Sanguine

Pelor School, October

“AGAIN!”
“KI!”
The class moved in unison, fifty-two left feet sliding backwards, fifty-two right palms jutting forward, five hundred and twenty fingers curled back like cobras ready to strike, fifty-two voices shouting in unison. fifty two left legs curved in fifty-two crescents towards fifty-two invisible targets; one teacher walked among them, hands clasped behind his back, inspecting their form closely, here and there correcting them with a tap of his stick on an errant leg, an adjusting with his hands of a tilted head.

Megara Brown, not that she used that surname any longer, was a member of that fifty-two, struggling hard to lose her identity in the force of the workout. Pelor cared for those who helped themselves; the morning workout was required for all who came to the school to study the divine arts. Pelor Academy for Young Persons catered to those who had finished their secondary schooling – no simple farmers here, they were all rich folk who could afford to attend schooling for the entire 12 years and then some, rather than dropping out after 5th or 6th form to work their family’s land. None of them had grown up as Meg had; none of them had worked their bodies hard, and now it came back to haunt them. Scholars all, until they entered the academy; some would become priests and once more become soft, but for all freshmen and sophomores, the morning workout was mandatory.

Meg was not destined for a life in the clergy; of that she was certain, even as a second-year. She was here for one purpose and one purpose only – to learn how to fight. She had not attended school as the others had, and so was struggling to keep up with her academics, but she excelled in the fighting arts due to her difficult life, and if she scorned the scholars for their soft bodies, well, that was between her and Pelor. She would be a Protector – she would have to keep those people safe from supernatural beings who they could not fight themselves. As soon as she mastered this focusing thing, anyway.

“BROWN! Where’s your focus?!”

Meg snapped out of her reverie, cursing under her breath as she slipped back into step – the pace had increased and left her behind. She returned to the exercise, keeping up with her hand-to-hand class easily. This wasn’t, after all, what she wanted to learn – her mentor had taught her hand-to-hand combat. She needed to learn how to wield a sword. Very few supernatural beings would be stopped by a stunning blow to the chest – she had already discarded martial arts as a major. She would not be a monk; she needed to be deadly.

Toweling off, she spoke to nobody. Her first year she’d spent living with her mentor, Sir Vormir, but he’d had to move on to fight the good fight, leaving her here in the dorms. She had a private chamber, thanks to his bountiful donations to this and similar institutions; she mainly avoided associating with her students. She needed to be free of distractions now more than ever as she strove to become strong. If only she had been born a man! She needed to be able to wield a large sword, silver and enchanted against evil, able to behead a dragon in a few strokes; furthermore, she needed to seem capable enough to quell a panicking populace, as fear was the number one risk factor in her line of work. Sir Vormir had taken her, a simple country girl, and taught her proper protocol for speech as well as the proper ways to worship the gods, particularly his patron god Pelor. He and his companion, the Lady Angela, had felt the calling years before to become sacred warriors; well, rather, he had, and she had been called to take temple vows. They made a good pair – his natural righteous anger was tempered by her gentle pacifistic nature, and the two had vows to match, the one destroying demon-kind where it could be found, the other bringing peace and refusing to harm living creatures.

Crossing campus in the crisp fall air, she didn’t seem to see anything in the courtyard – she ignored the cries of greeting from other students, the leaves slowly turning colors, the smell of baked apples from the cafeteria. She was looking for something else – and that something else she saw. Here and there, using her altered senses, she spotted points of light – a lot more than in town, certainly, but still not on everyone, and more disturbingly, not on everyone leaving the campus through the main gates. The fools. How could they expect to be safe without Pelor’s protection? She touched her own glowing point comfortingly, letting her alternate sight fade back into the background as she examined the necklace for signs of wear. The sunburst was done in silver, Pelor’s kind eyes in the center looking out for danger. Most such sunbursts were gold, a color pleasing to Pelor, but hers was silver, the better to ward off those that should not exist. In a pinch, it could even be a weapon – she’d sharpened the points on the main rays to allow it to be used as a dagger. She preferred her own weapon, of course – a well-balanced knife with a sunburst carved into it – but she knew how easily one could be disarmed if one was slower and weaker than one’s enemy.

She herself rarely left the campus. Why should she? She was safe here, almost as safe as if her mentor had been present. She knew the location of every holy symbol, vial of holy water, silver item, even clove of garlic in the school – everything that could ward off her prey. There wasn’t a chance the school would be molested – she could study in peace.

She’d thought she’d had peace once before, in her girlhood. She’d been familiar with everything around her – the fields and their various crops, the ebb and flow of seasons, the smell of spring rains, the feel of a thunderstorm. She’d been a farmer’s daughter, adept with a scythe as the grim reaper himself – an only child, and thus put to work, not like the other girls in the village. Her arms had been strong, her hands calloused, and she went barefoot without fear. And then, in the span of a single night, it had all been taken from her – ripped from her breast almost literally.

For a long time she’d rather have died than be the sole survivor – the village girls already treated her like an outcast for her strength and determination, and when they visited her in her sickbed she heard that awful word being passed around on their lips – “witch”. These were dark times; with accusation like that being passed around, the survivor count could easily drop to zero. Worst, though, was the look in their eyes – not only the hatred, but the fear as well, blaming her as though she had been the one to slaughter her parents like a pair of corn-fed hogs. She knew when they looked at her that she’d do anything to escape that gaze; she’d do anything to become, to them, a hero, rather than a thing to be feared.

Sir Vormir had been the one to rescue her; without him, she’d not only have died but have risen again, a foul and bloodthirsty beast. What had saved her life was her father’s sacrifice and the overconfident arrogance of the beast; what had saved her soul was Sir Vormir’s diligence. She had begged him to take her on as an apprentice and, when he saw that she had no other family to take her in, he had reluctantly agreed. She did her best every day to ensure that he did not regret his decision.

As she put it to the back of her mind once more, firmly, she almost missed the discovery altogether. Perhaps it would have been better if she had. As she moved to enter her dorm room, she caught sight of it, almost as though her eyes were locked to the sight: two small keen puncture holes on the side of her next-door neighbor’s neck.