Chapter 956: Whipped (Part Two)
The acolytes who had yet to succumb to Loman’s sorcery stared in horror as the black-robed sorcerer fired several more arrows, none of which seemed to accomplish anything beyond shattering against the armored long coat the demon wore as she lashed out again and again with her wildly twisting and contorting whip.
Matthias, who had already watched seven of his fellows close their eyes forever, wanted nothing more than to flee from this place. The faith that had sustained him through the loss of Brother Usic and Brother Neso was strained and brittle when Brother Kevlis and Brother Haedar joined them, and by the time Brothers Tuun, Faun, and Marrit joined them, it felt like his heart had been pierced by seven arrows until what little was left of his faith began to drain away.
-CRACK- -CRACK- -CRACK-
Heila’s assault on the beleaguered priest intensified as the Willow Whip found its rhythm. The living weapon seemed to adapt to Loman’s amateurish attempts at evasion, striking from impossible angles as it bent and flexed beyond the natural limitations of a braided piece of willow.
A particularly vicious strike split his cheek and nearly reached his eye, sending him staggering backwards until the heels of his leather riding boots bumped into the edge of the stone rampart at the tower’s edge.
Blood now flowed freely from nearly a dozen wounds across Loman’s arms, chest, and legs. His black robes hung in tatters, and his breathing had grown ragged from both exhaustion and the constant pressure of avoiding the demonically agile whip.
But as Heila pressed her advantage, drawing closer to deliver what she hoped would be the blow that finally restrained the stubborn lord, Loman’s desperation sharpened his focus to a razor’s edge. In that moment of clarity, the stars glittering in his eyes guided his sight to something his previous attacks had missed.
Each time the demon witch advanced, the tails of her leather long coat fluttered around her legs, briefly exposing her unarmored upper thighs that were covered only by the thick fabric of her heavy breaches.
"Thank you," Loman whispered, giving his heartfelt praise to the Holy Lord of Light for revealing what he hadn’t noticed as he drew his bow with trembling hands, the starlight arrow forming between his fingers brighter and more focused than any he’d fired at her before.
The luminous arrow streaked across the tower’s roof with deadly precision and blinding speed. Heila tried to twist away, but the arrow found its mark, slicing through the gap in her armor to leave a burning gash along her thigh that sent waves of searing pain up her side and all the way down to her hoof.
"AAAAH!" Heila cried out, stumbling backward as she pressed one hand against the wound while her thorny aura flared even more intensely, forcing Loman to take several steps back before he could circle around the bonfire and use the warmth of the flames to blunt the impact of the witch’s prickly defenses.
Heila’s panic lasted only a moment, however, before the very same hand that had clutched her wound started fumbling in the inner pockets of her long coat, retrieving a half-empty bottle of dark green and ocher powder and spilling the remainder of its contents across her wound.
For a single, agonizing moment, it felt like Ipiktok was squeezing the wound with his massive fingers before a tingling numbness spread across the wound, taking the pain away and stopping the flow of blood from the wound.
"Don’t you run from this," Heila said as her hooves rang out on the stones of the tower roof, chasing the fleeing priest who was trying to keep the blazing bonfire between the two of them. "You wanted to fight to the last, so face me!" she shouted, unintentionally sounding more like Dame Sybyll than she’d ever imagined she would.
Despite his single successful shot, Loman’s condition continued to deteriorate and he was never able to repeat his feat of penetrating the fluttering gaps in her armor. The thorny aura radiating from Heila’s fury made his skin feel like it was crawling with insects, and the effort of maintaining both his enhanced senses and the glittering Bow of Stars was taking an increasingly visible toll.
"You cannot win this," Heila said through gritted teeth as she snapped her whip in front of the evasive priest, cutting off his avenue of retreat. "Look at yourself. You’re bleeding from a dozen wounds, your hands are shaking, and you can barely stand. End this madness before it claims what’s left of these men’s lives."
For Matthias, hearing the demon witch plead for Disciple Loman to end this and spare their lives was the final straw that broke the faith of a man who had dedicated more than twenty long years to the service of the Holy Lord of Light. If this was what his Church demanded of him, to offer up his life to a ’miracle’ that was only killing their own men, then he wanted no part of it.
"Help me!" Matthias cried as the demon’s whip cracked out again, tearing through the fabric of Loman’s robes and leaving another long, bloody gash across his chest. "Help us all," he amended. "We can’t move from where we stand..."
"Matthias, no," a fellow acolyte named Oakil said, stretching out a feeble, frail hand that had been healthy and strong just hours ago. "You have to hold fast in your final moments. We’ve earned our place on the Heavenly Shores, but if you falter now, you’ll wander the Dark Seas forever..."
"Believe in Disciple Loman," one of the youngest acolytes, a man named Paeril, called. "He fights for us all, even now, and he will save us from this demon witch!"
"No, please, can’t you see?" Mattias said with tears streaming down his gaunt and sunken cheeks. "He isn’t a holy man," he said, sinking to his knees as he finally understood what was really happening to them. "He’s just another lord, using up our lives to fight his war..."
Heila and Loman both paused what had increasingly come to feel like a game of cat and mouse as she chased him around the perimeter of the tower, attempting to capture him with her whip. The young priest seemed to have fallen into a cycle of searching for an opportunity to take a shot, praying for guidance to somehow turn the tide, and then dashing away when he failed to repeat his single, near miraculous success before repeating the process all over again.
Now, however, Mattias’s heartfelt plea stopped them both cold in their tracks as they watched him struggling to cling to life while Loman’s sorcery relentlessly drained what little he had left.
"Even if the others are willing to die for your madness and hatred," Heila said, glaring at Loman with grass-green eyes that had never been so cold. "At least release the man who is no longer willing!"
"It’s too late for that," Loman said, as he gave the kneeling acolyte a forlorn look. "It was too late to change your mind the moment the prayer was said. Your lives belong to the Holy Lord of Light now," he said in much the same tones he would have used to tell an injured man that his wounds couldn’t be healed. "I’m sorry, but the arrows will continue to fall until no demon lives within the walls of Hanrahan City, or until your faith can no longer support His divine miracle."
The arrow had been fired long ago... and the moment it was, the fates of every acolyte in Loman’s quiver had been sealed. That was why it didn’t matter whether or not he wanted to accept the diminutive demon’s offer and surrender. Now that it had begun, even Loman himself couldn’t stop the rain of luminous arrows blanketing the west gate plaza.
The most he could do would be to guide the storm of radiant arrows to other places in the town if the demons moved deeper into the city, but even that might have become impossible with so many of his ’arrows’ now lying broken on the cold stones of the tower’s roof.
"Don’t you dare lie to me, Loman Lothian," Heila said as she stared at the dark-robed priest in disbelief. "Are you telling me that you did all this?" she said, gesturing with her free hand to the glowing lines and radiant points of the constellation on the roof. "Without being in control of it? Even now, you can’t stop it from claiming the lives of your own people?"
"This is the way of the Ascended Archer," Loman said reverently. "When we raise up his Bow of Stars, we turn ourselves into arrows in the Holy Lord of Light’s quiver, waiting only to be fired toward our fates. What has been done cannot be undone any more than an arrow in flight can return to the archer’s hands," he said solemnly.
"You’re wrong," Heila said flatly as she used her free hand to draw the Severing Knife from her belt. "Stay there and don’t move," she commanded sharply, pointing at the Lothian lord with the dull blade. "Watch me save this man and then we’ll talk about what can be done and undone," she said as she stalked across the roof to the kneeling acolyte.
"Don’t worry," she told Mettias as she looked at him with soft, gentle eyes, speaking in the most reassuring tones she could manage. "You won’t be the first human I save tonight," she said before her eyes flicked to the other acolytes. "And you won’t be the last."