Rewrite That Witch
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Chapter 196: The Calamity of the Church

Lehman Hawes rode through streets that were empty in the way that cities only go empty when the people inside them are afraid.

Every door was shut. Every window. No movement at the edges of buildings, no children, no merchant carts — just the sound of hooves on stone and, somewhere in the distance, a dog that had not been trained well enough to know when to stay quiet.

The east gate had fallen in a quarter-hour. Twenty guards, a single horn blast that brought reinforcements too late, and fifteen mercenaries with the Church’s pills burning through their blood. Fast as horses, indifferent to pain, cheaper than knights. A straightforward engineering problem with a straightforward solution.

The only complication had been the side door.

Lehman had not seen it — the darkness, the speed of the assault — and two of the stronghold’s guards had come through it while he was still working the gate lock. The first had a hammer. He’d had only enough time to raise his forearm before it connected.

He had kept fighting. He always kept fighting. That was the point of the years of drilling, the reason a knight’s body was different from a common soldier’s — reflex continued after the thinking mind had gone white with pain. He’d put his sword through the guard’s waist in the same motion that took the blow, and the hammer’s terminal velocity was still enough to leave a dent in the vambrace and something wrong inside the bone beneath it.

Afterward, when he’d unlocked the armor to check, the forearm had swollen to something that looked architectural. The color of old bruising and new ones combined. He could not lift it above the elbow.

“I hope the church has analgesic herbs,” Levin said.

“They always prepare strange things,” Duane added. “Like those pills.”

Ahead, the church steps came into view. A hundred militia waited outside it, their expressions the particular mix of hunger and blankness that the pills produced in their second dosage.

“Give them their pills,” Lehman said. He waited until they’d all swallowed, then climbed the steps and led his men through the doors.

The two gatekeepers crossed their arms and shouted the usual declaration about holy ground and weapons.

Levin handed over his sword with both hands, deferential and careful — waited until the believer reached for it — then reversed his grip in one motion and opened the man’s wrists. In the same breath, almost before the first believer’s cry had fully formed, Duane had drawn and cut.

Levin’s nickname was “Shield.” His sword draw was the fastest thing about him.

The doors went open. Lehman walked in without hurrying.

The priest who met him was middle-aged, blue-and-white vestments, and visibly unafraid. That was training, Lehman knew — the Church taught its clergy to treat violent confrontation as a test of faith, which made them impressively composed in the face of swords. He gave the man credit for it and none for survival.

“Children, take the holy medicine,” the priest called. “God will give you strength.”

So it’s confirmed, Lehman thought. They keep pills here too.

The believers’ eyes reddened within seconds. Blue veins rose under their skin. The narrow entry corridor became a problem — enhanced bodies in confined space, angled toward his people — but he had anticipated it.

“Get out,” he told his men. “Let the militia handle it.”

The militia had been waiting for exactly this. They crashed through the doors with the enthusiasm of people who had been promised violence and were finally receiving it.

The priest’s face had finally lost its composure. He was staring at the militia’s drug-red eyes. “Why do you also have the — holy medicine?”

“A gift from your organization.” Lehman bypassed the fight, moving along the wall toward the priest with his sword in his good hand. “If your Church hadn’t obstructed His Majesty, Timothy Wimbledon would have unified Graycastle by now.”

“His Majesty?” The priest’s eyes went wide. “You’re Timo —”

Lehman put his sword through the man’s chest.

The fight ended in the time it takes to empty a room. Twenty-odd believers, most untrained. The few who took the pills were still outnumbered three to one by people who had also taken pills and had been doing this longer.

Afterward, the surviving militia sat in the spreading blood on the floor, breathing like men who had just finished a race, too satisfied to care that their bench was wet.

Lehman’s arm hung heavier. The sword stroke had triggered something — a tearing quality to the pain that hadn’t been there before. He breathed through it.

“The basement,” he said to Levin.

Four large crates. Thousands of pills — red and black, sorted and packed with the Church’s characteristic precision. Gold royals, jewelry, silk: the donations of years. The wealth of every citizen who had ever believed this building stood for something.

“Take what can be taken,” he said. “Burn the rest. If anyone asks — Roland Wimbledon did this.”

He was still protecting the relationship. Still careful. The Church’s pills were necessary to Timothy’s war against Garcia; you couldn’t burn the source entirely, not yet. Let them believe the Western Territory’s prince had gone rogue. Let the Church direct its anger somewhere already aimed.

He stood in the church doorway while Levin’s men worked, and thought about what he had just confirmed.

The Church had supplied pills to Longsong’s local church. Which meant it was supplying every church. Which meant it had been building this capability across the entire kingdom, right alongside the shrines and the scripture lessons and the baptismal records. Not an army: a network. Not a conquest: a slow soaking, like water through stone.

They are not trying to help any of us win, he thought. They want us all to finish each other, and then they walk through the silence.

His Majesty had understood this. His Majesty had sent him here with pills of their own, captured and re-purposed, because the only way to fight the Church’s weapon was to use it until you had built something strong enough to not need it. Graycastle had to be unified first — fast, before the kingdom was too small to matter.

And that meant Roland Wimbledon had to die.

One thing at a time, Lehman thought. One thing at a time.

His arm hurt badly enough now that he let himself lean against the doorframe. Just for a moment. Not long enough for anyone to notice.

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