NOVEL NEXT B2 Chapter 23
Angar changed his mind. Something felt off. This town was different. It wouldn't play out like it had for the others. His gut was now telling him something rotten festered here.
As he continued scanning the crowd, Rusak ascended the makeshift pulpit as gracefully as he could in his exosuit, the joints hissing as he seized the Layman's calloused hand in a firm grip.
A calculated smile split his stern features, and his eyes glinted with fervent purpose. "Thank you, friend," he intoned, his booming voice both warm and laced with menace, carrying over the sound-amplifier to the thousands gathered before the temple and church.
"Most of you belong to the great and hallowed Order of the Sacred Heart and Still Mind, a God-fearing sect I hold in utmost esteem. It's not an easy path to walk. To uphold its unyielding tenets is a trial of denial and suffering. Most do not have the mettle even for the attempt."
He paused, letting his words sink into the crowd of orange robes rippling like a sea of flame. "And those with the mettle to join your cult still falter," he stated, his voice filled with compassion.
Then his voice rose, filled with condemnation. "Many stray from your sacred path, seduced by the unholy and the dark whispers of temptation! The rulers of this world, along with your sister world, Albion, have spat upon the blessed Mother, defying the Almighty Himself! They wallow in decadence, gorging on bribes while you break your backs in the mines and fields!"
His gauntleted fist slammed the pulpit with a loud crack echoing like pistol shot. "This wickedness will not stand! We shall not let it fester and drag us into damnation!"
With a theatrical flourish, Rusak turned, nodding sharply to the two clergywomen. Their blood-red exosuits and armor were locked still at attention, only their faces visible.
One, Sister Amnat, had the most scarred and deformed face Angar had ever seen, as if it was torn away by explosion. Metal cybernetics covered part of her disfigurement, still leaving much of it exposed.
"These are Exactors of Ierne's sole Ordo Sanctus Puritas, the glorious Sanguineous Sisterhood," he declared, his voice now calmer. "They stand with me in glory, as like my own Ordo on Albion, the Brothers of Righteous Slaughter, we have scoured our sects of corruption. We now travel together, purging our worlds of Heretical blasphemy and unholy sin."
Rusak's head bowed, his shoulders slumping as if weighed by sorrow, though his eyes burned with unyielding fervor.
"To see the truth, when your heart knows but your eyes recoil, is agony," he said, his voice softer now, trembling with grief. "I was Frater Puritatis, third in command, exalted in rank. I was comfortable, and I was blind, unwilling to face the rot festering around me. But the Holy Trinity called me to sacred service. I tore the plank from my own eye and beheld the profanity strangling our worlds."
He straightened, and his voice hardened to steel. "I denounced my sect's head as a vile Heretic. I denounced a man I loved as a father. Then I cast aside my lofty position and rank for the humble mantle of Presbyter, so I might carve out this corruption with my own hands!"
His fist clenched, and the suit's servos whined, then he thrust it toward the crowd. "Now, I stand to pluck the speck from your eyes!"
Rusak whirled toward the projector and nodded. One of the sisters activated it, casting images across the temple wall.
"Behold!" he roared with a voice a crackling with righteous fury. "Witness the purging of the impure! Albion's and Ierne's corrupt Viscounts, their Praefecti Magistratuum, their Praefecti Vigilum, the leaders of our Ordines Sanctus Puritas, and the Heretic administrator of our worlds' shared Luman Anchor, a lofty Praeceptor Fidei, all executed in the name of the Holy Trinity!
"No more will they bathe in the fruits of your labor, as you sacrifice, keeping true to your faith every single day, forced to finance the opulent life of those who long ago sold their souls to Hell!"
Rusak had lied. He lied every time he gave this sermon, and every time it caused heat to ignite in Angar's chest. It wasn't a big lie, but a lie was a lie, and there was no reason for it.
He'd stated his rank was Presbyter. When Hidetada conscripted the Hierarch into his service, he'd given him an excepted appointment with the higher rank of Praesul, a rank above the typical ship's chaplain.
Angar felt guilty about that, as it was his fault. Hidetada needed a Psychic to train his Knight, and the Saint never let little things like someone's desires and consent get in his way.
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As the scry-capture played, Angar continued scanning the crowd.
He hadn't witnessed the executions playing on the scry-capture himself. Hidetada kept him away, likely to preserve Angar's utility as future bait. The task of execution fell to Harc, as he was beloved by peasants, and it'd help cultivate that love.
Some of those killed were innocent of bribes or overt Heresy, but incompetence was Heresy enough.
The executions served a dual purpose.
Peasants liked nothing more than seeing the powerful and elite that crushed them under heel day in and out brought to justice.
It also sent a message that if the mighty were held accountable, the common Layfolk surely would too, and doubly so.
None of Ierne's towns so far had harbored true Heresy. Despite the cult's strange pacifist dogma, these were hardworking, God-fearing souls, probably too poor and tired to think about Heresy.
He was sure it'd go differently here, but the purging had played out the same in every other town, both on Albion and Ierne. Rusak whipped the townsfolk up to frothing fervor, and they'd start pointing fingers at every trivial act witnessed, declaring high Heresy.
Rusak would indulge, playing it up, then stage a cheap but dramatic public, mass exorcism for all the condemned, casting out evils that never existed, freeing souls never possessed, removing curses never cast.
The exorcees, cleansed of imagined spirits and sins, would emerge more revered, embraced by their condemners with newfound trust and love.
It was absurd, but it bound the community tighter, let them know the Holy Empire was watching, and to stay pure.
But the militant sects purging through towns was just checking a box so those in cities didn't feel targeted.
In the cities, the reality was darker, and martial law was imposed with a bloody and brutal hand.
Unlike in the towns, true Heresy was far too common, with grotesque acts, often involving children, so vile they defied comprehension.
Angar tended to act too swiftly and brutally when he was the one called to investigate. He'd slay the perpetrators without trial, seeing they paid immediately for their unholy horror.
He'd sometimes slay those who reported Heresy too, if it was vile enough, and they'd known about it and done nothing, just sitting silent for months or years, as he saw them as complicit.
Because killing those that reported it made it far less likely others would speak up and condemn Heresy, Hidetada had sent Angar out to help purge the towns, a task typically reserved for the martial sects of the Ordo Sanctus Puritas.
This also allowed him far more time training under the Hierarch too.
As Angar's gaze swept the crowd, a figure at the edge of the throng caught his attention.
A young woman stood alone, clad in the black garb of a widow with her face shrouded by a delicate black veil. She looked no older than her mid-twenties, with no child at her side.
Unlike the bald, orange-robed cultists of the Sacred Heart and Still Mind, she bore a lot of lustrous hair and dressed as a normal widow would, but the cultists around her bowed their heads in subtle reverence, showing her great respect.
Angar narrowed his eyes. Something was off. She radiated a warmth that felt both sacred and suspect.
In the imperial sense, she was breathtakingly beautiful. She had high cheekbones sculpted as if by Divine hands. Her large, almond-shaped eyes were a piercing green, and held a strange intensity.
Her flushed, full lips were curved in a serene, almost saintly frown of loss, slightly puckered. Her tanned skin was as flawless as a cathedral statue.
Her jet-black hair was woven around her head, done up properly but very fashionably, barely covered by a small, prim hat, its veil framing her great beauty like a halo.
Every man in the crowd that could see her stole glances, their eyes lingering so long it was more staring than glancing. But no wife nor old widow scowled at these men. Or the young widow.
Instead, women, both young and old, kept stealing glances at her too, but with warm smiles, their expressions free of envy or jealousy.
If Angar's ideas of beauty hadn't first been shaped by Vefol's harsh standards, he probably would've just enjoyed the sight and missed some oddities.
Her widow's garb was proper, but only barely.
The gossamer-thin veil enhanced her features rather than concealing them, as veils should.
Her tiny hat hardly covered her hair.
Her high-necked dress only feigned modesty, and clung tightly to her curvaceous form, accentuating every asset instead of covering them.
Its hem stopped precisely at the edge of decency, baring her full calves barely covered in too-thin hose, while her low-cut shoes revealed every curve of her slender ankles.
She stood demurely, with great posture and bearing, her hands clasped in front of her. But her posture was both thrusting her chest and posterior out, another chaste facade masking true intent.
Angar's mind churned, reasoning it through. In a small town like Rhiginia, a loose woman would be ostracized and shunned, not given all these smiles from the wives and crones.
He concluded chances were, as was true of most attractive young woman, she enjoyed the attention of men and enhanced herself to get more of it.
As they weren't angry and jealous, the townswomen must know her to be chaste and virtuous, planning on aiding her search for a new husband once her mourning period ended.
If there was Heresy involved, Angar couldn't name it. Maybe some excessive pride, but he was guilty of a different form of that supposed sin himself.
With a low grunt, he tore his gaze away, resuming his scan of the crowd, searching for true threats as the scry-capture played on, bathing the temple in images of blood and Holy vengeance.
"Maybe you shouldn't have dismissed your first instinct so quickly," stated Hideda through the comms. "I'd go for a walk and see what you find."
Angar nearly sighed. He had no idea the Saint had a drone here watching. Prior to responding, he focused his thoughts on determining how his master had deduced any of that.