Evil Saviour

Her throat was aching from the urge to scream but her lips were even less permissive than the cloth gagging them. Tears poured down her cheeks. Her body writhed and thrashed like a fish out of water but neither the stake nor the ropes gave way. Though the flames hadn’t yet climbed the stake high enough to reach her they were so close she could feel her toes already singeing.

“See? See how she resists the flames?” one of the burly knights below, Sir Absolom, exclaimed. “If she were a woman of God she wouldn’t fear the blaze! Her faith in the Lord would make firm her heart!”

“Yes, please forgive my earlier doubts my liege. Her demon nature has indeed laid waste to whatever of a soul she did possess,” another man standing at the stake’s base, Sir Tobiah, agreed. His honey-coloured locks swished back and forth as he bowed his head to the first.

“Though one need only look at her to know the extent of her sin before her possession,” a third such man, Sir Japheth, said nonchalantly. “Being female and so visibly a descendant of Ham she was nigh predestined to succumb to Satan’s wiles. Sooner rather than later.”

“Pfft. And to think she was going to join our ranks!” laughed Sir Tobiah. “A female Hamite! In the holy warrior ranks of The Church of Gracious Salvation!”

“Ludicrous!” Sirs Japheth and Absolom shouted in chorus. The three of them threw their heads back and cackled like hyenas, then glanced amusedly into the woman’s horrified tear-soaked eyes, and returned to each other to start another conversation.

She could no longer hear a word through the fire’s crackle, which singed her eardrums as much as the physical heat was scorching her feet. The pain was excruciating but her lips still refused to allow her screams to exit her mouth. She squeezed her eyes shut, desperately trying to shunt the pain out of her consciousness and praying harder than ever before that Paradise was real.

What could she have done to deserve this? Possession, they had said? She racked her memory bank for clues on why they could have thought that. She’d never given them reason to question her moral standing or her faith in Christ, and from what she could tell she’d done nothing different.

But then… a memory flickered in front of her eyes.

CRACK!

Something landed on the stake right behind the woman! Something big, something heavy… something mad. She couldn’t turn to see what it was but she heard its breath above the flames. Its breath was akin to something between a madman’s pant and a wild animal’s growl. It was clambering around the timber trying to get a solid foothold. The tears streamed down her face even faster as the beast – or whatever it was – reached round for her!

And she couldn’t fight it off, it was too strong!

SHWNG! 

A knife being drawn! What did this… thing… want?

SHWNG! SHWNG! SHWNG!

All of a sudden she was free! But before she could reach for the gag or even turn to glimpse the being, it was bundling her feet-first into a large thick cloth. At last her lips parted to allow her to scream again, so scream she did.

The muffled noise alerted the pack of men below. They looked up to see what the noise was for. Then the screams stopped, and the fire had reached all the way to the top of the stake.

“The demoness is dead!” cheered Sir Japheth, raising his skeletal fist. “God is good!”

“God is good! God is good!” chanted his comrades, also with their fists in the air.