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It's been ages - partially because I have, for once, been genuinely busy with stuff - but I've finally got some more done. As usual, I'm not trying to push any agenda here, promise; and also as usual, reviews are a blessing.

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The dull shadows of twilight continue to swallow up the far corners of the still, lifeless dormitory; and all at once, I realise how the simple sounds of shuffling feet, whispered prayer and murmured conversation - all now long gone - once made the place feel so alive.

I lean silently over Brother Michael, who lies motionless upon his bed. The candle at his bedside - the sole source of light in the room - throws a dim, shadowy orange glow across the young wolf's sunken face. The bloated black boils peer through the pale grey fur of his neck; and his breath comes in increasingly strained, ragged guttural gasps.

Sliding my paw beneath his head, I raise it up ever so gently and hold the cup to his lips. The water dribbles down his chin and soaks the fur of his muzzle, but his jaw hangs unresponsively slack.

Slow, steady, cautious footsteps ring through the silent stone corridor; but it is several long minutes before I find the energy to raise my eyes to the doorway.

Prior Friedrich leans motionlessly against the doorway, bent and slight, his dark, slack robes swaying languidly in the evening breeze. The elderly griffin directs a warm, weary smile into the room, his milky white eyes staring unblinkingly at the far wall.

Standing, I silently make my way toward the griffin; and gently taking him by the arm, I guide him across the room and lower him into the seat by Brother Michael's bedside.

Delicately extending his claw, the griffin slides it along the rim of the bed; and finding Brother Michael's sagging paw, he tenderly squeezes it.

Time passes unheeded, and steadily, the gloom of another starless night swallows up the room. All is silent but for the gasping breaths of Brother Michael, which begin to grow ever more strained.

Then, quite suddenly, his breath catches in his throat, his shoulders tensing, and he lets out a single, violent sputter from deep within his gullet. A burst of dark droplets sprays forth from his muzzle; his desperate, ragged breaths at once fall silent, and his head sinks heavily back into the pillow.

Several moments pass. Brother Michael lies motionless, staring, his eyes glazed and unblinking, at the ceiling. Gently, Prior Friedrich folds the young wolf's paws across his chest; and I pull the blanket up over his limp and lifeless head. From beside me, I feel Prior Friedrich tenderly squeeze my arm.

_ _

The dim greyness of twilight has fallen over the priory's courtyard, and a cold, hastening breeze rustles sharply through the leaves. The flowerbed, long untended since the pestilence arrived, is tangled and wilted; and shrivelling fragments of wood and leaf choke the overgrown lawn.

I make my way over the grass toward the aged, sagging willow tree by the wall, where Prior Friedrich sits upon the low stone bench beside the trunk, claws folded upon his lap, his milky eyes turned upward.

Silently, I settle myself onto the bench beside him. Several minutes pass before, slowly, he turns toward me with a smile; and sliding his claw along the bench, he gently squeezes my paw.

A further few minutes pass before, finally, with a harsh and gravelly clearing of his throat, he murmurs 'Are you alright, son?'

Wrapping my paw about his gnarled and bony claws, I remain silent.

'Been keeping our lost brothers in your prayers?' he rasps through a warm smile.

Squeezing his claw, I say nothing. A bird lurches its way over our heads, its sharp chirrup ringing out in the still evening.

'You know, I never felt closer to the Lord than the day he took my eyes. I'd never have risen up from that wickedness if he hadn't cut me off from the temptations of the world...'

A flitting gust awakens a brief frenzy of sharp whipping amongst the branches of the willow. Raising his arm, Prior Friedrich ever so slowly extends it toward the willow, and tenderly runs a claw through a gently curving groove in the wood of the trunk.

'...I'd never have learnt to sense how the hand of God moved over every inch of his creation...'

Above our heads, the breeze steadily rises into a stiff wind that howls over the outer walls.

_ 'It breaks my heart, truly...how many will turn from the Lord in the face of this pestilence? How many will give in to childish frustration that his plans for the world he has granted us do not adhere to their wishes?'_

The wind swoops down over the lawn, and the desiccated leaves dance about our feet.

'When man speaks of God's plan, in truth, he speaks of his own.' Prior Friedrich's voice is thin and faint against the growing wind. 'Man praises the wisdom and design of the Almighty only when they cater to his petty designs. He cannot bring himself to consider that the Almighty design may simply sweep him up in a greater tide.'

He shuffles in his seat, his robe rustling about him. 'There was no sweeter moment in my life than when I lay dying in the gutters of Strasbourg. When I truly felt I could accept that as the fate the Lord had chosen for me - dying in the mud and becoming a feast for vermin really seemed like divine ordinance.'

The low, fluctuating whistle of the wind intensifies, and Prior Friedrich hunches his shoulders forward. 'For so long, I told myself my suffering was brought about by my sins. But I've realised...such thoughts are merely an extension of man's obscene pride. The very idea that the Lord would shape the course of his creation around our petty misdeeds - it's nothing more than blasphemy.'

Quite suddenly, he clenches his claws about my paw. I feel his rapid, unsteady pulse fluttering through its abrasive skin. 'If the Lord has decided that the world his wretched subjects inhabit has earned another cleansing flood, true men of God will rejoice in the fulfilment of his will as ever they should.'

I mutely fix my gaze upon Prior Friedrich, feeling my muzzle slowly clenching down upon my tongue. And as I impulsively wrenched my paw from his grasp, the squealing protest of rusty hinges pierces through the low, howling wind.

Prior Friedrich glances over in my general direction with his familiar warm, milky-eyed smile. 'Would you make sure the gates are closed, son? I'll be damned if I'm going to let the heathens believe that the Lord's unfavourable judgement gives them leave to violate his house.'

For almost another minute, I remain motionless, still fixing the prior with a silent stare as he continues to smile unseeingly at a waving tangle of willow several inches to my left.

Finally, I push myself to my feet; and as Prior Friedrich continues to smile warmly at the garden wall behind me, I unhurriedly make my way over the lawn and about the curve of the chapel wall.

But for the howl of the wind and the harsh rustle of the unkempt foliage and swarms of dead leaves, all is silent. The priory, of course, has always been a place of calm, but now it seems to resonate with frigid emptiness. The chapel that towers above me seems little more than a dark, hollow husk internally ravished and devoured by the pestilence; and in the ever dimming light, the courtyard seems to take on a flat shade of ash...

I make my way toward the heavy iron gates. One hangs slightly ajar; and stepping outside the priory walls, I gaze absently down the empty, rolling stretch of country lane, swallowed up by the growing darkness and flanked by the dim outlines of trees flailing spasmodically in the wind.

The countryside about the priory has always been quiet; but since the outbreak of the pestilence, it has become all but desolate. On occasion, some aimless wanderer, rotting with infection, will rattle at the gate and howl with delirious desperation; but other than that, the thin, but steady stream of pilgrims and news-carrying merchants that passed routinely through here year after year has long since stopped entirely.

Then the first of my brothers fell ill; and one by one, they passed on amidst fits of bloody vomiting. And the priory - the one place I have ever truly known as a home - has come to feel ever more like a great charnel house amidst a wasteland...

Down the lane, between the thrashing trees, something moves among the shadows. Something weaving steadily, coming ever so slowly closer. And somewhere above the moaning of the wind, I am almost sure I can discern a sporadic series of sharp cracking sounds...

The outline of a towering figure emerges from the dimness. It moves with a deliberate, almost hypnotically rhythmic swaying, silent but for that cracking sound, which seems to grow ever more rapid and discordant by the moment. And I stare in silence from before the open gateway as the wind violently tugs at my cowl.

Some yards away from me, the figure abruptly halts, and stands deathly still. Behind him, indistinct shapes shift among the shadows between the trees, and faint whispers mingle with the rustling of the leaves.

The figure is a towering stallion, naked but for a tangle of colourless, grime-smeared rags about his midsection, standing in motionless silence as he fixes me with a penetrating stare. His bare torso, thick with almost unnaturally bloated muscle, is coated with a layer of dishevelled chestnut fur; and his lengthy mane, plastered together with filth, flutters in strands about his brawny shoulders and neck.

And dangling from his right hand is a crudely fashioned whip. Several tails, all riddled with thick knots, flitter slightly in the wind, something dark and damp dribbling from their tips onto the dust...

The colossal stallion steps forward; and with even, deliberate strides, he slowly approaches me. And though the path is soft and earthy, his hoofsteps, somehow, seem to thunder in my ears.

Inches before me, he stops. I turn my eyes up toward his towering form, and, in mute wonderment, meet his piercing, icy gaze.

He extends his hand, and I feel a rigid thumb and forefinger clamp down upon my chin and lift my muzzle upward.

'How many then, boy?' His voice is like thunder, a deep, sonorous boom that rings out above the evening wind; yet his tone is steady, restrained, cool. I stare back at him, and can manage only a pathetic gurgle.

'How many?' he repeats. 'How many are dead, eh, brother?' He bites down upon the word with venomous contempt. 'Has it got to you yet, hm?' He releases his grip upon my chin; and I feel a sharp pain in my neck as he presses two fingers firmly about the edges of my throat.

'Have your walls and your gargoyles kept you safe, brother? Was it worth shutting yourself off from our creator?' The steadiness of his voice has begun to waver; he spits out his words with angry, impulsive force, and I feel a light spray of spittle upon my nose.

His thumb and forefinger tighten about my neck, and I impulsively gag.

'You're just another minion of those bastards at Avignon.' His voice has quite suddenly dropped to a damp, angry hiss; his upper lip is drawn back in barely restrained fury from his thick equine teeth. 'Foul heathens with their bloated coffins and their worthless politics...' I feel him beginning to clench his entire hand down upon my throat; I try feebly to gasp for breath. 'All your precious orders and ranks and interpretations and pretty stonework...your precious church has never known God. Not for generations.'

His fingers clamp down firmly upon my windpipe; my head begins to spin. 'Your church , all worldly power and hierarchies and...' He falls briefly silent, seemingly choking on his rage. 'What use have ranks before the all-levelling judgement of the Lord? Did you imagine he'd overlook your sins once you got your pretty title?'

My head is reeling, and dark spots flitter about out of the corners of my eyes. I try to draw breath, but through his tight grasp, I can only manage a dry retch.

'How long have you allowed yourself to forget the true Word among all your accursed politics, hm?' His voice is, by now, little more than a sharp whisper, hissed with fury through his teeth. 'How many souls have you and your brothers led away from the Lord?'

Quite suddenly, he releases his grasp upon my neck; and finding my body drained of strength, I allow myself to clumsily collapse, a sharp pain shooting up my spine as I hit the ground.

My head continues to whirl; somewhere above me, I can still discern the sharp hiss of the stallion above the now roaring evening wind.

'The only hierarchy I recognise is the supremacy of the Heavenly Father.' he says. 'I only wonder that he waited this long to deliver his righteous judgement upon a world that has forgotten and distorted his Word as thoroughly as ours.'

Forcing myself to my knees, I turn my eyes back up toward him. For a moment, he stares silently back, the wind whipping the filthy strands of his mane about his broad neck; then, steadily, he stretches his right hand over his shoulder and runs it down his back.

The cold wind buffets at my cowl. Somewhere above our heads, a tree branch groans wearily.

And then, ever so slowly, the stallion extends his right hand out toward me, his fingers dripping with fresh blood.

He runs his palm along the side of my muzzle, over my cheek and down my neck. I feel the warmth of the blood as it soaks through my fur as his hand comes to rest heavily upon my shoulder. A finger tugs slightly at the neck of my cowl.

'What have you ever known of true penitence?' the stallion murmurs hoarsely. Through the darkness, I indistinctly discern a scattering of dim figures shuffling out of the shadows behind him.

A second pair of hands tugs violently at my left sleeve; it rips at the shoulder and falls away.

A third pair of hands - claws, this time - clamps down firmly upon my shoulders from behind me. A claw slowly slides its way down my back, roughly splitting the fabric of my cowl.

From out of the dimness all about me, hands grasp at my cowl and wrench at it. It tears loudly and falls about me in slack tatters; and at once, the chill of the evening intensifies as the wind blusters wildly through the fur of my naked body.

A shrill crack rings out, and something strikes my left shoulder, leaving a hotly stinging sensation beneath the fur. Something else strikes at my ear; I wince as the tip splits slightly, smarting searingly as a trickle of warm blood runs down the inside.

I feel another strike at the nape of my neck; a fourth across the small of my back; a fifth across the crown of my head. The cracking of whips rings through the air in a piercing cacophony as blow after blow rains down upon me, and my entire body erupts in sharp, burning pain.

I do not flinch; I simply close my eyes, bite down sharply upon my tongue, and bow my head. And as the fiery stinging intensifies, I slowly lower myself onto all fours; then, overcome, I gracelessly drop to the ground, clumsily splayed, the relentless, blistering sting of the whips overwhelming the cold, clammy sensation of the dirt.

My swimming head whirls ever faster, the burning of the whips now and then wrenching me back to consciousness; but as my head sinks into the rough dirt, and a warm dampness seeps into my fur, I feel my awareness slipping steadily away.

_ _

The steady trill of a nightjar rings through the breezy night air, slowly pulling my foggy, swimming mind back into the waking world; and at once, I whimper and curl impulsively inward as every inch of my body once again erupts with hot, searing pain, and I feel a warm dampness seeping into my fur in great blotches.

I lie motionless, unable to summon the strength even to open my eyes. Time passes. Minutes or hours, I cannot hope to tell. Eventually, the iciness of the relentlessly howling wind helps to slightly numb the burning pain that racks my body; and ever so slowly, I uncurl my body and push myself onto my back, awakening a momentary storm of dull aches deep within my joints.

Beneath my bare midsection, I feel the grainy, irritating texture of the dirt path, slightly dampened by the evening chill and scattered with coarse pebbles. And yet, I suddenly realise, my head is propped up on something; something delicately warming, soft, yet rigidly unyielding, and angled slightly upward...

Somehow, I muster up the energy to ever so slightly shift my head, which, I now realise, is pillowed upon a pair of legs kneeling in the dirt - broad, thick, sinewy legs coated with a thin, but soft layer of fur. And, as my senses steadily reawaken, I feel a set of strong fingers pressing down upon the tip of my nose. And slowly, they begin to slide their way down my muzzle, between my eyes, and over the crown of my head. And their touch, though strong, is delicate, almost tender.

'There's nothing like it, is there? Nothing sweeter than the cleansing power of the Lord's forgiveness.' A whisper sounds in my ear, slow, husky, deliberate. 'The faithless masses offer up their empty prayers and their pathetic kneeling and scraping and mindless rituals, but our Heavenly Father delivers true absolution to so very few.' A broad finger gently strokes the rim of my left ear. 'But we've a long way to go, son. All of us. We fall back into iniquity every waking hour, wretched creatures that we are.' The finger runs down my ear, over my neck, and begins stroking the bristly fur of my chest. 'It's not too late to absolve yourself of your years of false servitude, brother. Give the rest of your life to the beautiful agony of true contrition, and in your final hours you will weep in the arms of the Lord.'

_ _

A sharp, shattering pain erupts in my shoulder and writhes down my spine. I stir slightly, finding my body lying limply prone upon the ground, the side of my muzzle pressed into the damp earth.

With a husky groan, I stir my left arm and sluggishly push myself onto my back, dull aches wracking every inch of my body; abruptly, I feel another burst of pain, this time just beneath my ribcage. Moaning in spite of myself, I rapidly blink my bleary eyes; and though the light seems dull and gloomy, I can just barely discern the hazy outline of a figure towering over me.

Once again, the figure slams the toe of its boot into my side, this time directly into my ribs. Arching my head back into the dirt, I meekly choke out another groan.

A set of stout fingers sink into my shoulder; and I feel a gust of hot, rancid breath blasting directly into my ear.

'You'd best lead this good lady to a confessional, Brother. She's dirty now. Dirty.' The voice is high, and frigid, and oddly smooth.

Dimly, I discern the sound of fading footsteps squelching the damp earth. I lie motionless for several long minutes as my head gradually ceases its reeling, and my eyes steadily adjust to the dim light.

Above me, the naked trees stretch their black, spindly fingers across the slate-grey evening sky. But for the shrill chirrup of a cricket somewhere above me, all is silent.

Ever so slowly, my knees shuddering, dull aches erupting from every corner of my body, I clamber to my feet. Dusk has fallen, and dimness has swallowed the grove of trees. I stumble blindly forward, legs quavering pathetically; abruptly, my foot catches on something, and I lurch gauchely forward, very nearly collapsing.

Arighting myself, I hesitate; for but a second, I could have sworn something stirred beneath me.

Stretching out my arm, I flail it blindly about; and for a moment, my fingertips brush against something. Something warm and damp and downy that recoils at my touch.

I stand motionless for a few moments, squinting at the ground before me; and ever so slowly, as my eyes pierce the growing dimness, I discern the gnarled and twisted form of a decrepit tree trunk - and, lying at its foot, a huddled mass spread over the mud. It feebly stirs, and a pair of dark eyes turn upward toward me.

I blink stiffly, once, twice; and through the gloom, I begin to steadily discern the figure of a young cat; her scrawny body is sprawled and naked, her fur so caked with mud that she seems to very nearly dissolve into the forest floor; and she fixes me with a dazed, hollow, unseeing stare.

Ever so slowly, I kneel on the damp ground beside her, and gently lay a paw on her back, feeling the ragged shuddering of her breath.

I wrap my arms about her sodden, shivering torso, and with a painful heave, I tug her upward and fold her gaunt arm about my shoulders; for several long minutes, her limp body hangs heavily and motionlessly off me; but finally, she seems to tremulously find her feet.

Slowly, stiffly, her weight tugging upon my aching left shoulder, I bear her out of the trees; and spying the narrow, muddy path through the gloom, we begin making our way down it. We walk for I know not how long, all silent but for the trill of the insects from amidst the damp grass and the quiet gurgling of the mud beneath our feet.

And so heavy-headed am I with dazed weariness, and so slow, heavy and hypnotically rhythmic are our footsteps, that I do not notice the thin stream of light across the pathway until I find myself walking over it.

Pausing, I glance to my left; and, as my eyes slowly and steadily adjust, a broad, looming shape emerges from the gloom.

A tall wooden cottage stands to our left, perched upon a flat stretch of clearing just off the path. Though drearily austere, and ragged and angular in shape, it does not bear the air of desolation and decay that the lizard girl's cottage did; for its stone threshold is swept clean, the ground before it cleared of the rocks and towering weeds that choke the stretches of field about us, and from one of the lower windows emanates the fluttering yellow glow of candlelight.

Tugging the cat's arm further about my shoulders, I turn us toward the cottage; and silently, we hobble toward it.

And reaching the threshold, I hesitate, my eyes fixed upon the dim outline of the door. My bleariness and confusion having finally cleared, I suddenly find myself feeling doubtful. Certainly, as an unassuming face among Brother Gregor's throng of devotees, there were few places where I was likely to be turned away; but now, I quite suddenly realise, in my pathetic state, and without Brother Gregor's domineering influence, I bear much less the appearance of a selfless seeker of absolution, and much more that of a decayed, pestilence-addled vagrant - company even the most charitable are, nowadays, loath to entertain.

Then, quite suddenly, the young cat sounds a long, low, quietly agonised yowl of pain in my ear; and stiffening my jaw, and clasping her limp form closer, I raise my paw and knock firmly.

And upon my touch, the unlatched door, with a cacophony of squealing hinges, swings open upon a black, silent interior. Once more, I hesitate, standing motionless in the doorway and staring into the dimness, waiting for some sign of life. None comes; and after several long minutes, I find myself staggering over the threshold.

At first, the gloom within seems impenetrably thick; but, squinting, I am eventually able to discern, several feet to my right, a thin, faint, flittering, almost invisible sliver of smoky yellow light - the light of the candle, most likely, seeping through the bottom of a closed door.

Slowly, cautiously, my paw held out blindly in front of me, I hobble toward it; and with the weight of the young cat still hanging off me, it is several minutes before, finally, my paw presses upon the face of another unlatched door, which likewise swings stiffly ajar, throwing the fluctuating candlelight over us.

Squinting, I discern a dim and narrow room, with thick and oddly angular shadows - perhaps from cluttered furnishings, though I cannot make out nearly enough to be sure. And near the centre of the room, up against the far wall, stands a cluttered desk, upon which sits a single, sputtering candle, the room's sole source of light.

And just before the desk, I make out the shadowy outline of something slim and lofty; something so motionless and silent that it is several seconds before I realise that it is, indeed, a tall figure, hunched intently over the desk's surface.

We stand silently in the doorway; beside me, I feel the young cat beginning to sway slightly beneath the weight of her growing weakness, but other than that, all is quite still.

And then, perhaps several minutes later, the gangling outline before us grows abruptly taller as the figure arights itself; and the silence is broken by the grating squeal of footsteps upon aged floorplanks as, ever so slowly, the figure wordlessly moves toward us.

The young cat's arm slips feebly away from about my shoulders; and as it does so, I quite suddenly feel the weight of my exhaustion and the blunt agony that wracks my aching body suddenly pressing down upon me; and as something pinches tightly down upon my forearms, I feel myself falling limply forward.