14. From the Ashes
Chapter 14
From the Ashes
6 th Day of the Blood Moon
Three hundred miles west of Greenhills, Loria – Winter, Year 3081 After Doom
The icy embrace of the Rift pulled itself from Kallinvar’s bones as he stepped through, the hard, dry earth cracking beneath his boots.
The rest of The Second waited a few feet ahead, tall trees rising about them, dim pink light drifting through the canopy. Sylven remained in the temple, her wounds not yet healed. Even Heraya’s Well could not so easily mend the pain of a lost limb.
The Rift rippled behind him, and Sister-Captain Emalia stepped through, her entire chapter at her side. The Tenth was the only chapter still yet to suffer a loss, which was a testament to Emalia herself.
Emalia inclined her head to Kallinvar, bowing deeper than she ever had before. That was the case with many of the knights after Kallinvar had told them of Achyron’s voice. It had not been the response he’d expected but one that had eased the chaos in his mind.
Kallinvar looked about the dark woodland. The place would have seemed innocuous enough to mortal eyes, but to Kallinvar, the rot of the Taint clung to the air and oozed across the forest floor like a dark sludge. More importantly, drifting just below the surface, he felt a heart beating apart from his own, faint but alive.
A new Sigil Bearer.
He was still getting used to the sensation ever since Achyron had pulled him into the Godsrealm. Even as he stood there in the woodland, the dying voices of other potential Sigil Bearers whispered in his mind as they gave their last breaths to the wind. It was a dark thing to know that for any Sigil Bearer he chose to offer knighthood to, ten more would die, alone and helpless. Ten more who may well have been just as worthy, just as willing to fight for the world they loved. Another weight on already weary shoulders.
To think this was another burden Verathin had lived through alone. He had spoken to Kallinvar in the years past about hearing the heartbeats of the new bearers, hearing their whispers. Kallinvar himself had been given the honour of anointing no fewer than eleven bearers himself. But Verathin had never explained that in order to save one, so many others must be left to die. As it turned out, there was a lot Verathin had never said.
“Stay tight.” Kallinvar left the thoughts to float in his mind. “The Traitor’s hand is strong here. Have your knights move in pairs. Never alone.”
“You don’t think the Heart is here, do you?” There was earnestness in Emalia’s voice. “Should we summon the others?”
“I don’t believe so.” Kallinvar shook his head. “But stay vigilant. Sister-Captain Arlena and The First are waiting if we need them.”
Kallinvar didn’t have the faintest idea if the Heart was there or not. Hundreds of pulses of the Taint were scattered all across the continent since the Chosen had crossed, and he didn’t even truly know what to look for. But of all the voices he’d heard calling to him, all the heartbeats, this one had felt the most dire, the most urgent. And it emanated from the same location as a deep well of the Taint. As Verathin had so often said, the situation killed two birds with one stone.
Kallinvar approached Ildris, who stood like a hound with his head tilted to the wind. The man had always been more attuned to Efialtír’s touch than others, like a sixth sense. “What do you feel?”
“Nothing you don’t already know,” Ildris answered. He gestured north. “The Taint should not be so strong out here. We are hundreds of miles from any Lorian encampments or Urak holds. We will find nothing here but death.”
Kallinvar grasped Ildris’s pauldron. “Then let’s go say hello to an old friend.”
Twigs snapped beneath Kallinvar’s weight as he and the knights pushed through the wood, half-frosted leaves crunching. Above, old branches groaned in the shrieking wind, clacking against each other. Apart from the occasional flapping wings, there was little sign of life.
With each step, the corruption of the Taint grew stronger, pulsing outward from a centre point like a rippling wave. But so too did the heartbeat in the back of Kallinvar’s mind.
There was something different about this place, something that pulled at Kallinvar, clawed at him. It was as though Efialtír’s hand scraped the ground and his breath tarnished the air. He’d felt something similar at Ilnaen, but its presence here was unsettling.
Could the Heart truly be in this place, hundreds of miles from anywhere the scholars had considered? A place he had come with no intention of finding it, and so soon? If that were true, he was either the luckiest or most unfortunate soul in all the known world.
It mattered little. They were here now, and they would find what they would find. If the Heart resided in this place, he would summon every knight alive and they would do what they’d been saved to do. They would fight.
After a while, a lantern flickered in the distance, followed by several more, their warm light glowing through the trees.
“A fort,” Lyrin called in a hushed tone as he and Arden emerged from the shadows ahead. “Large enough for a few hundred. It bears no markings, but it’s certainly not Bloodspawn-built.”
“Lorians,” Ildris whispered, the air changing between the knights. None ever questioned killing Bloodspawn. The creatures were born of The Shadow, gifted life by Efialtír’s power. They were monsters who would destroy everything. But to kill men and women, to kill humans, was never a task any of the knights yearned for, imperial or no. But they would do their duty.
“Servants of Efialtír,” Kallinvar corrected. The knights drew closer as he spoke. He straightened, bringing his tone firm and level. “Black and white do not exist.”
“We live in a world of ever-shifting grey,” Ruon finished the words.
Kallinvar nodded, allowing his gaze to linger on her for a second longer. “There will be men and women inside that fort who do not deserve our blade. They are nothing more than spokes in a wheel. But wheels break. Spare who you can, but do what you must. Steel first. Soulblades for anything that touches Essence. Above all else, do not hesitate. This place reeks of the Taint.”
A chorus of ‘Grandmaster’ ringed the group.
“It reeks of something else as well.” Lyrin pinched his nostrils between a thumb and forefinger. “What in the fuck is that?”
Barely a moment after Lyrin had spoken, the same stench flowed into Kallinvar’s nostrils. He covered his nose and mouth and made to speak, but Emalia got there first.
“Burning flesh.” Sister-Captain Emalia clenched her jaws.
“What’s the plan?” Ruon asked, drawing closer. “Do we know where the Sigil Bearer is?”
Kallinvar shook his head in answer. That pulse tapped away in the periphery of his thoughts, muffled by the oily sickness of the Taint spilling from within the fort’s walls. “I need to get closer. The heartbeat is faint.”
“Through the front gate it is then,” Lyrin said with a shrug, rolling his shoulders. “It’s always courteous to knock. That’s what my mother always said.”
As the young knight spoke, a bird shrieked overhead, its dark shape visible against the moonlight as it soared over the fort.
“I’m sure your mother was a good woman, Brother Lyrin,” Kallinvar said, summoning the Rift behind him, “but I believe I may have a simpler option.”
Kallinvar’s pulse thumped slow and steady, the blood in his veins cold, the familiar blackness surrounding him. Then he was falling, the Rift washing over him. The world burst to life, warmth wrapping around his bones even in the winter cold.
Torch lights flickered below, the roars of battle rising upwards. Five heartbeats, and he collided with the ground, a tremor sweeping through him, cracks spreading beneath his feet.
“Grandmaster!”
Kallinvar barely had a second to react to Arden’s call. In one motion, he pulled his sword from its scabbard, stepped back, and swung.
Steel met leather. Leather failed. Flesh parted.
The Lorian soldier collapsed on the ground in a heap, blood flowing from his opened chest. All about Kallinvar, Lorians charged from log buildings, some in full leathers and armoured plates, others in little more than their smallclothes. They threw themselves at the knights who descended from the sky.
The Taint was so strong in this place that even allowing himself a second to stop and think almost turned Kallinvar’s stomach, the oily tendrils probing at his mind. What in the gods was happening here?
A flash of motion signalled in his periphery, and he swung his free hand, catching the head of a warhammer in his grasp. Even through the soldier’s helm, Kallinvar could see the shock in her eyes. He lifted his foot and planted it into her chest. The strength given to him by the Sentinel armour ripped the hammer free from her grasp and sent her careening through a nearby log wall. Her spine snapped on a support beam, cutting her screams short.
More movement sounded to his left. He released the hammer’s head, tossed it into the air, snatched its shaft in his grasp, and swung. The hammer crashed into a man’s chest with enough force to collapse his breastplate inwards with a series of sharp snaps. He hit the ground, his screams drowned out by the sounds of him choking on his own blood. Kallinvar swung the hammer back down and ended the man’s misery, crushing his skull like a rotten melon.
Emalia and two knights of The Tenth surged past him and crashed into a clutch of Lorian soldiers, scything them down. These soldiers were like children next to knights in Sentinel armour.
Just as the guilt touched Kallinvar’s heart, a well of the Taint pulsed behind him, and he turned to see two Fades emerging from the shadows, their pale skin taking on a pink hue beneath the moon’s light.
“Urithnilim. ” Achyron’s voice was a hushed whisper in Kallinvar’s mind. “There are more here, my child. This place hides something. Send their souls to the void.”
“With pleasure,” Kallinvar whispered. He sheathed his sword and charged at the Fades, calling out to his Sigil.
Green light burst from his closed fist, illuminating the night. By the time he brought his arm across his body, his Soulblade had taken shape in his right hand, the warhammer still gripped in his left.
The Fades lunged at him as one, black-fire Soulblades bared. He blocked a strike from the left, green light bursting as the two blades collided, then swung his blade back across and caught the arc of the second Fade’s blade inches from his helmet. The creature smiled at him, its lips a pale blue, its light-drinking eyes gaping.
Kallinvar rammed the head of the warhammer into the Fade’s gut, bones cracking . As the Fade howled and staggered backwards, Kallinvar swung the hammer behind him, hoping to catch the other creature off guard. Instead, the second Fade twisted unnaturally, the heavy steel head gliding past its face. It stretched out its hand, and a surge of the Taint erupted from its palm. Kallinvar barely had a second to think before he was sent hurtling through the air.
He smashed through something wooden, hitting the ground hard. He dragged himself to one knee, gasping for air.
Another surge of the Taint pulsed, and Kallinvar was lifted from the ground and hauled into the air, helpless as a newborn babe, his arms pinned to his sides.
“The arrogance of your god…” the Fade hissed as it pulled Kallinvar closer. “You reek of it.”
The second Fade stepped into Kallinvar’s vision, that same eerie smile still pasted on its face, its head tilted sideways. Cracked bones twisted from broken flesh where Kallinvar had hit it with the warhammer, but the creature showed no signs of pain. “I’ve always wanted to see what you look like on the inside of that armour. Are you human?” His black eyes scanned Kallinvar. “Like a… what do the humans call them? Crabs? Hard shells on the outside. Tender meat within.”
“Yes,” the other responded. “Crabs.”
Shouts and screams drew Kallinvar’s gaze to the wall. Arden surged along the battlements, knocking soldiers from the walls through his sheer momentum. The young man leapt from the parapet, raising his hands in the air, his Soulblade forming in a burst of green light. The Fade who held Kallinvar in its unseen grasp turned, but not fast enough.
Arden’s Soulblade cleaved the creature clean in half from crown to groin, the weight of his landing lifting a plume of dust into the air. The Fade’s two halves remained standing for a heartbeat as though they might knit themselves back together, but then they wavered and folded to the ground, bloodless and forsaken.
The bonds of Blood Magic that held Kallinvar in place faded, and he dropped to the ground, recalling his Soulblade in the same motion and taking the second Fade’s head from its shoulders as it turned.
“You talk too much,” Kallinvar said as he stared down at the creature’s severed head, its mouth agape, empty black eyes staring at nothing.
Ruon appeared at Kallinvar’s shoulder, her helm removed, a crack spreading down the side of her armour. She followed Kallinvar’s gaze. “A Battlemage. Took three of us to take her down. Under the moon’s light they are savage,” she said with a shrug. “You all right?”
Kallinvar grunted, giving the crack in her plate one last look before gesturing to Arden, who had risen and released his Soulblade. “Thanks to Brother Arden.”
Kallinvar looked about the courtyard that fronted the fort’s gate. Bodies were strewn through the dirt, the dry ground absorbing the blood like a thirsty sponge. Horses neighed in the stable as Brother Yorik of The Tenth dragged his blade from a man’s chest and let the body slump to the ground.
In the silence that followed, Kallinvar heard the Sigil Bearer’s heartbeat slowing in his mind. And then Kallinvar’s own Sigil burned with a roaring fury and Ruon’s eyes widened as they both felt Sister Rialis’s soul leave the world.
“Where’s Emalia?” Kallinvar scanned the yard frantically. All of The Second remained, but he could only see three knights of The Tenth walking amidst the Lorian fallen. He searched for the pulse of Emalia’s Sigil, his eyes drawn to an archway in a wooden gatehouse that led through to another yard. Agony and fury flowed from Emalia at the loss of her knight, seeping into Kallinvar.
I will not lose another. He charged towards the gatehouse. “With me!”
Shouts rang out as Kallinvar and the knights surged towards the arch. Chain rattled and a thick iron portcullis dropped into place as arrows rained down from soldiers who’d scrambled to the battlements over the passage. Pulses of the Taint erupted from the parapet and arcs of purple lightning tore strips from the earth. A bolt caught Lyrin in the chest, and the knight hurtled through the door of a building, ripping it from its frame. Panic flared in Kallinvar, only easing when he felt Lyrin’s racing heart through the Sigil.
“Arden, Ildris, Varlin!” As Kallinvar charged, he summoned the Rift to his right, his Sigil burning, ice sweeping over his skin. Two green orbs burst into life, one at his side, the other in the air above the ramparts, spreading into the familiar black, green-rimmed portals. The world rippled as Arden, Ildris, and Varlin sprinted into the black waters of the Rift and emerged through the other side within the span of a breath, dropping onto the shrieking soldiers and mages above.
All the while, Kallinvar continued his charge, his long strides eating the ground beneath him. He drew a solid breath into his lungs and reached out through his Sigil.
Give me the strength I need.
“You already have it, my child. Break them.”
Kallinvar drove his feet into the ground and launched himself through the air. He closed his eyes and collided with the portcullis, the sound of crashing metal ringing in his helmet, the force shaking him to his bones. For a moment, the world froze, and then the portcullis bent inwards and ripped free of the gatehouse in a chorus of snaps and cracks.
Kallinvar crashed down and tumbled, the clang of iron and the thump of the portcullis slamming into the ground ringing in his head. His bones aching, Kallinvar staggered forwards on his hands and knees, snatching up the warhammer from atop the remnants of the portcullis.
“Get up.” Ruon grabbed Kallinvar in the pit of his arm and hauled him to his feet. He didn’t have to ask what had put the tone in her voice.
The Taint surged throughout the second courtyard in waves as knights of The Tenth raged against a score of Lorian Battlemages. Arcs of purple lightning shattered earth and stone, plumes of black fire ignited the air, shards of stone battered against Sentinel armour, and the green light of the knights’ Soulblades illuminated it all.
At the centre, Emalia twisted and weaved between two figures in smooth steel plate, a match for her in height. Red light shimmered through runes all about their silver armour, crimson Soulblades gripped in their fists.
“Vitharnmír,” Achyron hissed in Kallinvar’s mind. “Rip their souls from this world.”
Emalia’s Soulblade was a blur as she fought the two creatures, Rialis’s broken body at her feet.
Kallinvar’s legs were moving before he’d had another second to think. Emalia stood alone. She needed him.
Sparks of purple lightning flickered to Kallinvar’s left as a Lorian Battlemage charged into his path. Kallinvar swung the warhammer across his chest and launched it forwards with every ounce of his strength. The weapon smashed the mage’s shoulder to pieces in an explosion of bone and gore, ripping his arm free and sending him, shrieking, backwards.
A second mage roared to his right. The roar turned to a scream as Ruon carved him in two across the belly with her Soulblade, her stride never faltering.
Ildris, Arden, and Varlin leapt into the fray from atop the gatehouse, Lyrin following close behind. But Kallinvar was focused on one thing and one thing alone: Emalia.
He lunged forwards, throwing himself between his sister-knight and the Vitharnmír on her right, his Soulblade bursting to life just in time to stop the creature’s downward swing from cleaving Emalia’s arm at the elbow. The two Soulblades collided in a burst of light, and for a brief moment, Kallinvar stared into the Vitharnmír’s glowing red eyes set in a silver helm moulded like a mask to its face.
Kallinvar pushed forwards, forcing the Vitharnmír onto the back foot, then spun, his back rolling across Emalia’s as they traded places. He swung for the second Vitharnmír’s head, finding resistance in the form of its Soulblade. He brought his blade back across the creature’s body, slicing down at its knee, only for the blow to be blocked once again. Twice more he struck, and twice more the Vitharnmír matched him blow for blow before ramming a steel-covered fist into his side.
The strike knocked the air from Kallinvar’s lungs, and he felt a crack spreading through his Sentinel armour. He staggered sideways, gasping, regaining his composure just in time to watch Emalia’s Soulblade carve through the Vitharnmír’s elbow as it moved to tear his soul from the mortal world. The howl that left the creature’s throat was a visceral, blood-chilling thing, two voices layered over each other, one a high-pitched shriek, the other a primal growl.
“Now would be the time to summon Arlena,” Emalia shouted, dropping to one knee to avoid the swing of the second Vitharnmír’s Soulblade, then rising to ram her shoulder into its gut.
Kallinvar lifted his gaze to see Arden and Varlin weaving through three Fades, Soulblades glowing. More mages flooded into the yard as though materialising from the shadows themselves, Fades moving amongst them. Some wore the black of the Battlemages, while others had the red cloaks of the Inquisition knotted at their shoulders.
What in the gods are so many mages doing in a fort in the middle of fucking nowhere?
Kallinvar reached out to Arlena through the Sigil, then summoned the Rift, his veins igniting.
The Rift had been open no more than a breath when Arlena and The First charged through, Soulblades already ignited.
A flicker of movement drew Kallinvar’s attention, and he threw himself sideways to avoid being sliced open by the now one-armed Vitharnmír, who had shifted its Soulblade to its remaining hand. The creature rained down a maelstrom of ferocious strikes, each one shaking Kallinvar’s bones even through his Sentinel armour.
A brief respite from the barrage came as Ildris slammed into the creature’s back and it staggered forwards. Kallinvar took advantage of the Vitharnmír’s lost footing by dropping low and carving his Soulblade through its knee.
The Vitharnmír collapsed on its back, thrashing and hissing, its dual-tone voice sending shivers through Kallinvar, the runes in its armour blazing.
“For Rialis.” Kallinvar grasped the hilt of his Soulblade with both hands and drove it down between the Vitharnmír’s eyes.
Even with the blade lodged in its face, the creature writhed, arms and legs flailing, black smoke billowing from the runes carved into its silver armour. The runes erupted in a burst of light as the Vitharnmír’s soul was shorn from the world, then faded to nothing as the creature was sent to wander the void.
The silver armour that covered its body shivered and twisted, turning to liquid. It rolled over the Vitharnmír, receding into the many runes carved into the pale flesh and revealing the face of a woman of adolescent years, the light of his Soulblade shimmering in her open black eyes.
Kallinvar pulled the blade free, a coil of regret twisting in him. One constant had always remained throughout his many lifetimes: the young always paid the price for mistakes made long before their time – and the price was always blood.
As he stood staring down at the twisted corpse, the Lorian mages rallied around the remaining Vitharnmír, fighting with void-wrought fury. Some held níthrals of varying colours in their fists, others spewed black fire from their palms, the world twisting around them. It was like that night in Ilnaen four hundred years ago all over again.
The knights closed around them, fighting in pairs as commanded, the added numbers of The First proving the difference. With every swing of his Soulblade, the dying pulse of the chosen Sigil Bearer grew weaker, fading in Kallinvar’s mind. This needed to end now, or it would all be in vain.
“Emalia, Arden, Varlin – with me!” Kallinvar surged into the thick of the fighting, his Soulblade carving a path of blood and bone. If the Vitharnmír died, the mages would break.
He swung his Soulblade in an upward arc across his body, slicing through a mage’s forearm and cleaving his face from chin to brow before swinging back across and taking another’s head from her shoulders.
The sickly oil of the Taint surged in pulses as the Lorian mages tried to keep the knights at bay. But in these close quarters, even the power of Efialtír’s moon couldn’t save them.
Tendrils of Essence wrapped around Kallinvar’s feet, holding him in place as the Vitharnmír charged through the swell of the bodies and swung its crimson Soulblade. The weapon came within a handspan of Kallinvar’s neck before Arden crashed into the creature’s side and the pair tumbled to the ground.
Kallinvar staggered forwards, the bonds of Essence that held him in place evaporating as Varlin swept past and took the head of the mage responsible.
Within seconds, both Arden and the Vitharnmír were back on their feet, their Soulblades a blur of light. Kallinvar charged into the fray, Emalia and Varlin at his side.
He swung at the creature’s flank, only for it to turn and send a shockwave of Blood Magic slamming into his chest from its open palm. He careened backwards, the air fleeing his lungs as he hit the ground.
Kallinvar rose, struggling to breathe, staggering, when his Sigil ignited with aching loss. He lifted his gaze to see the Vitharnmír standing over Sister Uriban’s body, the breastplate of her Sentinel armour collapsed inwards under the creature’s weight.
The roar that filled the yard was one born of anguish and loss. Sister-Captain Arlena hurled herself at the creature bound in its twisted Sentinel armour. The Vitharnmír turned to meet the charge, its foot pressing into Sister Uriban’s chest, blood spraying.
The two Soulblades crashed together again, and again, and again, until the Vitharnmír carved a gouge across the breast of Arlena’s armour.
For a moment, Kallinvar’s heart stopped, his breath catching. But Arden, Emalia, and Varlin charged in, and the Vitharnmír stood no chance.
First Arden took its left arm, then Varlin drove her Soulblade through its thigh, tore it along the creature’s leg, and ripped it out at the knee. Emalia plunged her blade into its heart, and Arlena took its head. The Vitharnmír may have been born of godsblood, but even gods could bleed.
As the silver armour slithered over the demon’s skin, the surviving Lorians threw down their arms, steel ringing out through the yard.
In the silence that ensued, a slow heartbeat drummed in the back of Kallinvar’s mind, weak, fading.
Dum dum. Dum dum. Dum dum.
Kallinvar looked to Arlena and gestured towards the surrendering Lorians. “Bind them. Knights of The Second, with me.”
Kallinvar led the way across the yard and into a tall wooden structure that sat at its northern edge, two storeys tall, thick, and broad. He could hear Ildris and Ruon speaking, but their words were muffled, drowned out by the dying heartbeat.
Dum dum. Dum dum.
He pushed open the wooden structure’s doors and stepped into a large open hallway, barren except for an empty table against the right wall and a row of hooks beside it with three dangling coats. The place had been built purely for function.
That same putrid smell of burning flesh from outside clung to the air, thick and heavy. It pressed on the back of Kallinvar’s throat and pushed into his nostrils.
Kallinvar followed the thumping of the heartbeat through the arch on the opposite end of the hall, stepping into a room illuminated purely by candlelight.
Fifty cots stretched the length of the room, split evenly on either side.
“In the name of all that is sacred,” Ruon whispered from behind Kallinvar.
He didn’t look to see what it was that brought such horror to her voice. Instead, he focused on the mages who were scrambling about, grabbing scrolls and notes and stuffing them into sacks.
Kallinvar marched down the central path between the rows of cots as a mage stood in shock, staring. He was a Scholar by the grey of his robes.
“I…” The mage staggered backwards, looking up at Kallinvar with eyes that held nothing but fear. “I didn’t… I…”
“You didn’t what?” Kallinvar grabbed the man by the throat and lifted him to dangle off the ground. Ruon and the knights subdued the other mages in his periphery.
As Kallinvar held the man in the air, he looked about the room, his gaze falling on what had caused Ruon so much disgust. Every cot was occupied, but none of the occupants were moving. Each was stripped naked, raw, angry wounds carved into their flesh in the shape of runes. Limbs were twisted and snapped in preternatural directions, skin blackened and cracked. Other victims had knotted masses of flesh where their eyes had been. Each looked to have died a death of uniquely excruciating pain.
Kallinvar tightened his armoured fingers around the mage’s throat, feeling a groan from within. Snapping his neck would have been as easy as breaking a twig.
“They… they’re volunteers. At least, they were… I swear it.”
“It’s a shame none are alive to make the same oath.” He squeezed a little tighter. “Convenient, that.”
“I swear on The Saviour himself.”
“Oh, your god isn’t listening.” Kallinvar pressed his tongue against his palette, his rage sour in his mouth. The faces of those on the cots were just as young as the girl who had played host to the Vitharnmír, just as vulnerable. “The duty of the strong is to protect the weak, mage. These are just children. Children . You should have protected them, but instead you preyed on them, mutilated them… Is this the god you worship? The god that feeds on the young?”
“They…” The man trembled, his voice barely a whisper. “They were volunteers. They?—”
“Look at them!” Kallinvar roared, turning to hold the mage over one of the cots, twisting his neck so he couldn’t look away. “They are children!”
Anger was an emotion Kallinvar knew intimately but one he had long since believed under his control. He now accepted that belief to be false.
Kallinvar threw the man to the ground, looming over him. The mage leaned back on his elbows, shaking, staring back up at Kallinvar with terror in his eyes.
Never allowing his gaze to leave the mage’s, Kallinvar’s helm receded into the collar of his Sentinel armour. “Stay here. I’ll deal with you after.”
“I just—Argh!” The mage unleashed a high-pitched shriek as Kallinvar stomped on his shin, snapping the bone clean, blood splattering the stone. The scream died out after a few seconds, the mage losing hold of his consciousness.
Kallinvar stepped over the man, following the weak heartbeat that thumped in his head.
Dum… dum.
He found a small passage at the far end of the room that led to a rock-enclosed opening within the forest’s bounds.
It was here he discovered the source of the smell. An enormous pit had been dug at the centre of the opening, and within it were bodies, black and burnt. Smoke still drifted from the charred corpses, the vile stench of burning flesh and clothes clutching the air.
Ruon and Arden stepped through the passage and out into the clearing. Silence held them, but Kallinvar could feel the all-consuming sorrow that radiated from their Sigils.
Dum… dum.
A grunt sounded to Kallinvar’s left, followed by deep, rasping breaths.
Armoured in ruby plate, a man was slumped against a post, a spear driven through his abdomen, just below the ribs. The weapon appeared to be the only thing holding him upright, pinning him to the wood at his back. The front of his armour was slick with blood, a pool seeping into the grass at his feet.
The potential Sigil Bearer was an Inquisition Praetorian.
Kallinvar stepped closer and lifted the man’s chin, staring into his eyes.
The Praetorian grunted again, returning Kallinvar’s gaze. “Make it quick.” He coughed and spluttered, choking on his own blood. “At least quicker than this.”
Kallinvar rested a hand on the man’s drooped shoulder, gripping tight. “This will hurt.”
He yanked the spear free with an almighty pull, and the Praetorian collapsed forwards into Kallinvar’s arms, blood pumping from the now open wound.
“You will be dead within minutes. Or we can offer you a second chance in this life. A chance to protect the things you love. But it comes at a cost.”
The man stared back at him, straining hard to maintain his consciousness. “I’m pretty sure… I’m past saving.”
“The duty of the strong is to protect the weak,” Kallinvar said, ignoring him. “Do you agree?”
“Can I not just die in peace?” He choked, spots of blood painting his bottom lip, then swallowed and answered the question. “Always.”
Kallinvar glanced at the pit of burning bodies, his anger getting the better of him. “Is this what you call protecting the weak?”
“Why do you think—” The Praetorian coughed up more blood, his eyes rolling to the back of his head. He drew a breath, grimacing. “Why do you think you found me on the pointy end of a spear?”
“Hmm. No decision is straightforward. Black and white do not exist. We live in a world of ever-shifting grey. Do you agree?”
“More than you know.” The Praetorian’s breathing grew shallow, but no sign of panic or fear hid in his eyes. He was not afraid of death.
“If we save you – if we grant you the Sigil of Achyron – are you willing to leave behind everything that you were? To forget every piece of the man you are now and become something more?”
“What in the fuck is the Sigil of Achyron?” The man licked the blood from his lips, then coughed up a laugh. “Fuck it. I would give everything to forget. I thought we were on the right side. It all made sense, until it didn’t. Though I suppose that’s always the way.” He stared at Kallinvar. “Yes.”
“If you take the Sigil of Achyron, you are bound to him. Should you betray his creed, your life will be ripped from you and you will know pain the likes of which you never thought possible. I must be clear. You will live, but there will be nothing easy about your life.”
“There never has been. But I’m afraid, if you don’t hurry up, I’m going to be dead pretty soon anyway.”
“I need you to understand the gravity of what it is to bear Achyron’s Sigil.”
“And I need to know…” The man grunted, then lifted his head and nodded towards the pit of smoking bodies. “Will Achyron stop that? Will he end all this madness?”
“Or die in the trying,” Kallinvar said, inclining his head.
“I’m dead already, am I not? I’ll take his Sigil, as long as he understands that his is not a name I’ve ever prayed to.”
“He doesn’t need your prayers. He needs your blade.”
“He will have it.”
Kallinvar nodded. “Sister Ruon, the Sigil.”
Ruon removed the metallic green Sigil from the pouch at her hip, and Kallinvar took it as though it were made of glass.
He traced his fingers along the sword that ran through the centre of the Sigil. “This belonged to a great man.”
“I’ll wear thick socks.”
Kallinvar laughed at that. “This will hurt more than the spear.”
The man closed his eyes and gritted his teeth, then nodded.
Kallinvar rested the Sigil over the Praetorian’s breastplate. The Sigil shimmered, brilliant light radiating from its surface. Unlike the previous times he had anointed new Sigil Bearers, Kallinvar could feel the power flowing through him and into the Praetorian, the Sigil acting as a conduit. In the span of a fleeting second, the Praetorian’s memories flashed across Kallinvar’s eyes. Not all of them, not every moment of his life, but the defining ones. The moments that shaped and moulded the man before him now.
Three brothers, all lost before the age of twelve in the great fires of Khergan, along with both parents. Saldan – that was the Praetorian’s name – had spent nearly two days trapped beneath ash and rubble until he’d finally been pulled free by an Imperial Praetorian.
Five years later, at the age of fourteen, he killed a man over fish at Khergan’s port. He’d been starving and alone, and yet even still to this day the memory haunted him.
At sixteen, he was accepted into the Praetorian Order and finally found the family he had yearned for, the family that had been taken from him.
Many moments across many years flickered through Kallinvar’s mind. Saldan was not a perfect man, but he was one who always tried to be decent. He had taken many lives but never without questioning why.
The last memory was of that day. He’d been posted at the fort earlier that morning. The sight of the young men and women lying on the cots had stopped his heart. He’d gone into a rage when the rune markings had started to kill the hosts, twisting their bodies and snapping their bones. The others had subdued him and strapped him to the post in the clearing. When they’d carried the bodies to the pit, he broke his bonds and charged his own. They skewered him and left him to die.
The memories faded from Kallinvar’s vision and before him the Sigil shimmered one last time before waves of heat radiated from its surface, the steel of the Praetorian’s breastplate melting like butter.
Saldan’s eyes snapped open, bulging, but he didn’t scream. He shook, jaw clenched tight, hands tearing tufts from the grass.
“Pain is the path to strength, brother.”
Smoke drifted upwards, the smell of burning flesh reaching Kallinvar’s nostrils.
Saldan convulsed, mouth open, breaths short. And still, he didn’t scream. Kallinvar had screamed. He’d screamed like a newborn babe, and he’d wept rivers. The pain of taking the Sigil was unnatural. Nothing in all his years had ever come close. It was the first test of knighthood. Feeling pain, screaming, weeping, that was not the test. The test was whether the knight persevered.
In Kallinvar’s mind, perseverance was the single greatest attribute a human soul could possess. It was the one and only thing that was always within your control. Talent could be wasted, luck could run out, charm faded. But a soul that could persevere despite all odds could overcome anything.
After a few moments the power that coursed from Kallinvar into the Praetorian ebbed and faded, and the man stopped convulsing. A shiver set in, and Saldan’s teeth chattered, as was normal.
The centre of the ruby steel plate that had covered his chest had melted away, hardening in streaks along both flanks and in small pools on the ground. Through the gap in the armour, Saldan’s bare chest was exposed, dripping with sweat, his skin raw and pink. A tattoo in the shape of Achyron’s Sigil ornamented his skin, metallic green, glinting in the light of the moon.
“Rise,” Kallinvar said, grasping the man’s forearm. “Brother Kevan.”