Howls accompanied the scurrying feet of a squalid old priest as he hurried nervously into the foyer of a large church’s ruins. Sending a frightened look over his shoulder, the light caught his white brows and stubble that had accumulated over the last 24 hours along with the sagging skin of a man in his twilight years. Pale green eyes flitted to and fro over the wooded surroundings, searching for something but alighted on nothing out of the ordinary, for there was naught there besides the evergreens and occasional call of mundane beasts echoing in the distance.
Realizing this, he heaved a deep, shaky breath and then looked hesitantly at the large ornate wooden door a few feet away. Gingerly, he picked up his gnarled hands and laid them against the mildewed and rotting frame, trying to give it a push with all the strength his arms could muster.
Failure.
Grimacing, he threw another furtive look towards the surroundings and then suddenly threw his shoulder into the door in a surprisingly ferocious manner, bending lower to gain better leverage, his wobbly thin legs showing from under the warm woolen robes he wore. After what seemed like an lifetime of exertion, the decrepit old soul was finally rewarded with the sound of a slight scraping as warped wood fibers released their purchase in the creases of the doorframe. Leaning back, he wearily threw his body at the frame once more and quickly found himself stumbling into the cathedral’s large central nave.
The first aspects of the cavernous room that assaulted the senses were the smell of decay and the scene of destroyed pews. Rows that had once held hundreds of believers were tossed around in disarray and showed signs of rot damage. To the dimly side, massive columns reached up imposingly to support sweeping arches that seemingly flew overhead, always ending in a spear-like point. His eyes went wide.
Tattered, moth-eaten tabards of a golden circle on a field of black in gold trim hung askance on walls and columns or not at all, heaped at the place where they’d likely fallen hundreds of years ago. Normal cloth would have decomposed the year the cathedral was abandoned, but this was blessed for use in service to the Order of the Golden Host. It had lingered on, ever inextricably linked with the faith that was supplied into them, yet... The old man immediately drew a circle on his chest with a thumb and then offered up a prayer in warding.
The sight of a decaying blessed item was never a good omen, not to mention the entire church before him now. So few could even perform a blessing anymore - he certainly couldn’t. The wastefulness of it all thrust upon the priest a sense of helpless bitterness and sorrow.
Picking his way carefully through the refuse and decay, over muddy and scraped marble floor, the robed man eventually found a path to the relatively empty crossing in the very middle and kept walking. Shuffling past the place for the choir that had once sung praises to the All-father, he finally made it to the very center of the Apse where he had a full commanding view of all seven radiating chapels, their half-circle bays arrayed towards the focal point he stood upon before the gigantic stone altar that reached his chest.
Like thieving raiders slipping into the house of an unsuspecting homeowner, rays of moonlight quietly streamed down and lit up scenes of the controversial Demon Dawn in once beautifully colored glass windows for the chapels’ bays. Now they were dirty, cracked and missing pieces of glass in several places, but the depictions were still distinguishable all the same. Twisted apparitions and monstrosities of ash and flame fought against plate wearing warriors, locked in a poise of eternal struggle. Calvary charged in the distance and bowmen released rays of light at winged horrors in the sky. Shields defended from ferocious attacks of hellish claw while hammers smote downwards in an act of pure, unbridled strength.
The art seemed to have this magical exuberance that exalted their valor and even the priest found his cowardly spirit rejuvenated after a few moments of contemplation in their moonlit ambience.
“Paladins,” his voice cracked out in a whisper, eyes settling on the plate-clad soldiers.
Tired and worn, the sound reverberated into the ambulatory and then bounced back in accusatory condemnation. The shadows pointed fingers at him while God’s Eyes watched on in silence from above.
Looking towards the central chapel that showed a gigantic sun in glass of yellow and orange, ringed in a circle of steel, he bowed his head and then reverently placed his knobby fingers on the edge of the altar. With great trepidation, he began to pray, mustering the small pool of mana he possessed and feeding it like a miser into the stone that slowly warmed to the touch.
He was afraid.
He was afraid of the night and the horrors that it had unleashed upon his small town nestled in the wilderness. He was afraid for the future of his family. He was afraid of death.
But worst of all... he was outright terrified of facing the All-father. How could he withstand His scrutiny? Everyone knew this cathedral was here. Everyone knew, but no one cared enough to visit and look after this place including him. It was his place to lead others back to the faith, the true Faith, but instead he had squandered his days in token public rituals and private sacrilege, wasting a God-given opportunity to create a bastion for the Faith and start anew. The things he had done to those girls in the village...
“All-father!” He suddenly, brokenly exclaimed, tears beginning to stream down his face. He was filled with regret!
The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
Not once in the past fifty years had he truly followed the Codex. Not once in fifty had he thought about this cathedral or his faith as more than anything more than a way to position himself close to others or maybe as a way to put bread on the table. It was a pretense, a sham; what is the worth of a skeptic’s faith if not its usefulness as a tool? He never truly believed. The only thing he was good at was indulgence.
Faced now with the nightmares that confirmed a thousand years of bedtime stories he thought were designed to frighten children, he was finally forced to confront the truth of history... and the reality terrified him.
“I’m so sorry,” he choked out and then collapsed onto the stone beneath his feet, propping himself up and then slamming his head pitifully into the altar’s side until his scalp turned bloody. “Please save us! Please, Father! Please forgive us!...” Dreadful screams of sorrow pierced the tomblike calm of the Golden Host’s cathedral in near manic fervor.
But after a time, all that were left was his whimpers.
His pleading faltered and then the strength in his limbs followed as well, his body slouching to the side. A shooting star streaked by overhead, disappearing behind one of God’s eyes. It’s fleeting appearance and departure punctuated the utter lack of a response he’d gotten. A hollow chuckle escaped his lips. Of course he wouldn’t. He was a degenerate that deserved no response.
Not long after, his waning confidence deserted entirely as well. The darkness closed in and the shadows cast by the mangled pews sent shivers down his spine; goosebumps skittered across his skin. Movement flashed by outside one of the chapel windows and the priest felt his soul almost leave him.
They’re here! His addled mind thought despairingly.
Stumbling to his feet in unconcealed exhaustion, he tripped away from the altar and towards the door at the far end of the chamber. There was only one place of refuge for a man like him now, and that was the town half a mile away. There was no protection to be found in a dilapidated, godless relic such as this. In his hurry, he spared no look for the softly glowing edifice he’d just been leaning against.
Just as he got to the crossing again - that sacrosanct place where the circle of the All-father was emblazoned on the floor in a show of uniting the four wings of the cathedral as a symbolic representation of the world - a guttural growl emanated out from the entrance. Hisses accompanied scratching as bony arms and claws half again as long as a human’s reached out of the darkness and took hold of the door frames.
The priest came up short, his breath caught in his throat.
Glassy looking orbs of white, socketed in a patchy-skinned skull peered back at him with an undying hunger and hatred. Thick, short hair jutted outwards like black barbs and drops of saliva fell from a gaping maw where the gums had receded to reveal inhumanly large knife-like teeth. Some clothes still clung it its ghastly figure, but the majority had rotted away to reveal a tough, leathery exterior. Scars, most likely gained by the previous body’s owner in death, streaked the skin and wriggled subtly like there were worms crawling within.
The creature’s claws tightened for a brief moment on the doorframe before launching itself into the cathedral like a bow. The old man forgot to even scream as he watched terrified and frozen while the monster bounded over pews and destroyed furniture with animalistic agility.
In but a moment, it had reached where he was and pounced on him, eyes locked firmly on his as they tumbled to the ground. Instead of savaging him like the man feared though, it regarded him with curiosity, saliva continually dripping over his face and neck. Hollowed out nostrils took in a deep inhale...and then its ferocious maw widened into a grin.
The priest tried to squeeze out a scream instinctively but the creature had already lowered its head and bit in his shoulder, rending and tearing the muscle as it consumed the non-vital bits and muscle. Painful sobs and gargled shrieks choked the air as meat and blood were splattered within the circle of the All-father.
The old man’s head lolled to the side and his dimming vision caught sight of the altar right as it erupted.
All the air in the room seemed to be sucked towards it at that instant, the force ripping the undead monster off the dying man, where it congregated into a point and then exploded in a whirlwind of fire that began to cyclone around the altar.
Bum-bum.
Gloria!
A lone ancient voice called out in song from within the fires accompanied by war drums that rattled the stained glass windows. Wind whipped up and down the aisles, catching hold of the remaining tabards and sending them flapping along with the current. Holy power seeped into the cloth from the mana-laden air and motes of light began to wink in and out of existence as the air trembled in excitement.
Bum-bum...
A moment later, a hundred voices answered in powerful song, the tones rising like a tide as the flames became hotter and the cyclone became large, towering to half the height of the interior of the cathedral. The bells in the tower, rotten pull ropes long untouched by human hands, added their tolling to let the mountains and valleys know of the Divine being present.
Gloria! Gloria! Salus Regi nostro! [Glory! Glory! Greetings to our King!]
Gloria Patri omnia in excelsis! [Glory to the All-father in the highest!]
The war drums picked up slightly to reach a marching rhythm as horns and trumpets joined another chorus, but this time a thousand voices strong rang out. Thick and mighty, the quality of their spirit displayed in song gave testament to a lifetime of valor and service. The voices from beyond the veil stacked layers upon one another, forming complex chords and building in momentum.
Gaudete! Gaudete! Tempus ad est bellum! [Rejoice! Rejoice! It is now the time of war!]
Gloriam ad generalis qui venit! [Honor to the general who comes!]
On top of the altar wreathed in what was now a raging inferno, a figure of a man laying down began to form slowly upwards from the stone platform. Skin and viscera, bone and sinew - all was formed by the congregation of heat and flame aided by the divine. Mana converged out of the air and visibly formed into strings and stitched together the pieces of flesh, melding together with them as each part was completed. The appearance of the individual was gradually revealed.
Short blonde hair the color of sunlight crowned the head of what appeared to be a boy no older than sixteen winters. Thick, corded muscle wrapped the tall frame in promises of brutalistic strength, giving out slight tremors as internal processes were started and blood began to flow through his veins. As the last eyelash was formed on that youthful fair face, a tremor went through the pillar of heavenly flame and the room shuddered with the incredible depth of now ten thousand voices.
Gloria! Gloria! Omnis generis daemon trepido ante rutilent! [Let all demon kind tremble before his might!]
Pugna iunguntur! Gloria! [Let battle be joined! Glory!]
With the advent of a tremendous pressure from above, all of the fire and wind converged and rushed like flowing waters to slam into the body laid upon the altar until all energy was consumed and the outside air that rushed into to fill the vacuum had become utterly still. Singers, drums, bells, and trumpets laid silent after the last gloria and the priest unintentionally held a breath he couldn’t afford to spare.
All of creation waited with bated breath and the demon, who had been been flooded with a torrent of holy power and fire, lay smoking in a true death.
Heartbeats passed and then a huge inhale came from the body. A pair of blue eyes, pupils now ringed in a pure golden halo, fluttered open to view the world once again.