CHAPTER 889: A HUMBLE SERVANT (PART TWO)

"Acolyte Holm," Sir Carwyn said as he gave the white robed man an appraising look. This was a moment that he’d been dreading ever since he made up his mind to accept Lady Ashlynn’s offer to bring his village under Dame Sybyll’s banner, and by extension, under the rule of the Vale of Mists.

"I meant to speak with you before we began," he began apologetically. Looking at the acolyte’s face, he realized that it had been a mistake to focus all of his attention on clearing out Millside for their Eldritch guests without making the time to speak to Holm privately before this gathering. He’d intended to, but by the time the Eldritch were finally settled, most of the villagers had already gathered, and he’d thought that it was too late to track down the Church’s representative for even a brief conversation.

"I’m sure you’ll have many thoughts about the news I intend to share today," Sir Carwyn said diplomatically. "But please, hold back your words until the gathering has ended."

"Sir Carwyn," the acolyte said stiffly, refusing to offer even the smallest of bows to such a clearly corrupted knight who had forsaken his vows and virtues. "Now is a time when the people will have many questions. They should be able to receive answers from the Church that will support their faith and ensure that they are able to meet their struggle in a moment as challenging as this."

"No," Carwyn said flatly. "This isn’t a gathering of your faithful, it’s a gathering of my villagers," the young knight said, drawing a sharp line between the Church’s authority and his own. "If you want to console the faithful after this, I will not stop you from speaking from your temple, but even then, you must speak with me first."

"I speak for the Holy Lord of Light and His Church, Sir Carwyn," Holm said, drawing himself up to his full height and attempting to project the majesty of his office the way the priests of Lothian City seemed to do so easily. "The Holy Lord of Light’s words will not change because you wish them to," he said, speaking loudly enough that the villagers around him went quiet in order to hear what he had to say.

"Every man is called by the Light to struggle toward the Heavenly Shores, Sir Carwyn," the acolyte said, gaining momentum as if he were speaking from the pulpit of his temple. "But the people need a guiding light to reach their destination, or they may struggle in vain, led astray by the temptations of relief from struggle, peace, and compromise with heretics and the unholy!"

Holm’s words washed over the crowd like a bucket of cold water, shocking everyone with a chill that went straight to their hearts and stilled their tongues. Some even knelt on the spot, clasping their hands in prayer as they waited to hear the words of the Holy Lord of Light in this moment of profound crisis.

The villagers closest to Acolyte Holm watched spittle fly from his lips as his voice rose, his normally pale complexion now turning red with righteous fury. His hands shook as he gestured, and sweat beaded on his forehead that had nothing to do with the heat of so many bodies packed into the hall or the flames crackling in the hearth.

The people closest to the acolyte could see the tremor in his jaw and the way his fingers curled into claws when he pointed accusingly at Sir Carwyn before he rounded on the crowd. They stepped backward several paces, not from any kind of reverence or respect for the Church he represented, but from the unsettling intensity radiating from the normally reserved acolyte, leaving him isolated in a growing circle of empty space.

"We stand at the precipice of the abyss!" Holm said, half speaking to the crowd and half spitting his words at Sir Carwyn. "Demons have come into our very halls! They have expelled our good and godly neighbors from their homes, and they have corrupted the hearts of the knights who swore to protect our village from darkness and evil."

"People of Raek," Holm pleaded, striding forward and turning his full attention to the crowd of his fellow villagers. "Do not be deceived! This ’Demon Knight’ is no knight of virtue! It dresses up like a knight, like a charlatan seeking to separate you from your hard-earned coin, only this demon is trying to separate you from your rightful place on the Heavenly Shores where your loved ones wait for you to join them!"

The mention of the Heavenly Shores struck people differently throughout the hall. An old widower near the back clutched at the delicate necklace around his neck, holding tight to the reminder of his late wife and the promise that they would be reunited one day soon, now that their sons were grown and could look after themselves.

But beside him, a younger farmer frowned and crossed his arms as the useless acolyte blustered before the crowd. He’d lost an infant son and a young daughter to fever despite constant prayer, and his faith died along with his children when Acolyte Holm told him that it was part of his ’struggle’ to persist in working his farm and making his tithes despite the grief that gnawed at his heart.

Some people in the crowd nodded along with Holm’s words, but others exchanged meaningful glances, remembering how the ’demons’ had let the farmers go unscathed as an act of mercy during their raid on the caravan. The demons hadn’t even killed their lord at the end of the battle, instead, they brought him home safely, while the Church had offered only empty platitudes that they must learn from Carwyn’s example and struggle against adversity during the dark weeks of his absence.

"Remember the fate that waits for those who embrace heresy and consort with demons," Holm said, turning back to face Sir Carwyn and pointing an accusing finger at him. "The Inquisition will come for those who spread venomous lies, and they will be consumed by the Holy Lord of Light’s purifying flames. In the next life, they will be born to destitution and poxes with bodies twisted by deformity and no hope of reaching the heavenly shores at the end of a hundred lives of bitter struggle," he shouted.

"I am only a humble servant of the Holy Lord of Light," Holm said, trembling as his chest rose and fell with deep breaths to recover from delivering his fiery condemnation. But even as his chest heaved to draw breath, his heart soared, pounding with righteous fury and rising on the winds of whispered prayers from the most faithful in the crowd.

He could feel the people rallying to his words as he took control of the moment, doing what he had been called to do from his youngest years. Finally, he thought. Finally, he would stand above everyone else in the village, guiding them to the Heavenly Shores by throwing off the rule of corrupted knights who betrayed them by consorting with demons.

Even a minor acolyte like Holm knew that a Holy War was coming, and when it arrived, he would stand out proudly as one who had resisted the demons, earning the recognition and rewards that had been denied him for so many years, and it all started now, with this moment of righteous defiance.

"Are you done?" Sir Carwyn said in a tone that should never come from a young knight toward any member of the church, much less one who was twenty years his senior. But when Carwyn spoke, he spoke as if he were a disappointed parent rebuking a child.

He’d only been gone for a few weeks, but in that time, the young knight had seen his simplistic view of the world and the conflicts that defined it shattered again and again. He’d been healed by a witch and found that the vampire whom everyone feared as the Crimson Knight was the survivor of betrayal and ambition.

The people the Church told him were evil had shown him what it really meant to struggle against injustice and murderous ambition. He’d seen good men like Sir Ollie building communities out of the ruins left behind by Owain Lothian and Liam Dunn’s raids, and he’d seen a glimpse the vision Lady Ashlynn had for a world where they didn’t have to war on each other, served up on a plate of his wife’s pickled radishes and Master Georg’s artful, Eldritch cooking.

Compared to what he’d seen and learned these past few weeks, Acolyte Holm seemed... small. And petty, preying on the fears of the villagers who hadn’t yet learned the truths about the world that he had, so he treated Holm like the small figure he was.

"If you’re done, then leave this hall and in the morning, leave my village," Carwyn commanded, shocking everyone in the hall and stilling the tongues of the villagers who had knelt to pray as if they were afraid that Carwyn would order them to leave as well.

"I’m done seeing my people misled by ’charlatans’," Carwyn said darkly, throwing the acolyte’s own words back at him. "So leave, and never show your face in this village again!"