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Hi everyone, another plot development chapter.

As requested, enjoy more awfulness ;)

Please let me know if the corruption and zealotry seems believable. I've read way too much George R.R. Martin to let my political intrigue be boring, so please help me out with critique if it falls flat.

Chapter XV - Kindling

Van stopped at an alley corner and leaned forward to listen as Tomasj grumbled and kicked filth off his boots, thumping them against a protruding cobble. In the street beyond, under the night lamps, groups of restive commoners were gathered, whispering in a fearful susurrus that blew up and down the street like an uneasy, nervous and fearful wind.

Among the hundred or so on the street, he noted the weapons among their number. He spotted cudgels, held casually by some and anxiously by others, the older merchant types clutching them as if they were magical charms. Others had knives, most openly displayed as was customary, others bearing far more blades than was considered acceptable.

The warden grimaced, and pulled his head back before he could be spotted. Behind him, Tomasj was vainly trying to scrape the muck off his boots. To Van's wry noticing, he didn't bother with the filth caked on his leather overcoat.

"These streets have the stink of revolt. Best we not be seen. You look foreign and I look like the law."

The wolf snorted and sneered at the shorter fur, his ears front and chin tilted forward in belligerence, his yellowed fangs bared in a smirk of threat and amusement tied up in a lovely bundle of vicious insanity.

"I am foreign, and you are the law. Why hide? If they come at us, we teach them why peasants do not attack their betters."

Van quirked a brow at him, and shook his head with a roll of eyes as he started looking for crates usable for his purpose.

"And what, draw a riot on us? We're good fighters, I'll grant you that. But we can't hold back a raging river with stubbornness and a pair of swords."

The nimble fox quickly found a pair of crates to suit his purpose and had them stacked, clambering up and offering a paw down to the wolf. To his surprise, Tomasj voiced no complaint, grabbing the paw and pulling himself up to boost Van up to the thatched roof overhead, taking his paw and pulling himself up to look out over the street.

The rain had, for now, blessedly stopped, and the wolf peered out into the firelit-glow of the great city, smirking and restraining an urge to whistle in appreciation. Truly, Amarthane sprawled massively across the great river, mostly contained by an impressive ring wall that writhed around the countryside like a great stone serpent trying to hold in an over-leavened loaf of baking bread. Scattered about it like stars in the night sky, he saw torchlights, bonfires, places where the common folk and royal soldiery were gathered, tense and waiting, the whole city holding its breath as revolt and repression loomed, unstoppable forces and immovable objects all arrayed to fall upon one another.

In the midst of the river and perched atop its major settled island, the spires of Castle Amarthane jabbed up like great serrated teeth from the roiling mass of the city-gum. A dozen and more grand ten-story defensive towers surrounded the new royal seat, bedecked in Casso's colors and limned in the hundred firelights of its wary guardians. At it's base, the castle occupied most of the great stone boulder, the river parting around it like servants making way for the royal personage.

"Heh. We go there, yes?" Tomasj pointed, and saw the shadowy fox nod, while hunting for routes with those sharp vulpine eyes.

"Peasant idiots. They think they can take that with numbers and torches? It is in a river! They cannot burn it out, and it has more food than they do, I will wager."

The wolf snickered and followed, as Van hopped lithely to the next building, and began the quick careful work of using Amarthane's legendary Thieves' Highway. Tomasj, no stranger to craggy mountains and uncertain footing, kept up, much to his own amusement.

"What will revolt solve?"

The fox sighed and shook his head, slowly speeding to a loping, leaping run, paced by the wolf whose longs should have long since given out this evening. Van consciously prevented himself from clutching the bag of mystic medicines his wife had given.

"I've no idea, wolf. I'm forest folk. Cities hardly make sense to me in the first place, nevermind the furs living in them."

Not a block later, they scrambled up a stone wall onto the long, tile-roofed buildings that lined the greatest main thoroughfares. No poor peasant homes, the footing was far more certain here, and more well-built for keeping the riff-raff at least out, if not off. Van stretched his arms over his head, groaning as his spine crackled with the joy of finally being able to straighten up.

"When we reach Casso's court, we've got to warn him of the treat. I'll introduce us, as I'm one of his sworn furs. Then you can tell him the nature of the threat. Sound a plan?"

Tomasj snorted and walked right past Van, stepping down onto the next building. They leaned together here, sharing walls for the sake of economy, making the work of roof-leaping thieves and ne'er do well's all the easier.

"I think if he wanted to believe in this threat, he would already. I think we walk into a trap. But Timid says go, so we go. Gods don't lie."

"Timid's no god, wolf." Van didn't sound in the least bit offended, though some might take umbrage at the wolf's blasphemous wording.

"Pah. Stupid lowlander language. I mean HIS god does not lie to him, and he speaks for gods. Yes?"

"If you say so. I only hope his clergy is...Willing to help."

Days had passed since the chirurgeon-priest had gone mad and attacked the many wounded soldiers convalescing within the Cathedral of Many, yet Acolyte Quiet felt jittery at the thought of entering what had been the infirmary chapel. The slaughter in there had been horrible, two dozen slain by the priest's maddened strength before the temple guards had driven him off.

The young acolyte kept having itches on the back of his neck, and looking up with his rabbits' fur prickled and limbs shivering with cold nerves and fear, only to find the much-reduced ward of wounded patients quiet as the grave but for the moans of the sick and still-dying.

That any had lingered on, surviving the great battle they'd come to call the Battle of Cel's Charge, surviving the crazed cleric, surviving their wounds and yet still dying made him shake his head and swallow the fear, knowing it would be cowardice to fail in his simple duty of comforting the sick. It would be a disservice to their sacrifice.

He leaned over one, smelling the sickly-sour smell of sweat and dying flesh, brushing a wet towel over the silent soldier's forehead. The creature didn't stir, and as water pooled in its ears, Quiet put the folded rag aside and sighed, shaking the fur's shoulder as was required of him. When it gave no response, he put his ear to the male's chest, and felt tears building in his eyes when he found it had no more breath to give.

Standing, the silence-sworn Acolyte waved to another of the brothers, pointing downward and making a circular symbol with his thumb and forefinger. The other put his paws together and bowed, accepting the signal of another dead patient and trotting off to find the pall-bearers, likely asleep at this hour, leaving Quiet alone with the forty or so who'd not healed or died so far.

The silence was, even to the silence-sworn monk, deafening, and he felt his fur crawl again as if something were standing just behind him, staring malevolently into the back of his head. He hugged his arms tight around his middle, feeling the rough scratchiness of his habit through his down-soft rabbit's fur, his ears swiveling to and fro in nervousness.

A patient coughed, somewhere in the creeping dark of the cavernous chapel, startling Quiet from his fur-crawled reverie, and he'd begun to make his way through the shadowy light towards the sound when something made a strange, wet slithering sound behind him, and he turned, dreading the thought one of their disemboweled patients might be trying to move.

In the dark, he saw a shadowy form, bow-shouldered and slouched, and though he could see no eyes he somehow knew it was staring at him, it's body slumped towards him as if it were about to move. Yet it stood still, for a few moments, before it smiled, white teeth catching the dim and flickering torchlight. Its mouth stretched from ear to ear, and as Quiet stumbled backwards, tripping over a chamber pot, his widening eyes saw that its teeth were long, sharp, like a shark's. As he staggered and struggled to keep his balance, heart pounding and lungs gasping while he turned to run, he saw its eyes.

They were like black gemstones, shining the night-and-scarlet color of rot-filled blood.

Quiet spun, and threw every bit of his hard-worked body into fleeing, all thought of his patients gone as his mind vanished into a dark, hidden place, his paws pumping, launching him sprinting in suddenly shrieking panic towards the doors to the main chapel. Behind them, something in him knew, the temple guards would be on watch, with their halberds and axes, salvation in a paladin's spit-shined black armor.

The monk leaped over what he thought was a groaning patient, only to catch his footpaw and crash down, shrieking out in terror as he rolled and turned, and saw the fox staring at him with blank, hungry eyes, its teeth grown overlong and shark-fanged. His vow of pacificism forgotten, he lashed out with a sandaled foot, catching the thing in the face, only to find it was laughing a horrible warbling, gurgling gust of fetid breath while wrapping its second clawed paw around his leg, pulling him towards it.

He cast about for anything that could be used to pry the awful thing away from him, paws scrabbling at the stones, but they'd been polished smooth by six hundred years of worshippers' paws.

His throat, already sore with screams after five years of utter silence, clenched as he shouted, sending what would have been a thready roar for help into a screeching wail of terror. The thing on his leg let out a hiss, and rolled away, grabbing at its rotting ears as it scampered away into the darkness.

Quiet lay curled on his side, sobbing, tears running down his muzzle, his habit wet at the crotch and legs with the piss of fear. Around him, only silence greeted the noises he uttered, the first in many years.

Finally, after waiting, hoping perversely that the monsters would return and take his fear away, he turned over and crawled to the door, past the many unconscious, dying, or already dead furs, and pushed the doors open, looking up as a startled black-clad temple guard looked down at him.

"Dear gods, brother Quiet, what's happened?"

The temple paladin strode to him and knelt down, gold-hued wolfs' eyes seeing the terror, sensitive snout smelling the piss, and he looked into the rabbit's eyes, expecting as always the sign language used by silence-sworn brothers. He jerked in surprise when the monk spoke, shattering the sacred vow of his particular clergy amongst the many worshipped in the vast temple complex.

"M-monster! T-teeth! Sharks! K-keening! Help! Help me!"

The stalwart temple warrior was a zealot, as most such furs were, and it wrenched his gut and boiled it in acid to see a monk shame himself by breaking his vows. It mattered little to the wolf that the monk followed a faith other than his own. His duty was to keep the clergy safe, from within and without. He grabbed the monk by the habit and lifted him to his footpaws, despite the rabbit's buckling knees, and leaned in close, glaring through his open-faced helm.

"Brother! You shame yourself! Your vows!"

The creature shivered and blubbered, putting its paws together in a sign of obeisance and begging, as his salvation vanished into the pitiless golden eyes of the temple warrior.

"To the penitence cells with you!"

The wolf kicked the door to the chapel shut, as Quiet wrenched his head back to look, and saw for the briefest of moments that dark shape, and a second just like it at its side. Then a third. As the door sealed them away from his sight, he saw the light reflecting off their white-fanged serrated smiles.

"No! NO! Listen to me! Th-there's monsters in the chapel!"

As Tomasj and Van bounded across roofs on their way to the grand seat of the new-minted king, Cel and Timid limped and dragged their way through the pestilent, horse-apple'd streets towards the Old City. The knight, long since having used her last reserves to keep moving, was now only doing so by virtue of being half-carried by the struggling little cleric.

She looked down at him, and couldn't restrain the grimace that pulled at her much-abused face, tugging on cuts half-healed and setting them to ringing bells of itching stinging pain all up and down her throat and skull.

"Father, just...Go ahead, I will...Catch u-"

"Not another word, sir knight."

She blinked, startled by his sudden firmness, as the little priest grunted and sweated, heaving both of their weight up another stone stair.

"We're not five blocks from the Temple of Many, you can lie down and rest once we're there, understand? Not a second sooner. We've lives to save, so you can swallow the pain, got it?"

He wouldn't look her in the eye, and she knew it hurt him to be so harsh. However, it had the desired effect, her spine stiffening at the reproach, and her mental glare turning inward at herself for allowing even a moment of weakness, as opposed to upon the priest for putting her through this torment.

Cel swallowed a laugh at the irony of it. The little, soft-pawed priest had just yelled at a battle-hardened warrior to keep her discipline and quit whining.

"Yes, Father Tim. As you say, Father Tim."

He glanced up at her strained yet half-laughing tone, and stuck his tongue out at her.

"Don't mock me, girly, I've swatted naughty children's bums for less!"

She failed to restrain the laugh when he crossed his eyes at her, making the threat all the more ridiculous.

You're a clever cat, Tim. Laughter fights pain.

A growling voice cut through their brief shared reverie, and she shook her head sharply to dash away the strange curtain that seemed to be stubbornly settling over her world. Timid looked to the side as well, and took a cautious step away from the alley, as a hulking wolf emerged.

"Wot's this then? On yer way back from anovver session o'lies, father?"

The honorific rang false, falling from sneer-curled lips bisected by a vicious scar that made the fur look even more sinister than his placement and words alone. Behind him, she saw other shapes in the darkness, her vision fading in and out, preventing her from making heads or tails of them.

Before Timid could respond, the wolf took another pace towards them, raising a battered wooden truncheon as he grinned a gap-toothed smile.

"And wot's this? Onna Casso's boys? Out spreadin' lies together are we?"

From behind the wolf, a warbling cackle alerted her to the presence of a pair of hyenas, and her exhausted gut tightened, heart kicking up a notch as she put an exhausted paw to the pommel of her sword. The hyena-folk were dangerous, deadly, mad creatures from the desert plains to the west, and rarely were their kind seen so far east except as mercenaries or raiders.

Her left arm was still wrapped around Timid's shoulders, and as she tried to pull it away, he kept his grip. The little priest could feel her exhaustion somehow, she knew, and in that moment she realized she'd not be able to stand now without him. A low curse whispered through her teeth, as he smiled sunnily at the advancing toughs, and waved his paw in the seven-side star symbol of the Finder.

"Blessings of the Finder on you, friends. Of what lies do you speak?"

The wolf frowned, and for a moment narrowed his eyes, before taking one more stride and lunging at Timid.

Even exhausted as she was, Cel's paw flew to the side, drawing her blade over the shoulder, and had its tapered silvery tip pressed to the wolf's throat-apple hard enough that the ruffian's own momentum parted his skin against it before he could stop himself and stare at her with hate and fear-filled jaundiced eyes.

Her own stared back with the burning rage she had kept banked away, and the heat of it made him flinch and step back, holding up his un-laden paw in a sign of surrender.

"My 'pologies, sir knight! Heh heh..."

Timid opened his mouth to speak, and Cel clamped her paw down on him, forestalling his words with a hissed phrase.

"Run, father!"

Her words left lips as the two hyena warriors charged around their wolfen leader, cackling as they rushed her. In their paws, they carried paired short blades, curved wickedly for cutting flesh and burred in the way of barbarian swords that had never seen a proper grind wheel.

Before Timid could react, she pulled him backwards, tripping him over her good leg, which she planted and used as a pivot to bring her blade up and around, warding the two charging savages with a whistling circle of glimmering steel. One danced back, giggling and licking at it's left-paw blade, holding the other lewdly upward from its crotch. The other dove to the side, then rolled to its feet and leapt over a pair of crates she'd hoped to use for blocking a flank attempt.

With a grunt of annoyance, she slid her bad leg forward, jabbing towards the one who'd backed away, forcing him to hop back again. Behind her, Timid fumbled, and Cel wheeled backward, pivoting on her good leg again to swipe at the hyena, backing it off again as it grinned and waggled its tongue.

"Damnit Tim, when I say run, don't hesitate!"

"I tried, you tripped me!"

"Be faster next time!"

Finally on his feet, Timid brandished his iron crosier at the hyena, who couldn't help but fall back further, laughing maniacally at such an inexpert show of force. The wolf, meanwhile, had lowered his paws into a guarded brawling stance, toying with his truncheon as he moved up alongside the pacing hyena warrior.

"By yer voice, yer a woman...Woman wit' a sword! Haw!"

Cel's ears twisted, one forward, one pinned to help her hear the other hyena. Meanwhile, she broadened her stance, refusing to grimace as her knee shot lances of pain through her lower body, threatening to let the fatigue break through her battle-disciplined steadiness.

Something in the wolf's swagger, hips outthrust and eyes trailing over her made Cel's heated blood run cold as glaciers, her stark eyes like chips of ice as she glared into his face and dared him to speak and offend her again.

"And hurt by th'looks o' yer ugly face. Make ya a deal, priest. Ya give me th'woman, and we letcha go!"

Cel felt no shock. She felt no anger, just a vague annoyance, not the blazing irresistible hurricane-urge to strike the fool down. To her further surprise, it was Timid who lost his poise, flailing his arms in the air at the hyena as he shouted out in rising tones.

"What in the FUCK is wrong with you morons?! Is rape the only thing you think of?!"

Blinking, the hyena tilted its head, then widened its eyes and stumbled back a surprised pace as the little cleric strode towards him, swinging the heavy iron staff as if it were a marching baton.

"I swear to all the gods who are listening! The next fool who tries to step in my way or demand her virtue is going to get cast into the burning shadowy pit while choking on their own arse! After I break them in half to introduce them to it!"

The hyena laughed, but it now sounded a nervous thing, and Cel backed up slowly to keep pace with the raging cleric.

"I carry a holy relic of my god, and a sacred quest! The spirits themselves follow me, and I have the magic to prove it! Now get out of my way you damn fool rat-fucking, goat-licking, piss-gargling COWARD!"

The hyena yelped, and in its haste to escape, left its very swords clattering on the pavers. Cel's eyes, having not left the wolf and its other companion, saw a wide-eyed horror in the street tough's face. The wolf babbled something vaguely apologetic, then turned and ran, caroming off the alley wall in its haste to flee. The other hyena tilted its head, bared its teeth in a rictus of a smile, then turned to jog along after its master, calm as if nothing untoward had occurred.

Cel waited till they were gone, then turned, slow and painful, to laugh and congratulate the little cleric, only to find words choked off in her throat.

The cat was glowing, a fiery limn of energy whisping around his body as he stomped his way up the alley, muttering infuriated half-cusses, utterly unaware of the energy glowing forth from the Finder's Star.

She hurried, limping, to keep up, as they headed toward the temple steps, the aura of light slowly fading away as he calmed himself.

"By the gods, Cel. What happened to common decency?"

The snow leopard felt the pressure in her chest break, flooding her with relief, and she barked out an involuntary laugh as her limbs sagged, scraping the tip of her blade along the cobbles as she staggered into a wall. In the distance, hazily, she perceived the sounds of booted paws, and hoped they were those of the temple guards, not more of these ruffians, using the tense state of the city to get away with what they pleased.

Her words huffed out, heavy with lost breath.

"How can you call something common...when you and your friends are the only ones who follow it? Well...Sans the mad-wolf, but no group is...Perfect."

As the glow finally ebbed away entirely, Timid grinned and opened his mouth to retort, then blinked, furrowed his brows, and reached down to grab the Finder's Star, batting it away from his chest as he shouted.

"Ow shite!"

Then he was sucking on his paw, and she could smell singed fur, the priest bending at a funny angle to let the Star hang free of him, glowing and shimmering with heat.

"Damnit Finder, what did I do to deserve that?!"

Cel stepped forward towards him, extending her gauntleted paw, and took the Finder's Star in palm, feeling its heat even through the insulating layer of padding, though thankfully not hot enough to singe her.

"Are you all right, father Tim?"

"Yes, I think s-s-ow!"

The lady knight had reached over to touch his habit where it rested over his chest, patting at it to stop the rough cloth from smoldering, blackened as it was. Timid winced and pulled out the front of his robe, looking down at a scorched patch on his flesh.

"I must have...Ow...Connected the two energies somehow...Burnt myself..."

Booted footsteps were now approaching them at a run, and Cel frowned, realizing the lights might have been all too visible to the furs abroad in the restive night. She tried to push Timid into the alleyway again, only to see a trio of black-armored temple guardians rush around the corner, two with their polished halberds held forward in the ready position, and the other marching stoically behind them.

His burnished black plate armor was covered in engraved silver scrollwork, and covered him head to toe, making the shlinking metal on metal slide sound she knew meant someone of great wealth and power. No other could afford such grandeur and maintain it well enough to avoid shrieking as they walked from the dents and dings of battle or the rust and corrosion of their wet country. Even Callian's highest knights had worn mostly breastplate and chain.

Cel straightened, and released the Finder's Star, letting it thump back to Timid's chest, cooled enough that his wince was only from the touch to his burn rather than a worsening of it. She raised her paw, in such a way that she would have lifted her visor were she helmed, and the armored furs approaching slowed, the two halberdiers turning helmeted heads back to their commander in silent questioning.

"Thank the gods," Timid gushed, and slipped past her restraining arm, failing to notice Cel's wary grunt of worry as the oncoming commander stepped past his warriors without saluting her in return.

"Temple paladins, thank you for coming. We dealt with the bandits, but would welcome escort to the grand temple." He buttled towards them, bowing decorously as befitted a lowly provincial junior cleric addressing what Cel judged to be an important male in the hierarchy of faiths.

The plate-armored fur came to a crisp stop in front of Timid, and spoke words that echoed out of the tiny air holes of his all-covering helm.

"The flash of light here. Do you know what caused it, junior cleric?"

"Ah," Timid looked back at the alleyway, suddenly nervous, then back to the impassive paladin, licking his lips. "It is a long story, sir. I will be happy to explain matters to his Eminence, the Temple Cardinal. It is...Of critical importance I see him immediately."

The paladin politely waited for Timid to finish, before making a gesture to his warriors. Cel had her sword halfway up, exhausted beyond the ability to fight, when the first reached her and swung the butt of his halberd hard into her jaw. With a thud, it impacted, and sent her reeling to the ground, where she convulsed in pain, paw still gripped iron-hard around her blade's handle.

"What is the meaning of this? I-"

Timid was jerked up off the ground by a gauntleted paw on his robe, that twisted as it lifted him, holding the flailing cat aloft one-armed as the other came up and grabbed at the Star.

Timid impacted the stones with a grunt, falling to his rear as the knight hissed out in pain and fell back, gripping his wrist with the other gauntlet as he barked orders. The priest could see a seven-pointed star shape burnt into the palm, where the gauntlet had touched it, yet felt no further heat against his already scalded flesh.

"Arrest them both! Per the orders of his Eminence, all foreign clerics are to be arrested and locked up in the temple undercroft until they can be questioned! Resist and you will be slain, both of you!"

Timid thought to get up for a moment, until a razor-sharp halberd touched his shoulder, just hard enough to feel it. With wide, uncomprehending eyes, he looked up at the soldier, unable to see its face or identify its species through the all-covering armor.

"P-paladin, what is going on? Why are you arresting priests?"

"Spies, little father. My apologies," murmured the halberdier. He sounded sincere, and Timid grimaced, swallowing his retort. The soldiers merely followed orders. He knew it was the leadership to blame, something he'd have to bring up with the Cardinal.

"Paladins, please! The host of the dead follows us not a day behind! I will surrender to your trial if I must, but please! Act now while there's yet time!"

The halberdier stiffened slightly, though from what emotion Timid could not tell. The commander, however, seemed if anything infuriated.

"Clergy spreading sedition! You'll burn for this!"

Timid turned his head just in time to meet with a steel-shod armor boot that sent his head whipping back, blasting a streamer of lights across his eyes as his skull reverberated with the hit as he went sprawling across the rough cobbles. Somewhere distant, behind a rushing sea of sound, he heard Cel roar out in fury, and then a resounding crack that cut short her angry call.

As his vision faded, swimming into dizzying darkness, Timid saw the black-clad commander step over him and grab for the Star again, yank his gauntlet away with another burn imposed on the first, then begin yelling out words he could not understand.

Then darkness.