"Ribold! Lunch is ready!" the mother shouted from the window.

In a field of white lilies Ribold sat up and quickly grasped his book "The Sad Little Goat" and dashed back home. His mother Kat had spent the day preparing the lamb. Even at a distance Ribold could smell it. Sprinting through the field of white lilies Ribold held his book tightly and saw rabbits darting about in front of him.

Opening the front door his mother stood there serenely, "Did you have a good time Rib?"

"Yeah, I read the book again and almost fell asleep."

"Get inside and wash your hands. The lamb is ready."

"Ok mother," Ribold muttered as he pushed past to the basin to wipe the dirt from his hands. His mother filled the basin three times a day with water she gathered from the stream. He watched as his touch polluted the clean basin before wiping his hand on a small cloth and returning to the table. To his surprise the table was set and the steaming cut of lamb was already waiting for him at his seat.

"You set the table?! I didn't hear you call."

"Relax, I didn't call you today."

"Why not?"

"Today is special. It's kind of like your birthday," she said as she sat across from him.

"My birthday was last month sometime wasn't it? The eighteenth or so."

"Ribold, are you going to complain when I went through so much to make you happy today?" Kat said, looking away feigning sadness.

"No! It's my favorite!"

"Then you should eat before it gets cold," she said as she poured herself some wine.

As her son happily ate roasted lamb over a plate of baby leaf greens Katharsis Merron sipped her wine slowly eyeing him. Today would be his real birthday. One nice thing about being a mother all this time was the realization that children were ultimately predictable. They could cause all manner of chaos but they always came back to eat, like starving little dogs. Ribold was no exception. She eyed the window and saw movement at the treeline. Her most important gambit would soon be over, and she fought to contain the nervous energy within her.

A tree shook, a priest stepped forward in the distance. Katharsis eyed them like a hawk staring at prey. "Exposing yourself to me in line of sight? They're either incompetent or their arrogance knows no bounds!" She fumed without breaking her serene expression in front of her son. She stood and left her chair askew and ruffled Ribold's hair, "Stay here and enjoy Rib, I'm going to step out for just a moment."

Ribold pulled away ever so slightly annoyed to be disturbed while he was eating and simply hummed an "Ok" with his mouth full. Katharsis stole out the back and vanished like a spectre on the wind.

Some time had passed, Ribold ate the whole cut of lamb and even went and got another. He finished the second serving too. His mother wouldn't mind, it wasn't unusual to take seconds… but it was unusual his mother was still gone by the time he finished his second plate. He looked out the window and saw only blurs in the distance. Almost like many men were laying down in the field. He went to open the door when with an explosive knock his mother slammed the door open. Her white clothes were slick with blood and she slammed the door closed.

"Ma!" Ribold shouted as Katharsis pushed past him and pulled open a floorboard with a satchel. She made a point to let him see that she loaded it with turnips and jerky. "What's going on? Are you hurt?" Ribold asked with his voice increasingly wavering in panic.

Katharsis turned and got onto one knee, "Listen it's nothing, it doesn't hurt that bad but we need to go now."

"Is it the church?"

Katharsis paused for a moment in thought, "It is. The bad men have come to hurt me and take you away. So you need to run. Take the path out back and follow the flow of the stream, you'll have to walk within it for a bit in case they use dogs to track you."

"I'll just do what you do and it'll be fine."

"Ribold, I need you to listen very closely," Kat said as she knelt down eye to eye with her little boy.

"What is it?" his voice cracked visibly upset.

"I'm not going with you."

"What?!" Ribold shouted. In the distance they both heard shouting.

"Keep your voice down! There isn't much time! The church wants to hurt me a lot more than they want to take you. So I'll lead the bad men away so you can escape!"

Ribold's lip quivered, since the time he was born she was all he knew. His earliest memories were in their quaint little home in a field of white lilies. His mother taught him to talk, to read, to count. "But," he cried "I want to be with you!"

"Listen Ribold! I can't protect both of us! Go out back and follow the stream! If you meet anyone tell them that your mother was ill and passed away."

"You were ill and passed away. I'm looking for my father, a soldier from the south."

"Yes! That's my boy! Just like we practiced. You must go south until the trees die. Then go deep into the forest following the coldest wind and darkest path until you find your way to Todt Stadt. There the necromancers will take you in. I'll join you there when I can."

From outside one of the many men stood with a golden thurible, he began to spin it like a flail and it ignited, pouring out smoke and fire in a blazing wheel pattern, "Katharsis Merron! By order of His Holiness Pope Pious the XXIII, you are excommunicated from God's flock! Come out and face the lord's justice you damned witch!"

Others shouted in the distance over the ravenous barks of hunting dogs, "Sir she already … a dozen men!"

"Surround the Twilight Witch!"

Then another voice commandingly cut through the pandemonium outside and Ribold saw his mother freeze, "Katharsis Merron! This ends today!"

"I love you so much." Katharsis said as her eyes began to tear.

"I love you too ma-" she pushed him towards the back door and then walked out the front. Ribold could hear men in the distance and ducked low in the field following the path without exposing himself. In the distance he heard shouts and panicked yelps which soon became screams but none of them were female. He looked behind him and saw the only home he ever knew burning. Ribold fled to the stream and ran into the water. His mother had taught him to walk within the stream for about 20 minutes and then run across rocks once he emerged. Ribold already lost count of how much time had passed but he felt rain begin falling. First in dribs and drabs and then quickly it became a steady downpour.

***

Minutes later Ribold approached a fairly high bridge crossing the stream. Ribold was just about under it when he heard thundering hooves nearby. He rushed across the stones under the bridge and heard several horses stop above him.

Ribold covered his mouth and tried to control his frantic breathing and he heard the commanding man from earlier speak, "Dammit all! Where's the boy?"

"We don't know sir. We found no boy."

"This mission is almost entirely pointless without him! Search again! What about the Twilight Witch?"

"Escaped. We suffered heavy casualties."

"I brought reinforcements, you mean to tell me when I take a moment to inspect the house you lost her?!"

"Holy father, withdrawing from fighting Katharsis Merron was a tactical mistake. Only a Cardinal… Beg your pardon perhaps 'multiple cardinals' would be necessary to bring her to justice!" the underling said terrified.

"Continue the search! I want her child found! 'Alive!'"

"Yes Holy Father."

The other horses galloped off but Ribold heard one man climb off. Ribold looked quietly through the dripping boards of the bridge and saw it was "him." Ribold's mother was the bravest greatest person he'd ever known. However the one person she feared was Cardinal Della Rovere. Ribold saw his picture once hidden within his mother's jewelry. When he'd asked her about the picture Kat became upset and warned him about this man. She taught him that there would be a day the Cardinal would come to hurt her and take him away. Ribold regarded him like a lamb would regard a lion. He hid further back as Della Rovere looked down through the boards.

Ribold heard him walk away and breathed a sigh of relief. He saw a flash of red and heard the cardinal land on the other side of the stream looking behind the bridge's pillar on that side. Ribold scrambled away, the patter of his feet drowned in the heavy downpour, and over the bend of the riverbank breaking line of sight with the bridge. Peering through the reeds Ribold saw him check the spot Ribold was just hiding at. Ribold began to panic but realized his muddy footsteps were disappearing within the rain. Shivering he turned and left Della Rovere and all that he'd ever known behind.

Sitting upon a branch observing the two was a dead white raven. The rain dripped through it's skeletal body. Running down it's back, through a cavity in its chest and dripping upon a half rotten talon below. It flew off in Ribold's direction watching out from above.

***

Opening her eyes Katharsis Merron waited a moment to let the vertigo of flight fade away and looked at the scene of slaughter. An entire garrison of holy men annihilated. Katharsis stood up and wandered through the carnage to see if there was anything of value left to salvage. The man with the thurible was apparently a bishop. A bishop that she tore in half like a rotten fruit. Of all the broken and burned swords and dead men he was the only one of note. With reluctance Katharsis touched the back of his neck and violet light flashed. Violet tendrils expanded from his torso and pulled his lower body together, tiny spiderwebs of Katharsis's necromantic energy latched onto and gathered even his clothes. In moments his body was pulled back together and began healing all but his soul. Just to be cautious she pulled the man's shirt out of his pants and watched the scar disappear entirely. Not bad for a man who moments ago looked like a cat run down by a wagon. His eyes though were much more difficult to fix. Thralls always were. She could've put more effort in, recalled the man's soul and bound it to her will, make him slaughter his own comrades. Katharsis had many surprises the church was as of yet unaware of. Cards she played close to the chest that she was saving for a well… 'rainier' day. She looked the undead bishop in his bare white eyes and commanded, "Go. Slaughter your men. Leave none alive." The undead bishop raised his thurible in salute and marched into the forest.

As shouts of terror and the sounds of a skirmish echoed nearby Katharsis silently reviewed her day. "I made scrambled eggs and fed Rib breakfast, slaughtered the lamb, cooked and cleaned it, made my baby boy his favorite meal, summoned the church, did a reasonable job of faking my death well ... to Ribold at least, sent Ribold away to Todt Stadt, and made a low tier thrall to keep the church busy. Everything went according to plan. Everything except well… damn I really do miss him already. Some time apart will do us both good. But children are predictable and I know that Ribold will be just fine."