All-Flag Rangers: Prologue
Cyrodiil, 4E 82...
Sunlight peeked through the slats in the chapel's ceiling. It was crowded, humid and hot with the bodies pressing against one another, shouting and screaming and spitting. At the foot of the altar a girl kneeled naked save for a sackcloth draped about her shoulders, covering her back that was covered in welts and saliva. Her hair was matted and there was hay in it. She was barely a woman, no more than twenty years. The local priest stood before her, eyes closed in contemplation as the mob screamed at the woman.
"Witch!"
"Bull-fucker!"
The priest opened his eyes, hoping prayer invoking the righteousness of Zenithar would be heeded. In some dark part of his mind he recognized that hoping after a prayer was somewhat troublesome for a priest, but put it out of mind.
He looked down to the woman who had her arms crossed over her belly. The tips of her breasts peeked from beneath the ragged cloth. He looked away and spoke softly. The crowd quieted down to hear his words,
"The law proclaims guilt, young lady. It is you who must prove otherwise. Speak now, or suffer your fate in with grace."
She didn't look up, but spoke simply,
"I never touched Old Broder's bull."
Accusations flew. She was a liar, a whore and a witch, a lover of beasts. The priest raised his hands for silence, then spoke again,
"Young lady, you were found this morning in it's pen, sleeping naked in the hay, still wearing traces of the creature's spent."
"And that bull ain't no pushover!" Old Broder shouted from the head of the crowd, waving a cudgel. "If she ain't seduce it, it woulda gore her till she dead! If that ain't proof of her witchwork, I don't know what is."
There was a chorus of agreement from the townsfolk. The priest closed his eyes again and cast out another prayer. He had come to Hackdirt to calm the new settlers who still feared stories of the bloody cult that had once ruled here, yet here they were now begging for the blood of this girl. But she had no defense. It was plain as day. What else could be done?
"She did it too."
"Hm?" The priest looked down again. The girl had said something, so soft the crowd hadn't noticed. The priest shushed them with a finger, then asked, "Who did what?"
"The redeemer. Saint Aless." The girl finally looked up at the priest, with gentle eyes. "Saint Aless loved Mor, an' he wassa bull. Their son was the first Emperor."
Saint Alessia? Morihaus? The presumption of this lowly village girl... the priest's heart was hardened by her sacrilege.
"Girl, you are no saint, and that creature is not a demigod. You are a woman, and a blasphemer to find likeness in your filth to the divine love of immortals and queens." He looked out, from Old Broder to the rest of the mob. There was no stopping them from their course now, for she was a blapshemer and an accursed sinner in the eyes of the gods. He could not make them wait for the Imperial watch to happen by, if they ever did, so they could turn her over. The priest breathed deep - the clean air of Kynareth that would soon waft the stench of burning flesh.
"Her words betray her guilt." He looked to each person in the crowd, into the eyes of these simple villagers willing to go to such an extent to punish her evil. Was there something in this town that brought such low worth to the sanctity of men's souls?
"Do it."
The crowd rushed and grabbed at the girl, lifting her roughly by the arms and tearing the sackcloth down. She did not attempt to cover herself with her hands, instead she cradled her flat belly.
"Stop!" she screeched, "Stop! My child!"
The priest stared at her belly, then leapt down and tore Old Broder off her, pushing another man to the ground and shoving a woman back. "Back! Cease you dogs!" He crouched down by the girl who had fallen, sobbing, to the ground. He gingerly reached down and touched her belly, and something, perhaps the gods themselves, told him it was true. She was with child.
"How long?" he whispered, but the only response was more tears. The priest gritted her teeth. His soul could only bear so much. No matter the father, a child was a child, and that was one thing he would not allow. He stood before the mob.
"She is with child - I know it -as of several days and by some traveler who visited her cottage in the night."
"She went into tha' pen when she was wit child?" a woman in the crowd called out, "she has no care for her own seed! Burn her like the witch she is and let's be done wit it!"
"And have you no care for the innocence that grows within?" the priest snapped. "No one will touch her till she gives birth! We shall keep her, and you all may do as you wish after the birth. The child lives."
"But we have no cells," exclaimed another townsman, "no place to keep the witch!"
The priest looked them in the eyes. Fine. If they wanted to burn women, blasphemers or not, if they wanted to kill children, if they wanted to sleep with animals and bear their monstrous ilk, then let them. He would not stop them anymore. Let the cursed soil take their souls. Blacken them from the annals of Aetherius, curse them all to Oblivion.
"Take her into the caverns." The priest said bitterly. "The old ones you all have feared to tread so long. Keep her there till she is ready."
He turned back to the altar and left them to it. He knelt before it as if to pray. As the mob carried the shivering woman away he lay his head upon the altar, and wept.
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