I Love Absurdity. Don't you?

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

A knife is a wonderful tool, on the one hand it’s the straightforward device or weapon generally used for cutting of or piercing of things and alternatively various beasties. But it’s more then that. It’s a key to a person’s soul. You just insert it, twist and watch the epiphany unfold on your victim’s face. This can come and go in a heartbeat so you need to watch out for it.

No time to do that now dear reader, there are ‘locked’, to stick with the key analogy, creatures still to be dealt with. Their master may have fallen, and Mike was busy forcing open a gaping hole in a bothersome youth’s gut with his gloved hands. The kid could do nothing but part with desperate shrieks and flail his arms about blindly as he caught his first ever look at his entrails. This particular trick is guaranteed to make even the sturdiest of wastrels void their bowels, either from the front or the back. It’s fun, but this wasn’t really the time or the place. A group of this size called for swift slayings.

Alas it seemed that our enemy lacked the stomach for this battle. (No pun intended). At the sight of their leader clutching at his lifeless gut with equally lifeless hands, and perhaps the more evident spectacle of a madman reaching into their other friend’s torn skin, they turned tail and fled.

I shouted to Mike, he released his prey and left him to die on the street. We charged at the smattering of fleeing ruffians and dragged another two down to the floor. One screamed at me to get off him, with a few expletives thrown in for good measure. Of course I picked myself off the lad at once and apologised shamelessly for both knocking him to the floor and for the tragic death of his friends.

Well, no, actually I snapped his neck. So simple, so clean and such a delightful sound. It’s almost arousing. Mike had flung himself upon the female who was both screaming and trying to claw out his eyes, unfortunately for her however, her jabs were rushed and uncertain and all she managed was a slight cut on his chin via an overly long fingernail. It has to be said, this woman who initially appeared to be the harem-waif or the squad bitch of the gang we’d just decimated had put up a more valiant struggle then any of her fellows. That at least was admirable. She had the sense to fight to the last against her enemy rather then demand mercy as the last guy had done. I still can’t get over that. To this day it cracks me up.

Mike had his hands around her neck, soon the loss of breath diverted her hands attention away from her attacker’s face to his arms as she tried desperately to prise them off. At this change Mike grabbed his knife off of the floor and with an almighty lunge buried it into her chest. Quite an accurate shot all things considered.

The only one left was the five year old boy who was presumably lurking in the shadow of his older brother or sister (metaphorically speaking), having seen them be cut asunder he didn’t seem all too keen to stick around. The lad had vanished. Can’t say I blame him. As I mentioned, we weren’t about to kill someone as young as he, so we let him go.

For a moment we had to stand there, admiring the fruits of unadulterated brutality. When mercy and pity are cast aside, purity is embodied in the bodies. If I haven’t done so already dear reader then I strongly encourage you to seek out such purity yourself. Find someone who deserves to die and, to reiterate, ‘unlock’ them. Alternatively, climb to the top of a Cathedral spire or overcome your fear of tarantulas, there’s nothing quite like it.

My breathing eventually began to return to its normal steady pace. I looked behind me, above me and in any direction where an onlooker or a window may lie. I saw nothing, this was a pretty secluded area nestled between a Co-op and a fire station. Our prey had presumably come down here to share a bottle of their parent’s beer and pass the same cigarette around in a small circle. It was usually the same story.

Mike gathered the phones from the corpses, as you may remember from our earlier discussion, we always made it a point to collect these things. You never know when they’ll be needed. He also took a small Stanley knife from the gang leader, mumbling something about reclaiming treasure from the clutches of evil. A bit harsh maybe but there you have it.

You don’t think we went too far do you? I mean with our last kill less then a week ago, a smattering of bodies such as this would surely send the city into a blind panic, the already considerable police attention on the matter would escalate no end, and me and Ranger might find our task that much harder.

Yes, before you say anything I know that’s not what you meant by ‘going too far’. Still, pesky moral arguments are going to take a back seat this time around. We must move forward young reader, forward through the slaughter and the adventure. This skirmish will seem like a nasty case of indigestion in the park when we get to the aptly named Red days.
I felt good, and more then a little enthused, so to speak. Normally this business followed by a panicky rodent like sprint back to the domicile with a severed head in hand, but as we emerged victorious from the battlefield, feeling the cool air on our skin and the silence of the night that we had paid for in blood, well, it was a pure moment. I guess it was just bigger then what we were accustomed to, a complete disregard for anything save the killing.

I hadn’t felt this good since we’d taken out Mr. Terrance Simon Fairfax, our first and hitherto only paedophile. His demise was somewhat elaborate and sometimes on reflection it seems so unlikely that I have a hard time believing that it happened in the first place.

We first encountered Mr. Fairfax on the seventh page of an local newspaper, I forget which one exactly. It was part of a somewhat controversial scheme to raise awareness of sex offenders in local areas. The human rights protestors were up in arms about this blatant disregard for these vermin’s rights of course but honestly, what don’t they get up in arms about?

Anyhow, the face of our target was blacked out, however the area he lived in was one all too familiar to us as we were living in student accommodation not three leagues from there at the time. Mr. Fairfax, as you can probably imagine, was not a particularly pleasant fellow. He had been charged with the rape of two girls, one eight the other seven. The court case was thrown out for some unmentioned ‘technicality’, meaning, in all likelihood, that because the diligent police officer parted with a few well chosen expletives directed at the paedophile in his sight or because the neighbour who provided evidence was perhaps once cautioned by the police for frivolous cannabis use some forty years back, Mr. Fairfax was sent on his merry way.

We tracked him down and stalked him for a while, learning his routine, trying to see when he was vulnerable and so on. We discovered that he made frequent visits to a phone box, we don’t know who he called but we do know that he typically thrust his hand down his britches while he was in there.

So what did we do? Trust me dear reader you’ll like this, we doused the phone box in oil, waited for Mr Fairfax to arrive, waited a few more moments until we were sure no one was looking and launched a firework at the aforementioned phone box, which promptly exploded.

Mr Fairfax died two days later in hospital and the phone box was rebuilt. The council was determined not to let such a barbaric attack on the community succeed. The attitude they adopted was much the same as that which follows a terrorist attack. Not an entirely unfair response I guess but, well, come on, we’d just rid the community of a despicable ruffian of the worst order and saved Mr. and Mrs. (insert surname here)’s daughter from the grimmest of fates. Does anyone appreciate our work though?

Well yes, actually, someone did. Maybe still does I don’t know. Someone very much wanted us to kill, and keep on killing. By one forward thinking woman’s hand, and by the gifts of the Excaliban kingdoms came the Red days. The tide of blood that would sweep across this and a hundred other worlds to wash away the filth.

But first things first, to the park with us now good reader, for it is there that we are needed.

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Moonlit trees and dark wispy grass. Wind whistling and drizzle pounding the side of my face. This was the kind of weather that would make you glad to be sitting at home by a radiator laughing at the poor pedestrians below. Instead we were trudging through the mud, one sticky, laboured step at a time. We were looking for a place to dispose of our knives. No doubt the police would sweep through this place with sniffer dogs and the like but better they find the tools here then at the homestead should they see fit to conduct a search of our premises for whatever reason. To that end, I remember remembering that I needed to dispose of fingers I’d been keeping in the freezer. There were about four of them in total/ The idea was that I would throw it at a target one day and see what happened. The opportunity never seemed to present itself and they proved somewhat tricky to remove from the bag.

After wiping the handles and blades down with woollen cloths, we tossed our knives into a hedgerow. Actually, that’s not true. We carefully placed our knives in a hedgerow for fear of harming any nesting starlings or other hedge dwelling creatures. (We’re sad, I know). We eventually abandoned the hedge idea all together and tossed the things into a shallow looking pond that apparently contained contaminated water.

With this task done we set off home. Glad to be retreating from the cold and the chaos of outside to some semblance of calm. Nevertheless, I couldn’t get that leftover child, that one living witness to our deed out of my head. We’d done the right thing in sparing him, of that I was sure. But would that act of charity prove to be our downfall? It seemed almost fitting, the honourable killers honourable deed turns round and bites them in the arse. Such things are not unheard of. Still, what could I do?

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What had started as light drizzle had escalated into a fully fledged downpour by the time we left the park. By the time we got home the rain had given way to hale. There is nothing I detest more then hale in terms of weather. I doubt I need to express the full unpleasant experience to you good reader, suffice to say I don’t take much joy in getting pummelled by bits of ice.

Still, we made it home where artificial heating awaited us with open arms. No sooner had I stepped through the doorway then I suddenly felt incredibly drained, the adrenaline rush had crapped out on me and I now felt sore, exhausted and wet. I also discovered that I needed to pee.

Mike wasted no time in checking the news where, rest assured, the story of our exploits was being told. The news persons wasted no time in connecting this death to that of Joshua Tate and now the reasonable conclusion that a chav hunting serial killer stalked the streets of Plymouth was firmly set in the mind of the public. This may very well have put some minds at ease, I do not rightly know.

They weren’t exactly wrong to say we were targeting chavs, the more mouthy ones that we came across typically found themselves on the business end of our blades after all. But our targets, as I’ve told you, weren’t limited to them alone. The next person we dispatched may very well be a well spoken millionaire, just so long as he was undeserving of life.

“Turn it off.” I yawned, “Let’s deal with this in the morning.”
“You know we can’t do that.” Mike replied, he seemed a lot more alert then I did, “You head off if you want, I’ll keep an eye on things here.”

I sighed and collapsed onto the couch next to Mike, I know I should have been a lot more worried about potential mentions of ‘two suspicious individuals leaving the scene earlier in the evening’ perhaps, but all I could bring myself to care about now was shedding my moist garments and going to sleep.

Sergeant Daniel Sanderson of the Devonshire and Cornwall police force called us ‘animals’. That was kind of depressing. Although they technically fall into the category of the opposition, I always fostered a strange respect for police officers. As a child I was attracted to the aura of authority and respect that they generated, something which seems to have fizzled out in these later days. Still, traces of my former romantic admiration of the law keepers of the country remained, perhaps born out of good natured sympathy in moments like this. Worrying about our actions was a doubtlessly stressful task that they didn’t need. You know, I considered becoming a police officer once, before my path truly showed itself. Remind me to tell you how I became the way I am one day. It’s a good story.

They still had no idea who was behind the killings, not to the best of our knowledge at least. Not the most reassuring of news but it was going to have to do. After one congratulatory hug, (something of a tradition), Mike and me made our way to bed.

The next day

I had fully expected to wake up sweating and sore from top to backside. Instead, I felt great. I felt utterly fucking fantastic. Pardon the profanity but this wasn’t a simple case of waking up in a good mood because the sun was shining or because five enemies of the species were lying dead somewhere. Truth be told it never quite worked like that but my point is that I felt better then I had in a very long time. There also seemed to be some kind of device attached to my arm.

My first thought, oddly enough, was that this was some revolutionary new type of handcuffs, and that the police had entered the house and arrested us in our sleep. It might sound silly but what would you think if you’d just committed multiple homicides and woke up the next day with a strange metal contraption affixed to your forearm.

On closer examination I learned two things, one that there was a distinct lack of policemen in my home, as well as the incongruity that my idea carried with it. The second was that whatever it was I was wearing wasn’t weighing my arm down. This was kind of surprising considering how heavy it looked. Imagine if you will a fifteen centimetre long, wire frame, grey bracer with a rounded glowing edge facing your hand and you might get…

Glowing?

I looked again and to my great discomfort realised that I was not in fact hallucinating. Whatever the hell this thing was I was beginning to feel was a question that could wait until I’d prised it from my arm. Actually doing so however seemed difficult as the device didn’t look like it could be removed. It didn’t look like it could have physically been placed on my arm to begin with, there were no separable joints, no clips or releases that I could see. It clung to my wrist like it had grown from it. Not too tight, not at all loose. Very strange. Much like the rest of this morning.

Mike awoke with a long, resounding noise halfway between a groan and a pained wheeze. I turned and watched him awake, wondering just what the hell I was going to tell him about this spontaneous metallic development, only to discover a series of sub dermal grey marks where his ribs and collar bone should have sat invisible beneath his skin. Closer examination also revealed the spine and several bones in both his arms.

“Morning.” He said, sparing a glance at the clock which read 12:33PM. I didn’t reply right away, I couldn’t do anything except stare at what I could assume was a very bad case of lead poisoning.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” Mike said, his face grew steadily less tired and more nervous as he spoke, “What’s up? Is something on the news?”

I managed to shake my head, but before I could feebly attempt to mouth any whimpered words the door burst open and an unknown woman burst in with our spatula in her hand.

“At last,” She said, raising her arms to the sky, “How can you two sleep for so long? Half the day is gone.”

As you might expect, our reactions were stunned and stationary.
“Oh well,” She said, “Hurry up and get dressed, we’ve got a lot to talk about.” With that she turned tail and moved back through the door. It was then that on top of everything I realised I was naked as a blue jay and still boasting a fair bit of the early morning erection. Wonderful.

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We didn’t waste much time in getting downstairs. Mike hastily dressed himself in whatever would cover his discoloured bones and I resolved to remain shirtless so that this thing I’d had slapped on me could better be seen. At best, this woman would have some kind of explanation for what had happened. At worst, we had some nutcase in the house that we needed to get rid of ASAP.

In spite of everything, that energized, irrationally happy feeling that I’d woken up with was still there, nestled patiently behind the fear and confusion, waiting patiently to be let back to the front. Were it not for that I probably would be gnawing at my arm now, trying to get this bloody thing off me. Similarly, were it not for this imposed wellbeing, Mike would probably be huddled in a corner scratching at his chest with a potato peeler so he might catch a better glance at his bones. Maybe I’m exaggerating but still, this background feeling certainly took the edge off.

We found the mystery woman in the kitchen, casually munching a bacon and egg sandwich while staring out the window at the picturesque view of a concrete wall some ten feet from the house. Ours was not the most ideal of locations.

Two additional sandwiches were awaiting us on the kitchen counter, accompanied by a bowl of grapes and a steaming teapot. The mystery woman grunted a greeting at us through a mouthful of sandwich and made her way to the living room. I made a point of examining my sandwich, trying not to burry my new glowing metallic kerjigger in the runny egg goo. Reasonably satisfied that it was in fact a bacon and egg sandwich and reasonably hungry, I grasped the plate and made my way to the living room, Mike followed suit a few moments later.

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“Where to begin?” Waiara, (yes that’s really her name) mused.
“How about you start with what exactly you did to my fucking skeleton?” Mike said, understandably upset, in site of the imposed good feeling, “I am not meant to be grey inside.”
“While you’re at it, why don’t you tell me what this thing is?” I added, gesturing at the thing on my arm.

As a rule, psychopaths didn’t take kindly to random people discolouring their bones or attaching strange machines to them. If her answers didn’t satisfy then we were likely to dub her a viable target, it was hard not to go over to her seat right now and wrap my hands around her throat. Call me petty, but I’m used to a certain degree of dominance in my dealings, I didn’t like playing the hapless guinea pig and even without Mike scowling, I knew that he felt the same way.

This was an attitude that we maintained for maybe an hour, probably less.

“Your bones are fine,” She said with a grin, there was a strange satisfaction in her voice, like she was privy to a secret that she’d been waiting to share for a long time. “They’re just the uh, container, for lack of a better word, for…” She sighed, “This is hard to explain. Basically what you have inside you is what my people use to open portals to alternate locations, other planets and even other universes. It’s perfectly harmless.” She glared at me and grinned, “You haven’t got lead poisoning.”

Mike stared at her like she’d just asked him what ‘Tuesday’ meant. I stared at her with the grim realisation, no actually I stared at her with the shocked realisation that she could read my thoughts. Either that or she was some kind of psycho-analytical genius, or some third, unforeseen and highly obvious reason that would make me feel very stupid for my earlier guesses. It was just one in a long list of confusing things that had happened this morning.

“There are empty wastelands at your fingertips, uninhabitable voids, places people wouldn’t go at gunpoint. Perfect disposing of bodies.”

I sighed inwardly, no, I take that back. I groaned in utter despair inwardly at the grim revelation that our secret was out. Somehow this woman knew we were killers, I was expecting her to try and play some kind of leverage/blackmailing angle, but then again, why had she outfitted Mike with portal juice? Portal juice? Alternate realities? What the hell was going on here?!
“What the fuck is going on here?” Mike said for us both, “Just who the hell are you.”
“First things first,” She said, “You got your explanation, now Sylvester, to put it simply that device amplifies your mental and physical attributes. In effect you become the perfect soldier. You need to switch it on first of course.”

I stared hopelessly at the thing.
“How…?”
“Just ‘think’ it on.”

I thought it on, it was easier then I thought, like spontaneously imagining a pineapple. Like you just did I’d wager. I felt stronger then anyone could otherwise perceive. Everything seemed utterly clear and I could wrap my focus around everything and twist it to my will, I started with the coffee table, accidentally ruining my sandwich in the process. Perhaps an unimpressive first display in retrospect, but just wait till you see it in action on the battlefield. The possibilities are both numerous and unimaginable.

What followed all this was a lengthy relation of exactly what was going on, who our mysterious visitor was, what she wanted and why she had bestowed us with wondrous gifts.

Long story short, Waiara Secob is both daughter and emissary of one Eria Secob, the Goddess of the Nine Excaliban Kingdoms. You may have heard of her, though if you have I should tell you that this one is a different version of the one you know, a Goddess from an alternate reality, ruling over an alternate empire. She wanted an army in this world which, in case you haven’t guessed, she sought to claim for her own. For the simple reason that Waiara grew up in the Devonshire region, she came to us first.

Me and Mike are uncomplicated souls, we had our duty or if you prefer our twisted little hobby, though I may have to strangle you if I hear you calling it that. We bought into the rhetoric with little more then a glance at our fancy hardware. Eria Secob’s plans were not quite as nefarious as they may seem. To put it simply she was hardly likely to make things any worse.

There’s a lot I have to tell you good reader, a lot that needs to be learned. I’m not just talking about basic introductions and grand schemes for the omniverse. I could tell you right now about what I mean, but I think I’ve used enough shortened explanations for now, and perhaps the full scale of the Red days seem largely underwhelming. Let’s skip ahead a few moments.

12.32 AM

Never before had I stepped from the living room in my humble home in Devonshire to a bus station in Yorkshire through a two dimensional portal. I tried not to dwell on this fact too much and instead focused on just why exactly we were here. Waiara had sent us here as a test of our commitment. This was something easy apparently, a formality. We were to hunt down a gang of five or so drunken fools and make sure they didn’t live long enough to harass a woman by the name of Emily Watkins. This incident would attract the attention of two well meaning men who would try to calm the situation. Both of them would be killed in the attempt.

That’s what we’d been told, among other things. Waiara had made a point of telling us how these people we were supposed to eliminate were unworthy of the gift that her mistress would soon bestow upon the world. Worthless beasts without respect for life. Quote-unquote. She hadn’t mentioned as of yet what her mistresses view was on quasi-homicidal warriors such as myself and Ranger but judging from the fact that she had apparently hired us I guessed ours was a positive image.

Our targets, in theory, were the same manner of beastly beasts that we’d normally put to the sword. What differed in this situation, and what currently was causing me no end of grief was the fact that we weren’t in control here, and control was an important part of what we did. Dominance leads to victory when you’re staring down your prey, and more often then not victory leads to continued existence, which is preferable to the other alternatives.

We tracked down our assigned targets without too much trouble. I could smell them, or more accurately I could feel them, I’d known where they were ever since we’d stepped through the portal. Courtesy of the engineer’s guild on the oddly named world of Gh’klk’kasa’kl’maear. Twas there that the wondrous device on my forearm was designed. It didn’t take me long to grow to love the contraption. Let me show you why.

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There were five of them, all of whom were effectively clones save for slight variances of height. They had just exited a local tavern and judging by their loud voices and the obsenities they seemed to be hurling at everyone they saw, it suddenly seemed far more likely that Waiara was trustworthy. Of course we were uncertain, of course their actions so far weren’t necessarily reason enough for us to kill them yet. But we had to make a choice, and from what we’d seen of Waiara and the Excaliban kingdoms thus far, we had little reason to doubt her, and judging by these gits we’d been sent to dispatch, well, they were everyday targets, and I really, really wanted to test out my new hardware. These were sub-humans, lesser creatures, I was sure of it. We were sure of it.

It occurred to me that me and Mike had been walking towards them even as this feeble internal argument unfolded in my head. I must appologise my dear reader if the opposition comes across as one-dimensional. The simple truth however is that the opposition really was one-dimensional.
“Hey wot the fu…” That was all he got out. Then I launched a fist at him at an otherwise impossible speed and his head was torn clean off his shoulders. I kid you not good reader, I punched the bloke, a surly looking, noisome git like all the others and his head whizzed off into the distance.

Mike wasted no time in unleashing his own new set of tricks. A portal opened to somewhere where shots were being fired from one or more persons to another or more persons. A portal pointed directly at his enemy, open just long enough for a handful of bullets to fly through and then, quick as you please, one hole riddled cretin was propped up against a street light spending his last moments wondering just what the hell was going on. I wasn’t too sure myself but I was in no mood to care. The thing on my arm, which I’d affectionately named Achilles, had made me quite literally unstoppable. My hand didn’t even hurt and technically it should have been pressed flat, hell maybe my entire arm should have been reduced to dust, but it wasn’t, and soon it was flinging a third gang member into the side of a Methodist church some thirty odd feet away. We made a point to clear away the grisly splatter later on via the aid of, how to say it? Stolen goods from another universe, I guess.

I felt, in much the same way that I’d felt the presence of our prey, that Mike was already moving on the last two. We’d been co-ordinating our attack in this way. Each of us felt which body the other was going to devastate and perhaps more importantly knew where not to stand so as to avoid getting shot or, as in the case with the last two enemies, I give you my word good reader this is exactly what happened, Mike opened a portal and several green octopus-like arms shot forth, wrapped themselves around the two closest (and intended) bodies, and the two men vanished through a portal. Presumably destined to descend into the gullet of some uncouth leviathan. Even I shuddered at the thought.

I cast a glance at Mike, he looked stunned. We killed sure, but we’ve never fed anyone to vicious beasties. I think that was just a spur of the moment idea that he carried out before he had the chance to think about it. Still, what’s done is done and by the looks of things done well. I moved to Mike and slapped him on the shoulder, Achiles apparently having forced the residue adrenaline and bloodlust away now that clear thought was called for. I don’t know if the device knew that on its own or read some part of my subconscious, does it matter?

“Mike!” I half-shouted. “Ranger!” He turned to stare at me then, face expressionless apart from his eyes which were locked in an expression of shocked stillness.

I slapped him, not too hard but hard enough for him to pull himself together long enough to open our escape route. And so with horribly mutilated corpses, screaming pedestrians who also were witnesses to both murder and supernatural feats in abundance, we made our way home.

I should probably explain that Waiara specifically ordered that we make a public display of the un-men’s ‘execution’. For years now we’d been assassins, minion of the shadows or some such. We were always careful when there was knifing to be done. This, initially, didn’t seem right. Waiara said that she would handle it and we wouldn’t have anything to worry about from local law enforcement. Again, we had little reason to doubt her, it seemed unlikely that she’d spend so much time outfitting us with new tools of the trade and unloading the benevolent-imperial rhetoric on us if she planned to throw us away with the murder of a bunch of ruffians. She certainly seemed satisfied with our work upon our return.

The Next Day

There were a lot of unfamiliar faces staring down at us from the sky boxes above. We were new creatures from a newish land and no one was overly sure what to make of us just yet. Granted we’d just taken out what Waiara was now calling ‘enemies of the Kingdoms’ though how they qualified as such was as of yet a mystery, but everyone seemed to realise the act for what it was, small and overly easy. Perhaps not the best test of loyalty but then again, Waiara told me that it was just a formality. I really just don’t know what to make of it.

Still, no one was whispering to the person stood next to them, no one was looking at us with unfriendly smirks, no one’s face gave the impression that we weren’t welcome, and truth be told I was more concerned about the fact that some of our spectators had six arms or in some cases no apparent head. Yes I’m sorry to say that I’d handled my people’s first contact with alien species with all the dignity and grace of a six year old at a zoo. Mike fared little better.

Waiara coughed politely and soon we pulled our focus away from the onlookers and back to the reason we’d come to the ceremony hall in Hy’ras’aer city on a planet with about fifteen different names. The human name was Baldur eight.

“Sylvester Wright.” Waiara said in a voice that sounded a lot like she was about to sentence me to death, “And Michael Brooks. Sons of the Earth. Do you agree to swear fealty to the Nine Excaliban Kingdoms and the Empress?”
“Yes.” We replied proudly in unison.
“Do you renounce the misguided teachings of your home world? and do you swear to fight to bring your people into the blessed unity of Eria Secob’s reign?”
“Yes.” We said again, a little less steady this time. This oath was a little too close to home for comfort. No pun intended.
“Do you swear to do anything and everything your Empress and Empire may require of you to bring any and all tortured souls of ignorance into our blessed unity?”
“Yes.” We said.
“Then kneel, and accept the blessing of Eria.”

We knelt, and before my knee even touched the floor I could feel the hitherto unknown presence of Eria Secob enter my mind, or possibly my soul. She was smiling at me, nodding in approval, I could feel her ethereal hand slapping me on the back.

I’m guessing you’re not a reclusive killer good reader, so perhaps you won’t appreciate just how much it meant to me to know, beyond any shadow of doubt, that someone was truly proud of me for what I was doing. In that instant all the doubt I’d ever felt about whether I was doing the right thing or whether I could truly accomplish anything with my knife were gone. I knew now that what I was doing was right. I almost burst into tears in the ceremony hall, fortunately though I managed to keep it together, and gradually Eria retreated into the background of my mind. I could still feel her there, only a mental shout away in case I needed her.

“Now rise, Sylvester Wright, and rise Michael Brooks. Rise as blessed servants of Eria Secob, and honoured knights of the Excaliban kingdoms.”

We stood and were met with a vigorous round of applause from above. We were the first of our people to emerge from ignorance as Waiara would say. Today we had become soldiers, and believe me when I tell you that the Excaliban kingdoms had no end of work for its soldiers. Now came the Red days proper.

To be continued.


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