Chapter 16: Chronicles of the lost souls: Paying the price

~ Light, I pray for your forgiveness, for the sins I have committed and my wrong deeds; but most of all I pray you give me strength to also forgive others for what they have done to me.

Perched on the mountain slopes in sight of Wintergarde Keep, the Scarlet Onslaught encampment was quiet early in the morning.
Guard posts had been set up every fifty meters or so and two-men patrols would circle around the wooden palisade, saluting each other solemnly with a fist brought to the heart each time they met. Other than that, there was not much movement except for the thin smoke of cook fires and people climbing up and down the slope that led to the river to fetch buckets of water.

Regardless of the heavy pickets surrounding the area, the camp itself was not very well organized. Tents lay pitched here and there, mixed with roughly built wooden sheds, which served all ends and purposes, from stable to armory. A couple of these buildings however, lay close to the mountain wall, being more heavily guarded than the rest.

Shifting his shoulders under the weight of his armor, Adair Rellion trotted through the snow, followed by one of the soldiers under his command, who was carrying an unlit torch.
A man in his mid forties, with graying hair at the temples and quite a statuesque figure, he stood out as he crossed the camp, even if his uniform was rather crumpled and his breastplate stained.
He had not bothered himself in quite a while with such mundane tasks. He had other, more important things to do, and no one cared too much anymore about the strict discipline the Scarlet Crusaders used to abide by.

Inspecting the prisoners was one of his daily responsibilities – and probably the most pleasant for him. Before the Plague he had been kicked out of the army – even if, out of mercy, his superiors made it seem an early retirement, due to health problems. The true reason lay buried in his records and those had probably burned long before, with the whole of Lordaeron. Not that he would particularly care, or that such reasons would have matter for the Onslaught. He enjoyed killing too much…thrived to see other people suffer and writhe in agony. His secret shame had proved to be very useful in the service of the Scarlet Crusade. There were always prisoners to break, captured spies to make talk. The inquisitors were good at that. He considered himself even better.

Even now, the thought made him gasp in anticipation. The prisoners of the Onslaught didn’t usually last long before they spilled out whatever they knew. That woman they caught a week before had sort of challenged his personal record and he was eager to rip off her secrets.

Licking his lips, he nodded to the guards in front of the first “ prison cell” – they would call them so even if they looked more like barns. His minion followed in his footsteps, and he heard him light the torch just before they entered the humid, cold room.

The woman lay along one of the walls, her body stretched uncomfortably due to the tight and elaborate bindings that held her arms and legs. As the door came shut after them, the soldier lifted his torch to allow his superior a better view at the prisoner. Whistling softly, Adair Rellion strode across the cell and bent to inspect his handiwork.
“Are you ready to talk today, sweetling?”

His voice was slithering, like serpent skin. He accompanied his words with deeds as he started to untie the ropes which restrained her. She was awake, but all she did was glare at him, too weak now to try and hit him in the face the way she did in their previous encounters. The first time she had even managed to bruise his left check, lashing out unexpectedly. Of course, it had only served to earn her a beating that left her unconscious for hours. A pity, truly. He liked to hear his victims scream.

Just for the sake of it, he kept asking the questions while he untied her. She would speak, eventually out of her own will. But interrogations were always fun.

“I walk in the Light”, was the only answer he got. “and you can go to hell.”

He slapped her hard enough that a small trickle of blood started to run from the corner of her mouth. At the same time, gripping the woman’s arm he twisted it painfully behind her back. His other hand ripped off the already tattered shirt, clawing into the soft flesh of her breasts. A shiver ran through her body, then she was still, even as he pressed her down, face and shoulders against the cold stone beneath.

The man with the torch watched, a flicker of excitement in his otherwise indifferent face. He would get his turn later on…but for now he would make her cry…cry out for him…
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“Will… you allow me… at least to… wash myself?” The woman’s voice was unsteady as she let out the question. Smoothing his shirt into his breeches, Adair Rellion watched her with a smile. A cruel one. The rape, no matter how brutal, didn’t seem to have much more effect than the beatings did…yet she kept her eyes meekly downcast as she spoke. One or two days, he decided, and she would be broken. Meanwhile, he could still have his way with her. Usually he did not do any favors to his prisoners, but such toys were rare and precious here, in this frozen desert at the end of the world. Grinning, he pulled her up, enjoying the sharp hiss she let out as cramped muscles were brusquely stretched.

Even in the middle of the day, no one paid them too much attention as he dragged her out of the cell. At a head sign, the soldier fell back, turning left and vanishing behind a row of tents. The woman walked awkwardly, blinking often in the crude light reflected by the snow. Wearing just the torn and dirty shirt, which came only half a palm over her thighs, she soon started to quiver, teeth chattering loudly.

The spring was right behind the prison cells, a half filled dig in the ground. He pushed her again and she stumbled, splashing into the icy water with a pitiful whimper. Then suddenly, coming behind her back, he pressed his hand in the nape of her neck, forcing her head under the water surface. The woman’s arms flailed around desperately, as she tried to come out and breathe, but he held her there a little more, until he felt in her tensed muscles the small convulsions that announced suffocation. Only then he released his grip and watched her grinning as she coughed and frantically struggled to fill her lungs with air.

Still smiling, Adair Rellion abandoned his prey – she wasn’t running anywhere too soon, and went a few steps aside to peer over the edge of the precipice. The mountain jutted out towards the sky, like a fang, its slope steep and covered in a thick layer of snow. Rocks dotted the bottom of the narrow valley beneath and a narrow path winded through it, heading east. Good place they had chosen to settle, he thought, this time gazing over Wintergarde – a thorn in the sides of those cursed unbelievers...

Suddenly he realized he didn’t hear anymore the woman’s ragged breathing. And still, she was there as he turned, kneeling near the spring, her hair and shirt dripping with water. Watching him. He didn’t know fear, yet the stark determination in those pale green eyes made him feel a worming of snakes in his middle. It all took a second, not more – a fraction of a second. Something glowed around her and then, in a heartbeat, the woman threw herself forward, catching him out of balance. He wanted to scream a warning as they fell, but the shock of being flung over into the abyss under his feet turned the sound into a pathetic squeak. They rolled together down the slope like boulders, the woman’s fingers clawing into his neck as they did, the snow barely enough to dampen the contact with the rugged ground underneath.

Abruptly, the fall stopped. He lay on his back, nausea making his stomach try to knot on itself. The woman had landed on top of him, panting. Somehow during their mad descent she had managed to cushion her own body with his. Adair Rellion tried to sit, to writhe away. Pain made him grunt, strangely unexpected, even if on a conscious level he knew he probably had more than one broken bone. His former victim stared him down in the eyes, her entire weight pressed against him. Normally, he should have been able to push her off, his frame being larger than hers and more powerful. Except his muscles wouldn’t obey anymore. Panic bubbled inside his chest as he became aware of it. Light, did that fall let him crippled? He would die there, slowly and horribly, unknown by any living soul…The woman’s gaze bore into him, sharp and unyielding like a drill. Her hands fumbled after something, what was it? – and then he groaned at the feeling of cold metal pressed against his skin. His own dagger.

“I’ve considered letting the wolves take care of it”, the woman said calmly her expression grim as three days old death.” Weird, she did not shiver despite being soaked in freezing water – she should have been down with hypothermia by then. “But you are right, it is more pleasant to take matters in your own hands.”
He had said that even as he tortured her. He swallowed hard, trying to form words but they would not go past his constricted throat. His eyes bulged, mouth gaping soundlessly.

Please…

“I am one of you, after all”, the woman continued, very evenly. And dangerously. Adair Rellion tried again to move, arms and legs twitching uncontrollably. “And a crusader never flinches…”

He was going to die, he understood. He didn’t want to. Abject fear took hold and he howled, struggling in vain to push her aside. The blade ran smoothly across the side of his neck, opening his carotid and the last thing he felt was the hot rush of blood, with each maddened beat of his straining heart…

Severinna put the knife aside and watched him die. She could feel the wave of warmth spreading into her chilled body as the Light surged again, knitting flesh and bone. It hurt a bit, healing always did when you were not skilled in directing the flows. But that pain was sweet, that pain was nothing compared to the hollowness within her soul.
She took another look at the corpse lying beneath her, then calmly, very much so, started to peel of his clothing. Blood stained it here and there and it retained still his scent and his warmth. It made her want to throw up, but it had to do. She couldn’t run around half naked in the snow.

Dimly she recalled a moment long past, that night of horrors at the edge of a burning Stratholme. She remembered the tears flowing down her grime stained cheeks and the old soldier huddled by her side, with a resigned look in his eyes. "We should be dead"…that man whose face she had forgotten, had said. "But one does what it takes to survive…and we want to live, girl…no matter what…no matter the suffering…"

Discarding the sodden shirt onto the ground, she wrapped Adair Rellion’s coat around herself and started to pull on the leather boots, strapping them as tightly as she could, to compensate for the difference in size. The memories of Stratholme flickered again in the back of her mind.

Surely she had come a long way since then.