"Helem! What are you saying!?" My words came out in shock.
As soon as my words came, Helem lunged at me with his staff. He jabbed me hard in the stomach while I instinctively moved away. The air was gone from my lungs as I crumpled down to one knee. I noticed my surroundings and realized Helem had bought me into a dead back alley. The darkness of night covered all around us. We were on the outskirts of town on the rampant areas of abandoned buildings and desolate lands.
The only way out was through Helem.
By the Four Gods, why?
I drew my sword quickly. You could say that he was blind but he wasn't stupid. I could scale the buildings but that would make me even a bigger target for Helem. He could use magic and the sounds in this deserted alley echoed clearly as I heard my own breath. Magic is finite but all he needs is one good shot at me while I was climbing the walls. I couldn't help but let out a condescending smirk, Helem had thought this through to the end. How much did he hate me?
Sweet air finally refilled my lungs and I stood up. I glared hard at Helem but it didn't seem to faze his notice. He was waiting for me to make a move. I obliged, readying my short sword into a stance. Helem attacked me again as the sound and smell of metal waved in the air. I guess he wasn't going to let me make a move after all. His staff collides with my sword as I deflected his blows toward my head.
Master Edwin had a magic staff, one made of ancient wood. That staff of his was magically enchanted that it could easily handle the cheap sword I bought from the store. Helem was aiming for incapacitating blows and I couldn't move very well in this back alley. He fought with every effort to keep my back in the dead alleyway. I was a big target for a man who couldn't see. I only had one good eye and my own vision faltered badly thanks to the cover of darkness.
Master Edwin pressed his attack more and more. Each attack with the staff was fast and furious, I couldn't block everything. My muscles and body felt like they were going to mush with the constant beating. Blunt blows that dealt major trauma and bruises. I only knew that I couldn't let one of these blows hit my head, it would very well be crushed like a watermelon.
"Helem!...Let's...stop this!" I muttered out in frantic breath.
"Are you scared?" Helem replied calmly. "Let yourself go unto the Gods. But alas you have always been a faithless heathen Demitri!"
Master Edwin had the expression of a mad man on his face.
"What are you on about?" I said. "I have never betrayed the will of the Gods!"
"You have never taken the faith close to your heart! How you sneer at the followers of the faithful! How you insult the very GODS themselves!"
Helem's words echoed like explosions in the back alley.
"The Gods have a destiny for us all Demitri! You have been brought before me as a test before the faith! I may have let the Hero and the Veil down…but I WILL NOT BETRAY THE GODS!" Helem's furious rage flushed red across his face.
Helem kept pressing his attack as the sweat dripped down my forehead.
"I have taught you Demitri! How to read! How to write! How to understand the world! YOU A POOR STREET RAT! How dare you make me lose my rightful place in the world!" Helem belted out another barrage of words at me.
I started turning angry at his comments.
"Hmm? Why? Why can't you understand my words!?" Helem said as he noticed my silent frustration. "Ah, of course! It was YOUR DESTINY to be a low peasant!"
Destiny? Fate? I spat at them with my very blood and tears. What are the Gods that betray the innocent who did nothing wrong but desire the will to live? Was it my destiny to become a poor child abandoned by my parents? Was it my fate to watch all my friends and loved ones die for the most meaningless of things? Are destiny and fate the real difference between nobles and the poor?
"Those Gods are nothing!.... " I spat out with anger. "Just a convoluted mechanism of the Church to keep people oppress! What have the Gods really done for us? What have the Church done for us? They have done nothing but give empty promises while lining up their pockets!"
The Church always backed their claims or faults with others because of the Gods. This is what I truly believed and I hated the Church for it. They demanded money while assuring everyone and anyone that the Gods would surely help them. The Pope and his cardinals were a flock of devils in human skin. They preyed on the weak and the stupid. They would torture or purge those who seem faithless and I had seen it firsthand. Most of the people in their ranks were of noble families. The Religion of the Veil was one of the most disgusting things in this world.
Helem stopped still when he heard my words and then began shaking in a fit of anger.
"YOU UNGRATEFUL LITTLE BASTARD! HOW DARE YOU MOCK MY FAITH!? YOU SPAWN OF HELL! A HOLY WAR IS COMING AND I WILL BE THE ONE TO LEAD THE FAITHFUL THROUGH IT!"
Helem went crazy with unbridled fury.
"THE GODS HAVE NEVER STOPPED SHOWING ME WHAT YOU DID!"
Helem swung his staff erratically, his face red with anger.
"YOU HAVE TORMENTED ME DEMITRI! I COULDN'T STOP THE BLOOD! HE WAS DYING! I COULDN'T STOP IT AND IT WAS ALL YOUR FAULT! YOU MURDERER!"
Helem kept with his erratic swinging.
I lunged a straight kick at Helem who toppled over backward. I jumped over him and ran out the alleyway. I didn't need to really fight a blind man who had gone insane. I didn't think he would look at me in the same light as those in the upper class, he had a noble's pride. I had forgotten that he was one of them as well. Helem was always a great man with a well of love and unselfishness. How could I have been so blind to all this? Or maybe I had pushed him down this path?
As I exited the back alley I was greeted by the children who should have been sleeping at the church. There was something wrong with them, an eerie light glowed in their eyes. Their bodies seemed pale as if the light of life had vanished from them. Blood seem to drool from their eyes and mouths. The children were carrying knives and sharp objects in hand.
"Running Demitri!? You think I wouldn't notice? Now I see you clearly, Lady Cassandra went far too easy on your wretched soul," Helem said regaining his composure.
My head propped back to Helem in the horror of the children.
"What...did you do to them?" I said almost like a whisper.
"Oh?...You mean my little flock of sheep? They had been chosen by the Veil to be my new eyes and ears," Helem said lifting his arms in revelation.
A quiet rage boiled up inside of me.
"Are they even alive?" My eyes would glance back at those small frail beings.
"These sheep? They are not human beings but pariahs to the world," Helem had returned back to a calm demeanor but I was still seething. "See what the power of holy magic has rewarded them Demitri."
Helem held up his staff and an amber light emitted from it.
"Why Children!?" I screamed in desperation.
I was enraged and couldn't help see Helem in a different light now. He saw these children no differently than those nobles back at the capital. They thought the poor to be only things used by the rich. They never saw us as human beings, only objects to be discarded or used. My own mind flashed back to my own days as a poor youth and a feeling of sadness crept back into the pit of my soul.
"We had been given a holy task of finding and killing you for the Veil," Helem said stepping closer to me. "These children would do the faith a service and sacrifice their bodies. They only have you to thank for this kindness, Demitri."
What happened to these children, was it my fault? The energy was sucked out of me as I slumped over in a stagger. What those people wouldn't do to get their hands on me. To think they would very use children! Helem seemed to relish and enjoy my despair. Only the children stared at me with an unnerving gaze.
"Who would have known that you would come to us? It is because the Gods willed it to be!" A fanatic look had come over Helem. "Kill him, my sheep."
The children pointed their weapons at me, moving almost sinister and unnatural. Each of them rushed to stab or slash at me. I defend with my arms and take many deep cuts. No matter how much killing I'm willing to do in defense, I will not harm children. I tried pushing and fending the children off but they had a supernatural strength to them. Small cuts soon became numerous in number.
Light and blood poured out of their orifices as they struggled with me. I broke free from the children and tried to fight Helem. I slashed and stabbed at Helem in anger with my sword. The children had stopped moving in place while I was fighting. He doesn't block any of my attacks but now dodges them all. His movements were more natural now as if he could see everything I did.
The children stared at me with that glowing light in their eyes. Their heads were moving in unison watching as I battled Helem. Is he controlling them with holy magic? He had said that they were his eyes now. I ran towards the children this time who moved again in unison to attack me. Helem had stopped in place and confirmed my suspicions.
I noticed the fatal flaw in this wicked magic of his.
The children surrounded me and stabbed me with their pointed weapons. I endured the pain while my blood splashes over them. I maneuvered myself so that my back would face Helem. In one swift movement, I throw off my cloak on top of the children while turning around with my sword. Helem hesitated for a bit but that was all I needed. I dashed towards him and my sword tasted his flesh as it pierced through his body.
Helem screamed in agony and gripped my blade with one hand trying to prevent his demise. With the staff in his other hand, he raised it up high and it glowed brightly again. I looked behind me and saw that the children had taken off my cloak which covered some of them. To my horror, they had their weapons pointed at their own necks.
"CHOOSE!! ME OR THEM!" Helem wailed as his right hand became blood red.
I looked at Helem while gritting my teeth trying to bear with it. But he knew that my grip on the sword was already loosening. My gaze returned to the children and to the glowing eyes of the tiny girl Lisa who had thanked me. Her hands were too small as they held a knife straight to her own throat. The light in her eyes were shining while they streamed tears of blood.
I already knew I was going to choose the children.
"You are a kindhearted man indeed Demitri," Helem said. "This is why we never told you of the plans."
"You knew!?" I twisted my mouth in anger.
Helem gave me a sinister grin and he waved his staff in the air. My head snapped back only to witness the children taking their own lives. They all dropped down, weightless, without the spark of life or light. My eyes were in shock but my arms moved and plunged my sword deeper into Helem.
"WHY!?!?" I yelled.
Helem dropped his staff and gargled on his own blood.
"I'll suffer....yes.... but as long as you suffer more, I'll be satisfied," Helem said with glee.
Master Edwin had the most deranged look on his face but it slowly faded.
"Demitri, may you live a long and full life…may your sins haunt you forever," Helem had given me the most radiant smile on his face. "I can't see it anymore...It's gone, all gone…finally…I can rest..."
He slumped over, dead.
I stood there standing under the cover of the night, surrounded by dead bodies.
There was a taste in my mouth, I couldn't quite get the flavor, all I knew was that it was bitter.
--
Master Helem Edwin was a rising star in the Church of the Veil. A man with little to no faults who came from a distinguished background. Someone who greatly contributed to the people, poor and rich alike. A great companion to the legendary Hero, he even helped the great Hero slay the Demon Lord. It was a pity that he disappeared after the Great War. There were no records of him afterward other than being nearly killed at the Siege of Glaive. Another lost soul is undone at the hands of the terrible war. ~ War Historian Arnes of Malta.