Riven Rite


What a reward to have received for an uncharacteristic act of heroism: ribs wrung out of the chest, a mangled throat, and a taste of dirt on the tongue.

The fiend responsible lay sprawled out a mere two yards from Kinneydrew’s mangled body. A wrothful cleave rent its winged back, blue skin opened to reveal a spine of pitch black discs flanked by steaming pink flesh. A curved midnight horn attached to a shard of skull lay beside its crushed watermelon of a head. The unsevered hand the man-killer left the demon gripped a reflective chrome bident whose shaft sported wrothful rune engravings from top to bottom. Its twin prongs were drunk on drying blood.

Kinneydrew was a killer of men. Fantastically and reliably so. But, of course, it only made sense that a demon's experience in the field eclipsed his own. He considered it a stroke of luck that he even managed a draw. No, he appraised himself as no veteran in the art of demon slaying; his blade was utilized for a much different purpose. At first, it was men and women on the wrong side of whoever offered his company the most coin; more recently, it’s been individuals who bask in the glory of their living god. Both of these types, he opined, host a number who pray in much the same way and with equal plea before the end.

He hadn’t second-looked the Adherents he rode from on an impulsive whim. To Kinneydrew, the bond was severed then and there. Tibeol, the old man, included in the abandoning. Headed to the coast, as they were.

The caravan had suffered casualties. Many had likely fled into the forest. Kinneydrew heard them—the remaining men and creatures alike—being tallied while he weaved through trees on horseback away from his cohort, Ganima already drawn. He came upon smut-covered faces twisted in fear and startled beasts of burden. Migrants carrying just the necessities. Souls ripe and easy for consumption. He understood why the demon beamed its uncannily white incisors the whole time.

Trees lining the road swayed wildly, waving goodbye to the fallen sod while he faded. Complex thoughts evaded Kinneydrew's last conscious moments; instead, his mind produced a smattering of elementary words and base concepts too inconsequential to voice.

But a roiling began in the core, just below the sternum. Anger and malice swirled, unfettered and raw. It bubbled up thoughtlessly.

And then, dark.

~ ~ ~

Chilled air teased his obliques and clung to his face. Short grass beneath tickled his nape. His breath maintained fluidly, like he’d just been napping all along. Kinneydrew’s eyes opened to see a nighttime sky so cloudless, he felt certain the full moon glaring above could be clinked with a well-thrown pebble. His head twisted right while on the ground: picture-book verdant hills rolled as far as the eye could see, mottled with waist-high rectangular gravestones. Head twisted left, and it was much the same. They seemed well kept, but were bare gray steles, nevertheless; no offerings, no flowers, no names. And the air was crisp—eerily stagnant. He soon realized his clothing consisted of shabby gray linens and heavy burgundy boots. He owned nothing of the sort. And Ganima wasn’t present.

Kinneydrew sat up from his green bed and pressed a hand to his chest, then to throat. Both whole, unscarred. He slowly rose to a stand. A vague unease settled over him and minor anger stung. Questions throbbed distantly, stirring his already muddled state of mind. Where was he? Who brought him here? Then, the weight of a recent memory pressed on his mind and squeezed his heart—he died.

Who clothes a man and leaves his unburied body in a graveyard? Better yet, who healed him so absolutely? And, as for Ganima, the Indigo Flame permitting their hallowed gutting-cleaver to his permanent ownership would be a surprise. No doubt they planned to eventually seek it out, regardless of outcome. He reckoned they looped back after a spell, either to coax him into rejoining, however pointlessly, or to reclaim their profane relic from his corpse. Yes, he died. The soundest conclusion, by far; otherwise, different theories beget more lines of questioning. He was in no mood to be bothered following them.

Irate, he padded through the grass past graves, downhill and uphill, across an endlessly rendering landscape. Gave him plenty of time to come to grips with the state of things. He might be doomed to trek this burial plain for eternity, no further pain or judgement. Spurred by a lack of stimulus, a question crept in, uninvited—Is the afterlife truly meant to be this peaceful and clean for men like himself? The man-killer stowed the inquiry behind his current visual reality, despite its monotony. That he’d stoop so low as to dredge up a question of that nature sickened him.

He idly kept track of time, which had transitioned to a constant measured solely by increasing levels of boredom, rather than an extent of fatigue, thirst, or hunger. His stomach yearned for sustenance and water before passing, and the battle wiped his stamina, yet now his needs felt sated. He reasoned this realm muted the capacity to suffer these ailments.

An hour and a half of undulating hills passed before he caught sight of an anomaly: atop the hill northeast, waiting as patiently as death, stood a door. Burdensome and black and alone; no headstones pocked the surrounding slopes. The oddity practically snuck up on him. Something standing out should be quickly noticed in a place like this. Curious, and constricted by sheer lack of options, he trudged forth.

While the butcher drew a path between graves, he mentally ran through a catalogue of materials he knew in life that rivaled its darkness, but none surpassed it. The gate of starless night loomed—twice his height, thrice his breadth—and radiated a challenging mien.

Kinneydrew circled it cautiously, attempting to gleam what lay beyond. Nothing. The door cast no shadow and no amount of squinting revealed a cleft running down its center. The wide monolith seemed to possess neither front nor back. A perfunctory full circle look-see conveyed that this would be the only landmark for miles, an area he wasn’t willing to further explore on the dull plains.

A hand idly traced the stubble along his jaw. He conjured an idea, then, and tugged his right boot off, its collar pinched between his thumb and index finger. Kinneydrew braced himself and hoisted the leatherware to the alien surface.

It was a damned attempt at cleverness, however. The black reacted by opening like a maw, consuming his sight before he could even react, entrapping him in a pitch black world. Then the floor vanished, sending him into a flailing, wide-eyed free fall. Looking down, he caught a mote of white light at the bottom, widening greatly every passing second. Kinneydrew shut his eyes. Air rushed past his ears. He curled in on himself, forearms up, teeth bared. Ready for whatever came.

He must have vastly underestimated his durability, or the drop’s threatening height was illusory. He landed face first on soft, frigid ground, eliciting a quiet crunch—not of any bones, however. Inches of snow. Chilling gales suddenly nipped at his cheeks, hands, and exposed foot. Kinneydrew grunted and rose to his feet in no rush, eyes acclimating to the brightness. Pain, albeit minimal, reverberated throughout his body. He scrutinized his whereabouts, aggravated.

Although overcast, the intact sun cast a plentiful brightness. A wide, snow-covered road. Decrepit multi-story tenements lined either side of the road, windows smashed and char marks present along the walls. Doors agape. While others stood despite damage, an unlucky few had their topmost floor cave in on itself. Splotches of soot had accumulated atop snow and painted gray streaks up and down the street. One or two streetlights lay fallen, collapsed from their base like uprooted trees. Clothing and shattered furniture alike were strewn about haphazardly. He turned.

Behind, situated just before what looked to be the city square, blackened spindles of wood that belonged to stalls of an open air market still standing. He noticed, then, that burned out shops flanked him. He peered in through the wide open door of one on the right. Its shelves were bereft of items, the display gouged. Its green and silver signage, now planted in snow, identified the store's wares: utensils, dishes, and other kitchenware.

Beyond the market, a modest fountain, bone dry. And at the farthest end, beyond the fountain, a prevailing church of The Sun and its constituents, the Triumvirate God symbolized in part by an ornate, compact solar oculus. A humble testament to Him, brickwork stacked a few dozen feet higher than surrounding buildings with burn marks dotting its facade.

Akin to a keyword uttered to a doorman which grants access to a den, the church enabled Kinneydrew to a graven moment. Everything became colored: the last wartime deed with his band, a particularly sordid affair. And this, its last stop. It had been ransacked, much like the rest of this disemboweled town—a scene born of darker, primeval wants, surrendered to broad day’s judgement. A recollection came, then, that the divine-fearing men in the company fussed about how sacred places ought to be kept off limits. But they should have known by then how things unfold.

He cared little for the secular ruins. The holy site bewitched him. The church—it was the place he first met Tibeol, where the butcher’s destiny diverted. Kinneydrew bent over, uprighted the boot that fell with him, and slipped his foot back in. He began his walk towards the doors.

Once nearer, he eyed slender notches near wrought iron handles. Another remembrance. Mahannon, one of the band’s captains, drove his battleaxe into the door, facing sorry luck in his forced entry. The struggle concerned the potential of fruits within the church. Mercenaries whose faces hid behind salets crowded him. He gave in before the door did and shouted ‘Slasher’. Kinneydrew came by. One square kick sent them flying open with a violent shattering of wood. The man-killer captured a glimpse of the interior: men and women, some prepared to fight, others not. The mercenaries that were more dog than man flooded inside and went to work. But he didn’t stay. He forgot why. All he knew was, when he eventually returned hours later and tossed a cursory glance through open doors, a bald man garbed in rags remained.

The replaying memory was interrupted. He froze mid-step. Faint, but identifiable—voices. A multitude oozing out from the door left ajar. What they were chanting, he couldn’t tell. It wasn’t in any tongue he was accustomed to. He approached warily, volume rising. At the door, he ran a finger down the splintering of the axe-made wound and steeled himself before slipping in.


Defiling Astron

A single step past the threshold and the murmur of voices met him. They were layered in threads that hung in the air and nestled in the ear, constant, yet not deafening, like a running creek. Their voices saturated the air.

The church was clean and kept, not as he remembered it last. Oak pews stood in aisles organized in even rows, the stonemasonry and wood worn smooth by years of kneeling and sitting. Stained glass windows ran along the walls, slants of unmoving, colored light cast onto the stone floor.

And how alive it was—a far cry from the lifeless quietude awaiting outside. The pews brimmed with people standing shoulder to shoulder, robed in an orange duller and earthier than the color seen in flowers or flame; the shade was more akin to rusted metal or mud clay.

At the far end, a silver-trimmed altar of stone rose like a punctuation mark at the end of the nave. A nature’s bounty blanketed its base: poppies, dandelions, wild roses, blooms wild and common both. Behind them stood a figure at a plain lectern in robes the color of tarnished gold, the hood pulled forward so far it seemed to swallow his head whole. He did not join the congregation in chant, but merely stood like cut stone, as though waiting for something or someone.

The man-killer no longer stood at the entrance. He was drawn forward, brows low. His secondary interest was in reaching the frontmost one seemingly leading the congregation, but his primary was in identifying the flock—at least one face. He moved up the nave, towards the acolyte farthest left of the row nearest to the doorway. Kinneydrew’s opportunity for investigation would not be granted, however. Left out of his periphery, the grand-hooded individual closed the distance as if it were immaterial and gripped the young man's shoulder, causing him to flinch and regard the spectre with a wild look. The massive hood nearly gifted Kinneydrew's head partial coverage.

Warm and shaded. Determined. Hardened past its initial invite. Wrinkles, white beard, deep set eyes, shaved eyebrows. A layer of indigo pigment on the bags of his eyes. The old man’s visage, as he had recalled it. Except for the uncharacteristically milk white cataracts, all else fit to memory.

“…Tibeol?”

"Come," he beckoned, a rigid arm directed to the front.

Nonplussed, the young man followed. Past the amber hoods and the pews. Past the windows offering view of the wintry day outside. The chants remained unchanging. None dared to lift their head. Tibeol guided him to the front in no rush, ascending the few steps available to take center stage. They stood there at the lectern together. Kinneydrew's gaze washed over them. He breathlessly eked out a question.

"What is this?"

The chanting stopped. The elder of the Adherency addressed the commune.

“We’ve gathered today for our champion. This throng is a devoted one, a loving one. The world is not as we once knew it to be, yet the work remains unchanged. Chains needing severing, grander things need to be subjected to execution. Every man and woman shall perform their parts equally, so long as He, our hero, walks amongst us.”
At this mark in the homily, the elder directed a finger skyward.

“The world's bleeding. Gasping for air. The gods are dead or starved. Or silent. The demons have come. They took the cities, broke the kingdom. Dragons circle above like buzzards.”

Tibeol lowered the hand and faced Kinneydrew. He grasped the shoulders of the borderline catatonic redhead, leaned in, and spoke at a paltry volume.

My boy. They respect you—they love you. You are not revered for your cruelty, but your certainty. In every soul snuffed out, every cut and scream. The blood. You’ve cultivated this following by your lonesome. You're a killer. A good one. No shame in it. But you're a man. A man has to make choices. Take up the blade and become it or take a look at the hand that holds it. See yourself in that. Or don't."

Something shifted. Tibeol released his grip and retreated. A single cultist stepped out from the chanting mass, head still bowed. They balanced with hands on each end something wrapped in indigo cloth, about as long as a short sword but with a blade many times broader. An unmistakable silhouette—Ganima. He uncovered the single layer of wrapping. The man-killer grasped at the weapon’s handle and lifted, its burdensome load once more in his possession.

The moment Kinneydrew became wed with the Indigo Flame’s cherished armament, heads rose and distinct faces were presented, one by one. Mercenaries. Conmen. Priests. Killers. Wretches. Various races and types of people, all whose lives he had snuffed out or left bleeding in the dirt. And their eyes were pale white. This was not the sum of them, but merely the ones that were glued into the annals of the butcher’s mind. He knew every name, and the encounter in which he sent them off. Even Mahannon’s spitting image attended, indigo cloth resting in his upturned palms.

"You and I know the truth—killing is not wrong,” Tibeol continued. “It is a cleansing force. It washes away the undesired and leaves bare what deserves to be built, what deserves to stay standing. This world does not need another mindless blade. Its got chains. As always, they must be broken."

Kinneydrew’s awareness broke through. He looked at the senior like he caught a whiff of a thing gone sour. His words exited, measured and graveled by repugnance.

"What the hell are you on about?"

A frown reflected in Tibeol’s gaze. “Ki—”

“Chains. You said the Gods placed them upon all of us. I’ve heard it all before. You know, you’re a lot more… put together than last time I saw you.” The grin that slithered onto his face held the pride of discovery and the weight of disappointment.

“You want me to decide, blade or reflection? Afraid I don’t follow. You’ll get nothing you want here. You’re a loon— you and the rest of those dumb bastards. An ‘indigo epoch of freedom’ after the gods were gone, huh? Tripped all over each other soon as that prophecy passed.”

“It is still yet to come.” The elder interjected, tone whole in certainty.

Kinneydrew scoffed. “I’m sure you’re right.”

Tibeol's head was rendered a bird by the speed it flew off his neck. His body crumpled. The great hood fluttered after the severed head, both trailing the same grim path. They landed somewhere on the pathway between the first row of pews. The very man who so devotedly surrendered Ganima to the Adherency's prized warrior felt the relic's tip puncture one side of his neck and jut out the other. The champion tore it away and Mahannon fell, wound leaking profusely.

Kinneydrew's lip had creased upward to fix his expression into an antagonistic grimace.

“Fucking ridiculous.”

He spoke to everyone—or everything—that might be listening.

"You're wanting me to feel something like, what, regret? Expect me to confess, hope for redemption? I knew what I was doing. You think using him would work?" Kinneydrew vaguely gestured to Tibeol's carcass.

The cultists stared blankly.

Kinneydrew ran a hand through his hair and released a disgruntled sigh. His weapon hand was slick and dark, and patches of dried blood marred the linens of his shirt. With the shake of his head, he stepped down, a rush of homicidal momentum quivering below his surface. The gutting-cleaver, now glazed in a similarly subtle thrill, was primed for swinging, for massacre.

"This is what this is, then? Weighted the scales? Punishing me for spilling blood?”

They reached down to their side, each of them, and drew simple daggers..

Kinneydrew steeled himself, prepared to send people he'd slain prior to somewhere below this plane. Instead, they began a chant again. Hefted their meager blades into the air. Chanted his name. Rhythmic and with praise in each syllable. Then, the unity cannibalized itself. Sharp ends ran past cloth and found purchase in warm meat. Those gutting were soon gutted. Throats laid bare. Slits were dug into torsos. Their faces wore notes of pain, but also something like joy. They were a mass entirely soused in their derangement, exhibiting no signs of halting.

The man-killer watched the event. That’s all he did. He couldn’t begin to understand the sight, let alone its purpose. As quickly as it began, it ended. The bodies were strewn about. Pools of blood spread, forms leaned on the pews like fallen drapes.. Face down or eyes wide to the rafters. It felt realer than any lived experience.

Silence carried on, long and unbroken. The air went still. Kinneydrew bowed his head to examine the fallen, none of whom he minded seeing in this state again.

An unexpected smell lifted his chin. Smoke.

His head swiveled toward the light. It had changed. The red of it struck the stone in long stripes cast through the stained windows. Past the panes, the empty, snowy town no longer existed. It was the daytime birthed after the calamity had arrived. Basking in its light, a forest of walnuts reaching out beyond his vision’s limit. The temperature within the temple rose steadily. He stepped over the handful of bodies obstructing the nave and reached the door, peeking out the sliver of an opening.

The sun hung low and red behind the limbs and bled through them in sheets. Wind carried ash and embers sideways through the clearing directly
outside. Leaning spires of smog some ways to his right darkled the sky. A sleeve went up to his assaulted airways and he coughed. Kinneydrew craned his neck to gather one last look at the church, then pushed through the door into the open.


Dun Vindex (Tazlyn)

Pneuma Antipode (Marjukka)

Manna Ultima (Chef)

Elysium’s Trover (Twinkle, Mr. Woodsworth)

Haloed Wrack (Tanya, Baron Hade, Oswald, Avroc)

Whitely Strode (Callisto)

Cradle Cusp (Icarus)
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Pub: 02 Jun 2025 03:21 UTC

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