Chapter 34: Returning Home as a Mother’s Chosen (Patreon)

We step away from Alice the Rock for a moment to meet...

...Eva the Witch!

Chapter Thirty-Four

Returning Home as a Mother’s Chosen

It was snowing.

Six hundred miles north of the Lossen Valley, the air was thick with a white powder. The day before had seen a heat so foul that Bull's armor had left him burned and blistered, but all around him danced horrible flecks of white.

Not for the first time, Bull thought about turning around. He knew what he would find at the familiar castle that sat so horribly near. He had trudged through the familiar village that surrounded it, had walked down its snowy roads, though no voices had called out to welcome him home.

Dead.

Without even knocking at the silent and tomb-dark hovels, Bull knew the village was dead. The snow that had fallen over the place was undisturbed but for where Bull trudged.

And so he continued through the gathered snow. He wore heavy ring mail that lesser men could scarcely lift over their heads. At his hip was Leviathan, the Cursed Blade, but its weight was hardly felt as he practically floated towards the castle gates in the distance.

The guards carried long spears tipped with expensive steel. The vibrant red-and-blue tabards draped over their chainmail marked them as no mere men-at-arms, but rather Lord's Men, warriors bred from birth to bleed the enemies of their master.

They were dead. The impossible snow had already half-buried them, but the Lord's Men offered no red wet to the hungry white. As Bull stomped past them, he could find no wound to mark their death.

He did not look long, however. As Bull passed through the open gate and into the castle's wide courtyard, there were far more corpses to study.

Servants both young and old.

Villagefolk with children held tight in their arms.

The dreary men-at-arms that haunted most castles like ghouls could be seen in great clumps of spear tips and ax heads. Not one drop of blood marked their corpses, however. It was as if one and all had simply... fallen asleep.

"Purpose."

Bull had not realized how quiet the castle had become, how quiet the village had fallen, until the familiar voice cracked like thunder in his ear.

He reached for Leviathan at his hip, his fingers wrapping around the sword's hilt, but then he felt a hand against his back. Even with a dragon's weight in chainmail, Bull could still feel that hand.

But then nothing else. It was as if his body had turned to stone, as though his blood had frozen amidst the delicate dance of white all around him.

"Puuuuurpose," the woman repeated, her voice without even a flicker of warmth in this wintery hellscape.

"I'm here to fuck your face bloody," Bull growled. "Take your hand off me, Princess."

"Rude purpose," Princess said, and here the faintest flicker of emotion touched her words. "Can I kill?"

"Now, now. That's Bull." A tired voice appeared behind Bull as snow continued to fall across the courtyard. "Don't you remember Bull?"

As if the words were a spell, Bull could feel his arms and legs once more. He whirled around, Leviathan still in her sheath but wanting so desperately to be drawn.

But Princess had disappeared. Bull knew she was close by, however. Watching. She was always watching, the daemon-touched abomination.

Bull's attention turned to the shrunken old man instead. He had the kindly look that all who reached their grey years seemed to earn. He was as small as a dwarf, though very much human. A black eye-patch covered his right eye.

"Playing babysitter, eh?" Bull huffed, and his hand drifted frustratingly away from Leviathan's hilt.

Far Eyes simply smiled, his wrinkled face as innocent as the elderly man he had become. Bull did not care for the smile. He did not care for any of this.

"A tad bloody," Bull said, waving absentmindedly at the innumerable dead that filled the castle courtyard.

Far Eyes simply shrugged, revealing the faint gleam of a dagger at his hip.

"Such was the Mother's will," the old man said.

"And is the Mother- " Bull began, his heart quickening, but Far Eyes stopped him with a raised hand.

"Inside," the old man said, gesturing to the tall keep that Bull had tried his best to ignore. There was no ignoring it now, however. Death and snow were all he had found in the courtyard, and he expected to find more of at least one inside, as well.

Neither man spoke as they crossed through the gathering snow and entered the silent stone keep. Bull kept his eyes resolutely forward as they passed through familiar halls, as they passed unfamiliar corpses. He did not need Far Eyes to lead the way. The place had hardly changed at all in the decade since Bull's exile.

Every so often, he thought he could see something black and foul shiver at the corner of his sight. If it was Princess or some other horror, Bull couldn't be sure. While he could feel the abomination's eyes boring into him like a torturer's drill, his stare seemed incapable of finding her.

Bull and Far Eyes stepped over more dead. No blood had been spilled to mar the stone hallways or the many tapestries that adorned them. It was as if one and all had simply fallen over and decided to hold their breath. But even that was false. None of the corpses were blue of face. They were all simply...

"Is everyone dead?" Bull asked, breaking the unnatural silence. He already knew the answer, but his thoughts were not with the many servants and soldiers who manned the castle, but rather the Lord and Lady Whet that commanded it.

"Such was the Mother's will," Far Eyes said with about as much enthusiasm as the corpses around them.

Bull frowned. A hand brushed Leviathan’s hilt without his thinking, and he shook his head at the madness he could have simply walked away from.

"This will mean war," he said, turning to Far Eyes. The man's wrinkled face gave no indication that he had even heard him. "Open war. No more playing tag with the Inquisition after this."

Far Eyes simply shrugged and turned to Bull with a wry smile.

"Such was the- "

"-Mother's will," Bull finished for him, grinding his teeth. "If I hear you say that one more time, I'll gag you with that eyepatch."

"Rude man," Princess said, and Bull could feel knife-like fingers wrap around his throat. "Can I hurt?"

Bull had Leviathan halfway out of its sheath as he whirled around.

But Princess had already disappeared.

Far Eyes seemed not to have noticed. He continued to march down the hallway with a solemn indifference... towards the unmistakable sound of many voices.

Bull had not even realized where they were headed, though he supposed a part of him had known after the first step.

The tall, heavy doors to the Lord's Hall were just as Bull remembered them. They even felt the same as he pushed them open, and the chatter within died away.

At least a dozen of the Mother's Chosen were gathered around the Lord's Table. Lord and Lady Whet sat at its head, as well. Both dead. Both dead.

"A little macabre," Bull growled, his eyes refusing to leave Lord Whet's almost confused expression. He could almost hear Leviathan whispering in his ear, urging him to rip out the steel and dance across the room.

"Don't know that word, ribbit."

Slug's voice was the typical wet pop of the frogkin. He stared at Bull with his unblinking bulbous eyes, the green of his head turning slightly purple as though in warning.

"Bull!"

Bull looked away from Slug as a child of a woman hopped down from the Lord's Table and waddled merrily over to where he remained rooted beside the doors.

Danika's knuckles were as hairy as Bull's chin and ended in clawed hands as sharp as a knife. Like most dwarfs, her face was an almost perfect square, the skin more like clay than flesh and blood.

"You look half a skeleton!" Danika said, tugging at his chainmail. Clearly she wanted him to bend over for a hug or something worse, but Bull was in no such mood. "Please, please! Sit and eat!"

She gestured to the Lord's Table where no dish or cup sat.

"There's nothing on the table, you crazy bat," Bull growled, and he yanked himself free from Danika's incessant tugging.

The dwarf turned slowly to the Lord's Table, as if an icy cold had suddenly filled her veins. Her clay-like face sagged, and her lower lip began to tremble.

"Oh... I guess we'll all starve then," Danika said, and she plopped down onto the floor beside the door, defeated, the very picture of misery.

Bull rolled his eyes. This was the Mother's Gift. To stand side-by-side with Your Unbound Queen was to invite madness. He was fortunate enough to spend most of his days well away from her Diseased Flock.

His eyes swept over the Lord's Hall, marking down the familiar faces and those newly won.

Bile the Rotten sat as far from the others as the table would allow. The [Necromancer]'s pallid skin looked as though a strong wind might tug it free from the skeleton underneath. Two of his wretched constructs stood sentinel beside him, their twisted bodies as patchwork as a street urchin's clothing.

Hakan the Butcher watched Bull with a supremely bemused expression. He was dressed as colorfully as a peacock, and his bronze skin shone so brightly that Bull had to wonder if it was oiled. A cleaver almost as large as Leviathan rested idly against Hakan's chair. Specks of what could have been blood or rust covered much of the steel.

Bull's face twitched when he noticed that man standing beside an unfamiliar tapestry.

The chainmail Bull wore would crush a lesser warrior like an anvil, but Erik the Faithful's armor looked as though it had both an anvil's weight and thickness. The ugly iron entombed the [Knight] like a corpse, and there were even some rumors where that was concerned. Bull had not once seen Erik without his armor. He had never even seen the First of the Mother's Chosen with his visor raised.

Bull's attention flickered away from the armored mystery, however, as Far Eyes took a seat at the Lord's Table. Bull remained where he was, and the Mother's Chosen stared at him with varying degrees of worry and irritation.

"This will mean war," Bull growled at the room. His eyes drifted unwillingly to where Lord Whet sat, to the confused death mask that marked his face. Bull felt no guilt. He had told his fool of a father to submit to the Mother. Instead he had chosen death.

"War, ribbit? Will be war, ribbit ribbit?" Slug's voice bubbled with barely contained excitement. "He hasn't heard!"

Bull frowned, and his frown only deepened as a pool of black appeared in the middle of the table.

He took a step back as a familiar figure rose out from inky darkness, their feline ears twitching excitedly.

"War has already begun!" Miia declared as she hopped off the table with unnecessary flair. The pool of black disappeared behind her.

"The Inquisition and the Border Princes are meowstering outside the Lossen Valley even now!" the catgirl continued. "Anyone who enters the gatehouses never leaves. Yup, yup. Everything will burn, burn, burn!"

Bull felt as though he had been hit over the head with a hammer.

"What?! Why would they...?" It made no sense. The [Magi] had countless chances to transform the territory into ash before now, but the cowards had always stayed their hand. What had changed?

"Why indeed..."

The voice belonged to one of the Mother's Chosen seated farthest from the deceased Lord and Lady Whet. His voice was stern, and his face sterner. Half of it had recently been torn off, though thankfully pus-yellow bandages hid the worst of the gore.

"Didn't we have someone keeping an eye on them?" Ratko the Godslayer asked, the question directed at no one and everyone.

"An eye on who?" Bull asked, his brow furrowing in frustration. His head still spun with the news from Lossen Valley.

"Lade has never been... level-headed," Far Eyes said from where he sat at the table. The old man shrugged as he continued. "I wouldn't be surprised if he was the one who encouraged this... insanity."

"Will someone tell me what you are talking about?" Bull growled, and he found his hand slipping unconsciously towards Leviathan's hilt. The cursed sword could taste his frustration, and the blade knew one simple way to resolve it.

"They're talking about the remnants."

It was a woman's voice, and it seemed to suck all the air from the room. Even Lord Whet's corpse seemed to stiffen as her words tickled the ear. None dared breathe...

...as the Dark Mother stepped out from behind an unfamiliar tapestry like a malevolent phantom.

Bull fell to his knees without thought. His face was covered in sweat, and his head hammered painfully as though he had just woken from a night of hard drinking.

"I don't think this is Lade's mischief, though," the Unbound Queen said. "This feels like the work of that creature. What do they call themselves now? Favors One Task?"

Bull was a strong man, a fearless man, a killer of lesser men. But he trembled now. He could taste blood in his mouth, could hear each of the Mother's soft footsteps as if they were the clanging of coffin lids.

Eva the Witch.

"A shame," she said, so softly and with such sadness that Bull found unwanted tears streaming down his otherwise iron face. "If they had just waited a little longer, we could have brought them back into the fold. But now..."

"If the Inquisition were to capture the remnants," Far Eyes began, and Bull was amazed the old man dared to open his mouth. Such an oppressive force radiated from the Witch that it was a wonder the old man had not keeled over and died. "Who knows what lies and secrets that creature of Kaos has poured into their ears, what damage it could do to the Great Revolution."

"Hmm." Eva the Witch's voice purred with a horrible energy as she seemed to consider the old man's wisdom. All the while, Bull struggled to keep himself from vomiting.

"Bull."

The Mother only spoke that one word, but it felt as though Bull's stomach was pulled out from his mouth and wrapped around his throat. Insanity gripped him then, and he dared to look up from his horror and stare.

There was nothing terribly unusual about Eva the Witch at first glance.

She had long, white hair.

She had a soft almond face.

Aside from the red glow of her tired eyes, there was nothing terribly unusual about the young woman.

But as second rolled into second, and one's eye dared to remain upon Her Magnificence, it was as if the woman became a mirror, and the images reflected within that glass could not, should not, exist. The human mind could not bear to comprehend them. One blinked, and all the horrors one witnessed were forgotten, but still they lingered, unseen and unnoticed but for their weight, in the back of your slowly crumbling mind.

"I can send you to the mountains near Waterhold," Eva the Witch said, and Bull turned back to the floor, barely hearing her command. "The Inquisition probably won't notice. You can take... five of my Chosen."

"Of course," Bull said, his tongue feeling overlarge in his mouth. "But what...?"

The Mother loosed a heavy sigh.

"Before the Inquisition can claim them, you are to destroy this false cult of Favors One Task."

The absurdity of the command banished a wrinkle of Bull's unease. A false cult? Just what was going on in the Lossen Valley?

"Destroy...?" Ratko the Godslayer sounded horrified as he spoke. "Should we not save them from the Inquisition, Merciful Mother?"

"Favors One Task has already corrupted them," Eva the Witch said with a heartful sorrow that brought a choking sob out of someone's throat. "In death, we offer them the freedom we ourselves now seek in life. But..."

The Dark Mother clapped her hands, and Bull was thankful he had not eaten any of Danika's invisible food. He likely would have shit himself, so convinced he was that the castle was about to collapse all around them.

But the Witch's clapping did not summon ruin.

Bull had looked for her the whole while he had stalked up the old castle steps. He had seen her in the corner of his eyes, always out of sight, but always watching.

"Yes, Mama?" Princess said, and Bull wanted to retch.

Much like her mother, there was nothing immediately unusual about the daughter. Princess actually looked rather beautiful with long white hair and pale baby-soft skin.

But with every step the daemon-touched abomination took, with every flex and clench of her muscle, the young woman seemed to transform. Bull did not speak of blonde hair one moment and black hair the next. It was smaller than that. Impossibly small, such that the mind began to question itself. Princess's eyes seemed to grow larger and smaller with each blink. Her fingers seemed to lengthen and shorten with each flick. Each change was always infinitesimally small, but what did not change was the rising horror that birthed in Bull's gut at the sight of her.

For all of Princess's outward beauty, the young woman inspired in him as much lust as would a sow at the trough.

"You'll go with Bull," Eva the Witch said, cupping her daughter's face affectionately. "Your grandfather is amongst those in Waterhold. I had always wanted you to meet him."

Princess grew visibly excited at these words.

"Papa's papa?" The abomination turned to the iron statue that was Erik the Faithful. The suit of armor might as well have been empty with how little it had moved since Bull's arrival.

Princess squealed with a childlike excitement. Clap, clap, clap went her hands as Bull continued to fight the urge to vomit.

"We go!" Princess said, turning to where Bull still knelt. Her face was a revolting mask of joy as she puffed out her chest excitedly. "We say hi to Grandpa and then give painless death!"

Alice has the worst luck with mothers. First her own cracks her head open with a car door, and now this mother is sending assassins to kill her new cult?!

And what is Erik still doing here?!

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