Kester sat on his right knee and leaned back and forth to peer around the ancient, wooden bridge’s base. The slow river burned his weary, sleep-deprived eyes with the reflected rays of the rising sun- warming the pair of vagrants huddled together on the rocks beneath the dilapidated, moss-grown bridge. A slight breeze brought a lungful of toxic fumes with it- reminding him that this river, and the hundreds like it, moved the outlying villages’ sewage and the surplus waters of the fields- meaning, it was likely far too toxic to risk falling into. Then again... perhaps he should take a toxic bath. He took a deep breath and forced the thoughts of his distant wife to the back of his mind and took his thoughts of restful death with him as he skulked forwards to approach the two, sleeping vagrants.

He felt like a cat inching closer to a mouse- two of them, in fact... two very filthy, likely crazed mice. As with the rest of the vagrants he had seen on his dark missions, they wore several layers of discarded clothing and a pair of wide, straw hats pulled over their heads to shield them from the river’s bright reflections. Kester reached for the two stapled-together cups on his hip and smoothly prepared his weaponry from the thick bundle of needles and dipped them into the ink-house with a decided hand.

Armed with a needle in either hand, he crouched down and took care not to step on the treacherously loud mud, but kept his weight divided between the stones. As he approached and readied himself to pounce on the first of the men, he froze to consider- “What the fuck am I doing?”

He- Kester the Tavernkeeper had, up until recently, been a law-abiding citizen of the Empire- loyal, however frightened, to the Emperor and the Inquisition. He had polished his countertop and kept his place in the line of succession as a patient, caring Tavernkeeper- destined for a life of mediocrity. On his death bed, the few people who would show up would be his patrons- loyal drunkards who should have been visiting him every night... but fate had wanted something else from him. Having been gifted his gifted child from the sadistic Gods, he had grown spiteful of the Inquisition- only for them to further provoke him by nearly driving him to the brink of bankruptcy. His wife had watched him with pity in her eyes and kept her chin up high- cheering him on as he, and their daughter, died of starvation before her very eyes.

Pushed against the wall without any more ground to give, he had surrendered and given into Gerathar’s insistent offer of assistance, only to land his wife and child in the hands of a rapist. He blinked several times as the realization dawned on him... he truly was a failed tavernkeeper, but not only that. He was a failed father- a failed caretaker... but for once in his life, he had found something he was good at- something he succeeded with. Stealing these men away had given him purpose. Asrael’s coin and the coin of the stolen soldiers had fed the tavernkeeper’s family- far more so than the human meats he had sold to the local butcherers...

He paused to look down at his hands. The world had attempted to deprive him of all that made him human, by forcing him to become a beast. But could a beast be the father of a child? Could a beast be a lover- a husband? It seemed to him, as he loomed above the sleeping vagrants, that he had a choice... he could either turn around and be what he wished to be or embrace his dark descent and submerge himself in the evils of the world- fight fire with fire and become immorality.

“Wake up, Gary, we’ve got a visitor!” The vagrant furthest away from Kester spoke- awaking the second man. Kester startled and slipped on the stone. The two men shot up as Kester slammed into the stone- sending the two needles soaring off in the direction of the river. He hit the ground hard and slammed a rock into his lower back- sending shooting pains down both his legs. The mud stained his tattered-and-repaired tavernkeeper-fineries and seeped into the lining of his pants, where it clung to his skin in a cold, clammy embrace.

“Whoah der, whoah! You aight, buddy?” One of the two men spoke as he approached the tavernkeeper to grab him by the arm and raise him to his feet. Kester could see that they were both old men- wrinkled by their long days out in the sun and toothless from their likely varied and unbalanced nutrition consisting of whatever they could find out there in the mud. The one that had helped Kester up to his feet clapped the mud from his hands onto his many layers of tattered clothing with a shrieking laughter and said: “Oh, we scared ‘im good, we did!” Next, the man clapped Kester’s clothing free from mud and grinned his toothless smile towards him.

The nervous tavernkeeper quickly tried to turn on his heel and depart, only for the man to grab him by the shoulder and insistently lead him towards his companion and their burnt-out campfire. “Ey, ey, ‘least let us look ya over, first. I think I heard a crack comin from ya ass, we gots to check it.”

“N-no, that’s fine- I'm sorry for intruding, I-I didn’t mean to. I was just-” The second man- the one not pushing Kester’s unwilling body over the mud sat down on the stone by the burnt-out fire and clapped the granite boulder at his side.

“Nah, nah, it’s all good, my buddy- c'mere. Let’s have a look at ya.” The unnervingly strong man led the tavernkeeper over towards his companion and forced him down on the rock, where he smelled both the men for the first time. If possible, they reeked worse than the river and as soon as the second man wrapped his arm around Kester’s neck, his eyes began to water with the stench of seven layers of rotten-onion-scented sweat.

The other man remained looming over the tavernkeeper while his brother, friend or otherwise associated compatriot grinned his pale gums towards their visitor. “Whassa pretty boy like you doing out here?” Kester wasn’t used to being called “pretty”, but found it a welcoming change of pace from being called an ‘idiot’ a ‘liar’ or an ‘asshole’.

“O-oh... I was just... I came here to look for a place to fish, I-I r-really should be going... my wife’s making dinner.” The old man’s smile widened to wrinkle his entire face, but only the second continued to chuckle.

“You came all the way out here lookin’ for a place to fish? Without a pole?” The man raised his wrinkled hand to rub Kester’s chin. His shriveled palm sported only two fingers- both of which reeked of feces. The wayward tavernkeeper swallowed down his bile, but froze as the man put his hand on his thigh and winked at him.

“Lucky for you, me and my brother's got poles for miles... You can have 'em. You can have 'em real good” Kester heard some rustling and braved looking away from his intimate partner to look to the other vagrant, whose hands were busy unbuckling the twenty-or-so belts around his waist. Kester quickly unwrapped himself from the man’s grasp and stood to his height. He hesitated not a moment longer and began stepping away from the crazed duo. Speaking over his shoulder, he excused himself with: “T-this is all a misunderstanding, I’m just gonna go-” his lips stilled as the one seated on the stone swept Kester’s leg and screamed: "I wasn't asking, city-boy!"

Further down the river, the trio of tall, naked, pale women cocked their heads and eyed the spectacle with curious, green glares. Their long, black hair danced in the wind as they ponderously clicked their long, black claws together in bewilderment. Their companion- the one their beloved Master had told them to protect had been knocked to the mud, where he was clawing at the rocks to escape the hoarsely laughing duo of deviants. One- the one Asrael had dubbed ‘Longa’ on account of her lengthy hair, hunched down to crawl closer and continued to watch the trio over beneath the river with confusion. The homeless man wrapped himself around Kester’s legs, while the second one set his eager hands to unbuckling his pants- all the while chuckling.

It stung Longa’s chest to see the sight- just as it stung her sisters’. They had seen this before- they had felt this before- the unwilling screams of the sweet, weakly man as they undressed him. She turned over her heel to meet their green eyes and pondered; should they interfere? Of all the things the Master had given them, they valued their connection above all. Where they had once been three sisters- three separate minds forced into useless chunks of weakly flesh, they were now so much more. They conversed faster than their mouths ever could have conveyed meaning or thought- all the while remaining silent on the riverbed.

“Oh, we gunn treat ya like a pig to roast, city-boy!” The second man spoke and came around Kester to finally finish unbuckling his pants- revealing what was undoubtedly a diseased member- rife with purulent boils. Their Master- beloved by all, had told them to obey the sweet man’s orders, but none of the trio of sisters had heard him scream anything but ‘No! Gods no!’. Perhaps he liked this savage treatment they were about to unleash on him?

Longa shook her head. The sweet, darkly dreaming tavernkeeper ought to accept His offer to become as they were. Any one of them could slice the two men up with ease, but they knew, better than any, that it could be a frightening experience. Longa had been more scared than any of her sisters as Asrael spoke his offer, but now, after seeing His glorious Gift for herself, she could hardly believe she had ever hesitated. With his Blessing- with his Power, they had claimed their vengeance, but it had only been the start... since then, they had been allowed to reap their vengeance from the masses of outworlders- feeding their Master more subjects-

Kester finally grabbed hold of a rock as the man’s member approached his face. He slammed it upwards into the diseased, wrinkled penis and popped some of its numerous boils- spraying his face with the warm droplets of liquids that reeked of rotting flesh. Before the aggressor had fallen to his knees, Kester had turned to throw another rock at the second man’s face- striking his nose to crack it out of place. He reared with agony, but the vagrant’s fury soon numbed the pain. He leapt forwards- planting his rotting cock on Kester’s pale, naked, muddy back. Fueled by the burst of adrenaline, the tavernkeeper rolled the man to the side and grabbed another, much smaller rock from the mud and in turn, leapt atop him. Before Kester could sink the stone down unto his broken nose- a thought crossed his mind. “That’s right... this is what the world wants from me- this is what the Gods want from me.” The vagrant looked up at the grinning tavernkeeper and screamed: “You fucking cocktease, I’ll rip your ass ap-” Before he could finish, the tavernkeeper had struck down with the rock.

Again and again, Kester slammed the rock against his forehead- striking through his skin and muscles until he could see cracks form on the white of his skull. With a final slam of the rock; gelatinous, thick matter sprayed out to cover his face in the man’s cerebrum. Before he could fully enjoy the sight, the cock-knocked man broke from his stupor and charged at the tease to disarm him of the rock. Kester was slung to the mud for a third time and what ensued was a several-minute-long match of well-lubricated, half-naked wrestling match, only ending as Kester got his hand on another rock and slammed it into the man’s toothless grin.

Again, the women watched as the tavernkeeper beat the life from a man- screaming with all his might: “You! Should! Have! Paid! Your! Bill!” With every strike- repeating the words over and over.

When both the men were dead and Kester was finally covered in disease and filth, he fell to the mud one last time and heaved for breath. Up above, the sun had risen to dehydrate the thin layer of sewage coating his skin- quickly forming cracks in his armor of feces-mixed mud. He felt oddly at peace as he stared up at the cloudless skies and saw the women’s pale, grinning faces approach from behind- silently welcoming him into their sisterhood of vengeance. His pulse slowed, his pupils constricted- his muscles ceased tremoring with excitement and he felt oddly... at peace.

“C’mon, gals... we’ve got work to do. Let’s find us some more people.” Kester muttered as he rose up to his dirty glory and paused to enjoy the gentle breeze cooling his scrotum.