Note: This story was dynamically reformatted for online reading convenience.
 
 Chapter 47: Long Is the Night for the Godless, part XVIII



   Raena had never wanted to come here.  Just like all the women around
her, she was one of the hundreds of recruits that the Nergranian army
forced to fight.  Raena still remembered vividly what had happened when the
white-haired soldiers had entered her house.  All her life, she had lived
there together with her mother and her five sisters as poor, hard-working
farmers.  The white-haired soldiers had demanded that everyone older than
fourteen came with them.  Raena was fifteen.

   Her oldest sister Raryn had been courageous enough to tell the soldiers
to leave them alone.  A second later, one of the soldiers had split Raryn's
head with an axe.  Since Raena's mother had been deemed too old to fight,
the soldiers had killed her next.  Then they had proceeded to rape Raena's
two younger sisters senseless.  The little girls' assholes had been gaping
wide open when the soldiers had been finished with them.  Then the soldiers
had sliced their throats open and let them bleed to death, just like pigs.

   Raena didn't want to kill anyone more than these white-haired soldiers
who had murdered four of her family members.  Five, she had to correct
herself.  One of her sisters who had been recruited had been hanged for no
reason at all.  Only Raena and her sister Ranua were left.  And it didn't
look good for them.

   For over an hour, the recruits had tried to break the castle's gate for
now.  They had smashed the heavy battering ram against the gate many times.
But the sturdy gate didn't budge an inch.  Throughout, the archers on the
castle's wall were shooting down on them.  The recruits had no shields and
wore no armor.  Crowded together in front of the gate, they were an easy
target for the archers.

   Almost every arrow that came down meant a death or at least a serious
injury.  The arrows could easily pierce through a woman's head and still
penetrate her chest.  Those who were hit in the tits, arms, legs or in the
ass could consider themselves lucky.  Although they had suffered a very
painful injury, they were still alive.  But they still weren't allowed to
leave the front line.  If they dared to retreat under the pretext of being
wounded, the white-haired soldiers immediately beat them to death.

   For that reason, there were many recruits here who had arrows sticking
through their limbs or in more delicate parts.  Although in terrible pain
and bleeding heavily, they gritted their teeth and tried to carry on.  Not
that there was much that they could do here.  There was no enemy to fight.
Those who didn't carry the battering rams were just standing around idly.
And whoever picked up the ram quickly got killed by a well-aimed shot. 
Raena and the other recruits were all just waiting until it was their turn
to pick up the ram and get killed.

   By now, there were so many dead bodies on the ground that one had to pay
attention not to fall over them.  Raena knew that she would be one of these
corpses soon.  Many women and especially younger girls lost their mind
under the pressure.  They fell into an apathetic state, crouching on the
floor and trying to forget where they were.  The whole battleground stank
horribly of piss and shit.  Not only did many shot women lose control over
their bowels in the moment of their death, there were also many living
recruits who were so scared that they pissed and shat themselves.  Raena
could at least say that she hadn't gone that low yet.

   There was one enemy up there behind the battlements that was
particularly feared by the recruits.  They hardly ever saw her face, but
whenever she shot an arrow, the effects were devastating.  Before it could
hit anyone, her arrows split into a lot of smaller parts.  These little
white projectiles had tremendous power.  When they hit someone in the head,
it got completely smashed into pieces.  The projectiles could easily rip
off an arm.  More than one girl got her penis and balls torn away by one of
the white projectiles.  When hitting a breast or an ass cheek, they left
nothing more than a mess of shredded meat of it.

   Although the archers of the Nergranian army were trying to take down the
enemy archers, they weren't too helpful.  Firstly, the enemies behind the
battlements were hard to hit.  And secondly, many of their arrows went
short and hit one of the recruits.  Raena wasn't even sure whether they
didn't do it on purpose.  No one in the Nergranian army seemed to care
about the recruits surviving this battle.  The catapults got more work
done. Sometimes, a good shot ripped a hole into the battlements.  The
debris then rained down on the recruits and buried some of them under a
mass of rubble.

   Raena heard a terrible shriek right in front of herself.  It came from a
woman who had been hit by an arrow right in her eye.  Her face was full of
blood when she fell to the ground.  Raena gulped as she realized that this
woman had been carrying one of the four battering rams.  Twelve people were
needed to carry one of these heavy siege engines.  Raena took a deep
breath, then she took the shot woman's place.  Right now, the ram was in a
backwards motion.  Raena grabbed the free handle.  It was quite heavy, but
bearable.  She knew that this would be the very last minute of her life. 
Whispering a short prayer, she asked the goddesses to go easy on her.  They
probably wouldn't.

   "Raena!" She turned around in surprise when she heard her name.  It was
her sister Ranua.  She was one of the women carrying the same ram.  Raena
was glad to know that she would die on her beloved sister's side.  A single
tear ran over her left cheek.  But there was no time to weep for her short
life.  With a sudden jolt, the ram's forward motion started.  Raena's heart
was beating faster than ever before.  She and the other recruits who
carried the ram were gaining speed.  They were running.  Even if they would
die here, they would at least put up one good effort to take down this damn
gate.  Raena felt as if she was flying.  This was it.  All that her life
amounted to.

   When the ram hit the gate, Raena's whole body was shaken thoroughly. 
She almost fell down.  Of course, the gate hadn't budged.  Raena felt that
she was being drenched in some liquid that was poured over them from above.
She looked at herself.  It was black oil.  A few moments later, a burning
torch fell down on them.  Raena, her sister and many other recruits went up
in flames.  She had to live through a short time of extreme pain when her
skin was burned to a crisp and her eyes, ears, nose and tongue melted. 
Raena screamed at the top of her lungs, but soon she couldn't hear her own
voice anymore.  She couldn't even feel the pain.  Her mind was gone.

   A little later, her blind and deaf soul separated from her body and
joined the big stream of souls who had lost their bodies here and were
slowly descending towards hell.  Many, many more were still to join them on
this day.



   It felt more than strange to Virian to walk around in this small
village. She had been here many times when she had been a kid.  There had
been another little girl called Jiani.  She had been the daughter of
merchants who had been living here in a house outside the castle.  Jiani
had been a cute girl with blond pigtails.  Virian had played with her many
times.  Even when her mother had forbidden it and she had gotten punished
for still meeting Jiani.  Virian really had been in love with this cute
blond girl.  Unfortunately, her parents had moved away eventually.

   Virian looked up the castle's wall with a grim look on her face.  This
was the place where her sister had been locked up all her life.  Never
allowed to see the sunlight even once.  Never allowed to meet her sister.
Virian clenched her trembling fists.  Revenge was near.  She would tear
down this place and punish her mother for what she had done to her own
daughter.  If only the gate would have been open already...  She could
hardly await rushing inside and crossing swords with the Loogranian
soldiers.

   But so far, the gate was still withstanding the constant battering. 
That's why the Nergranian soldiers were enjoying themselves in the
settlements outside the castle's walls.  Since the Loogranian archers were
busy with shooting the recruits who were trying to take down the castle's
gate, the white-haired soldiers could do as they pleased without risking
being shot.  There were no mechanisms to defend this settlement.  Its
survival was not important to the people inside the castle.

   A few inhabitants had tried to put up resistance.  The Nergranian
soldiers had quickly cut them down.  Now they were having their way with
the remaining people here.  Anyone who was deemed to old enough to
potentially pick up a weapon and fight was killed indiscriminately.  The
soldiers pushed them to the ground and used their swords to cut off their
heads, pierce their chests, slice their throats or just completely hack
them into pieces.

   No pleads for mercy were ever granted.  Even those who willingly
surrendered were slashed to death.  Some desperate inhabitants were getting
creative to find a way to survive.  To show the Nergranian soldiers their
good will, they took off all their clothes and then shackled each other's
hands.  This way, they thought, it would be clear to the attacking soldiers
that they had no intention to put up resistance.  But when the white-haired
soldiers found them, they just laughed at them.  Then they castrated each
of the naked women and gauged their eyes out before they cut open their
carotids and let them bleed to death.

   The only ones who had the chance of being spared were little girls.  If
they were considered cute enough to rape them, they were forcefully
undressed and brought to a place outside the village that was jokingly
called "the brothel".  Really, it was just a long line of naked girls who
were kneeling in the cold grass and sticking out their asses for rape.  A
row of dozens of cute little butts.  Any soldier who wanted to feel good
could just walk up to the ass of her preference and stick her cock into it.
Of course, after some time all the little assholes were gaping open,
dripping with semen and blood.  There were several soldiers who were just
watching over the brothel.  If any of the captured girls tried to resist or
run away, they mercilessly beat her to death.

   Virian didn't join the raping.  Incidentally, she was a virgin, in both
her cock and her ass.  And after finding out what had happened to her twin
sister, Virian didn't feel any need for love anymore.  She had decided that
her dead sister Vielin had been her destined lover.  Since she hadn't been
allowed to ever meet her, her only remaining option was to take revenge for
her.  This was the only act of love she was still willing to perform.

   Other than killing and raping, the soldiers were mainly busy with
looting.  Not that the people who had lived here had a lot to take.  After
looting a house, the soldiers set it on fire.  Nothing of this village
should be left.  This place would only continue to live on in Virian's
memories.  Virian grew uneasy.  She wanted to fight, not to watch the
soldiers having fun.  So she left the village and walked back to the main
army.

   She passed by the corps of the Red Knights.  These crazy women had
acquired three of the captured girls.  They sliced open the throats of the
squealing naked girls and caught the girls' blood with their hands.  Then
they rubbed it into their faces and their hair and smeared it all over
their iron armor.  They were called Knights of the Blood-Sprinkled Banner
for a reason.  This was their traditional way of preparing for a battle. 
Their leader, a proud woman of the name Enswa, shouted out a frenetic
prayer to the goddesses, asking them for assistance in the bloodshed that
they wanted to create.  People inside the castle were probably doing
similar things.  This was not only a battle of humans.  This was also a
fight between two religions and the goddesses that supported them.

   Virian unsheathed her two swords and took a look at them.  These had
been given to her by Aremie-Valas after her old swords had been wrecked in
the fight against Fel.  Back then, she had used the Nergranian Twin-Blade
Style.  She now knew that it was hopelessly inferior to the one that her
master used.  But Fel hadn't taught her anything yet.  From the little that
Virian had seen of Fel's style during their fight, she wasn't able to
imitate it.  So she would use the twin blades again in the forthcoming
battle.  The Nergranian style was probably an appropriate way to end the
Loogranian rule.

   Unlike the Red Knights, Virian didn't need to prepare herself for this
battle anymore.  She had been ready for it ever since she had left this
castle.  If only it would begin soon...



   Fel grunted.  She had been watching the efforts of the recruits to bring
down the gate for a while now.  "How hard can it be to crash a fucking
wooden gate?" Fel really felt like she should have gone there and done it
herself.  But she didn't like the idea of a hundred archers firing arrows
at her.  She would have to think of something...  Fel was surprised when
she heard a girl's voice addressing her.  Ever since she had slaughtered
the army's officers, everyone had been too afraid to say anything to Fel or
even come close to her.  Fel was quite surprised to see who it was that
dared to talk to her.

   It was Shinya, Ishira's little servant.  Fel had had no idea that this
girl had come along.  "What do you want, brat?" Surprisingly, Shinya seemed
to miss any concept of danger.  She looked up to Fel without any fear in
her eyes.  "My master has provided some troops for this army.  The generals
were the only ones who knew about them.  But since you killed the generals,
I thought that it would be appropriate to tell you that they are ready to
be used." Fel cocked an eyebrow.  "Troops?  Are they able to bring down a
castle's wall?" For some reason, Shinya put on a strange smile.  "In
fact... they might be."

   That finally caught Fel's interest.  The girl led her to a spot where
six strange objects lay in the grass, all of them covered by black
blankets. Around these mysterious objects stood more of Ishira's young
servants.  They might have been the one who carried these things to this
place.  Fel looked at them impatiently.  "So?  How do we use these things?"
Shinya grinned so perkily that Fel really felt like slapping her face and
spanking her ass.  "Just wait and see..." Then the servants uncovered the
weapons.

   It were six naked girls with amputated arms and legs.  They lay face
down and their hips were supported by wooden bi-pods that elevated their
asses.  The girls' backs were covered in red arcane tattoos.  Their faces
didn't show any emotions.  Only on the second glance Fel realized that
their eyes had been replaced by white marbles.  Fel grimaced.  "What is
this shit?" Without considering to answer Fel's question, the servants
performed some fine adjustments on the positions of the girls and the
pi-pods.  They aimed with the girls' butts at the castle's battlements.

   Shinya planted herself in front of Fel.  "Do we have the permission to
fire?" Fel honestly had no idea what was going on.  If this was supposed to
be some kind of joke, she would soon kill anyone involved with it.  "Sure.
Do whatever you came here to do." Shinya nodded proudly.  Then she recited
a short spell.  And really, it made the six naked weapons move.  Each of
them began to spasm as if there was something horribly wrong with them. 
They huffed and panted and began to sweat.  And then they erupted.

   Out of a nowhere, a thick red thunderbolt shot out of one of the girl's
butts.  It went up right to the battlements and exploded there with a
flash. The archers that stood close to the explosion had their entire
bodies smashed to pieces by the explosion's violent force.  Some of the
archers that stood further away still got knocked off the wall and fell to
their inevitable death.  The red explosion had even blown a hole into the
battlements themselves.  Its effect was quite similar to that of a
catapult, but this thunderbolt seemed to be way more accurate.  Within a
few heartbeats, more red thunder shot out of the girls' assholes and
wreaked havoc on the battlements.

   Fel would have laughed in joy at the sight of these crazy weapons'
impact, but the side-effects of the bombardment nearly made her faint. 
These thunder-farts stank so bad that their stench could have killed
someone.  Several of Ishira's servants dropped to the ground, out cold.  It
was unclear whether they were dead or just unconscious.  Fel herself felt
her sight becoming blurry.  The taste in her mouth was as if she was
drowning in sea of rotten shit.  Even if these human cannons had incredible
power, she had to get away from them.

   Someone on the castle's walls also took notice of these arcane weapons.
While most of the archers on the walls were in panic, she remained still in
place and took aim.  Then six long arrows with big jagged heads were shot
in quick succession.  Each of them hit one of the naked girls exactly in
the asshole.  From there on, they penetrated their whole bodies, piercing
their hearts and also their heads.  Even the white marbles got knocked out
of their eye sockets.

   When Fel had regained her senses, she glared at the unknown enemy on the
castle's walls.  "Shit!  Do I really have to do everything myself?  Get the
siege ladders ready!  I'm going up there to kick a certain woman's ass..."