BwA: Chapter 5 - Another One Bites the Dust

 Sometimes during the war between Heaven and Hell, the lines become blurred. One cannot assume that the demon before them is the enemy or the angel is an ally. – From the journal of Severah ajal Binoch.

Xandria's persona had changed the moment she exited the room she had shared with Zazael. When she had been weeping and sobbing over the loss of her husband and daughter only moments before, now she had hardened her jaw and stiffened her posture. 

Zazael had been concerned that when he'd rescued her from the prison her mind had broken. He knew he could repair her body, restore her youth and strength, but he had been worried that her mind would remain broken. He could see the effects of her time in Oblivion upon her. Oblivion was not a realm meant for mortals, and the fact she'd been there many times, and even though only for a few moments each time, it showed her inner strength that she had managed to maintain most of her sanity.

Xandria was a beautiful woman. Her hair was long, black, and wavy. She wore it loose without adornments. Her skin was tanned, smooth and blemish free. Zazael's magic had removed any physical scars from her body, but he could feel the scars upon her soul and no amount of magic could heal those. Her eyes were large and dark blue, framed with thick black lashes. Her nose was small and her lips full. Her hands were small and he knew once they were calloused from the sword, but now she wore gloves. She was muscular and moved like a predator. 

Zazael had wondered what she'd been like before the angels made her into this warrior, had her curves been softer, her face kinder, her eyes more innocent? She wore the clothing that Severah had given her. Black leather pants that disappeared into high heeled thigh high black boots. They hugged her like a second skin. A dingy blouse that may have been white once that someone had probably lovingly embroidered tiny red flowers and green vines into the sleeves and collar but the thread was faded and broke in places. The bustier she wore was probably black originally but like the blouse it had faded and was a dingy gray. The sword belt was low on her hips, her being much thinner than him, left a great deal of extra belt length to flap down her leg. The belt, like his armor, was plated with overlapping links that looked like feathers. On her it had tarnished, looking old and well used. The buckle was shaped like an angel wing. She wore no jewelry, no earrings, necklace, rings or bracelets. She walked very silently.

"Mistress Xandria," Severah began having met them at the bottom of the stairs. The inn's main room was filled with people. Some sat at tables lamenting over their situation, others were angry but only drank themselves silly with ale. Xandria was most worried about those who stared about with blank faces.

"Don't call me that," Xandria said in her hard voice to the young woman. She was so eager to please that Xandria was vaguely reminded of an energetic puppy.

"My apologies, what may I address you as?"

"Xandria is fine," she replied, it used to be 'Captain' Xandria but those days were long gone.

"Xandria," the girl seemed uncomfortable with just calling the warrior woman by just her name. "I beg you to allow me to accompany you so that I may record your story." The words poured forth from Severah's mouth. She held up a pencil and a thick book.

"No." Xandria said firmly. Severah suddenly appeared crushed. "I will not be able to protect you out there." Xandria indicated beyond the tavern and town with her hand. "You may ask and write what you wish, but stay within the safety of the village." 

 ~*~ 

Instead of riding Zazael's horse, they walked towards a large dark building on a hill that overlooked the town. Xandria could see light flickering from broken windows. They'd only encountered a few undead milling about. Unless they smelled or somehow sensed the living they really didn't do anything but shuffle about. Both Zazael and Xandria had exceptional sword skills and the undead they'd come across had only been fleshy zombies, recently dead. They simply lunged and tried to grab at them, snapping at them with broken teeth.

The building was a monastery of crumbling stone walls and a broken gate. The walls were choked with dead vines. Surrounding the monastery was the largest graveyard Xandria had ever seen. Rows upon rows of tombstones, vaults and crypts. Hundreds or thousands of people lay dead beneath them.

"For centuries, this has been where the Holy Order interred their dead," Zazael explained. "It was once the most hallowed of grounds but no longer." There was a rumbling beneath their feet and Xandria grabbed Zazael's arm to steady herself as the earth shook.

"What was that?" She asked as suddenly as a projectile from the earth, a coffin shot upwards from a nearby grave. There was a pounding and scrabbling from inside, suddenly the boards broke outwards and a rather agile skeleton hopped from inside.

"That was the sound of thousands of the dead awakening," Zazael said quietly as more coffins shot upwards from the ground. Their contents bursting from them, skeletons, half rotted zombies. "Quickly! Inside!" Zazael shouted as he leapt through the broken gates of the monastery. They were in an overgrown courtyard, a large broken fountain dominated the center. It, like the walls, was covered with vines but Xandria could see the likeness between the angel statue and Zazael. It was as if the carver knew what angels looked like, down to the smallest detail of their armor. Many believed in angels, speculated what they appeared like, but the statue was uncanny. She had raided the Holy Order's strongholds multiple times and normally everything was in a Sun motif like their banners and swords, this was the first time she had seen an angel anything.

Zazael had burst down a door across the courtyard and turned to see her gazing at the statue, oblivious to the undead that were pouring in through the broken gate behind her. He grabbed her wrist and dragged her through the door. Whatever spell the angel statue had held over her was broken and she quickly moved to help him barricade the door that he had turned to splinters with his sword. They filled the entryway with rotted tables and chairs, slapping away hands that grabbed at them through various holes as they piled on more and more debris from the surrounding rooms.

"We have to find the source before the horde of undead discover Breckinridge," Zazael stated.

"They don't move fast, but we don't have much time," Xandria answered him.

The monastery was lit with candles. She could feel more than hear a chanting from within the walls as if the monks of the Holy Order had never really left. Xandria moved down the corridor following the sound.

They came to a great hall of stained glass windows. Many were broken, but several were just the same as the angel statue. They depicted angels as they really were and not speculation. Rotted pews faced an altar surrounded by candles but glowing, brighter than any candle stood an angel. His wings fluttered and he slowly turned. He looked identical to Zazael in every way.

"Ghaemo," Zazael said the name, and then turned angry, "Cease what you are doing at once!" Zazael had stepped forward, placing himself between Xandria and the angel at the altar. Xandria had always wondered how the angels could tell each other apart. To her they all looked the same, until they became human.

"You cannot stop me, Zazael," the other angel spoke in a voice that made Xandria's blood boil and her heart turn to ice. She knew the voice, it haunted her nightmares. He'd been the very angel that plunged his sword into her womb, stealing the life of her unborn child.

"You are right, I cannot stop you," Zazael suddenly stepped aside, "but she can."

"Xandria!" Ghaemo shouted with something that sounded like fear in his voice. "You bring the angel killer to do your bidding?" There was a crash within the monastery. "Zazael, we can rule Man together. We can be gods!" Xandria saw something flicker in Ghaemo's wings. The purity of the white glow seemed to turn red then back to white.

"You are corrupt, Ghaemo!"

"Your sentence in Oblivion should have been permanent!" Ghaemo shouted and launched himself across the room at Zazael, not Xandria. When he'd been by the altar he'd been an epitome of holy glory in white and gold, when he connected with Zazael, the wings had gone red as blood, and his armor as black as death. The hood and shadow fell away from his face to reveal a burning skull. Ghaemo's sword, angelic like the one Xandria carried had twisted and corrupted, the blade becoming jagged, the angel that had been the hilt now a demon.

The crash within the monastery had been the barricade that Zazael and Xandria erected collapsing and in moments the undead were now entering the chapel. Xandria was quickly busy with beheading and crushing skulls. Ghaemo and Zazael grappled quickly. Xandria noticed that Zazael was only deflecting blows and made no attacks of his own. Zazael caught Ghaemo's corrupted blade in his hand and grunted. The sword had cut into Zazael's gauntlet and into the angel's flesh. Ghaemo leaned to Zazael's ear and whispered before he knocked Zazael into the tide of zombies and skeletons that were shambling in. Even with Xandria's sword skills she was being overrun, and when Zazael landed among them, dove upon him from every side.

"Ralael!" Xandria shouted. There was a burst of green ichor from within the mass of undead. Zazael's wings, his strongest weapon and his greatest weakness had sliced through the zombies. He was covered in green and black slime, his cloak torn from his armor and he glowed more brilliant than before despite all the goo upon him. Ghaemo was laughing and had transformed back into the angel he'd been before. The green and black ichor slid off Zazael, leaving him clean and gleaming.

"I'll hold back the undead, you kill Ghaemo for I cannot harm him," Zazael ordered her and he cleaved with his sword and wings into the undead. Xandria turned to Ghaemo.

"You took the life of my daughter," Xandria's words were thick with venom.

"Your daughter would have grown into an abomination! A plague upon mankind!"

"She had the right to live!" Xandria shouted at him. He moved to flee from her. "Coward! You run from a mortal!" He leapt into the air as she did, she brought her blade down and Ghaemo crashed to the floor. A handful of white feathers fluttered down around her before burning to ash and blowing away. Ghaemo's wings flapped like a wounded bird. She had not cut them off completely but she had sheared one to the point that Ghaemo was no longer balanced.

"I don't care who you are, you will die for that," he snarled at her.

"You first," she said with a kick to her blade, knocking it upwards. They met, swords clanging and sparks flew from the metal. Ghaemo was certainly stronger than her, but she was faster and proved to be a hard target. She had fought several angels before, the first had nearly killed her, but what she had learned over the years of fighting angels is that just as they all looked the same, they in turn also fought the same. It allowed her to out maneuver him because she knew his attacks. Angels had no imagination, they were used to their bottomless strength and tireless energy to defeat an opponent.

Xandria slashed low, her sword biting into the armor of Ghaemo's knee, but like the wing cut, it unbalanced him and he fell. She kicked the blade from his hands and in a whirl, sliced the head from his shoulders. The armor fell to the floor, empty, as ash fluttered around her. She spat. There was the sound of crumbling and she turned to see Zazael, so stained with undead slime that his glow barely peeked through, surrounded by a mountain of body parts bigger than the one she created but it was the collapsing of all the scintillating dead she had heard. With Ghaemo's death, they returned to death.

"How many angels have you killed?" Zazael asked as the ichor slowly slid from his armor to the floor leaving it as polished and bright as ever. Xandria was slightly jealous of how easily his apparel came clean. She doubted the green stains would ever come out of her blouse.

"Why did you need me to stop Ghaemo if he was corrupted?"

"He was a higher rank than I. I could not attack him. How many?"

"Six," she answered, almost feeling embarrassed to mention this number to Zazael, but her vengeance was stronger. "Who were the angels there the day my daughter was murdered?" She demanded.

"Ghaemo, Caleran, Rysolo and Dehesel."

"Have I killed them?" She had just killed Ghaemo, and Caleran forty years ago, but there had been other angels.

"Rysolo and Dehesel still live." Xandria was rather surprised at his forthcoming. She hadn't expected him to sell out his brothers, but he had been the one angel who had refused to participate in the murder of Ralael and Sherin.

"Tell me who is my betrayer," Xandria ordered. There was a silence and Zazael spied the tightening of the grip on the sword she held.

"I cannot."

"You lied to me?" Xandria's heart had warmed to Zazael, he had been the one angel who seemed repentant for what Heaven had done to her and he had not even been there. He'd been in the darkness and nothing of Oblivion because he refused to kill her daughter. Xandria's heart iced over once again. She held the blade of the angel sword to Zazael's throat as she'd held it to his brother Caleran. Zazael did not move.

"You will not believe me," he said quietly. "I promised you revenge, and you shall have it, but it is not as simple as giving you a name." The sword at his throat did not waver. "I will take you to your betrayer but we must travel east."

"There is nothing east of here except the desert," she lowered the sword. "If you are leading me astray, Zazael, I will kill you."

"I will not deceive you," he turned away from her to leave the chapel. Zazael walked over the bodies of the dead and shoved over a candelabra, setting the monastery aflame. Xandria had not followed him, but he knew she would leave the monastery before it was entirely engulfed. He suddenly felt weak like he had before in the inn. His hand burned like fire and he removed the gauntlet to look at his own flesh. The armor had healed where Ghaemo's evil sword had cut into it, but the flesh below had not. The cut was not bleeding but what worried him was the tiny red cracks that were spider webbing out from the cut. Ghaemo's corruption was within him now. Zazael wasn't sure how much time he had to complete his task before he became like Ghaemo.