of fighting against each other. And now he was freezing, starving, and losing his former attractiveness along with them in this contaminated land. He followed them himself. I used to laugh at him. Now I understand him.”
“What will happen to them?”
“I told you before, they want their own palace or crypt, a place where they can exist apart, feed off the energy of those mortals who fall under their spell. They want to be separate from my world, from earth and from heaven, but sometimes they need living souls. Who doesn’t want to have mortals as playthings and restore their beauty by taking other people’s lives?”
“Do they believe they can do it?”
“So far, only they believe. They don’t have much success. Perhaps they haven’t found a soul vicious enough to surrender its domain to them. In time, however, someone may seem so greedy for the cursed gold that they will worship the fallen angels and build for them their coveted crypt. It is a crypt for the seven angels. Here will be their fun, someone’s tears and lots of blood.”
“I saw him crying blood.”
“He drinks too much of it,” Madael whistled softly, the whistle like the echo of a string through the sleeping village, awakening a long echo. – And there’s plenty left, but it’s infected. Who knows what leprosy he will bear with it?
“He’s gone right before his eyes,” she still couldn’t imagine how such a beautiful creature could change so drastically.
“It happens,” Madael grimaced. “And more than once. It is sometimes in front of mortals. Some are beautiful, or at least pleasant-looking, for a long time, and then they go bad. People see and are frightened. I make it look like they’re crazy. You never know what a madman will see. I have to put the madman on a chain so that the demons won’t bother him anymore. And those same demons will laugh later. We must not reveal our existence to anyone. That’s the law.”
“And you’re okay with that?”
The question sounded like a punch. Madael looked away sharply.
“And the helmet that you can’t take off doesn’t bother you, does it? Even a sword you can’t draw whenever you want?”
“Even if you read my soul as an open book, stop, Rhianon. Someday things will be different.”
“Is it soon?” She picked up her skirts and staggered away, not knowing where she was going. Above her head something flew noisily, almost clawing at her gold crown. It seemed to be an ifrit, flying down from a distant mountain range, or maybe from the roof of one of the houses behind her. She didn’t get a good look.
Madael stared tensely into the darkness.
His hand gripped the hilt of his sword tightly. “I’ll deal with him later.”
“Later?” She frowned. “Is there anything else you want to show me? Or was this village the only thing you wanted to show me?”
“I didn’t want to bring you here in the first place. You asked for it,” he said, furious. “And there’s a sickness here.”
“So what if I’m with you?”
“Don’t be silly, even I can’t protect you from absolutely everything.”
“I don’t believe it,” she thought he couldn’t believe what he was saying either, but he looked worriedly up at the sky once more. No one else had flown across the gloomy sky, but there was an unpleasant, dark residue, like a comet’s mark, in the darkness. Evil has been here… Rhianon tucked the edges of her cloak tightly around her. She felt cold, though she felt hot inside.
“What were you going to show me?” She thought that an innocent question would lighten the mood, but the darkness echoed ominously.
“There’s a town…”
“Is there a plague that’s killing people there, too?”
“Not at all,” he smiled mischievously, a boyish grin. “There aren’t any people there. From afar, the city can be mistaken for a sprawling island of moss, but come closer and you can see the outlines of the ruins.”
“Do spirits live there?” Rhiannon wondered.
“Spirits like Orpheus,” he confirmed.
“But then it is interesting.”
“Just stay close to me when we go there. I don’t want you to get lost in the labyrinths of the city. There are a lot of precipices and cracks in the walls and dried-up wells. It’s easy to get lost there and never find your way out.”
“I am not afraid,” she followed him eagerly.
A net for the stars
Manfred would have done anything to gain the support of this invincible warrior. He would set snares for him if only to catch him and force him to fight on his side. The war halted, but the king’s passion for the unknown knight only grew stronger. Manfred was almost mad. He was certain that had the faceless fighter been with them now, Loretta would have been celebrating victory. It was useless to remind him that it was not the lack of a warrior that was preventing them from fighting further, but the cold, the hunger, and the epidemic. The winter had been mild in Loretta, but near Menuel they were so cold that weapons froze in the hands of the fighting men, and all manner of provisions were crusted over before they could be cooked. There was no way to build a fire in this cold. Any flame was extinguished by the immediate wind. On top of that an epidemic broke out. The first to fall ill and die was a regimental healer. The cities locked their doors, not wanting to let the lepers in. Moren tried his best, but he could barely keep order, even in his garrison. The people were afraid.
They heard screams at night, saw creepy creatures flying in from the mountains and devouring carrion. Of course, all these visions could only be attributed to hallucinations caused by illness, but those who were not yet sick also saw these things. Riots were brewing, and people were going mad. Moren tried his best, but sometimes he felt himself losing his sanity. Someone kept killing the blond girls. Their corpses were thrown off the walls of the fortresses for fear of contagion. Sometimes as he drove in front of the gates of another closed city he would see bodies in the snow, covered with a hideous plaque of festering wounds and covered with some hideous insects. More often than not these scavenger bugs seemed to him to have human faces and thin black wings, eating flesh from the wounds directly with the pus and buzzing disgustingly. Hunger must have driven him to such visions. He ordered his subordinates to burn such corpses if they saw them, but he could not destroy the contagion. The scarlet pestilence was spreading all the same and the signs of the epidemic were becoming more and more ominous. Moren moved out of camp more and more often to avoid hearing the screams. A few more of these losses and they would no longer be able to fight. If the ice crust on the battlefields melted and the enemy attacked them right now, they would not be able to fight back worthily. Moren did not dare storm one of Loretta’s own fortress cities. First, he did not have the authority to do so. Second, it was unlikely that several regiments could be quartered there at once. The rebellious soldiers could start rioting. There would not be enough room for everyone inside the fortress. Besides, they might have brought a contagion with them. It would have sufficed if the men of the fortress had let some of them in to warm themselves and share provisions, but he could not begin negotiations. No one would open the door for him, and no one would answer his summons. It seemed as if everything around him was dead. The ground before him was as desolate as the battlefield, and the carrion on it was being torn apart not by crows but by ghastly beings like devils. No crust of ice would hinder their fangs from devouring the dead. They would have attacked the living, too, if they had not had the strength to defend themselves with their weapons. Once Morin had driven into an empty battlefield and had to defend himself against a swarm of black creepers that swooped down. He had no idea what to call them. Do the faces of hell have names? They weren’t wounded by the sword or frightened by fire. And the harder the cold became, the more