Chapter 1 – Fugitive.
A fugitive.
A man rushed across the icy white snow.
Three men ran after him.
An arrow left the demonstration, piercing the leg of the man running ahead. The body rolls over. Rolling heavily, the man quickly scrambled back to his feet, but his speed had already slowed considerably.
The slowed fugitive was soon caught up by his pursuer.
Roughly slapping the fugitive on the back, Ragil, the senior ranger of the Kingdom of Algor, recognized that the end of the long pursuit of the past few days had finally arrived.
The fugitive had sprinted through the snowy northern forests for three days, with little sleep, at a speed that rivaled the rangers of the Northern Kingdoms. He was a natural ranger.
Ragil looked at the fallen fugitive and drew his longsword from his belt. A dull crackle of blackness rang out.
Unfortunately, the man was a fugitive who had stolen the holy relics of the Holy Fire Church and fled. The order from on high was to slit the man’s throat and retrieve the Holy Fire’s sacred relics, even if they were unimportant to the Holy Fire, the kingdom’s hierarchy always wanted to look good to the Holy Fire.
In the cold north, the warmth of a fire is more important than anything else.
Spatulas.
Red blood splattered across the pure white snow. The fugitive’s neck rolled across the floor in a clean strike that even a dwarf would admire. Ragil brushed the blood off his sword lightly, then ordered with a jerk of his chin.
“Search.”
Clinging to the fugitive’s body, the Rangers searched the man’s arms with familiar hands. What came out of the man’s arms was short-lived.
A woman’s withered hand and a blue goblet. And some money.
Taking the goblet and the money, Ragil turned away.
“I’ve finished retrieving the holy object, so I’ll return.”
“Yes.”
“Aye.”
Leaving the fugitive’s body behind, the rangers retraced their steps through the snow.
***]
As the rangers returned, the day began to slowly grow dark.
The hand that rested on the decapitated fugitive’s body began to twitch.
A pair of skinny, twisted female hands climbed up the fugitive’s body and reached for his collar.
She grabbed the fugitive by the scruff of his neck and began to shake him.
“Do not be disgusted. Mother of Corruption.”
The headless body slowly rose from the snow, pulling its withered hands away from its throat and stuffing them into a pocket in its chest.
“I needed to die once here.”
The headless body picked up the head that was talking to itself and held it to the cutting surface. A moment later, the decapitated fugitive, no.
Marnak, the priest of corruption, smirked.
“If it was already a holy thing, you would have retrieved it, so there’s no reason for it to be carrying around a useless tail.”