Gunmage by M.S. Hund

Author:M.S. Hund [Hund, M.S.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Jebesyl Press

11

“You are a sacred vessel,” one of Keren’s sisters whispered in her ear.

“It would be sinful not to accept your duty, the gift our father has given you,” the other hissed from the opposite side. “You are part of the plan.”

Lines of itching fire crisscrossed Keren’s arms. She could not raise them or turn her head to see what her father had done to her. They’d forced her to swallow something that rendered her motionless and slowed her thoughts like the sludgy waters of a silt-heavy creek.

Voices were raised in anger outside the darkened room.

Room? Where?

A farmhouse.

Memories of worn gray wood rising from the undulating grass, the Protector’s cross prominent on the side of a barn, fence posts carved in a beguiling array of wards. Keren tried to tame her wandering thoughts, tried to rein in their slow meandering and plot a path through the wilderness. But the pain…

It came in smothering blankets whenever she remembered too much.

What was she? Why couldn’t she remember?

Go slow now. Careful. Tiptoe to the edge without peering over…

North. They’d ridden north from Promise before turning west. The settlements were scarce here, the roads empty of all but red dust. She’d escaped, hadn’t she? Escaped and tried to run away. Keren struggled to remember why. Fogged portions of her memory remained hidden from her. She’d tried to run, and that was why they’d taken the north road. Fewer people to help a runaway, only a handful of isolated hamlets and farms like this one.

An image clicked in Keren’s brain. A man and a woman, gray and severe, their necks bent by heavy crosses and the hard labor of running their farm. Children’s faces peeked out from behind the pair, greeting the riders’ arrival with suspicion but grudging courtesy. They knew her father, called him Father Nicodemus, asked how his sickness went. They also spoke their prayers in church Latin and read the Protector’s Book in the same tongue.

Why were believers so far from a church, so close to the heart of the enemy? Were they outcasts like her father? Were they on a mission?

The burning consumed Keren’s arms, demanding that she scratch through the flesh to get at the infection beneath. Tear it free, tear it free, tear it…

Wind buffeted the walls of her prison, setting tortured wood to groaning. Waves of rain hammered half-glimpsed windows that let in no light.

“We bring salvation, sister. We are weapons, holy spears to deliver the Protector’s purifying kiss.”

The whispering was drowned by rising voices outside the room, her father’s voice loudest of all. It boomed with power trained for the pulpit but broken by fits of coughing. One of his moods must be upon him. Moods to be feared. Moods to be—

Darkness settled over Keren like a blanket…

And was lifted as the tracery of fire on her arms flared with sudden savagery. Her heart pounded blood into forgotten limbs, sparking a tingling that defined her sleeping fingers and toes. She tried to raise her arms only to find her wrists bound to the bed.

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