by Kenyon, Nate
“Perhaps you could guide us to the Church of the Holy Order,” Tyrael said. “We also have business there.”
“What business is that?”
“We seek Norlun,” he said.
“And why should he see you?”
“We are holy warriors who wish to help his cause in any way we can.”
At this, the man’s demeanor changed, and his body relaxed slightly. He looked around at the crowd. None of them met his gaze. “You seek enlightenment, then,” he said. “I can take you there. You should pray you find his favor.”
A templar. Jacob’s hand crept toward the weapon belted to his waist.
“My companions must secure lodging for us,” Tyrael said. “Is there an inn nearby?”
“The Snapping Dog,” the man said. He glanced at Jacob, then back at Tyrael. “Just around the bend. It’s likely to have beds, although the bugs may be thick as the thieves that sleep with them.”
Tyrael turned to Jacob. “Go there, and take the others with you. Cullen, Thomas, and I will rejoin you later.”
The man led them slowly through the city streets, past huge stone buildings, archways, and alleys, gutters thick with slow-moving black water and refuse. The smells continued to assault them from the doorways of shops and dark corners where beggars hunched in the shadows.
As they continued a gentle climb up toward the center of the city, the buildings grew larger and more ornate, with turrets and window slits and ribbed vaults and buttresses, gargoyles perched on rooftops overlooking the wandering crowds. There were more people gathered in an open market, jostling one another to get away as the templar pushed through.
Tyrael caught glimpses of the old cathedral long before they reached it. The building rose up beyond the closer structures like a monstrous stone beast, its pointed turret and stained glass seeming to glow from within. The cathedral had been here for centuries, built for the Zakarum, Cullen explained, and later used by the Knights of Westmarch before they became a more secular order, concerned mostly with the protection of the king and Westmarch’s borders.
“From what I have heard, the knights still consider it theirs,” he said quietly, eyeing the back of the man who strode ahead. “If the templar control it, there is bound to be tension between them.”
As they reached the cathedral, several more men with somber expressions met them. The guards were jumpy. The first templar spoke to the others for a few moments, gesturing, and then returned to Tyrael with a scowl. “Norlun is attending to business,” he said. “You may wait inside.”
They were ushered through the main alcove and into the vast inner hall of worship, made entirely of stone, the floor inlaid with a pattern of lines like a web. A massive carving loomed on their left before a short set of steps, candles flickering. A few men were gathered there, talking; they grew silent as the Horadrim were led through their midst, past wooden pews and away from the raised altar, into another hallway.
Before their guide led them into a small waiting room, Tyrael noticed another door at the far end of the hall, barred and guarded by two more armed men. Then the man closed the door behind him, leaving them alone.
A tapestry made of blue silk was hanging on the wall. Cullen lifted the edge to reveal the Zakarum crest carved into the stone underneath. Candles burned in tall silver clasps, filling the room with light.
Thomas began pacing back and forth. “That was too easy,” he said. “I don’t like this. Why would they let us in here without checking our weapons first?”
Tyrael had thought much the same thing. They might have walked right into a trap. But if the lost city of the nephalem was under the cathedral and they had to go through the templar to get there, so be it.
The people of that city have no idea what danger they’re in, Nahr had said. The king will demand a cleansing.
The cleansing might be coming sooner than anyone expected.
Tyrael’s thoughts were cut short by the sound of footsteps approaching. The door swung open, and a man swept in, ruddy-cheeked and appearing slightly out of breath. He was thin and of average height and did not immediately fit the mold of leading a group such as this. Although he kept a blue sash at his waist, he did not wear the templar armor. But his gaze was like ice, and he clearly commanded respect from the men following him, who bowed and left the room. “I am Norlun,” he said. “Leader of the Westmarch Order of the Templar. What is your business?”
“We travel from Caldeum,” Tyrael said. He shook Norlun’s outstretched hand and found his grip firm. “You may have heard about recent troubles there, but it is likely you do not know the truth of it. The uprising by the emperor’s guard against the people was driven by demons, not men. We fought against the darkness there and have seen horrors few others have. We fear the same thing happening in Westmarch.”
“What does that have to do with us?”
“We seek to join with men who are principled and strong enough to do what is necessary when the time comes. Even if it means betraying the king.”
Norlun’s eyes narrowed. “We are a peaceful order and wish only to banish the darkness and serve the Light.”
“As do we,” Tyrael said. “But sometimes . . . there are hard choices to make.”
Norlun studied him for a long moment. The door opened, and a burly man entered. “Lord,” he said. “You had asked to know when—”
“Not now,” Norlun snapped. “Tell Stefan and Kamir to wait outside.”
The young man nodded and closed the door quickly.
“Hard choices indeed,” Norlun said. “You will have some before you shortly, if I am right. But the templar have been given a holy charge, and we intend to take this message to the people. We work to cleanse those sinners who have embraced the darkness, and they are reborn through us as children of the Light, scrubbed clean and pure. We wish no trouble from the Zakarum, the knights, or King Justinian, unless they bring it to us.”
“Perhaps we have come to the wrong place, then.”
“Here is what I think,” Norlun said. “I think you have been sent as spies by the king to gather information about our order, perhaps even to infiltrate it. I think the knights are threatened by our presence and would wish nothing less than to stamp it out.”
“If so,” Tyrael said, holding the man’s gaze, “we know nothing of it.”
“Or perhaps the Zakarum are behind this, still pulling the strings,” Norlun said. “They continue to hold more sway in this city than most believe.” He shrugged. “No matter. I answer only to the grand maester of the templar order and sometimes, truth be told, not even to him. My men understand our mission and will die for me, if necessary. Here are two of them.” He opened the door to show two men outside standing rigidly at attention. “They wait on my orders. Make no mistake, we will do what must be done to cleanse evil from Westmarch and our surrounding lands and bring the people to the Light.”
There was silence in the room for a long moment. Tyrael waited to see if the templar would draw their weapons. But they did not move, and Norlun finally smiled. “Now you will do something for me,” he said. “Bring this back to the king. We wish to continue our mission in peace, bringing our message to Westmarch, one man at a time. But we will not be intimidated, and should the knights attempt to stamp us out, they will be surprised at what they find. We have support among the people. The Church of the Holy Order may have been built by the Zakarum, but it is a templar church now and shall remain so.”
“If we knew the king, we would,” Tyrael said.
Norlun’s toothy grin grew wider. “Slippery of you, isn’t it? But you want something. You won’t get it here.” Norlun gave a brief nod to his men, and they stepped aside. “You are free to leave and bring my message to Justinian,” he said. “I would not linger here any longer, if I were you.”
Tyrael grew close and the two guards tensed, hands gripping their spears. Norlun took the slightest step back, and his steely-eyed expression failed for just a brief moment.
“Pe
rhaps we will meet again,” Tyrael said.
He left the smaller man without another word, Thomas and Cullen following in his wake. The door at the end of the hall was still barred and guarded by two armed men.
As they made their way back through the old Zakarum cathedral, he thought he heard the faint sound of a scream filtering up from somewhere below their feet, but he could not be sure.
Having secured three flea-bitten rooms for them at the Inn of the Snapping Dog, Jacob set about getting word to Lorath Nahr. It wasn’t difficult; a guardsman in the streets knew the name and promised to bring the young knight back with him in short order, after being told they had brought an urgent message from Lorath’s father in Bramwell.
The guard told them to wait in the tavern on the ground floor of the inn. The monk and the necromancer went off on their own. Gynvir seemed relieved to see Zayl go. They had settled into an uneasy truce, but even Zayl’s efforts at the nephalem temple had not swayed her opinion of him, and Jacob was reluctant to speak of it. Zayl was useful to the group in many ways, but her distrust of his kind ran through deep and treacherous waters that he did not want to cross.
Jacob took a corner table at the tavern with Shanar and Gynvir. They ordered mutton and bread and mead and listened to the conversations of the people of Westmarch. There was an undercurrent of tension even as they drank their fill and made merry; rumors of strange disappearances were circulating. A man at another table nearby was discussing a possible uprising against the king’s guard, while most declared the whole thing to be a silly fiction, propagated by those who did not like the new curfew declared after three knights were found dead, their throats slit by unknown assailants.
“Commander Nahr was right,” Shanar said. “There’s darkness in Westmarch.” She looked at Jacob, something else flickering in her eyes. “You gained a little of the old swagger back on the road, though, didn’t you?” She glanced at Gynvir, a half-smile gracing her pretty lips. “Better watch out, or the barbarian will carry you off to her cave.”
Gynvir colored slightly before looking away. “I have no cave,” she said. “And it’s you who have the history with him, not me.”
Shanar was correct, Jacob thought. He did feel different. Closer to the way he used to feel when El’druin had given him strength and courage to do what was right. And yet things had changed for him back in Tristram in other ways. He touched the puckered scar on his shoulder. Could the phantoms follow them into the city? Or were they already here?
His thoughts were interrupted by the arrival at their table of the guardsman, who introduced a young man in knight’s armor as Lorath Nahr. The man was blond-haired and blue-eyed and bore little resemblance to the commander, except for the cut of his jaw and his broad forehead.
“You have word from my father? How do I know you speak the truth? It is a dangerous time to be trusting strangers.”
Jacob pulled the sword free of its sheath, just enough to show him the brand seared into leather, careful not to reveal the strange blade to others. “He did this work for me,” Jacob said. “If you join us here for a drink, we can talk about how we might help each other.”
“Who are you?”
“We are Horadrim,” Jacob said. “On a mission of utmost importance. The fate of Sanctuary may depend on it. And time is running short.”
After a moment’s hesitation, Lorath dismissed the guardsman and took a seat. Jacob waited until the people nearby had turned back to their conversations and Lorath had ordered a mug of mead. After it arrived and the young man had taken a long pull, Jacob explained that his father had told him something of what they faced in Westmarch.
“I have sent several men over the past few weeks to Bramwell, asking for him to come with his forces,” Lorath said. “None of them has returned.”
“They may have been taken on the road.”
“The templar are growing bolder,” Lorath said. “But taking the king’s men . . .” He shook his head. “Even they are unlikely to try such a brazen act.” He hesitated. “There have been rumors of other disappearances and sightings of things better left unexplained.”
Jacob told him what they had found in Bramwell, keeping his voice low enough not to be overheard by others. Lorath listened with slowly widening eyes, an expression that grew hard and furious at the account of the bodies piled inside the forgotten chambers on the mountain. “Accounts here are similar,” he said quietly, taking a moment to look around the room. Nobody seemed to be paying them much attention. “Many in the knights’ inner circle feel these sightings of strange creatures have something to do with the templar, even though the things people describe do not seem to be of this world. The king is furious, and General Torion has had enough. I need to get word to my father to return to Westmarch and bring his men. It may already be too late.”
“Perhaps we can help. Several members of our party are visiting the Church of the Holy Order right now—”
“There are more of you?” Lorath’s gaze and tone were sharp. “How many? And what are they doing at the cathedral?”
“Weighing the situation and searching for weaknesses in the templar armor, so to speak,” Shanar said. “There may be something inside that we need, and we can’t afford to ask nicely.”
Jacob expected the young man to be skeptical, but Lorath listened intently as they told their story, sometimes asking questions, seeming thoughtful and increasingly enthusiastic. He had studied with the best tutors in Westmarch, he said, and had learned about the history of the Horadrim through one of them who knew the ancient legends of the order. They had always fascinated him. “I used to pretend to be a Horadric hero when I was a boy,” he said. “Fighting monsters with my wooden sword. Feels like a long time ago.”
“You may yet have your chance,” a voice said. Jacob looked up to find Tyrael standing over them with Thomas and Cullen at his side. “There is a barred and guarded door in the church that leads to lower levels,” he said. “We need to find out what is behind it.”
“I may be able to help with that,” Lorath said.
The group retired to their quarters for more privacy. They sat on cots dragged together in one of the small rooms as twilight fell over the city, and the shouts and cries of the inn’s drunken and lascivious patrons could be heard through the walls. If the templar recruited thieves and scoundrels, Jacob thought, they might begin right here at the Snapping Dog. But it gave the Horadrim a way to blend in; nobody asked many questions here, and they had been left alone.
Jacob was itching for battle. His fingers tingled, the sword at his side warm against his flesh. Shanar sat close enough to touch. He caught her sidelong glances, and the idea of her body pressed against his made him remember days past. It almost seemed as if things could be just as they were before, when they had fought against the plague demons and slavering hordes of the Burning Hells and had shared a bed together.
Lorath explained the situation in Westmarch in greater detail. Even though the templar were close cousins of the Zakarum faithful, their rise had threatened the Knights of Westmarch, he said. “Some former knights have joined them, but most do not trust or believe in what the Westmarch templar are doing—particularly under the leadership of Norlun. We recently intercepted a note that indicated they are preparing for a rebellion against the king. General Torion has decided to move against the templar and end the threat now before this gets out of control.”
“We need to get back inside that building,” Cullen said.
“The church’s lower levels run deep, and we suspect that they hide some of the templar’s most treacherous deeds,” Lorath said. “You are powerful mages and warriors. You want to find what’s behind that barred door, and we could use a helping hand.”
“Norlun thought we were spies sent by the knights to infiltrate his operations,” Tyrael said. “Perhaps he was not far off. We were able to assess a few weaknesses in their defenses in the church. The worship room is large, but visibility to the outside is poor. Although they have a s
ingle main entrance to protect, if we were to gain access in secret, they would fall quickly.”
The door opened, and Mikulov and the necromancer came in. “There is darkness indeed here in Westmarch,” Zayl said without preamble. “We have both felt it. The phantoms are still close.”
A strange feeling prickled Jacob’s skin, and the scar on his shoulder throbbed softly. “I can sense them, too,” he said. He had blurted it out without thinking, but the others stared at him now as he rubbed his shoulder where the throbbing had begun. “I think we had better not waste much time,” he said.
“The general has a meeting with Commander Barnard and his top leadership tonight to outline our approach,” Lorath said. “He trusts me implicitly. I can get him to accept your help.”
“It would be good for me to go with you,” Zayl said.
Lorath looked skeptical. “Forgive me for saying so, but the general—the knights themselves, actually—don’t take kindly to your—”
“That may be, but General Torion will listen this time,” Humbart cut in from Zayl’s pouch. Gynvir muttered under her breath as the necromancer withdrew the skull, eliciting a gasp and an involuntary grimace of distaste from the young knight. Humbart gave a short laugh. “Don’t act so shocked, lad; it’s just a bit of bone. We have a history together, Torion and Zayl and me. And the remaining servants of the house of Nesardo shall vouch for us, too.”
Zayl nodded. “Humbart is right. The general may distrust necromancers, but he knows my intentions are honorable.”
“Very well,” Lorath said. He eyed the skull warily. “I’ve heard of such things, even studied historical accounts, but I’ve never seen . . .”
“I’m not an exhibit for your entertainment,” Humbart said. “Quit your staring, lad! I may be dead, but have some sense of decency.”
“My apologies,” Lorath said. He broke his gaze away from the gleaming skull. “Perhaps I should be going. There’s not much time left.”
