It would be comforting to think she doesn't understand.

There are certainly aspects of the situation she feels lost about. She's heard the words "Old Faith" before, who hasn't, but religion has never been her area of expertise. The hooded cloaks are unfamiliar. She doesn't know how they found her. She doesn't know what they're hoping to get out of this.

The basic premise, though? Try as she might to deny it, that much she knows in her bones. She is the Lamb, and she is here to die.

With her hands bound behind her back, she can't wipe the tears from her eyes. She stumbles half-blind over the rough stone bricks, furious and terrified, listening desperately for the slightest hint of a chance to do anything other than this.

But she's tired, and outnumbered, and her chains are very heavy, and she still can't see through her tears. At the end of the path, on the circle of stone in the circle of light, she collapses.

A voice like gravel being crushed says, "Before us stands the last of its kind. All others we have hunted down and put to the blade."

Another voice, chirpy-bubbly like a babbling brook, agrees: "With this final sacrifice, the prophecy will be impossible to fulfill."

A chittering screech adds, "The heretic who lies bound below will be condemned to eternal captivity."

A hissing whisper concludes, "And the Old Faith shall be preserved."

Tear-blurred though her eyes are, she doesn't miss the approach of the executioner, nor the swing of his axe.

And yet—somehow—that final thud is suspended. Cut off, you might say. The wrenching pain she expected slides sideways out of reach, and all she feels is dizzy disorientation and a faint unsettling hum in her bones.

She opens her eyes.

Thick white fog coats the ground like a carpet of wool, and from that foundation, a forest of chains sprout like broad old trees, leaning this way and that but each as straight as an arrow in its chosen direction.

There's something up ahead, a flailing figure, hard to pick out through the fog and the tears. She struggles to her feet and trudges forward. If this is the author of her misery, perhaps she'll get a chance to bite them.

The ground plinks under her feet like she's a rock skipping over a lake, if ever a rock skipped so slowly. She does her best to ignore it.

Up ahead, the figure gradually becomes clearer. A veiled face, dark, red-eyed, with two short horns. A sort of hat or crown, black with a curved red line across the middle. A red-and-white robe, wrapped in black chains, and manacles to chain each skeletal arm to something beneath the fog. The arms are raised, stretching those chains out straight. Two more figures flank it, veiled likewise and with similar though less disturbing features, each half as tall as the chained one and about, oh, four times her own height. Also, now that she's a little closer, she can tell that the central figure has three glaring red eyes beneath its veil.

Her steps begin to slow as she considers whether she should perhaps have walked the other way.

The figure lowers its arms and beckons. Its voice sounds old and hollow and crumbling, like an ancient fallen log.

"Come closer. Fear not, for though you are already dead, I still have need of you."

She takes another reluctant step forward.

"Those foolish Bishops thought they could keep you from me in death. But instead they sent you straight to me."

Its mouth opens beneath its veil into a manic grin.

"I will give you LIFE again, but at a PRICE! All I ask is for you to start a Cult in my name."

Somehow, without changing its posture, it gives the impression of leaning forward.

"Do we have a deal?"

...what's she going to do, say no? Its minions would probably eat her or something.

She nods.

The being closes its eyes and spreads its arms. The black crown rises from its head.

The crown's red curve blinks open into a flaming eye.

Power, power overwhelming, crackling like lightning over her skin, coursing through her veins like liquid fire. She sees nothing. She sees everything. It hurts more than dying did. It's the best thing she's ever felt in her life.

Her chains burst like scattered leaves and the crown on her head is a sword in her hand and the cultists who brought her here are dead on the ground as simply as that, as simply as dancing blade-first between them, flowing effortlessly out of the way of their crude knives, strike and strike and strike until nothing is left and she's panting on the stone circle free and triumphant and beautifully, impossibly alive.

When did she return to the forest, to the real world and not that fog-drenched alien wasteland? It must have been when the crown struck. She shudders at the memory as she races back down the path, clear as day to her now although the woods are as dim as ever. There's the clearing where she woke up, and the cultists that prodded her down the path, and she carves through them as a deadly whirlwind and turns to leave. The path is blocked by a crude barricade of debris—but not to her, it isn't.

As her sword flows back into a crown and she charges recklessly ahead, she lets out a wild whooping laugh. Not captive anymore! Not a victim, not a sacrifice! She is the Lamb, and she is here to kill!

The next clearing holds a one-eyed stranger and she nearly cuts his throat before she checks herself and stops in her tracks, dropping the hand that would have called the sword.

He doesn't seem perturbed.

"Fear not! I am Ratau. I was once a chosen vessel like you, but those days are lost to the winds." He clears his throat. "I was sent to guide you. We are deep in the lands of the Old Faith and in grave danger. My instructions are to lead you to safety. Continue through the woods. Escape lies ahead. I will be close by."

She nods cautiously. Whoever he is, he doesn't look like much of a threat, but that's no call to go trusting him.

Taking this as sufficient acknowledgment, he sinks into the ground.

...sure, that can happen.

His directions may be lies, but they're also the only ones she has, so she follows them.

The next clearing is full of cultists and this time she actually has to put in a little effort to kill them all; that first heady rush of power is beginning to ebb. But she gets the job done. It's not until after, feeling the crown settle back into place atop her head, that she wonders whether she could have done something else. Snuck past them? Knocked them out...? Doesn't knocking people out also usually kill them? Whatever. It's hard to shed a tear over the people who dragged her from her bed in chains to be sacrificed. She has a quick rummage through the pockets of their robes and then moves on.

Cultists, cultists, weird leafy monsters that are like no woodland creature she's ever seen... she hesitates at those, but when they come up and try to bite her, she unleashes the sword and it does for them just the same.

Eventually, she comes upon an archway. It sounds like someone's talking on the other side, but the sound is blurred as though by a door. There isn't a door, unless you count the ominous red glow.

She steps through.

Her guide emerges from the earth while she's still processing what she finds there.

"We have nearly reached safety, but look ahead! Another poor soul about to be sacrificed." His one eye widens with a sudden intensity. "Rescue them and they would have no choice but to join your new Cult."

...that's a deeply off-putting pitch, but she finds it hard to argue with a rescue mission. She turns toward the altar, the tied-up deer-man on it, the robed figures encircling.

Their leader raises one of those ugly knives, chipped and notched as though from an excess of use.

"Oh mighty Bishops of the Old Faith! We ask you to accept the sacrifice of this wretched soul—"

Another, more observant cultist yelps and brandishes their own knife. "Hey! Who interrupts our ritual and trespasses on sacred ground?!"

Surprise, motherfuckers!

The battle is brief. When it's done, the deer-man huddles trembling on the altar, unhurt but terrified. Ratau is long gone.