In a World without God

“Don’t you want to play with the children, Captain Bosha?”

A dozen or so children, all about five years old, dangled from the hem of Ygraine’s skirt. They stole glances at Bosha, hiding behind the folds of the fabric.

“I hate children,” Bosha said in a deliberately grumpy voice.

The children who heard him flinched and hid behind Ygraine.

“Why?”

“Because they’re shameless. I saved this village, and they don’t even know how to thank me.”

Ygraine stroked the children’s heads as they looked up at her wide-eyed, uncomprehending what Bosha had said. Still smiling, she turned to him.

“Does Captain Bosha think he saved the children?”

“Of course I did! The Black Fangs wiped out the demons! If I didn’t save them, what did?”

Ygraine shook her head.

“You’ve drawn a line between the children and yourself.”

“What?”

“You didn’t save the children, Captain Bosha. You saved yourself.”

At the time, Bosha had thought Ygraine was always saying unintelligible things. Even now, as Ed remembered their conversations, he didn’t quite understand what she meant. But he was beginning to get a sense of it. At least seeing the children’s sleeping faces made him smile.

Ed couldn’t stop thinking about Taric’s face when Enri hugged him. It wasn’t just Enri and the rest of Ygraine’s descendants—these kids had all inherited more than scars from the past.

“Let’s hear it! Why aren’t you running away?”

Ed had removed his hand from Ishkur’s mouth.

“Let me ask you the other way around: why do you want to run away?”

“Well, I have an escape route…”

“You mean the one hidden among the arrowroot in the back mountains?”

Ishkur’s eyes widened.

“Yes…”

“A word of advice. Don’t assume the enemy is dumber than you. There are signs of human traffic on that path, and they’ll follow you.”

Ishkur was visibly flustered. He had been confident in his strategy.

“There were tracks there? Shit. I didn’t check. What am I going to do? When am I going to get another chance like this!”

Out the window, Ishkur could see three men approaching the house. He paced back and forth, thinking.

They don’t know about my betrayal yet. I might be able to survive if I flee on my own, but it’s not every day you get an ally with this much power.

As Ed watched Ishkur, he wondered what he would have done if he were still Bosha. He would have used the children as bait to draw the enemy in, then set the house on fire. He would have waited outside to ambush them while the children and the enemy huddled in confusion. The Red Fox of Kaldura was a man of strategy.

But not Ed.

“Stay here. Don’t wake the children.”

“What?!”

Ishkur watched as Ed dashed towards the window, drawing his sword. He leaped towards the frame and jumped through it.

“Madman!”

Ishkur dashed to the window and peered outside. Ed had landed on his feet, curved blade at the ready, raised to meet Dumuzi’s staff as he struck it towards him. It was a wise move to go after him first. Dumuzi was bulky and slow, but he specialized in Magick.

But Ed was thrown off his guard. Ashur stepped in to block his blow with his sword, knocking him back.

“Don’t you think it’s a little nasty, raiding a child’s sleeping quarters at dawn?” Ed spat.

“I was going to kill you in the comfort of your sleep, but instead, you’ll suffer for nothing.”

Ashur, like Raghad, held a longsword that crackled from hilt to tip with fiery red Magick. “Children of the witch who deceived the people of the land and my son Raghad, I will hang your heads in the square as a reminder for all.”

Ed’s mind raced. He had been right. Today’s festival had stirred up public opinion. The Le Fay family, whose authority rested on the hatred of witches, would not allow the same thing to happen tomorrow.

Turning toward Ed, who had stepped back from Dumuzi, Ashur swung his sword. The sound of the Magick-laden blade slicing through the air was deafening. It wasn’t just any blow: red Magick spewed fire into the air. The flames fell to the ground and spread in a half-circle.

Ed swung his sword in a wide arc to the upper left, applying the Black Fang Sword Technique. With all his weight behind his sword, Ed’s body spun, and he leaped backward.

“You’ve mastered the Black Fang Sword Technique! Did you teach it to the others? Where did you learn it?” Dersh, Ishkur’s stepfather, asked.

“I don’t know,” Ed replied.

Dersh was holding a spear about Raghad's height, assessing the situation. All three of the men before Ed shared a secret. They knew Ed was using Bosha’s swordsmanship.

A swordsmanship that could never be copied from a book, a swordsmanship that the Le Fay family could not tolerate. The mere existence of someone who could use it threatened the Le Fay family. To know the Black Fang’s swordsmanship was to understand the ‘real’ Bosha.

In their eyes, this boy, Ed, was closer to being Bosha than anyone else they knew.

“We need to find out who taught the children the swordsmanship. Bring him alive.”

Dumuzi stepped forward, and his staff rose high. Thick, pointed rocks rushed upward from the ground around Ed. He leaped backward just as Dersh released a fierce blast of Magick aura from his spear. It struck the ground where Ed had just been standing. Ed corrected his stance and held his sword upright as he quickly assessed his next move. He sprung into action, rushing at the men, his curved blade raised high.

Ed’s sword’s trajectory was like the Luenna River’s downstream. The Luenna River changed its course every time it rained, making its path unpredictable.

“I have never seen or heard of such a technique. There’s nothing like this even in the books of the Black Fang’s swordsmanship. We must capture him and get answers!” Ashur shouted.

“Ashur, focus your Magick! We must trap him in flames. Dumuzi! Build a wall to contain him. Don’t think of him as a child—he is a witch!” Dersh shouted.

Ed clicked his tongue. Of the three, Dersh was his most formidable enemy.

Against a Blackfang mercenary, point attacks are almost meaningless. Many of their moves are specialized to evade such attacks. Against a Black Fang, you needed to use area attacks, and it seemed Dersh knew this.

When he heard Dersh’s words, Ed sprinted across the field, Ashur’s flames following close behind. Pillars of rock rose out of nowhere, but Ed dodged them with a signature Black Fang leap.

“How can he do that? Is that the effect of Ygraine’s scarring?”

“No. If all of Ygraine’s offspring were like him, how would the children of Le Fay ever maintain the Saint System? Be patient, Dumuzi. My flames will soon catch up with him.”

Dersh gritted his teeth.

“Dumuzi! Even if he doesn’t respond, don’t stop the attack! He is not an opponent to let your guard down against!”

Ed smiled. They were moving in the direction he had in mind. He wanted to lure all three into the central plaza.

Dodging Ashur’s flames wasn’t easy, but thankfully, it wasn’t a long way to the square. Just as the flames were about to reach his ankles, they reached their destination. Ed suddenly stopped and spun to look at the three of them. Their reaction to the sight of the plaza was priceless.

“What!”

“Why is this happening?”

“Holy…”

***

“Ouch! What? Is that a rat? Oh no… that’s my wedding ring!”

The maid woke to a strange sensation against her hand. Opening her eyes, she realized a rat was tugging her wedding ring off her finger. The rat waved the ring at her and then hurried out the window.

“Is this rat crazy?!”

The maid ran out of the mansion in her nightgown but soon stopped dead as she witnessed the most bizarre sight.

“What in the world?”

Several other people were running around in their pajamas, all chasing a rat or mouse.

“Stop! Give me that letter! My husband will get in trouble if he reads it!”

“Hey! Stop! My grandson bought that watch with his first paycheck!”

Why would a rat want a ring or a watch that wasn’t food? These were all important things to them, not to a rat.

The rats seemed to be gathering objects in the middle of the square. They would drop the item they had stolen in a pile with other objects and then run away silently into the night towards the mountain. The people didn’t even need to chase them off. Instead, they flocked to the pile in the square, attempting to identify their belongings in the vast collection the rats had gathered.

“That ring is mine!”

“No, don’t you see this scratch? It’s from when I fell in the fountain!”

In the square, almost everyone who worked on the grounds of the Le Fay family mansion was gathered. They were so distracted by reclaiming their belongings that they nearly didn’t notice the flames erupting behind them and heading their way.

People in the square began to turn towards the commotion, gasping and pointing. Soon, everyone was watching the flames.

As they got closer, a silver-haired boy, like a mirage, appeared before them, running to keep ahead of the flames. The people realized this was Magick, but whose?

Then they saw who was behind the boy.

“Lord Ashur?”

“That’s Lord Dumuzi and Lord Dersh!”

“Why are they chasing after a witch’s offspring at this time of night?”

“Aren’t those flames from Lord Ashur’s Magick?”

“This is a violation of the festival!”

Distracted, the people didn’t notice as the rats piled up more valuables in the square, and a bigger crowd gathered. Ed pushed through them and crouched as low as he could to where one mouse watched.

“Thank you, Aruru.”

“Edulis, I saved your life!” Aruru shouted with pride.

Ashur, Dumuzi, and Dersh stood a few feet from the crowd. Ashur’s flames were now extinguished as they tried to assess the situation. The Le Fay family valued authority among the masses. They couldn’t ignore the rumors spreading among their servants. If tales of the Le Fay family authorities corrupting the Holy Festival of Saints circulated, it would be a significant problem.

Now, the three had to explain what they were doing. Ed's plan seemed successful. He could hide among the people and, when they dispersed, slip away unnoticed.

But Ed’s plan was about to be put to the test.

“Hear, hear! We must capture the boy. This is a just and legal act,” Dersh shouted over the crowd.

“Article 13, Section 2 of the Kingdom’s Constitution, ‘The nobility shall have the right to summarily judge any person whom they deem to be a reincarnation of a witch or a witch’s handmaiden, wherever and whenever they choose,’ is above all other laws, even the rules of the Holy Order, and therefore our actions are lawful.”

The people murmured. A reincarnation of a witch? A minion of a witch? Wasn’t the boy just a blood relative of Ygraine?

“Recall the events of this day: the transformation of the saint’s painting, the defeat of all of Bosha’s descendants, and even our vaunted Raghad wishing himself dead. And look at you now. You’ve been dragged out by rats, something that has never happened in the Holy Land before, and it’s safe to say that the witch herself, or something like her, has wreaked havoc on the Holy Land! Witches are reincarnated in their blood. Our actions to destroy the descendants of Ygraine are justified!”

At those words, people began to stir. They weren’t sure what to believe, but what Dersh said made a lot of sense.

Ed’s liver turned to mush. Why was the public always like this? Why couldn’t they believe what they saw? Why were they so quick to be swayed by the words of others?

Enri, Harsh, Methena— they had seen what they were like!

Ed was in trouble. If Ed’s plan went well, they would be safe for three days. Surviving another day would be difficult if they believed what Dersh was saying. Ed had no idea the kingdom’s constitution had such bullshit in it!

But who was Ed, really? Such a setback would not stop the Red Fox of Kaldura. There was an alternative. It involved using Ishkur. Since no one could interfere with the holy grounds of the Holy Inquisitors, he and Ishkur could put on a show. If they could somehow convince the public to be on their side…

“What in the world?”

The crowd was all staring past Dersh. Ed turned to look and felt his panic rise.

They were immediately recognizable: silver hair reflecting the moonlight, skin as white as snow, and polished swords curved like fangs.

Even from this distance, Ed could tell they were sweating. They must have run hard. Enri, Marie, Shumi, Harsh, Methena…why were they here?

They came to help me.

Ed hadn’t considered this possible because he had been thinking like Bosha. With Ygraine and the Apostles gone, he hadn’t contemplated that anyone would come to his rescue.

It was a rule of the Black Fangs to turn their backs on incompetent captains. Bosha was someone everyone in the world shunned and feared. Who would dare to come to the rescue of Bosha, the Mercenary Captain?

But he wasn’t Bosha. He was Edulis.

Ed tasted blood. He had chewed too hard on the flesh in his mouth.

When Dersh spotted the children with their curved swords, the corners of his mouth twisted into a cruel smile and he laughed.