The carriage flew down the rutted road like the devil himself was on its tail, wheels bouncing over stones, wood groaning in protest. Roderick stood half-crouched on the driver's box, reins wrapped twice around his fists, whipping the horses until foam flecked their mouths.
"Hyah! Move, you stubborn bastards! Move!"
Inside the swaying cab, Françoise clutched the edge of the seat with white knuckles, tears still wet on her cheeks. Thorne sat opposite her, still clutching onto the broken flamethrower.
Françoise whispered.
"We… we just left him. That man saved us. He saved us and we left him alone with that… that thing."
Thorne gave a nervous, humourless laugh. "Better him than us, lady. That Tumor was still out there burning, and who knows what else is crawling in those woods. I'm not dying for some Priest and a piss-soaked baby."
Françoise flinched. "That baby… it was only a few months old. What if the Tumor…"
"Then it's already dead," Thorne snapped. "And good riddance. Did you see its eyes? Something wasn't right with that child. I say we keep going till Nippledale and never look back."
Roderick's shout cut through the canvas. "Quit your yammering back there! I'm trying to put miles between us and whatever hell we just crawled out of!"
Thorne leaned toward the front slit. "Then drive faster, man! Dawn's barely broken and I want walls around me before the sun's fully up!"
Françoise pressed a trembling hand to her mouth. "God forgive us… God forgive us…"
Above the treetops, the sky darkened, not with clouds, but with wings.
Hundreds of pale doves, luminous as moonlit parchment, wheeled in perfect silence. They moved against the wind, against nature, converging into a tightening spiral directly over the fleeing carriage.
Roderick saw them first. He yanked the reins instinctively; eyes fixed upward. "What in the name of…"
The horses screamed and reared. The carriage lurched violently, throwing Thorne and Françoise forward in a tangle of limbs and curses.
"What the hell are you doing?!" Thorne roared. "Don't you dare stop! Drive, damn you!"
"Roderick, we are not going back! Whatever you…" Françoise froze upon seeing what was up ahead.
The birds were no longer birds.
They poured together like liquid scripture, folding and merging mid-air with a whirlwind of white light and black letters until a single figure stood in the centre of the road ten paces ahead.
Short. Cloaked in black with white diagonal stripes. Dark mask reflecting the rising sun like a shard of night. Long black hair stirred by a wind that touched nothing else.
The horses shrieked again, trying to bolt backward, but invisible force held them pinned.
The masked man tilted his head, regarding the overturned passengers with winter-grey eyes.
"Names?" Kirill said. Voice soft. Terrifying.
Roderick's mouth worked soundlessly. Thorne tried to lift the flamethrower and found his arms would not obey.
"I said names."
"R-Roderick, my lord," the driver stammered, dropping to one knee. "Just a coachman from Maskorudeath, I swear…"
"Françoise Allard," the woman whispered. "My… my husband is dead. Back there."
"Thorne," the third man spat, trying for defiance and failing. "Look, we were attacked. Tumor. We didn't do anything wrong."
Kirill stepped forward. Each footfall made no sound, yet the horses shuddered harder.
"You," he pointed at Roderick, "came from the west. Maskorudeath road. Were you involved in that massacre?"
"Massacre? What-what massacre? Did something happen? I swear I wasn't involved. On my way back last night, I came across a passenger and set out right away."
"You carried a passenger?"
Roderick's throat bobbed. "Y-yes, my lord. A priest. Older man. Grey beard. Black clothes. He… he had a baby with him."
Kirill went very still. 'So he had an infant with him?'
Françoise found her voice. "He saved us. A Tumor possessed my husband, turned him into… into something awful. The priest fought it. Burned it. We thought… we thought he'd catch up. We didn't mean to leave him…"
"What was the priest's name?"
Françoise hesitated. Thorne opened his mouth probably to lie, but Roderick spoke first with trembling tone.
"Zareth. He said to call him Zareth."
The air temperature seemed to drop ten degrees.
Kirill's fingers curled. His eyes narrowed to slits.
"Zareth," he repeated, tasting the word like poison. "Retired, they said. Living quietly, they said."
He turned his head slowly, scanning the treeline as though he could see through miles of forest.
"So the butcher of Ashen Vale finally crawls out of his hole… carrying an infant."
Thorne dared a whisper. "W-we don't know anything about…"
"Silence."
Kirill raised one hand. The doves exploded outward from his body again. A silent white detonation blotted out the dawn for three heartbeats. When they reformed, he was gone, only feathers of light dissolving into the wind.
The horses collapsed to their knees, panting, finally released.
Roderick stared at the empty road, then at the sky where the flock was already streaking west, back toward the woods they'd fled.
…
Elsewhere. Hooves thundered.
Church Number Nine galloped at full tilt with their cloaks snapping like war banners. Hindar rode at the front beside the scarred Apostle Meldov. Kirill's horse ran unnaturally smooth, as though the ground itself made way.
Meldov glanced sideways. Kirill's right hand was pressed over his right eye, as if to keep something contained.
"Provost?" Hindar called over the wind. "What did the spies see?"
"Three mundane cowards fleeing the site of a Tumor attack. They were escorted part of the way by a grey-bearded priest. Name: Zareth. Travelling with an infant."
Meldov barked a shocked laugh that died quickly. "Zareth? As in 'Zareth the Ash-Bearer'? The one who burned half the Twelfth Church to slag and walked away laughing? That Zareth?"
"The very same."
Hindar's face hardened. "The Council declared him excommunicate. Dead or alive, his head is worth a cardinal's ransom."
Kirill lowered his hand. But his eyes burned like cold fire.
"Then today… we collect."
He leaned forward. The runes on his stallion flared blinding white.
"Ride!"
Ten riders thundered west as scripture-birds streamed overhead in an arrowhead of judgment.
…
Ahead, somewhere on a lonely road beneath the rising sun, an old priest with fire in his toenails walked with a sleeping child curled against his shoulder.
And the child's tail flicked once in his sleep; tasted the wind.
They were coming.