Archangel's Sun (Guild Hunter #13)(54)

She checked. “Yes.”

“‘My lord Archangel,’” she began, after opening out the piece of white paper folded inside the envelope. “‘We don’t know if this missive will ever reach you, but we have hope. We are in a terrible state—we have lost so many of our young and strong and the monsters who roam the land destroyed our crops and killed our animals. We don’t have enough food, nor the manpower to grow more before we run out of supplies.

“‘After much thought and because we know not many angels fly this way, we’ve made the decision to trek to the next closest habitation in the hope we can find safe harbor. We carry with us information for you. However, we also leave it behind here, for there’s a strong chance we won’t make it. The tainted creatures with their craving for flesh appear more and more. We know that you, Archangel, are battling them and that takes priority.’”

Titus couldn’t hold back a snarl at the trust, innocent and pure, that these people had shown in the traitorous waste of archangelic space named Charisemnon. Rather his boot had ground the archangel’s face into dust than it had stepped on the envelope left behind in betrayed hope.

Sharine took a deep breath of her own before continuing. “‘We wish to tell you that, today, we had to fight an angel who was sick with the taint. At first, when we saw wings in the sky, we were so grateful we fell to the earth in joy. We thought to send a message asking for supplies enough to get us through the worst of it. But then the angel landed and we saw that he wasn’t right.

“‘We didn’t attack him. Please know that. We welcomed him as an honored guest, as we would do to any angel. Even though his teeth were sharpened at the edges, and his hands cold and wet, and a green rot was spreading under his skin. We believed that he was sick because of a wound taken in battle, that he would soon fight it off.’”

“For that knowledge alone,” Titus murmured, “Charisemnon would’ve executed them one and all.” No mortal could ever see angelkind as vulnerable. “Should the Cadre become aware of this, the only choice will be death, or the erasure of their memories.” The latter was a terrible thing, an intrusion and a violation, but Titus agreed with those who said it was better than wholesale slaughter.

Eyes shining with a wetness she didn’t permit to fall, Sharine carried on. “‘At first, the angel spoke to us and his voice was disturbing in its grating intensity. But that lasted only minutes. Then, snarling akin to a feral dog, he hauled one of the village women close and ripped off her head, bathing himself in her blood before tearing open her chest cavity to feed on the organs within.’”

Fingers trembling on the paper, Sharine lowered it for a moment. “I have heard of this type of behavior.”

“Vampires who’ve given in to bloodlust act so; hunters often find them with their faces coated with blood, their minds drunk and bodies slack from the indulgence.” He moved close enough so that his wing overlapped hers. She didn’t step away or rebuke him for the intimacy. “I can read the rest of the letter.”

“No. I’ll finish it.” Another long breath. “I do this for the scared, brave people who thought to leave this behind, to warn others.” Exhaling, she read on. “‘The angel acted drunk afterward, his actions uncoordinated, so we took the opportunity to defend ourselves.

“‘Many of our strong were already dead by then, so we couldn’t fight him with honor. We threw fuel on him and set him afire. We hope you will have mercy on us, my lord Archangel. We didn’t wish to cause him pain or kill him without mercy, but we didn’t have any other way to stop him.

“‘Once he fell to the ground, we used a kitchen cleaver to remove his skull from his spine; we believe that perhaps angels can recover from this, so we have left his head beside his body. That body, we placed with the others, both friend and foe, that lay decomposing around us. Then we lit a fire using what little fuel we had.’”

At least that explained why the fire hadn’t burned its way through the village; it hadn’t had enough fuel to begin with.

“‘Fire was the only way we could think of to purify the blood of the tainted ones and farewell our own,’” Sharine read. “‘We did a prayer for the lost, then began our preparations to leave.

“‘We hope that you’ll find us in the next village. It lies north-northwest in a straight line, a half day’s hike for a young man or woman. For us, it’ll take a day or more. We no longer have any working vehicles, and we have many wounded, children, and elderly. We thank you for fighting for us, and hope our letter helps you to save others from this horror. And if we don’t make it, please send word of our passing to the two towns below, where many of us have family and friends who’ll tell others that we are gone.’”

Sharine was crying now, her tears quiet and heartbreaking. “It’s signed with what I assume is the name of this settlement. Below that is a description of the angel: tall, with white skin in the few areas where it wasn’t green-black, black curls, and a marking on the left cheek that looked like a lightning bolt.”

Titus hissed out a breath. “Skarde, a courtier of Charisemnon’s—and a man rumored to be one of his best intelligence agents.” The scar hadn’t healed after a decade because it had originally been made by Charisemnon in a temper—the barest graze of archangelic fire.