Micah had been right.
The crusade army, or Hastur, whoever was capable of doing something so awful as slaughter innocent children had arrived even before they had. In the city, dead guards lined the street, but other than a few skirmishes still occurring between council remnants and Inquisition forces, it was eerily quiet.
This hadn't been the only time violence had erupted in Amistad, however. These days, that seemed common – insurgency or mad, doomsaying flagellants ensured the markets were commonly cleared out. Hence why Tyr had invested so much in a defensive structure for his 'children', going to great lengths to keep them alive.
It had gone so far that nobody trusted the faithful any longer, to the point where those who chose not to fight against Amistad, such as local clergy and faith militant, were marking themselves as Brenn did. Painting one pauldron white or wearing a similarly light colored cloak, both carrying the four pointed star. The symbol for the 'church of man', which had no gods save Aotrom who was seen as the one responsible for its more secular nature, and only existed symbolically as one of the Eight Pillars.
A pillar for the four primary elements. Fire, wind, water, and earth.
Light, and darkness.
Man being the seventh. And the 8th was an unknown – perhaps the undivided aspect of faith, the symbol of the sun that sat at the highest point on the 8 sided star. Some said it was its own Pillar, hence the greater name, but nobody had ever discovered what it was.
Each a House, each independent and only a handful actively participating in the crusade. But when Vanator called, people came – he was not an exceptionally popular god, but the church of light had the influence to recruit from every nation on the continent. Often, Vanator was depicted as the prime light god. But as with Thanatos, there was no prime god of light or darkness, not one that had made themselves apparent – and no divine claimed it officially.
As soon as they'd been transited to the city, post Micah's disappearance, all of them effortlessly moving through the dimensional gates – even the orcish army – Alex and Sigi ran at full pelt through the gates and into the courtyard. Bodies lay everywhere, and the entry proper into the estate was in ruins, along with the wide yard and path splitting it. Most of the corpses appeared to be crusaders, only a few proper paladins among them. Mostly normal men with common artifacts, whoever had done the defending had committed themselves well.
By the looks of the servant staff peeking their head through the windows of the veritable palace, the place hadn't been breached either. Not surprising, a primus would never be given nor lord over a simple structure of stone and mortar, this place was more than it appeared. The gardens torn up, corpses strewn around. The only figure standing was a man in armored blueish battlemage robes, with a bloody blond warrior's tail and a fearsome gash about his forehead. Near the point of collapsing by the looks of it, a large curved greatsword in his hands, the signature kriegsmesser of...
“Kael Emberwind...” Brenn growled, stormy in expression and ostensibly prepared to assault the man. He had not known that the man had escaped imprisonment, and in relatively perfect condition no less, somehow. “Was one treason not enough!?”
He froze in his steps as Tiber of all people grabbed at his arm, though.
“I believe he fought in defense of the estate,” The old man observed, indicating the wounds on the armored men around them and how they'd been cut down or blasted apart by the archmage. A decent showing, there were two vindicators at his feet and a score of other fairly decently ranked foes. A vindicator was typically a match for a senior mage, but it varied wildly – some were made heroes in waiting and could be called more able. Tiber remembered meeting a man named Tucal Valerius who was more than a match for himself, once upon a time, perhaps an archmage killer. Paladins and their faith magic were too inconsistent to really speak on their relative abilities besides.
Kael didn't respond immediately, only nodding, sitting on the ground and tending to his wounds with light magic. It would appear that Brenn and the others had arrived only minutes after the conclusion of the fight. “I was too late.”
“Too late for what, Kael...?” Alex was worried about Farron, that boy who had only just recovered and found motivation in his life. Blissfully, it would seem she need not be. There was a loud crash that came from the roof, and the body of an inquisitor half crushed and cut apart slammed into the middle of their loose formation. Ridden down towards the ground by the aforementioned boy, straddled over the hips of a grown man he'd just beaten to death.
“Hello, young man,” Tiber smirked, a very dramatic entrance – but those were always the best ones. “How many?”
“Fourteen magicless men, three paladins, and this inquisitor – a templar,” Farron replied tiredly, “They were trying to get in through the decorative chimney shoots, not realizing there is no clear path inside and nobody even uses chimneys anymore. I pulled this one out, he was stuck inside, the dumb bastard.”
“Well done, but mind your language,” Tiber commented, gripping his shoulder. It was a bit concerning that no force had arrived en masse to protect the personal estate of their 'king'. But at the end of the day, these mages of Amistad were cowards, and the city had halved in population within the last few months as people sought refuge elsewhere. Others still most assuredly wanted to plant the head of a man that could not be killed on a spike. “Go back inside and protect the hall.”
“Where are the children?” Samson asked, his granite mask wavering ever so slightly.
“Don't worry,” Farron looked up at him with a tired smile, a grim thing for a lad so young to be engaging in killing men so effortlessly. “They are in the estate. You won't believe this, but the Hero Daelin Host arrived hours ago with--”
He wouldn't get a chance to finish. Sigi and Alex both blurred forward, one on luminous tongues of lightning and the the other on pillars of earth. Followed by Brenn and Tythas who ran as fast as their infusion magic would take them, Tiber with his boots near identical to Tyr's and the rest sprinting at their backs.
Samson somehow got their first, displaying his ungodly strength as he kicked the door clean from its hinges, cracking the mortar around it. Recognized by the control array, he burst through the cloud of pulverized stone and ran passed the bedraggled servant staff who'd picked up what implements they could in preparation of a defense. Watched over by Mother Mary, the orphanage now located in the estate was his goal.
“WHERE ARE THEY!?” He roared, like a bull in his charge towards their quarters, small bunks normally dedicated to housing a garrison in individual rooms, not unlike a campus suite. The doors were all smashed to pieces and Mother Mary lay face first in a pool of her own blood. Next to her, and making himself at home amidst the shattered remnants of a heavy table, was Daelin, a gaping wound in his side. And beside him in a significantly worse state of injury was the Tyr doppelganger known as Huron. Samson stormed forward, plucking the hero up by his gorget and slamming him back into the ground. “TELL ME WHERE THEY ARE, OR I SWEAR BY OGUN'S MASK I WILL BURY YOU!”
“It was Aurelius,” Daelin croaked weakling. “Aurelius alongside the pawns of Cortus arrived and took the children. We've made a terrible mistake.”
Samson's fists didn't do much in the way of damage to someone so sturdy as a hero, but the latter didn't resist as his face was hammered against the stone floor. Huron rose with the help of Alex, silent as ever and limping into a chair so that she might administer to his wounds, alongside the much more healing savvy Lina. Huron was quite damaged, but sturdy enough to have survived – that had always been his talent after all. Daelin must've caused quite a mess, the walls of the anterior chambers were dust and rubble for dozens of meters, the fighting must've been some thing indeed, but it had ended fast.
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Through that wreckage they could see another man, the one Tiber recognized as Zell that he'd broken and turned to his cause. The remains of two dozen blackguard, now dawnguard, were scattered about the room. With the former, Zell, twitching uncomfortably on the warped chandelier that had pinned him to the ground. Tyr's first experiment with the blood, a failed one considering his broken mind and what sometimes appeared to be a single digit IQ, but he was alive for the time being.
Harkon frowned, a pair of spectacles with multiple articulating lenses settling on his face, “By the looks of it, this human arrived to make your people aware that an attack was coming. Two hero class individuals came later and killed your colleagues. The children were not hurt, but they were taken southward.”
Tiber crouched down to his feet, resting a steadying hand on the shaking frame of Samson and managing to pull the man back for now, replacing him in looming over the fallen hero, staring down at him with a flinty glare. To commit to war was one thing, but to target women and children was unforgivable. There were rules to these things, the Accords be damned – Tiber had never broken his code and was proud for that.
And yet these 'holier than though' faith addled moralizers would break the sacred law of warring so easily.
Tyr had foreseen something like this no matter where he'd put the orphans, and with the odd activity of the primus' he didn't trust moving them across borders. But they'd come here anyways, avoiding all military targets and cutting down the priestesses of Aphrosia present to aid Mary in her care, and the Mother herself who was of Vestia's faithful. Brenn was staring at her with lost eyes, observing the room and how they'd just left the women like that, butchered. 'Heroes' who hadn't given an ounce of thought to blessing their bodies.
Farron, following some ways behind, sank to his knees, his blade clattering to the ground, gripping his head. This was his only duty, to protect the children, and he'd been so confident and naive to believe a Hero could do it better than he could. Waiting with Kael in the courtyard, just a distraction – luring them away in lieu of a knife in the back.
“Aurelius, and who?” Tiber asked coldly.
“Ryker,” Daelin hacked violently, spitting blood, “He arrived here with me in disguise, I had no idea that Laki's chosen would have betrayed me, I swear it.”
“The fox is the god of change and tricks, what else would his child have done?” Tiber sighed, even a hero was equally capable of being a complete dunce, or so it would seem. “Tell us where they've taken them.”
“He cannot be trusted,” Alex turned her head, glaring at the man. Daelin Host was one of the highest ranked members of Vanator's faith, the right hand of the inquisition. An equivalent to Aurelius, though she knew very little about Daelin specifically. The Purifier's faithful had been the loudest voices in the room when a crusade was being called for though, based on what she'd heard. And now, just by coincidence, he was here.
There was no doubt in her mind that this was a plant.
“I would never harm a youngling,” Daelin croaked again, clearly his injuries went beyond the physical, but nobody knew how their powers worked in the first place. If he'd betrayed Vanator's will, he might not have them anymore. In many ways Heroes were seen as the penultimate station of paladin, as sainthood was a pipe dream to all. There were dozens of heroes, but only a handful of saints alive, perhaps less than five, but they didn't usually announce themselves – if they arrived anywhere at all. “They have turned away from the light, tricked and fooled by the black hand of Cortus. My god has not spoken on this, but he has not abandoned me for this path I have chosen, it must mean something, and I never agreed to be party to this vile behavior. Our objective, as it were, was the abduction the princesses without harm to their person – which would only benefit you.”
“I asked where they were, I don't give a shit about your flagging faith,” Tiber didn't possess a weapon capable of wounding a full fledged Hero, but what with that hole in his stomach just the right size for the clawed hand he'd trust into it to grab at the liver beneath, it was all too easy. Daelin didn't make a sound, seemingly oblivious to the pain. Impressive, Hero class individuals were bound to be something different from the norm. Which meant that though Vanator's chosen led the crusade – it was unlikely that the god himself supported it. Or, like great Awl, Vanator simply didn't care what his followers did outside of direct writ.
“They are moving south,” Daelin said, “To reconnect with the barges along the Varian border. I do not know why they wanted the children, but Aurelius was adamant, and he thrashed me in opposition to this odd change of plan.”
“To incite Tyr into doing something monstrous and abandon Amistad,” Sigi thought it was obvious, though she was no less incensed. After Astrid had fallen, he hadn't said much and had left so quickly, but she could tell. She'd not protested his departure out of respect, there was a wrath in him and she'd known that Tyr was aggrieved at the loss of Astrid. If they harmed the children he'd gone so far as to call his own, he would really and truly lose it. Sigi had no more doubt in her, only a primus could stop Tyr Faeron, and even then it was no sure thing, he was a hurricane given feet, if truly pushed to his limits...
Well, unlike the moralizing Alex, Sigi did not care much what Tyr did, they were, after all, at war – and the Crusade showcased zero predilection for lawful behavior.
“We go get them back before they can do anything untoward. We will ensure that Mary's life was not given in vain, I will fight,” Brenn growled. “How many heroes do they have?” He asked Daelin.
'Hero' wasn't just some fancy title, he'd always thought they were just special talents among the faithful, but that was very much not the case. Not all heroes were related to gods and that wasn't always how they achieved that status, but the churches would pay vast sums of money to keep them on board, the obvious destination for them what with the massive amenities such a titanic organization as the faith could provide.
And, worth mentioning, the fact that heroes were rumors to hunt down those who did not obey.
“Only two as far as I know. But Ryker and Aurelius... They are very able, and with the Fingers supporting them...”
“That's still two heroes!” Mikhail cried from the doorway. He was sick to his stomach at this cruelty as much as anyone else, but... “What do you expect to do when you find them!?” In his mind, very obviously, they should call Tyr back.
Mikhail had more at stake in all of this then some people might realize.
“What I've always done best, put a dagger in them enough times that they stop moving,” Tiber scowled, pulling out his communication amulet and stepping out of the room while the others processed their anger and grief.
“As will I,” Samson said, following him with heavy steps, marching out hunched and full of wroth. His gentle personality split with rage, barely contained at the idea that the little ones he'd bonded with had been abducted.
“I will fight alongside you,” Daelin offered, allowed to rise now. Among Heroes, he was still relatively 'young', only fifty seven years of age and awakening later into his life. Aurelius had been a hero since he was a young man and was already ninety. Nobody knew much about Ryker beyond the god he served, but he was not regarded as an evil man. Hadn't been, whatever the circumstances that may have seen change in him in recent years. Daelin had known Ryker for some time, and had truly never expected the proverbial knife in the back – it had come as quite a shock to see the playful bard Hero doing such a thing.
“Mmm...” Alex nodded. It would be a fool's errand but they should try, if for no other reason than the obvious. “Does anyone have any ideas on how we handle this?”
“The Heroes are not the only problem here,” Sigi hadn't even been given proper time to mourn, but at least it'd give her an outlet. They were all responsible for this, one way or another. “We also have to deal with the Fingers, as he said. Nala, what do you expect our chances to be?”
“Zero,” The chimera scoffed. “I may be able to match the golden one but you have no idea what a Hero is capable of. Neither have I trained in the art of fighting men, as your kin do. We will lose if we hunt them, even if we manage to strike before they reconnect with their army.”
“But we still go,” Lina pushed forward through the crowd at the door. Growing evermore disillusioned with the churches as time went on. If the gods were willing to give these kinds of people their Grace, how much worse was it elsewhere?
“I suppose we shall,” Nala nodded sagely, looking more than a bit tired.