Hubris - 24. The Taste of Torchcoats

The storm raged on relentlessly through night’s prolonged hours, scattering all in its path be it practitioner or torchcoat alike. Not a soul moved except for the occasional fox or badger or rabbit driven from their dens by the torrential downpour. The necromancers could not be said to have souls; they'd conscripted theirs to their master Iterations ago.

They followed the revenants, letting them lead the way like bloodhounds. There were no better trackers than the undead creatures who could slip through the darkness unheard and unseen. It was only a matter of time before the detestable monstrosities led them to their prey. Tara tried to remain patient, but it was hard to do when her stomach was full of fluttering butterflies. Even she didn't like the way they moved, seeming to walk with a slow deliberate pace, and yet no matter how she and Pa tried to keep up, they somehow always remained ahead of them.

Pa grunted when the silent creatures stopped in a clearing surrounded by pine trees up ahead. “They've found something.”

Tara could not hide a grin of excitement when the discovery turned out to be a pit of blackened earth. Her nose wrinkled, her lips turning in a downward frown of disgust as they drew closer. “They were definitely here. I can smell the herald’s foulness all over this area. He's a persistent little bastard, I’ll give him that.”

Pa strode around the edges of the pit, long arms clasped behind his back in thought.

She liked his long lapses into silence less and less; it made her uneasy, a feeling she thought would have been washed out of her after three lifetimes. She did the only thing she could think of to do at the moment: she ignored it. Better to complete the task at hand…after all this was this last chance or else their master would throw them into the Void, and rightly so. All we have to do is keep the little shit from reaching those old windbags in the Expanse.

The revenants moved on from the pit, angling northeast. They moved silently, not so much as stirring a tree branch or a bramble. While their visage was gag-inducing to look at, she envied them their grace. There was a reason why most living creatures were afraid of these hideous creatures and why the forces of Inferno used them in the war against the False Creator, Monad.

The group traveled another half mile, climbing up a steep hill that flattened into more woodland at the top - this herald could really move in haste and he was cautious, a quality the other herald's of previous Iterations had lacked - this much Tara would give him. Her muscles ached from the long climb, her heart beating frantically in her chest. I’d rather not have a heart, she thought. I’d rather be heartless like the revenants. She hated the feeling of human discomfort that fluttered in her breast like a panicky butterfly; it disturbed her more that she knew nothing of its origins. Or rather she did.

She glared at Pa’s back. She watched him slink closer to the commotion, sticking to the cover of shadows provided by the cover of trees. After a moment he turned to her, eyes flashing beneath the brim of his cowl. She'd been so distracted by fatigue and her own damned emotions that she’d failed to notice the clamor of uneasy voices coming from the clearing.

Tara’s lips peeled back from her razor-edged teeth. Dinner.

Five torchcoats stood in the middle of the camp, squabbling; she could hear the edge of panic in their voices - smell it in their sweat, their blood. They’re afraid. They should be.

The poor dears had set up camp in the middle of the clearing that would at least shelter them from the blood fall. Pa and she continued to watch them from their vantage point, taking stock of their prey. Their bright-eyed youthful faces. Three men, two women, none of them hardly a day over twenty. Youthful flesh was a delicacy not to be passed up no matter the circumstances.

“I swear we’re getting close!” one of the men, a slim acne-faced boy piped up. He faced the tallest in the group, a dark-skinned man with slanted eyes. Judging from the good amount of bristle around the man’s mouth he was not only the oldest in the group but the one in charge. “The man said the practitioner and the lycan were staying in the stable outside the church.”

“There's no way we're going anywhere in this shit, Headings!” the commander said. He had a deep, booming voice…had fate been kinder to him he would have turned into a strapping commander who would burn practitioners at the stakes by the thousands…but Tara could hear the fear and inexperience in his voice. “The road has been blocked and it's impossible to see in this accursed rain. Better to stick it out into it clears up…if it clears up…if it clears up.”

“It won't,” Tara tittered under her breath. Her belly growled with genuine hunger; saliva dripped down her chin. “Not for you.”

The other torchcoats huddled in their tents while the two in the center continued to work out their discourse. Two minutes passed, then three. Still Pa had not given any indication as to what he wanted to do. Tara scowled. What was with the hesitation? Where was the bastard who used to forgo caution and charge straight into a slaughter, screaming like a bloodthirsty creature of the night.

She had no patience for it; they had no time. If he would not act or at least give the commands for others to carry out, then she would. She made a clucking sound. The revenants, who would remain inactive until given instructions, regarded her with their empty eye sockets and dessicated flesh. They were impervious to the blood rain.

“Kill them all except the dark-skinned one,” she hissed to the undead creatures. She bared her teeth in a predatory grin. “I want to taste him.”

The revenants moved to carry out her commands without so much as making a sound. The torchcoats prattled on, unaware that their deaths were closing in on them.

“It's only several more miles.” Headings brandished a folded map at the dark-skinned man. “We could take shelter in the church and tie up the practitioner and his beast in one go. It would be a win-win on both accounts. It’d be better than drowning in this filth.”

The commander sighed. “I’m sorry Headings. But we're already in deep enough shit. I will not take unnecessary risks…” He stopped suddenly.

“What is it?” Hedge demanded in a shaky voice.

“Shhh, shhh!” The commander waved a gauntleted hand, his eyes wide. “Ladies and gents to me!”

The other three torchcoats ducked out of their tents, rifles in hand. Their eyes flashed with fear and determination Tara could smell the sweet rank of their sweat, their blood, their fear. They had their rifles out but it would do no good. Though she could not see them or hear them, Tara could feel the presence of the revenants circling the camp. Never one to sit idly by while others had fun without her, Tara decided it was time to participate in the party.

A cloud of darkness blacker than the sky itself descended over the camp at her summons. Frightened curses and prayers to Elysia were cut off by the sound of blades slicing through the air. A shot of fire followed by a guttural gagging sound quickly drowned out by the sound of boots sloshing through half melted snow turned to slush.

The commotion was short, lasting only a minute. Maybe not even that. Silence fell abruptly. All Tara could hear was the blood rain tapping on the hood of her robes and her own excited exhalations. Seconds later a deep voice sounded from the camp. “In the name of Elysia, hear my prayer. May you cast the light of your torch upon me…”

The commander’s words faded out to heavy silence.

Tara, giddy and impatient with hunger, stepped into the clearing without so much as looking back at Pa; if he had any objections to offer she didn't hear them. The commander she yearned to taste was planted on the ground. The three revenants surrounded him, crude weapons drawn: a hatchet, a meat cleaver, and a spiked club. Splatters of dark crimson turned black by the night marked their gray Hamon-preserved flesh. The rest of the torchcoats lay on the ground around him, throats slit, weapons sinking into the growing flood. Moats of water fell down the mountain, flooding the world below.

Pa followed closely behind her, as contemplative and silent as ever. He made no comments on the dead bodies, his face remote and disconcertingly unreadable beneath the brim of his cowl. Memories flashed through Tara’s mind unbidden; memories so vivid they made her skin tingle with phantom sensations. She shoved the memories away.

The torchcoat watched the necromancers approach, his eyes so wide all Tara could see were the whites of them. He glanced at the revenants frightfully but from the way he kept watching Tara and Pa, he seemed to sense the undead creatures were the lesser threat. After all, like him, they were only soldiers following orders. The torchcoat continued to pray to Elysia, shaking so hard his teeth knocked together.

“Pray to your whore all you want.” Tara knelt down before him so that her eyes were level with his. “All you’re doing is wasting the last few precious seconds of life you have left.”

“E-Elysia is with me,” the torchcoat stammered

Tara respected his defiance in the face of imminent death; it made her hungry for him more. “The bitch can’t hear you because she doesn’t care. You are but a speck of sand compared to the endless cosmos of the Void. Not even that. You are nothing.”

“Quit playing with your food, woman,” Pa muttered with a sigh of resignation. “We have much work to do.”

Tara pouted. “You’re no fun anymore.” She ran the tip of a pale finger across the torchcoat’s cheek. Leaning towards him, she lowered her voice as if they were the best of friends and it was just the two of them. “We use to have fun together, he and I. So much fun! We would tear into villages and camps just like this one and slaughter anyone in our path. Men, women…children. We didn’t care. We killed indiscriminately. Afterwards we would celebrate by stacking all the corpses in a pile and making love on top of them.”

“Tara, we really must be going!” Pa snapped with more impatience than before.

“Go fuck a sow’s ass!” she snarled. “I know what I’m doing…We’ve had the herald and his beast lover on the run for days. Either way they’ll have to stop for rest eventually. Sleep. He and the beast are holed up in that church just like this darling…” She nodded at the torchcoat with a sickly sweet smile. “..said. They won’t be able to make it far under these conditions.” She fixed the older necromancer with a glare, daring him to challenge her. She hated the way her heart raced and her chest felt tight. Why is he doing this to me? She crossed her arms over her breasts to hide her discomfort. Pa was not the only one who was out of sorts and she didn’t like it. Not one bit.

Tara did not wait for him to offer an answer. She gestured for the revenants to lift the torchcoat to his feet with an impatient wave of her gauntleted hand. By this time the torchcoat had come completely undone in the face of his impending doom. Each sputtering sound, each time he begged made her nipples harden and her breath quicken.

The torchcoat twisted and kicked against his captors, but the revenants restrained him effortlessly, pinning his arms behind his back at a most uncomfortable looking angle. Tara almost pitied him.

“Remove his pants!” she barked at the revenants.

This time the torchcoat did not kick and scream; all the fight had washed out of him. Nothing pleased Tara more than that final moment when her victims accepted their fate. To see their loss of spirit. Once her orders had been completed and the torchcoat stood with his breeches pulled around his ankles, Tara gestured impatiently again. “I need a knife.”

Pa handed her a straight razor without comment. Her eyes flashed visibly with excitement when he unfolded the blade. She grinned at the torchcoat’s prick. He was well-endowed. I know what I’m going to taste first.

The torchcoat began to kick and trash and scream when the necromancer started her cruel surgery. Not even the clash of thunder overhead could completely extinguish the sound of steel cutting through flesh. Streams of blood trailed down his leg. His mouth was a gaping tunnel that yawned open in agony. Once she was finished with her work, Tara held up the severed part of his anatomy for him to see. “Don’t you feel a load lighter after you long travels?” she sang before holding it out to Pa. “Would you like the first taste?”

Pa ‘s eyes brightened behind their screen of shadow, showing the first true glimmer of emotion Tara had seen all evening. He licked his lips hungrily. “You go ahead.” He grinned, though she could tell by the way he clenched his hands into fists it took him great effort to restrain himself. “You go ahead my sweet. You’re the one who’s done all the work.”

“Suit yourself.” She shrugged happily. More for me. The flesh in her hand still felt warm to the touch. The torchcoat watched wide-eyed as she sank her teeth into his balls; all the color drained for his face. Moaning with relish, Tara held up the testacles above her head, pulling her face back towards the sky, opening her mouth so that the blood rain fell into it. “I feast on human flesh for you, Hamon, so that you may experience carnal pleasures through me! For your pleasure is my gain! Only for you will I drown this world in a river of blood…”

She spun around, her robs fanning out. “Spirits of Inferno, hear my call. Rise up for the deepest, darkest depths of the Black City…”

The ground shifted once beneath her feet before going still.

“Smite thine enemy. Burrow into his mind like the parasites you are. Lay your eggs of deceit and madness…

This time the earth didn’t just shift, it churned all around her. The ground exploded in a shower of blood and wet soil, revealing holes that dug down into the earth farther than the eye could see.

Black shapes with leathery wings shot up from the ground, dissolving into black streaks that arched towards the sky like black comets. Let’s see what tricks the herald has up his sleeve against this.

“He has the lycan with him,” Pa croaked in his cracked voice. A voice that sounded subdued. “They’ll only be able to get so close.”

“Even lycans have to sleep, have to eat, have to shit, have to turn their attention elsewhere,” said Tara. “They’ll whither him down until he’s nothing. This time they won’t make it to the North. I won’t let them.” She turned her attention back to the torchcoat. “Enough chatter. All this work has made me hungry. Let’s eat.”

This time Pa did not refuse. He licked his lips hungrily. “In the name of Hamon, I feast on human flesh…”