INGRID RAN TILL HER LUNGS RAN OUT.
The church bells rang. She saw the smoke snaking up the sky. Hellfire, staining the sky, turning it a monsterous shade of red. Her mouth felt dry and she gasped as she heaved for breath, stumbling and crying towards the centre of the town.
The first thing she heard was the chants.
This was different.
Confiteor Deo Omnipotenti...
A gasp left her mouth just as she took a sharp breath. Like hell's gates, the strong imposing figure of the cathedral stood stark against the grey and the red. Its gothic spirals reached towards God, the heavens, as if it could touch it. Claiming like god and human is one, can be one.
This was no ordinary town.
Beatae Mariae semper Virgini...
A cathedral town.
A holy site of pilgrimage.
And god had been desecrated. By a witch.
She crawled through the crowd, swimming past the pitchwork carrying farmers and the women with creaming babes, to rech the centre of the town, where a push from a passersby led her to collapse on the ground.
Her armor clanked loudly, and with a groan she looked up.
Beato Michaeli archangelo...
IIn the middle of the town square, there was a pyre.
"No..." whispered Ingrid. Tears sprung to her eyes.
"Get up, my lady!" A hand grabbed her and hauled her up with difficulty.
Ingrid whipped around and saw... the Princess.
Arzu stared at the pyre. The woman let another scream as her flesh and bone was bound by another rope, as the stake bound her like the Holy Cross. Precious oil poured on her head.
She looked through messed up hair, locks hanging like nooses in front of her eyes, and looked Ingrid dead in the eye. A last plea for help.
But something in Ingrid told her that she wasn't asking for help for her. She was asking for help for the people.
Anna Bein.
"She won't burn." Arzu murmured.
Ingrid snapped her head towards Arzu. Her dark brown eyes shone like gold in the lights of the torches. How did she know...?
"She won't burn, Ingrid." Arzu said, this time louder. "I will make sure of it."
Sanctis apostolis omnibus sanctis...
"All the saints in the world couldn't help her," Ingrid rasped. Her eyes darted back to the woman. She was still staring at Ingrid. It felt like she was staring into her soul.
"But, for better or for worse, I am not a saint." Arzu grinned.
And then she ran towards the pyre.
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THE PYRE | ONC2021
Fantasy[ONC ROUND I AMBASSADOR PICKS] "You can't burn all of the witches, dear child. Where one falls, another drinks her blood and rises." A sellsword discovers that perhaps, just perhaps, maybe the humanity she is trying to save doesn't have much human...
