My cheek hurt. It stung badly, blood tickling down slowly. Creating a puddle or so would've been an easy feat if that damn unicellular organism hadn't taken us along for a ride.
And what a rough ride that was! Trees whizzed past, the ground was eaten up below us as wind crashed into our faces as we sped through the plains.
Yet so what? That duocellular hipster with tits servings as brains hogged all the protection there was, while I was greeted with all kinds of leaves turned razor-sharp at this kind of speed.
The only consolation I had was knowing our destination. The church nearest to this godforsaken place. Father Venelyn's church,
Besung in his youth, the father no longer served in the blessed army. Time had been too cruel to him. Too important politics turned out to be.
Yet even after all that shiny glory, it remains that he always went to bed with the paladins. Evading an especially nasty stone that could've ripped me a new one, I kept thinking.
What else could I do anyway? Maybe the paladin's growth and increasing glorification over the last few years was the right direction to move towards.
After people saw their wanton destruction and stood before the sorry remains summoned by mindless indoctrination...
Well, whatever. My faction was losing ground. That was the cold truth. Yet again, wood splintered, decking me out with painful wounds all over. Wars bred nothing but more wars.
"Stupid, really," I mutter, the full realisation of what had become of me seeping into my very soul, as did anger shortly after.
Taken for a meatshield, that was all to my use. Just as protests furiously crawled up my dry throat, they remained stuck in there for the sight that greeted me was... ridiculous.
The unicellular fool had stopped, he too not ready to believe in his subjective peepers. The church was playground to a bloodbath.
It must've gone on for a while too, for the defending clergymen seemed utterly exhausted and at the mercy of some unknown group of assaulters.
Indeed, the thoughts I had next were reaffirmed by the group uniformly clad in garbs of silver and black sporting a blue turkey in the centre of the mantle.
"Heretics," the unicellular idiot shouted, his voice laden with power. "Heretics," the duocellular puppy yapped, parroting her patron.
"Poor wretches," I grumble as fists met blades, swords clashed against shivs and bodies crashed against one another in a spectacular show of force. Not much skill was needed.
Totally unlike our encounter with the daemon. The paved road trailing to the nearest city I espied? Crushed to pieces.
As were most members of that unknown group, for the unicellular brute indulged in what he could do best.
A sudden distortion in my field of vision reminded me that I might be short, but certainly nothing close to invisible.
It was a pointy mace closing in on me, I noted after desperately rolling out harm's way. Unsheathing the decorative sword with less than smooth movements, I was as ready as I could get.
My opponent didn't make me wait for long. He, if I can presume gender here, repositioned his upper body and swept the mace my way yet again.
A different trajectory, I had to believe after it landed squarely on my left shoulder, crushing the pauldrons, the spikes digging painfully deep into my flesh.
It was a ruse, and I gloriously stepped onto that obvious landmine. "Just fucking great," I mutter, wondering not for the first time when this world had become so inhospitable.
My opponent, in accordance to any good assassin's behaviour, was clearly close enough to perceive my grumbles.
He ignored them altogether and opted for a lunge shoulder bared and arms inclined so that the whole brunt of his force would land on my injured side and then some.
Luckily, I noted at the last moment that the earlier confrontation had messed with my sense of direction, and more dangerously, with my equilibrium.
It didn't suffice for clean evasion, but at least I averted most of the force. Until the mace came crashing down on my face, the assassin's movements trained and ruthless.
That was when I knew for sure it was either him or me. We were both left exposed after this short exchange. Or rather, the bloody conclusion beckoned.
Time seemed to slow down for a moment, and I could swear I heard my father's angry curses again right before I left home to study Law and Order in the temple.
In times like these, I certainly couldn't agree more with the drunkard. Had I taken his advice to heart, I would stand here as a trained cadet at the very least.
But there were no what-ifs in my world. Not to mention they most likely wouldn't have taken me in and taught me anything meaningful.
Too short my stature, my movements too womanly and my reactions clumsy. But hey, it was useful for something!
The assassin at least hadn't fought against many short people, for he was slightly off in his centre of balance.
And I of course, God bless, had an easier way rolling out of way as a consequence, leaving my short sword there, the handle stuck in the ground between two knotty roots.
The sickening crunch of hard steel puncturing through bone made me almost throw up. "What a miserable world we live in..."
A piece of land so shitty only paladins and assassin orders were the winners. And the aristocracy. And the clergy. And—
"Laughably useless," the duocellular piece of shit came jogging up to me, proudly presenting three heads tied to her belt. My stomach churned again.
I was sure she did this on purpose, but what could I say? "Wag your tail, pimp. Master Roches is waiting." Of course he was.
"Coming..." I murmured dispiritedly as she dragged me past dying clergymen and deeper down into the true holy grounds Father Venelyn had sworn to protect with his life twenty or so years past.
"Just when will this day end." Objective evidence painted a rather bleak picture, my hopes dying with each additional step I was halfheartedly made to take.