His hands hovered over the poor boy, Priest Vandal quietly hummed a mantra and felt the exhaust of a small pellet of fuel heating his pocket. “O’ mender who walked the broken path, you who touched the rot and were not taken, you who spoke to the Burning and remembered stillness.” Vandal quietly tilted his head and poured his conviction into his verse.

  “Lean now towards this failing vessel.” His hands quietly hovering a censor over the child. “Where the lattice is worn, reweave. Where the red river rages, quiet it. Where the shadows pool, seed dawn.” He gently flicked some oils over the child, continuing his canticle. “By the wound that did not close, we call for binding-“ The door suddenly buckled, as if someone rammed it without trying the handle first. Startled, Priest vandal stopped his canticle to look at the door. His hand reflexively nabbing his sword up.

  “Vandal!” A woman’s voice pierced the door as it finally opened to frantic clawing.

  “Aye! I’m here!” Vandal affirmed. “What’s going on?” He finally saw the woman frantically swing into the room.

  “It’s-!” She stuttered, trying to think faster than she could speak. “I-!”

  Vandal stood from the bedside of the boy. “C’mon. Spit it out!” Vandal firmly placed his hands on her shoulders and held her so she could think.

  “It’s the forest! It’s on fire!” She managed. “The forest is on fire! We need all hands to put it out!”

  Vandal nodded and physically shifted her to the left and stormed out. He found himself outside to see the dark crimson glow of the forest underlighting the sky towards the horizon. A faint white line piercing the heavens as the silvery night ring glinted. He saw in horror well beyond what was looming in the sky. Small black birds darting in and snatching small white wisps. Beetles crawling out from the forest into town. Women and children- He lurched.

  “What the hell are you doing Vandal?!” A man asked from nowhere.

  Vandal turned to see it was farmer O’mally. “C’mon! There’s a fire!” He handed the stunned priest a bucket.

  “That’s not-“ Vandal stuttered, trying to speak his mind.

  “Vandal! This is no time to argue! We have a fire to put out!” O’mally insisted. He turned and started running back to his cart. It was laden with whatever was in it when the fire started. Further weighed down with heaps of buckets from the town storeroom.

  Vandal shook his head and threw the bucket down. He knew this was no natural fire.

  O’mally shouted at the top of his lungs as he saw the old miser run faster than he did in ages. “Coward!” The tough as nails man shouted to the man of the cloth.

  His feet hit the ground hard, forgetting his surroundings as he sprinted through the throughways. Cobbled stones smeared under his feet as he felt his heart hammering in the chest. He crossed two blocks before his age caught up with him, time stealing stamina and vitality from his limbs. Vandal felt regret that Anthony had parted company with him a week ago. He had to slow, cursing his body’s failing as if he hadn’t known they were bound to catch up with him at some point. He pulled a deep breath and pulled hard on the weave, taxing the few drops of precious oils he had to rejuvenate his body. Life flowed back into his limbs, and the streets flew once more.

  He shoulder barged the side entrance to the church, his eyes flickering to the small stream of the terrified flock. Most of the few here were the elderly that were already here from the morning services. He pushed harder, out of his sacred oils and breathing hard to keep up with the ravages of a brutal run for a man in his twilight years. The ornate box in the back, his eyes fixated on the box behind the podium. He made a mad dash towards it, scrambling for his heavy silver key.

  The box creaked as he pummeled the lock face with two missed attempts to open. “Damn-“ The key popped and he flew the lid open, scrambling inside for a long mace and crown of silver. He drew around his waist a long batch of vials, all of them swirling with viscous oils that stuck to the sides of the glass ampules they were contained in. In sequence he easily had twenty casts ready, and a second belt in reserve for back up. He looked up to the stream of wary churchgoers. “Hold fast! This is the Lord’s house! You are all safe here!” He flicked his eyes to one of the sisters, an older one he was quite familiar of. “Sister Velvette! Come with me! We smite the enemy at the gate!”

  The older, grizzled, face of Sister Velvette sneered in a mock grin. “About time.” She said in a vicious tone. He held the belt of bottles and slung them over her shoulder nonchalantly. “Don’t forget your visor, Priest.” Her hand rose to her ivory slit visor and pulled them down. “We must go, now.” She moved with a heavy gait, her armor making heavy thuds as the knitted platelets clinked against one another. Her shoulder pauldrons rolled as she stretched her arms.

  Priest Vandal ducked down into the box once more and donned his long ivory slit visor, its edges coiled with silver and gold lace. Beautifully hammered into the seams were small crosses of his devotion. Each one holding a symbolic erasure of an enemy to the church. He had six so far, not relishing the opportunity to add a seventh to the list on his mask. He sighed, remembering how much he had pined for them when he was younger. Oh how the days turn ironic with age.

  He ran from the church’s entrance, entering into a comfortable jog with Sister Velvette. She strode with the easy confidence of the apex daggerfish. Flawless strides carried her towards the wood line where innocent men labored under the dour fixation of thirsting beasts. Vandal slowed to a trot, then stood still. His eyes drifted up the malicious blood red sky, one single silvery dagger plunging up from the dark horizon. He drew his flaming long blade in his right hand, lighting it with the righteous fury of the lord.

  “By the hand that was pierced and did not close. By the word that took flesh and did not rot. By the blood that ran red and did not yield.” The blade cleared the scabbard, singing in brilliant bright blue-white illumination. Sister Velvette took a step back, averting her eyes from the bright flash of light that sent the shadows into dark contrast of pure white and black. “I do not beg. I do not bargain. I declare.”

  Vandal lifted the scepter in his left hand and his voice in the same motion. A bring flash of light carried to the heavens, his voice thundered across the fields. Man and monster took note of the man in the white robes as his voice and light touched them all alike to God’s. Shadows surrendered to the stark contrast, aiming straight into the earth to eliminate all doubt. “You! Who wear the shapes of fear! You! Who borrow the faces of the Dead! You! Who rest in the sacred canticles of demons and call It DOMINION!”

  Thin pinpricks of light broke from the spherical white orb shot into the heavens, building a crown of thorns above it. Vandal’s blade shone brilliant white, loose flames tightening into a howling jet of power. Plumes of dust picked up as the angle of the blade tip dipped below the horizon. Lumbering beasts of wicked ichor and living thorn recoiled in halted murdermake. The violence of action forgotten as the one true enemy shone bright in the heavens, his blade howling like the sirens of heaven. “Your mask is not your OWN! Your terror is not SOVEREIGN! YOUR CLAIM IS ASH!” Vandal drew the blade up and curled it in his hands, aiming its powerful jet into the forest with all of his frail might. “STAND IN THE LIGHT IF YOU ARE TRUTH! BURN IN IT IF YOU ARE ROT!”

  A bright arching flash of white-blue judgement struck down from the crown of thorns, a murderous thunderclap followed in its wake as light struck ground in the forest. The soil erupted, scattering stone, thorn, and ichor in its path with a violent shuddering thud. Vandal felt the recoil shock over ninety feet away from the bright exhaustion of his wrath. Five bottles blead their residual warmth into his belt. He drew into a six and seventh bottle as he flung another bolt towards a shifting tower of ichor from the base of his hand, along the length of his blade, and in a terrorizingly sharp flat trajectory towards target. He saw the body punch inward from the initial impact of hard compressed fireball into soft mushy flesh, then detonate as flammable ichor took in a sudden influx of air to burn. He saw the light of the blue-green mass roll into the sky with malicious recognition. ‘Soft Target’ Vandal realized with the dark antlered beasts.

  He saw a charging green beast threshing through the scattering lines of bucket brigades. Men burst apart through the infuriated rage of the beast at the sight of the Priest. Vandal saw the gore smattered abomination and struck down with a finger from the Lord. A single powerful burst of an eighth bottle pierced the charging beast clean. It meandered, leaning to the right before correcting mid stride. Vandal sneered but saw the creature stumble as he took a back step. Pure inertia kept the beast rolling as it came to a meaty stop not but feet from him.

  Velvette saw the creature and approached it. She was nothing but stark contrast now. Sharp white and black contours that drew her straight two handed blade. It plunged into the squirming beast to still it further. Vandal kept the flare in the sky, and advanced. The long cast shadows of trees played in the stark contrast as Vandal hurled more shafts of light down on nearby monsters, curling their forms into crumpled masses of burning ichor and root mass. Ninth, tenth – Halfway – eleventh. Beast after beast, step after step, he marched into the tree line with the screeching jet blade, rising it up to meet and exceed the rising demands of thorn wardens that seek his death. The blade sung more efficient than the shafts of light, sipping instead of swallowing his fuel. He felt the handle of his blade warm with each swing, the hidden fuel canister there reminding him of all the tricks of a clever man.

  A beast lurched in for a kill. Black antlers scythed down and drew air where once a priest stood. Sidestep and violence were the last actions the beast saw as a counter scything scored a long clean cut through its abdomen. Vandal slid clear of the blasting heat that the beasts flesh released. He felt the fighting embrace of Sister Velvette at his side. Her blade singing faster brutal arcs than that of even his own blade and scepter combination made. Bright red smears rolled down her mask, a single strike drew blood. He rolled and hurled a shaft of light at her, golden healing light. The blood ceased as he felt the disturbed air of hands trying to paste him. A white blue shaft of light skewered the beast from the head to the groin. Vandal plunged his blade into the beast and burned even hotter. He found the sugars and impure fuel the beast had. “DIVIDE!” He pulled the sugars from the beasts overgrown heart, smelling their caramelizing scents burning along the blade of his sword. “COLLAPSE!” He shot a powerful burst of energy through the knees of the beast, forcing it to kneel before him. “BURN!” He shouted loudest of all, his voice piercing the woods as he felt the power of the Lord course through the halo of thorns.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Another massive shaft of light smeared down the neat contours of trees and ground. Bright white-blue flashing fire peeled down from the sky and bolted into the conglomerated ranks of Antlered beasts and Green Thorned menace. A massive ripple of soil rolled in all direction, shafts of light piercing through rock and soil and sand to transfix dozens of beasts. They all started to charge now, dozens, hundreds. Those not brought to the Lord’s light stumbled over the transfixed. Bodies burned as the wall of druidic might tore trunks of trees from the ground to meet the man they so despised.

  He reached into six more bottles along his belt. Feeling their heat smearing his white robes grey. He brought up his blade and leveled it towards the blackened beasts charging him. He twisted, slashing the air with a violent brutal arc. The sheer power of heated air slit longways over a hundred feet. Bright blue-green plumes of fire roared so bright it briefly threatened to overtake his flare. He called out to Sister Velvette, who’d been busy keeping his flank from collapsing. “BELT!” He screamed to her.

  He felt it wrap around his hand as he exhausted the last three bottles of fuel on his first belt to smite the flank Sister Velvette was protecting. Several more Green Wardens recoiled and froze as they were bore through. “SISTER! BACK TO TOWN!” Vandal held his blade level, seeing the beasts held back at bay with its bright red glow. The screaming blade dropping an octave as the weave found new fuel to sustain its draw. He started pumping his legs once more, running back to the tree line. He saw there Sentries standing at the edge of town, keeping the stragglers of the advancing tidal wave of death at bay. Their efforts, on their own small, but in bulk were monuments as they fought one on one with these beasts. Vandal pulsed a hot beat of wrath from the crown of thorns through the stragglers in focused pockets. Allowing the sentries to assist one another in collapsing the flanks of the advancing Green Wardens.

  Vandal felt the weight of the glass and oil around his waist, draining him as the burning wrecks of monsters seared his back. His foot slammed into a root and sent him stumbling, sprawling out across the ground. Mud and burnt ichor splashed up from the pool he’d fallen into. Dark black fluid drained off of him in heavy rivulets as he stood. Sister Velvette brought her blade down to smite an advancing monster to Vandal’s rear. A sharp shrieking wail struck it down in the same motion of her blade. Vandal kept his eyes on the cleared approach to town. He kept running. His body screaming in pain and exhaustion as he moved. Age had caught up with him, and the few vials of oil he had left, however many he had left now, were for the holy might of the Lord’s work. He lunged towards an opening between two beasts, smiting them with the Crown of Thorns that followed him high above. He felt the sharp bright white light it seared into his shoulders, as if the monsters here weren’t the only ones to be seen and judged by God now. Vandal pushed himself up again, feeling his limbs burning as he suddenly recoiled.

  Pain. Blackness. Despair.

  Overwhelming light. It was day. He was face up and looking into the bright sky. Sister Velvette kept kneeling in prayer next to him. Vandal felt his body searing with pain and overexertion. He tried to lift his head, but couldn’t. He tried to lift his hand. He couldn’t. He curled his fingers. They wrapped around the hilt of his blade. “Sish-“

  Sister Velvette kept her eyes closed as he tried to speak. “Hush, Vandal. You’re injured.”

  He turned his head, seeing the white smoke of apocalypse rolling over the field and through the town’s streets. “Whaghh-“ He felt ugly phlegm boiling up in his throat, pain bloomed there and across his body as he tensed with a cough.

  Sister Velvette placed a single hand on his chest, the motion numbed him from head to toe. “Pr- Vandal. You. Are. Injured.” She said more harshly. “You can squirm, but if you try to get up again I will mark your name on the wall of Martyrs.”

  Vandal could sense the bloom of heat following the pain that nearly took his vision. He couldn’t speak as Velvette kept deep healing his wounds, which now seemed to cover his entire body.

  “I am attempting to reconstruct your throat.” She said softly. “It was… flattened by a boulder.” Sister Velvette softly reached her hand down and arranged the flesh around Vandal’s neck.

  He felt deeply unsettling pressure rearranging his throat in real time. The flesh reknitting and crawling back into place. Vandal suppressed the violent urge to vomit, cough, and asphyxiate as she labored. His hands curled, the numb pressure on the inside of his throat kept spiking alarm bells in his mind. The urgent need to crawl out from the attention and run as fast as possible as the body died. That was the irrational animal of his mind screaming to run wild and cry wolf. He scrambled for anything there in the dark as he laid still under the caring hands of the person trying to save his life. He closed his eyes and held the darkness in his hands. Its worming creeping corruption felt cold there in that ambient half place between life and death. The ever dwindling twilight of the damnation of thinking feeling life and the unrelenting creeping decay of the grave. He recalled all the time he felt this same moment, under the hands of an impassioned revitalization for the hero of the story. Those who tried to mythologize The Bulwark of Port Daleth. He sighed internally as he thought over his hard won life. Singing in the deep pits of snow that the church made every year at the foot of their grand cathedrals in the hills of Nuego-Livlia. Standing shoulder to shoulder with the paladins of the Crossed Faiths. Beholding the one true Lord of Lords. The one who rose after the third day of death, before the magick of the world came true. He saw snippets of his life flash by in the same brutal suddenness as the attack on town, on his home.

  Drawing his blade to slate the bloodlust of a foul vympire, its ugly fangs stole the ring light of the dark night. Ugly distorted eyes that flashed in hate of the Cross of the Lord. He remembered being skewered by the astounding strength of the beast, using his last rebuke to smite it into dust on the spot. He knelt and saw the flowing vitality sink out of the hand sized hole in his chest, gushing in rhythmic pulses.

  He saw the bleeding corpse still standing ahead of him, its limbs were broken but not destroyed. Its puppet master stood grinning in wicked sin at the sight of the bleeding crusader. His mace shattered from a lightning blast that fused his hand shut around the grip of the weapon. He felt the familiar violent urge of his youth surge through him then. The single burning desire to destroy the demon, to purge the unclean draug that shambled. To flay the puppet master and bring him to judgement at the Crown of Thorns. He saw the resounding blade strike that bit deep into his shoulder as he hurled his last smite.

  He was there in the dead of winter in this cold bog. White snow heaps piled high at the edges of the black soil around the water. The rising foul beast of blue glowing eyes silently glaring up at him malevolently from below the surface of the water. In a swift movement he felt the cold bite of the water steal the air from his lungs as he plunged the flaming blade of his sword deep into the mouth of the consuming monster.

  Each of these memories burned hot in the chest, pain flourishing from the thought of all of them. He pushed it down as he thought of the largest pain of them all. Each and every time he was revived, he had been cleaned and left without sign or sight of witness marks.

  Sister Velvette saw Vandal’s hand quietly lift. His thumb came over to touch his ring finger, his middle and index fingers stood straight as he drew a lit cross. Her eyes widened as she saw he was casing without fuel. She stopped and stood back at the threat he drew in the air above his body.

  Vandal felt the burning in his chest rise into his throat as he dug within himself to cast his blessing. ‘No. This time, I will be seen with the marks of what had to happen.’ He gritted his teeth as he took what little his body had to offer, feeling his legs, hands, face, belly, and back heat with the taxing cost of the weave.

  Velvette saw Vandal’s body smoke as he taxed the weave. She stood and shouted. “GET ME A BUCKET! NOW!” She sprinted as confused and scared men bolted to comply with her demands. Feeble hands started to grip and scatter for anything that could hold water. Splash after splash they hit the steaming Priest with as much cold water as they could to keep him from flashing over.

  His hand rose, drawing another lit cross. He fought harder, the cold water hitting him shocked him to the core of his body. His throat worked finally as he drew a breath of stinging air. “HALT!” He drew from the last reserves his smoking wreck of a body had. The command belted out into the hearts and minds of the men around him, the last of his body heat went with the command as he said it. “Enough!” His eyes peeled open, feeling them slick and oily in their sockets. His eyelids stuck longer than he cared for each blink, but it was enough for him to confirm he was alive. The burning of his whole body reminded him that he was alive. Alive in a way he was finally satisfied with, with scars, with a record of his work.

  Vandal sat up, feeling it pertinent to hack up the bloody phlegm in his throat. “What-“ He coughed again, trying desperately now to speak. “What happened-“ He cleared his throat aggressively as Velvette held the last bucket.

  “You saved the town, Vandal.” She said behind gritted teeth.

  Vandal looked back from a burned visage, one that now haunted Velvette. Some other sisters of the faith were already readying linen bandages to apply to him. “Don’t sound so excited about it.” Vandal said in an irritated tone. “What do you mean by that? There’re no more threats?”

  Velvette nodded once, a single stoic decline of her angular armor. “You bought enough time for the Garrison to step in before the Maleficarum came trampling down the slopes to kill us all.” She set the bucket down now, realizing that the priest no longer needed it.

  Vandal sighed, and laid back down. “I wish to keep these scars, Velvette. Do not remove them.” He closed his eyes again saying in a more hushed tone. “I cannot forget this day, it needs to live on with me. It needs to breathe.” He drifted off to sleep as others started work on healing him without the weave.

  “Ceremonial-“ Velvette felt hands displace her as well dressed men came to see the Priest.

  “He’s conscious?” A stiff man spoke, fixing his uniform as if he was on trial.

  Sister Velvette nodded. “I don’t know how long for. He refuses treatment beyond life saving measures.”

  The stiff man nodded. “Brave warriors earn scars. Learn that and you earn wisdom.” He never broke line of sight with Vandal, keeping the elderly Priest in view. “Vandal, can you hear me?” He took a couple steps closer, afraid his presence might harm the man’s constitution.

  Vandal kept his eyes closed, nodding to the man’s voice. “Colonel.” He said in a curt remark. “What happened after I died?”

  The Colonel cleared his throat before speaking. “We pushed them back with the assistance of your brothers and sisters of the faith, and kept the town from incurring too much damage after you’d…” He thought on it. “Everything’s fine, Vandal, you’ve earned your rest Old Friend.” He closed the distance reverently, and knelt. “Here, for your bravery.” He took a small metal pin and looped it into the Priest’s vestments. “Rest, from the sounds of it you will need it.” The Colonel grunted at he stood, his knees protesting audibly as they cracked.

  Sister Velvette shook her head. “Sisters, take him to the Church. We need to set up a medical rotation for all of the injured.” She started assisting the others in moving Vandal, and reassembling the dead to revive.