Cutting Evil in The Bud

Unlike the many southern forts and forts in which Baltazar and Edgar laid siege in their day, Caligula was not designed to withstand an attack. Magnus had made an attempt to set up a barricade on the outer doors with all the materials he could find, which brought little effort to the soldiers, and Baltazar led the attack inside, in the spacious, claustrophobic and external cathedral.

Once a place of quiet reflection, now the cloister looked more like the many battlefields that Baltazar had seen on the campaign trail, or the looted villages he had witnessed as a child. The floor was dark with patches of dried blood and the lifeless bodies from which he had been spilled some of the deformed creatures of Magnus who, in their insane savagery, began to attack each other. Bits of the ground were scorched black by the burps that burp fire. The whole place reeked of sulfur, bile and death, although there was little time to waste with it. The many horrors that still lived within the walls of Caligula were rising from their sleep and moving to intercept the crowd of mounted men who were bursting into the courtyard led by Baltazar.

Baltazar spurred Polly to join the fight. The first beast they found was trampled to death by the mare, the second beheaded by a swing of Baltazar's sword. The blade he wielded was not his favorite, but it was more lethal than the other. The third monster attacked him from outside the field of vision - an oily tentacle curled around the fist of his right gauntlet and pulled him out of the saddle. His left foot was caught in the stirrup when he fell headlong from Polly's side.

The tentacle released Baltazar's wrist and retracts, leaving a corroded trail around the gauntlet. As Baltazar struggled to free himself from the stirrup, he caught a glimpse, upside down, of the beast that would bring him down approaching.

Even when he got close, it was difficult to see what exactly was from that opposite perspective. Baltazar still had the sword in his hand, and he struck wildly in the direction of the beast to keep it at bay, gaining enough time to finally free his tangled foot and straighten up. When he got up and stood in front of the growling animal, it occurred to him that he was no more recognizable in the right perspective than when he was upside down.

His scaly, armored body was sinuous and slender, and he moved like a snake, despite his five vaguely canine legs, elongated nose, and pointed ears. Its curved jointed tail rose and curled, like a scorpion's. But where the stinger would be, the tail would open like the petals of a coarse flower to reveal the tentacle that had knocked down Baltazar inside. That tentacle dripped and squirmed like a grotesquely distended tongue.

What was this horror in the past? Baltazar thought. He examined her for familiar features, some visual clue to her anatomy before Magnus desecrated him.

Some kind of dog? A wolf, perhaps?

It was hard to say. Even for someone familiar with Cuth's bestiary, there was always something new to freeze blood and shake faith in God.

What kind of God, after all, would tolerate such blasphemy on His Earth? The tentacle creaked like a cobra's tail and launched itself at Baltazar again, this time trying to pull out his sword. But Baltazar was lighter; he took a quick step to the side and, with a top-down blow, broke the tentacle in two. The beast: it screamed when it retracted the bloody stump and, enraged, it advanced against Baltazar, opening its mouth wide to expose the rows of Fangs that seemed to be canines dripping with drool. The animal's body advanced low, less than two feet from the ground; so, when he set out on Baltazar, he simply jumped on the creature and stuck the sword in its back, between the scales that ran along its spine. The beast screamed louder and louder and stirred in despair, while Baltazar buried the sword deeper, impaling it.

Still, the beast refused to die until Baltazar turned the blade to open a wider wound and spill blood in a growing puddle over the trembling body.

When the beast finally stopped, Baltazar drew his sword and turned to examine the scene. The battle was now in full swing, its men scattered across the courtyard, facing various types of beasts deformed in melee.

Watching as they made their way through cuts and blows through the monstrous flock, Baltazar was more and more satisfied with the fight outside, which seemed to be well under way. Even if they were outnumbered, it was clear that his men would reach the end of the day - those lower, animalistic forms, which Magnus had conjured in desperation, were still terrifying, but less than the humanoid varieties that warriors had grown accustomed to killing. .

Baltazar headed for the cathedral, where he knew he must find the source of all that disgrace and death, and where it would finally end once and for all. The wooden door was blocked, but it gave in with two knocks from Baltazar's back, he entered the central nave. Sunlight came in through the narrow slits in the windows and over the rows of benches that stretched into the darkness to the bottom, where the high altar was covered with shadows. With his sword still in place, Baltazar moved carefully down the central corridor, his footsteps echoing on the stone tiles. As he continued farther inside, the sounds of battle outside subsided, and suddenly he realized how quiet and silent everything had become. A church should be quiet, but not like that. This was not peace, it was just nothing. There was an enveloping, almost suffocating feeling, that, wherever a man could carry himself inside to protect himself from despair or bring him relief or comfort, he was somehow left behind, abandoned, upon entering that atrium.

It was the most unsettling sensation that Baltazar had ever felt, and in that moment he knew exactly what it was. The presence of genuine evil. He moved carefully, aware that some of Magnus's hideous monstrosities might be lurking between any of the rows of benches he passed. And when he got closer to the presbytery, where the cathedral altar was, and his eyes got used to the darkness, he slowed down. It was then that he began to identify the silhouette of a figure in a cover, seated, immobile.

"Magnus," he whispered to himself, so low that not even a soul on the bench closest to him could have heard, and yet the figure in the cloak sitting fifty feet away rose as if he had heard his name.

"Address me as Archbishop or Your Grace," said Magnus. He had a soft voice and yet, when the voice reached Baltazar, it seemed to echo powerfully around him, in a way that had nothing to do with the way that a sound propagated in a place like that, that too, Baltazar knew , it was for something different, something distorted that was at work. Magnus took a step closer under a beam of sunlight.

Causing suspicion of Baltazar was confirmed. Whatever dark magic the archbishop has been immersed in for the past few months, it will consume him greatly. His face was pale and dry, his complexion had withered to the point of skeletal fragility. And the eyes ... the eyes were the worst of all, deeply yellowed and bloodshot. It barely looked human.

When Baltazar looked at him with disgust and dismay, he contemplated the final bitter truth of the power that Magnus had unleashed. Such was its evil influence that it radiated not only outwardly to form corrupt and unhappy creatures from its intended victims, but also inwardly, to slowly and gradually impose the same fate on any man who employed it. Although others might have hesitated out of commiseration at what appeared to be little more than a pathetic and afflicted old man, Baltazar was not fooled; he knew how much more dangerous Magnus was than he appeared to be.

Cuth had given him a new blessing of protection, in his armor, before he rode into the battle, but still he didn't take too much risk; he quickly traveled the distance to Magnus in order to overthrow the corrupt priest before he could summon one of his infernal spells. But, to his surprise, the archbishop made no effort to defend himself; he did not raise his hand or murmur a word when Baltazar climbed the steps from where he was - not even when Baltazar grabbed him by the throat and forced him backward on the altar, the sword in the cleric's throat. It's too easy.

Baltazar was disturbed for a moment by the thought, but he put it aside to concentrate on the task. It was so easy that he hesitated, looking at the archbishop for the first time so closely.

Close enough to smell the sour smell of your breath, to see every grooved line on your face. And he realized that it was not the yellowish, injected appearance of Magnus' eyes that disturbed him; it was the way the priest looked at him. He looked at Baltazar with wild eyes, without blinking, as if he had gone through something beyond the most imaginable, heinous, and never returned completely.

Baltazar saw at that moment that Magnus' magic had not only corrupted his body, but his mind, casting him into the depths of irretrievable madness. Killing him would be an act of not just justice, but mercy. And yet, something prevented his hand. The blade of the sword was almost an inch from Magnus's pulsing throat; the force of cutting an apple would be enough to open its flesh and watch life drain from it. But there was something about the catatonic, supernatural look in the man. Baltazar penetrated, seemed to almost lurk inside him, inside his soul. It was he who was holding that weak and helpless old man at the point of the sword; so why did you feel so ... vulnerable?

"So you led this war against me," said Magnus from the altar.

"He murdered my children, he separated my family. Sir Baltazar the Savage."

"How does he know my name?"

"Your children?" Replied Baltazar, disgusted.

"Those innocent corrupted, enslaved men, women and children?"

But Magnus did not seem to hear him, lost in his demented fantasies.

"No one understands revenge better than God," said the archbishop at last.

A sly smile broke across his face, revealing a mouthful of crooked, rotten teeth.

"That's why He supports your motivation. I was weak, but I took care to retain what little was left of my power, in the hope that you would be the first to find me. Getting close enough. And now here you are. Give it to me. "

It was then that Baltazar noticed the parchment spread on the altar beside Magnus. Pages and pages of handwritten doodles in a language he couldn't understand, and didn't recognize at first. Then he remembered where that writing would come from earlier - in the transcripts of Magnus' scrolls that Cuth had made from memory in his effort to perfect the counterfeit - the protectors. Baltazar knew that the papers on the altar could not be the original scrolls, as Afonso will assure him that they had all been destroyed. So, what were they? He saw that the ink on the top was fresh, he saw the feather on the side. Baltazar grabbed the parchment with his free hand and held it up to Magnus.

"What is that?" He asked angrily. "What is this?"

Magnus snorted, but did not answer. He no longer met Baltazar's eyes, but he was looking down at his chest. The archbishop's gaze focused on the silver serpent pendant that hung from Baltazar's neck.

"Perfect," whispered Magnus with a wide smile. And then, with surprising speed, he reached up with his right hand and slammed Baltazar's breastplate, his fingers spread wide, his palm covering the medallion and pressing against the armor. The knight grabbed Magnus' wrist and tried to push his hand away, but she didn't move; the apparently decrepit old man was much stronger than one might think. Magnus looked at Baltazar with a degenerate, incandescent hatred. He pressed his hand tighter against Baltazar's chest and began to mutter something entrenched. It was strange and unintelligible to Baltazar, but he knew immediately that it was an enchantment. He felt an uncomfortable heat rise in his chest and looked down; he saw the breastplate begin to glow under Magnus's palm. To his horror, he realized that Magnus was melting the armor.

The archbishop's hand grew brighter and hotter, like a blacksmith's forge, and Baltazar's breastplate softened as Magnus pressed harder, his hand sinking into the tempered metal. Baltazar screamed when he felt the flesh under the armor start to burn. He could think of nothing more than to bury the sword in Magnus's throat and he did so.

Blood bubbled from the blade's immense wound, but the cleric still murmured in that infernal tongue, his voice now an empty hiss, spitting out every word in the knight like poison and pushing his hand deeper and deeper, through Baltazar's melted armor to touch the meat under it.

Their screams echoed around the cathedral walls. The heat was excruciating. In desperation, Baltazar pulled the sword away and struck Magnus across the neck, pushing downward, breaking tendons and muscles until he crossed the archbishop's flesh and his head fell and rolled away to the tip of the altar and onto the floor of stone.

Just then, the cleric's strength finally gave way, allowing Baltazar to take his hand away from his chest. Magnus' body fell lifeless and hit the ground, forming a pile of flesh. But even though he had freed himself, Baltazar's breastplate still glowed and burned his skin. Dropping his sword, he desperately tried to unbuckle his armor just as Edgar burst through the door at the far end of the room, a group of men at the rear, Cuth among them. Edgar saw Baltazar writhing in apparent distress and ran to assist him, helping to untie the bands that held the chest plate before pulling it - the metal so hot it burned his hands when he did it and tossed it on the floor, smoke still rising from the molten opening shaped like Magnus's hand.

Baltazar's legs gave out and he fell back on the altar, panting. Edgar knelt before him and gave him water to drink, while Cuth examined the wound. The tunic that Baltazar wore under the breastplate had also been burned, revealing a horrible scar of flesh plastered in the center of his chest, as if it had been marked with a hot iron. Inspecting more closely, Cuth realized that the shape of the burn, like none she had ever seen before, was frighteningly reminiscent of a snake.

"This burn is serious. It must be treated immediately," he said.

"I'm going to get someone," said Edgar, and got up urgently to leave.

"No," replied Baltazar with what little strength he had left.

"It's just a burn. I'm going to survive. Take care of the other injured first."

Edgar nodded, then took a moment to observe the scene. The molten chest plate. The pages of parchment scattered on the floor. Magnus's fallen body and, several meters ahead, his head.

"In the name of God, what happened here?" He asked. Baltazar just closed his eyes, exhausted. Even if I had the strength to try to explain, I had no idea where to start. Baltazar was standing in the presbytery and watched Magnus burn. His men made a wooden pyre, lifted the decapitated body over it and set it on fire - soon there would be nothing left of the archbishop but ashes thrown into the wind. The head had already been burned apart from the body, its charred remains handed over to a rider to be scattered almost three miles away.

Baltazar would not risk anything with this man, even in death. As he watched the flames lick Magnus's blackened body, his hand went over the bandage that covered the burn on his chest. The ointment that had been applied did little to alleviate the aching throbbing beneath him. Worse, your snake pendant. one of the few material things he valued was lost, melted to nothing; all that was left of him was the curious shape mark that Magnus's hand had burned in his flesh.

Cuth emerged from the living room door. He collected a pile of parchments gathered from the altar inside and studied them when he approached Baltazar. Each page seemed to be more perplexing than the last. He looked up in time to see Baltazar taking his hand from the wound in his chest, embarrassed.

"Are you sure everything is okay?" Asked Cuth.

"It's nothing," said Baltazar, his attention fixed firmly on the papers Cuth carried.

"What did you find out?"

"It's curious," said Cuth as she flipped through the pages.

"And the language of the scrolls, but what I see here did not appear in any of them. I would remember. This is the archbishop's original work. I believe I was trying to expand the understanding and mastery of magic that I learned to, to develop it to a level higher, more advanced.

"For what purpose"

"That I cannot say, at least without further studies. Much of what he wrote here is beyond my ability to understand. At best, I venture to say that, after his defeat in Myamar, he started working on a way to improve the potency of magic to counteract my symbols of protection or perhaps create more powerful beasts. And maybe I could have done it if we hadn't learned it when.

This is advanced learning, far beyond anything that was recorded on the original scrolls. After we return to Libra, I will have more time to study and maybe find out what he… "

Baltazar took the scrolls from Cuth's hands and tossed them into the fire, and Cuth only looked in shock when the flames engulfed them eagerly, the pages reviving, brilliant, as they were consumed.

"Magnus is dead," said Baltazar as he watched the flames reduce the parchments to a tangle of blackened and incandescent ashes, finally blown away by the wind.

"And the evil he created dies with him." The knight then walked away, leaving Cuth to face the fire. His work was almost done. The last of Magnus's abominations suffered extirpation and sequence were burned, and every inch of Caligula's Cathedral cleared of everything that might have lurked in the shadows.

From the archbishop himself, there was nothing left but an unrecognizable pile of fragile, charred bones on a pile of dying embers. All that was left was to care for the fallen, and in that they were relatively fortunate. Of the little more than eighty men who had broken into Caligula, only five had been killed and nine others wounded. Baltazar always insisted on taking care of the wounded personally; they were, in the end, under his responsibility.

He had sought out each of them, recruited and commanded. Now, it was his duty to assist them. He had done so much for everyone but one of them.

He knelt before a man a little younger than Baltazar himself, who, however, seemed to him little more than a child. Everyone looked; that was the commander's curse.

He knew the man's face, recognized him as one of the many who had stood out in Myamar, following Baltazar into the infernal skirmish without fear or hesitation, fighting courageously, without capitulating before the battle was won. When Baltazar looked at the man for a moment, he was ashamed to realize that he did not remember the soldier's name and was forced to ask.

"Oscar," said the man, though weak and with difficulty speaking.

When Baltazar approached, Oscar will try to get up to be able to pay off his commander, as is appropriate for a soldier, but his injured leg did not support him, and so he had to be content with giving his most valiant show of respect while balancing on his bottom, leaning against one of the walls of Caligula.

"You fought bravely today, Oscar," said Baltazar with his hand on the man's shoulder.

"I'm sorry it ended like this.

"Not me," replied Oscar, his voice husky and still.

"I am happy that I managed to get through this, finish the work of the good Lord, and fight once again at his side." Oscar looked on with veneration and inflated pride, which only served to make Baltazar uncomfortable. He always left that man who was dying; he had given his life for that cause.

Still, honor and glory fell on Baltazar, and they seemed undeserved.

"Is there anyone I can send a message to?" Asked Baltazar.

Oscar shook his head. "I never married. Some women may be happy to know that I died, but why give them that satisfaction?"

He chuckled, as did the men who were gathered around him. Even Baltazar managed to smile.

"I have a request," said Oscar.

"Bury me here, in Caligula. I don't have a home to call my own. I can also be placed to rest wherever I want, so maybe I can look down and remember the few good things I did here, if I didn't do them. in other places." Sadly, Baltazar nodded, realizing everything very well. He looked again at the soldier's wound.

Some sort of pig-like beast, already mortally wounded, hit Oscar with his spiny claw while he was in agony, opening a wound in his left thigh. The wound was serrated and was ugly, but not very deep. Normally, it would not be considered life threatening, nothing that a competent doctor could not treat, nothing that could not be cured over time.

But it was no ordinary injury, and Baltazar and his men already knew it well. A wound inflicted by an abomination never closed, never healed, it didn't matter and how much was treated with dexterity. The stitches did not hold, and no bandage could stop the bleeding. A programmed and painful death was inevitable as blood loss grows slowly. It might take hours or days, depending on the severity of the injury, but, as Baltazar had already discovered, the result was always the same. Nio was a soldier's way to die.

"Hold him," he said, and the men standing next to Oscar took him by the arms. Baltazar took a dagger from his belt and, with a quick and precise blow, ended the man's life in the quickest and most human way he knew. He cleaned the dagger and was about to sheath it again when he realized he no longer needed it. The war was over.

Oscar was the last poor soul under Baltazar's command that he will have to dispatch that way. And I had no desire to carry a memory of that dreary task. He threw the dagger away on the ground and looked at the two men holding Oscar's body.

"Arrange for the funeral," he said.

"Find a suitable piece of land in the cemetery here and see to it that the tomb is marked properly." The men nodded and carried Oscar away.

Baltazar turned, looking at Polly, who was nearby with the other horses. It was the first sight he had that brought him joy all morning. When riding it, he was grateful for the small mercies.

He couldn't even imagine her dead, or worse, hurt by one of Magnus's creatures in such a way that he had to end her too. But at least a small part of that horrendous story would end happily, they rode home together. Edgar galloped up beside Baltazar on his mount and the two looked at the last of the perpetual deformed animals' carcasses.

"It wasn't a bad morning, I would say," suggested Edgar with the look of a man who might have liked the day's massacre a little too much.

"Not good either," said Baltazar.

"I'm just happy that it's over."

"Finished? My friend, it will only be finished when we exterminated all Magnus's monstrosities that still remain. We have already talked about this, we knew that our task would not end with the death of the archbishop. After we return to Libra, I suggest that we take a day out. refuel and rest, and then we start. I'm not going to Libra, "interrupted Baltazar.

"I'm going home. You are more than capable of running the Order without me."

They discussed that many times in the weeks of persecution by Magnus' horde to Myamar men to continue the work that he and Edgar had begun. The long and complicated task of killing each of the abominations that fled the battle remained, hundreds of them now spread across the country, one threatens every man, woman and child in downtown Albaran. But Baltazar never intended to command that force.

He suggested the foundation of the Order just so that someone else could complete the task in his place, allowing him to go home to his family. And he knew that Edgar would love this assignment, so he could delay going home. Edgar looked at him, surprised.

"He does not even wish to give the good news of our victory to the king"

"I am happy to leave this honor to you. I made a promise to my wife that I would not stay any longer than necessary and I intend to keep it. Send my regards to Afonso and ask him the favor of not looking for me again. At least not until my son is grown up. He'll understand. "

Baltazar turned Polly toward the gate and spurred on. A part of him, the part always consumed by a sense of loyalty and obligation, complained. Edgar was right, as dozens of Magnus' monsters still roamed free and would continue to threaten innocent people across the kingdom until they were all found and liquidated. But most of him, the part that wanted nothing more than to be reunited with his beloved Gwen and meet his newborn son, would not accept discussion.

Magnus is dead, the threat he represented unsuccessful, he told himself. You did everything that Afonso asked you to owe you nothing else. Now, go home and stay with your family. Nobody can say that he didn't deserve it. The thought led Baltazar to ride even faster. His home was just over fifty miles to the southwest. A new life awaited him, a better life, and if he rode fast enough he could start it before the sun went down.