The church stood tall on the other side of a tiny square, in the solid and dependable way buildings usually stood. Oak thought that was highly suspect. Every other building they had come across so far looked one stiff breeze away from collapse, and yet the church of the Erelim showed no signs of rot or decay.

It was a stave-church with a wide sill at the bottom, standing on top of a stone foundation to keep moisture away from the wood. From the outside, the church looked like three successively smaller grayish-red cubes stacked on top of each other. Cubes, with tiered, overhanging shingle-roofs, and a modest bell tower straddling the ridge at the top.

The corpses of a dozen blighted rested on the steps of the church, like supplicants crouched in prayer, their clawed hands outstretched towards the thick double doors and the sideways sandglass carved upon the wood; the mark of the Choir of the Erelim, symbolising the finite nature of life, the eternal cycle and new beginnings.

"All the rest of Al-Badra rots, but the House of Crows stands untouched," Yakubu said, leaning past Oak's wide frame to get a better look. "Strange, don't you think?"

"Hmm," Oak replied. He and his four companions hid in a narrow alley facing the tiny square, no more than a grimy gap between two buildings. The keep at the town's festering heart was only a few blocks away now. He could feel it looming in the miasma hanging over Al-Badra.

"Strange indeed, or maybe not." Ur-Namma tapped the pommel of his longsword and narrowed his eyes at the church. "I wonder if a little flame of resistance still flutters in the dark. Could it be that a priest or a priestess of the Erelim still draws breath?"

Oak shrugged and glanced at Sadia to see if she had anything to add to this impromptu council. The spellsinger standing in Yakubu's shadow shrugged back, clearly out of her depth. "Don't ask me. I have never assaulted a Demon corrupted town before," she said, spinning a lock of dark hair around her fingers. "The corpse-arraignment by the front door is a little on the nose, but considering the circumstances, I won't hold it against them."

"I WILL." Geezer gave the corpses an evil look and shook himself. "BLIGHTED. TASTE. BAD."

"Right. Thank you, Geezer. I vote we go inside." Oak rolled his shoulders and cracked his neck. "No need to leave this stone unturned."

Council adjourned, Oak led the way briskly across the small square and climbed up the steps of the church, careful not to step on the corpses of blighted men and women someone had turned into unsightly ornaments.

Oak tried the doors, and they opened with nary a sound. Clean, miasma free air clapped him in the face and welcomed him inside like he was an old friend. He took a deep, nourishing breath and enjoyed the lack of stink. The entire town reeked and if his hunch was correct, the smells would only get worse from here on out.

Watching his head for once, Oak ducked under the doorframe and slipped inside. His boots smacked against solid, clean and dry floorboards as he stalked forward, hand resting on the handle of his falchion.

The others hurried after him.

It was dark, but not magically so; his gaze pierced the shadows like a hot knife through butter, cutting past the rows of worn pews, wrought iron candlesticks, and small shrines placed against the walls until it landed on a woman kneeling by the altar at the far end of the church.

She wore a priestly garb, the signature black robes of those in service to the Erelim and a headscarf of the same color. Her head stayed bowed in prayer and she did not acknowledge him, but Oak felt noticed all the same.

"Hail, priestess," he said, more quietly than he had meant to. The silence of the church swallowed up the noise as if he spoke through a pillow. For a moment, Oak worried the woman had not heard him speak, but just as he was about to repeat himself, she spoke in answer.

"Hail, strangers. I am sister Jehona," the priestess replied, rising to her feet, a long-knife and a hatchet in hand. Speckles of blood clung to them both. "What brings you to Al-Badra on this eve of ruin?"

Ur-Namma and Yakubu fanned out behind Oak, getting out of each other's way on the off chance things turned violent. Sadia whispered a few words and snapped her fingers, sending a glittering spark flying from candlewick to candlewick, lighting up the darkness with the warm glow of burning wax.

"Our caravan arrived here today. Now it rests in the Demon's grip. We have come to slay the servant of Belphegor, or die trying." Oak cleared his throat. "Do you know the cause of this calamity?"

Finally, Jehona turned around. Two steps behind Oak, Sadia gasped and placed a hand over her mouth at the sight. Blood and pus leaked from the priestesses' empty eye sockets and dripped down her dark cheeks, framing her narrow nose with messy lines of corruption. The rot had its claws in her and it had taken her eyes.

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Despite her clear lack of sight, Oak felt something lurking behind Jehona's nonexistent gaze. A vast presence bore down upon him, and he could hear the telltale sound of fluttering wings. Fuck me. An Erelim watches us. He threw a meaningful look at Ur-Namma and the elf nodded back. The ancient general had noticed the angel's gaze.

"Yes, you could say I know a thing or two about how this came to be." Jehona sighed and put away her blades. "I warned them. I told them to kill her and be done with it, for cruelty begets cruelty in all things. As the view outside attests, they did not hold my advice in high regard."

***

"A member of the swampfolk?" Ur-Namma asked, intrigued. "Are Al-Badra and the swampfolk at war?"

They had sat down in the empty space between the pews and the altar to listen to Jehona's tale. The priestess sat on the altar steps with her hands clasped on top of her knees, gazing down at them with her empty eye sockets, crawling with rot, decay and angelic presence.

"Not as such, but we are not friends either. Despite the close proximity, we rarely have contact with each other. The swampfolk want nothing to do with us and we even less to do with them. They have no money, nothing to trade and they are a bunch of Choirless heretics." Jehona shrugged helplessly. "Occasionally, they kill someone, but it is uncommon."

"Right. So, how did this swamp woman and her babe end up in the keeps dungeons?" Oak asked, leaning against the front row of pews at his back. He scratched the flat spot at the top of Geezer's head and the hellhound let out a rumble of pleasure, dragging himself into Oak's lap. "Seems like a tremendous risk on her part, to come into town."

"This is only conjecture, since the woman refused to speak, but I suspect she was driven out of her clan. She had barely any supplies, and the watch caught her stealing food on the edge of town," Jehona replied. "Our Ensi thought she might be a swampfolk scout, which is a ridiculous notion; no one sends a scout skulking around with a baby. When even hot irons could not loosen the woman's tongue, they threw her and the baby into the hole under the keep."

"The hole?" Sadia asked, apprehension coloring her voice. The spellsinger sat on Oak's left, hugging her bony knees.

Yakubu lifted his gaze from the floor, a touch of sadness in his brown eyes. "An oubliette. They dropped them into an oubliette, didn't they?" he muttered and scratched at his cheek.

"Yes."

"I'm sure I'm going to regret asking this, but what is an oubliette?" Sadia closed her eyes and rubbed her temples. "It is something terrible, isn't it?".

"It is a short shaft with a hatch, usually an iron grille, at the top, which opens into a small chamber. They are often so narrow you can't even lie down to sleep," Yakubu replied with a flat voice devoid of humor or merriment. "Suffering is their only purpose."

Aw, shit. I can tell where this is going, and it's going nowhere pleasant. "They made her and the babe starve in their own filth, didn't they?" Oak asked. He kept his voice soft, like tanned leather. The silence of the church did not invite harsh noises.

"They did, and we have all suffered for it. I think the Ensi and his men felt embarrassed by her. They could not make her talk, so they made her pay instead." Jehona let out a deep sigh and shook her head. "Fools. I do not know what sorcery, ancient pact or clan secret she called upon to bring the Demon across. The only thing I know for certain is that she succeeded."

Jehona lowered her unseeing gaze to the floor and hunched in on herself, like a great weight bore upon her shoulders. "I…I think she did it after her baby died."

"By the Mother," Sadia gasped. The spellsinger rubbed her temples harder than ever. "Curse them all, I say."

Pride truly comes before the fall. This is why you don't play with your food. "Remember this, Sadia. If I only ever teach you one thing, let it be this," Oak said, and Sadia opened her brown eyes, locking gazes with him. "These men let a prisoner under their complete power wound their already soiled pride, and to what end? An ignominious one, to say the least."

Oak would have spat, but he did not wish to lay an insult at the feet of the Erelim. There was no need to anger the Crows in their own house. Instead, he sneered with disgust. "The Reaper walks in the shadow of every haughty spirit. Take care, what rouses your pride."

The girl nodded, a contemplative look on her narrow face.

"Hello, philosopher." Ur-Namma snapped his needle-like teeth. "Nice to see our savage can still spin words of wisdom."

"Shut it, knife-ear."

Ur-Namma opened his mouth to reply, probably with something sufficiently acidic, but froze instead. The elf clicked his mouth shut and furrowed his brows. "Some of my Scouts have returned. A moment, I must see to them, and review what they saw."

Mind fixed on the Waking Dream, Oak waited to see if his own Scout would find its way back to him. Luck was with him. The faintest tapping of claws disturbed Oak's wards, and he let the ghost of the Raven slip inside the safety of his sanctum.

A short dive later, Oak and Ur-Namma stared at each other like a pair of farmers after a nasty back winter, resigned expressions on their faces. "Hells. We can never catch a break, can we?" Oak asked.

"No, we can't." Ur-Namma laughed.

"What is it now?" Sadia yawned so wide Oak feared she might dislocate her jaw. It was getting very late, and the girl had missed her beauty sleep.

"Remember that tentacled horror in the Waking Dream I told you about? Well, the bastard rests right on top of the keep. The risk of it finding us by mere accident during the assault is far too great to ignore," Oak replied. "Fuck. I hoped we could avoid this."

"I find hope rarely pays off." Ur-Namma snapped his long fingers, and the sound carried in the silence of the church's chancel like a gong. "We will have to destroy the horror first if we want to have any chance of success."

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