Page 34 of Devoured

I saw him.

The creature from my nightmares stood by the altar. His bare torso looked more damaged here—scarred with deeper wounds. The blade in his hand was pitted with rust—or maybe old blood. Those red eyes swept across the room and passed over me. They paused. Just for a heartbeat.

He saw me. I knew he did. But he gave no sign. Just continued his slow scan of the room like I wasn’t there.

“The third offering this month,”someone whispered in Old English, but I understood. “The Judge sends his Executioner to take. He grows hungrier.”

The Executioner. So that’s what they called him. The name fit perfectly. He was death made flesh. Judgment given form.

Suddenly, the crowd parted.

A young woman was dragged forward, fighting and screaming. Maybe sixteen. She had tangled dark hair and her white shift was already torn and bloody. They had to force her onto the altar—five people holding her down while she thrashed.

“Please!”she screamed. “I don’t want to die! Please!”

A figure stepped forward—tall, wearing robes darker than the others.

When she pushed back her hood, I saw a face that looked carved from ice. Utterly beautiful.

“The Judge requires feeding,”she said simply. “Or he will take us all.”

That’s when I saw him.

A young man near the altar, watching with familiar hunger. Varnar. But centuries younger, dressed in rough wool. His face was eager and terrible. He moved closer to the tall woman, and I saw it then—same sharp cheekbones, same thin mouth.

Family.

“Mother,”he said. “Let me do it this time.”

The woman—Varnar’s mother—turned to him with something like pride. “Not yet, my son. Watch. Learn. Your time will come.”

She raised her arms, her black eyes reflecting torchlight. “By blood and binding, we offer this guilty flesh. Let her sins be meat and her remorse be wine. Let the blade divide body from spirit. Let this guilty one pass through death to feed our Lord, our King.”

The Executioner lifted his massive blade. That terrible thing looked too heavy for anyone to wield. The girl’s screams got higher, more desperate. He raised it over his head with both hands, the metal scraping against the stone ceiling.

Then he brought it down in one brutal motion—splitting her from head to pelvis.

The blade went through her like she was made of paper, cleaving everything in its path. But the blood didn’t spray outward. Instead, it flowed up from both halves of her body, defying gravity, forming symbols in the air.

The symbols grew more complex. Swirling. Building.

Then the Executioner slammed his blade down into the altar. The stone cracked.

The blood symbols exploded outward.

And then everything went wrong.

From the spreading gore rose something horrifying—

The Judge. Massive and terrible. Fifteen feet of chains and exposed flesh. A skull too long. A jaw that hung open with endless rows of teeth. Rotted bat wings spread from his back like torn leather, dragging wet sounds when he moved. The left wing had holes eaten through it. Where eyes should be, there were only pits weeping black tar. Bone horns erupted straight from his skull.

He was angry.

“This is not enough!” He roared.

His voice shattered stone. Several cultists fell to their knees, blood running from their ears.

“You call this guilt? she stole bread to feed her sister!”