, and we’ll be merciful. If not, get ready to receive death without mercy.”

  Lomans lowered the morning star. “Sir, I’m Lomans, a captain under General Leandro Deathslayer. We’re fleeing from the South, which is be
ing assailed by terror and demons.”

  Another stampede drove them crazy. One, two, five riders fell to the ground, dead. The horses, frightened, neighed and galloped away, adding to the confusion. At least fifty men with crossbows and longbows were shooting the riders one by one. Lomans got an arrow in his right arm and had to drop the morning star.

  “In the name of Alentis the Deserter! On the ground, or I promise we’ll tear your skins off and I’ll fuck my women on them.”

  The travelers obeyed at once. Vásufeld’s riders were dead or fighting for their life. The members of the band approached, giving off a stink of filth and grime accumulated over the decades.

  “That was the bastard!”

  A woman with an ugly face had said this. Her hair was black and tangled, like a nest of snakes. She was slender and dressed in good furs. Her face was horrible: her nose was crooked—perhaps broken several times in several brawls—her eyes dark and sunken, her teeth the color of a corncob. She could have killed cockroaches with her breath.

  “That was the bastard who imprisoned Horag and then killed him. That one, with his fucking polished metal breastplate. Look at him, the master-hunter of Deserters. Ain’t that right?” The woman’s voice was charged with venom.

  On the ground, the target of the woman’s hatred was in his death throes. An arrow had pierced his neck, blocking the deadly wound. His terrified eyes begged for an end to pain.

  “The honor is yours, Macabra,” said the man who seemed to be the leader of the band.

  The woman took a dagger out of her belt and went to the prisoner. She took off his armor and pulled down his woolen pants.

  “This is for Horag,” the woman said savagely, and seizing his testicles with her dirty hands, she castrated him on the spot.

  The soldier moaned with a gurgle that made the arrow in his throat move. Lomans and the others looked away; so did some of the band. Even the leader seemed affected, particularly when Macabra stuffed the testicles into the man’s mouth and then buried her dagger first in the right eye, then the left.

  “Revenge is sweet,” the woman said, savoring every word.

  The bandits set off. Some took care of the horses and others plundered the corpses and kept weapons, swords, coins, jewels, and anything of value.

  “And now what do we do with this lot?” the leader asked Macabra.

  “I’ll rape one of them,” she replied, with a smile that revealed her corncob teeth.

  “I’ll rape the man of faith,” said another.

  “Shut up, Glutton. You already had enough with the last travelers. Now it’s our turn.”

  The glutton in question was gaunt, but they all understood why he was called that.

  “My name’s Alentis, and I’m the chief of this band,” the leader announced. “We’re taking you as prisoners. Undress them. I want them naked, not a single weapon near them.”

  Alentis went up to Lomans, piqued by the haughtiness of the gaze he turned on the band.

  “We’re going to break you, big man. We’re going to give it to you good and proper so that you’re sorry you were born a man,” Alentis said, looking ahead to the pleasure he was thinking of enjoying with the captain’s body.

  Macabra took charge of undressing the travelers, one by one. The cold of the afternoon raised gooseflesh on their skin. Seeing the skinny bodies of Elgahar and Argbralius, the woman burst out laughing. She made several jokes about their genitals. She showed a little more interest when she undressed Lombardo. She brought her fetid mouth close to his lips, to his intimate parts. Although the farmer nearly fainted, he found it impossible to control his primitive impulse. The woman dropped her pants and straddled Lombardo, who squirmed on the ground with loathing and humiliation. The woman moaned, took her breasts out, and stroked them while she rode him in a frenzy. It did not take her long to reach her climax, although it seemed eternal to Lombardo.

  The woman, however, was not yet satisfied and did the same with Gramal. And then it was Lomans’ turn. Glutton was licking his lips and in desperation grabbed a soldier and dragged him to a clump of bushes.

  “Come on, tie their wrists,” Alentis said. “We’re going to the camp. Macabra, let them go naked and barefoot, so they suffer.”

  Macabra, now fully satisfied, wiped her crotch. “Come on, you sons of bitches!” she yelled at them. “Let’s go! On your feet, you shitty bastards!”

  She immobilized their wrists with a rope and tied them together. Then she hitched the rope to a horse and slapped its rump to start it moving. Argbralius and Elgahar were shivering with cold and fear, horror-struck. In front of them walked the soldier Glutton had raped. A thread of blood ran down between his buttocks. The soldier could barely walk.

  They marched for hours amid rocks, roots, and branches. The prisoners’ feet were bruised, their legs covered with cuts. They were thinking about the battle against the demons. They would rather have gone back to it.

  They were put in a cage of wood and roots, squashed together. Naked as they were, they felt the genitals of the man beside them against their skin. The air turned colder, little affected by the giant fire the band had lit so that they could dance, equally naked, as if they were celebrating some accursed ritual. They were roasting a wild boar over the coals, and the smell of meat and fat overwhelmed the prisoners’ hungry senses.

  The Deserters ate and drank, naked while the prisoners looked on, sunk in despair. They began to copulate. There were forty or so men and ten women. Macabra also fucked the women.

  Argbralius was offended. What he was witnessing was blasphemy of colossal proportions, a savage, bestial spectacle. Lombardo did not seem in his right mind since Macabra had taken him. Gramal, more used to women, had overcome his humiliation and was already planning how to escape. Lomans was in pain from the arrow that had pierced his shoulder and was praying it would not get infected. Elgahar could not stop shaking, thinking he might be Glutton’s next dish.

  Once the roast boar was finished, Alentis got to his feet.

  “And now it’s time for the dessert and the party! Bring me the drink of Brugmansia! Let’s get drunk!”

  They handed out the brew, pouring it directly from the canteen into their mouths and passing it amongst them. The liquor must have been potent, judging by the state it left the bandits in. Macabra was the only one who did not drink; maybe it was her turn to be on watch that night.

  Alentis was happy, his face twisted by drunkenness. “Bring me the man of faith! I’ll show him who his God is!” he shouted feverishly, grabbing his own genitals.

  A chorus of laughter celebrated this. In the ruffians, it awoke the desire to carry on with the party at the prisoners’ expense.

  Argbralius tensed, not as he did when he became nervous or felt fear, but as he had when he killed his father. He felt a whirlwind inside him, in the darkest part of his being. His soul split into two halves, revealing the black seed. The deserters could not have imagined who they were about to meet.

  Loathing, humiliation, pain; everything flowed together and churned in the sacristan’s perturbed soul. His eyes lit up, his hands stiffened. Hesitation vanished from his face.

  The bandits did not realize their danger. Macabra was about to shout, but it was already too late. She saw Argbralius staring strangely at her and felt like she was suffocating as if he were squeezing her throat. Amid the music, the noise of the party, and the crackling of the fire, he raised his arms in all his nakedness. Macabra was dying, asphyxiated. The pressure on her throat was so strong that her eyes burst from their sockets.

  Rage transformed everything. The sacristan was only aware of a vortex of colors and shadows, of something or someone that was guiding his movements. He opened his mouth and inhaled vigorously. The fire, which was dancing on the logs, swerved into his mouth, which grew larger and larger like the jaws of a snake with a huge victim in front of it. The embers danced in the air, in a supernatural whirlwind.

  Then the light vanished. Everything went dark. And i
n the blackness, a demon of flames stood tall as a tree, wilder than a bull, and more powerful than a storm. The demon spat out the fire he carried within him and the burning stream carried away several bandits. As for those who tried to escape, he grabbed their chests with his hands, which were burning coals, and charred them in an instant. Alentis, he devoured.

  It was not only the jailers the fire harmed. The wooden cage caught fire, and the prisoners felt the flames licking their skin. A couple of soldiers died amid hair-raising screams. Lomans was rolling on the ground to put out the flames on his face. Gramal was left bald, with neither eyebrows nor lashes. Lombardo was blinded for a few minutes. Elgahar could not understand the source of this kind of manipulation of the elements.

  The fire went out. Silence.

  There was still an hour before the sun would rise. Argbralius was in convulsions on the ground as if possessed by some evil spirit. Nobody would have said the young man of faith might be in another dimension, or in bliss itself. Lomans was convinced that the man of faith was some kind of miracle. He had to be. That one soldier who had saved them, time after time.

  Mórgomiel’s eyes pierced the horizon. A cosmic conflict was about to be unleashed, and he did not know exactly why. But he felt it, all the same: His soul was sending him a premonition.

  Riding Górgometh, the God of Chaos was bearing the balance of matter and energy toward the dark side. The galaxies had begun to spin out of control, spewing stars with centripetal force. Mórgomiel enjoyed controlling chaos at will, deforming the universe with his hands.

  “I want to see the life my brother Gods have generated from darkness,” he said to his colossal dragon of dark matter.

  “As you wish, my Lord of Chaos.”

  The dragon turned its gallant, sinuous, scaly neck in the direction its master indicated. Its perfect wings, with their magnificent span, beat space with slow yet powerful movements.

  They moved amid stars and rocks at a speed that was impossible to measure. They approached a galaxy in the shape of a vortex, whose ends were a solar system of three red planets that circled unequally.