The soldier led them through the buildings, past the smithy, around the infirmary Ezril found he had no reason to visit again, behind what could only prove to be a bakery, and into the tower that held the chambers of the Lord Commander.
They were led to a door in a hallway six flights of stairs above ground level where the soldier knocked softly. A response came from behind it, and the man opened the door.
Bratvi was the first to step in, and with his entrance came an announcement of his name and title. With obvious false modesty, Baltar sighed as though he would rather not be announced, but Ezril saw the pride in the priest’s step as he walked in accompanied by his own announcement.
Ezril, however, dallied a while. He felt there would be no harm in giving the soldier a paused confusion. It worked. Someone within the room asked where the other priest was and Ezril heard the awkward mumbled response of the soldier before he stepped in.
He’d expected a fumbled presentation from the soldier. However, the voice that spoke was one he found himself surprised to recognize.
“Ah,” Dragmund said, excited and looking straight at him, “Father Sorf… Sona… Sor…” the excitement in his voice was fizzling out. “Sorti… Sorl…” the man’s lips puckered awkwardly. He looked down and away, then cleared his throat conspicuously. “So as you were saying, Butler Dhon.”
Apparently, the realm’s hero was quick to giving up.
The old man to his side simply sighed. “We have breached the first wall, which was simple enough. Our scouts’ accounts inform us of at least ten thousand men behind their main walls, not counting women and children. We’ve also established three major encampments and have laid siege to their walls. Not that it matters. There has been no news of them leaving their settlement for anything other than the war they fight. With our latest reinforcements, we wish to end the war within the next seven days. And while we work on how to deal with the walls, Reverend Ghimasu has agreed to work with his contingent on coming up with a plan on how to give us a helping hand, breaching their ranks from within.”
“You spoke of the encampments,” a bearded man Ezril didn’t recognize wearing the colors of the King’s guard said, “What of the sunstrikes? Are there no risks to setting up camps anywhere near the walls?”
Sunstrikes?
The bearded man Ezril was certain was no butler nodded. “There is a risk; one for which we have accounted for. We have established that the strikes only occur within a certain range of the walls. Our encampments stand far outside of this range. Our camps are safe, High blade.”
Highblade. Ezril almost choked.
He paid attention to the man in kingblade’s colors. He was a wrinkly old man who stood with a straight back. The greying hair on his head was held back in a simple knot and he spotted a moustache. Despite the emphasized wrinkles around his eyes and the freckles that spotted his leathery skin, weathered by the sun and a life of service, his face maintained an easy platitude.
So this is the man that stands at the head of the King’s guards. It was almost strange to find the man here. Generally, men of power were known to sit in the comfort of safety while giving out commands; not out of cowardice, but simple importance.
“Besides,” Dragmund added, “We need the camps to be as close as possible, whether we like it or…” he froze, eyes wide with realization. “Ah!” he turned to Ezril with renewed excitement, “Father Urden, it’s so good to have you back. I trust your brief vacation went well. I hear this time bravery was not the case. Just a pointless rampage proving to be nothing but foolishness. I should have bet on this one, too. Not on the outcome of your life,” he rolled his eyes, “obviously. But on the outcome of your actions.”
He turned to Darvi who was standing beside a random general of some reinforcement and said, “Would you make a wager on him doing something stupid before the war is over? No?” He shrugged. “I guess I’ll just have to come up with something you can’t refuse with my butler. He’s always had a knack for making such offers.”
He paused in thought.
“Have I ever told you that that’s how he got me here? An offer I could not refuse. Can you imagine that?” Darvi gave no answer. Dragmund shrugged. “Me neither. A slippery one, that butler; you should keep your eye out for him. But should the sunstrikes prove imminent, we have already secured a method of quick retreat. That way we lose very little men to it, High blade Vawn.”
Dohn seemed to be the only person undisturbed by Dragmund’s insane method of changing subjects, because while the others seemed to catchup, the man continued with his presentation. All the while Dragmund assuaged a disturbed Darvi with childishly vacillating brows.
“When we breach the walls we will have a team in charge of locating the one-armed man. Although, judging from recent events, we expect him to make himself known. The plan, however, is in his isolation…”
The one-armed king has joined the battle, Ezril thought. His mind reeled to the night Olufemi infiltrated the walls and what the man had done to him. If he was out of his comfort now, perhaps it meant they were proving too strong for his men. If they could keep him isolated maybe they could…
He perked up at his name.
“…It would seem Father Olufemi has a certain history with this man,” Dhon was saying. When he offered no response, the false butler added, “The berserker priest. It would seem he has some kind of history with the one-armed man.”
Ezril forced himself to focus on the meeting. He hadn’t expected to be addressed. He’d thought his presence a simple ceremony where all he was required to do was listen as he had done before.
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“Yes,” he answered offhandedly. “The first time Father Olufemi snuck in behind their walls, they fought.”
The room fell into stunned silence. Everyone looking at him in confused shock. Even Dragmund had lost his characteristic grin of mischief. Only Darvi, Bratvi and Baltar seemed uninfected.
“How strong is this one-armed man?” Bratvi pierced the silence. “And why do you say the Father Olufemi has a history with him?”
High blade Vawn was the one to fall from his shock first. “The first time he showed up on the battlefield I lost two captains and twelve men, we also lost nine priests to him. These are figures we know of.”
Ezril could see a flicker of shock threaten to break Bratvi’s mask.
“The last time he came to the battlefield,” Vawn continued, “we thought we were ready for him. The number of men we lost does not appreciate the momentum of this man’s impact, so I will tell you what it cost your seminary: he fought two Most Reverends and four Reverends. Only Most Reverend Kolt survived. He remains in the infirmary. As for how we knew the berserker has history with the man; each time he shows up, the priest ignores all commands and charges for him, killing everyone in his way. Although, the man is always gone before he makes it to him.”
By this time, Bratvi had all but succumbed to the shock. Baltar wasn’t handling it any better. Shock and grief were always a terrible combination.
“This is where you come in, Father,” Dhon continued. “Report has it that you are the only one the priest listens to. When you went missing in the Arlyn forest, he ignored all commands to go to war and spent over three weeks looking for you. We also learned the only reason he’s in this war is because you commanded it of him.”
There was no command given, Ezril thought, but simply nodded.
“He has been confined to his room in recent times. The enemy fears him. However, so do our men. And whenever the one-armed man presents himself, our men and the enemy hold no difference to him. We’ve agreed that he’s essential in stopping this man, so we’ll need you to bring him to control. Will that be possible?”
Ezril thought back to Olufemi’s injuries the night they’d snuck into the ruined city of Arlyn and nodded. “I’ll see what I can do.”
He watched the aged man mull it over. He didn’t like the response, but he had no other choice. He knew it was the best he would get.
“What’s this about sunstrikes?” Ezril asked, interrupting whatever the old man was going to say next.
“Bursts of light dropping from the sky,” Dhon answered. “When it falls, those near it blister from burns. However, it incinerates everything in its path, leaving only scorched dirt…”
“And glass?”
“Yes.”
Ezril looked to Darvi, a question in his eyes, and his brother nodded. It seemed Olufemi had been right. He turned back to the old man.
“Any relationship between the man and the strikes?”
Dhon nodded. “Actually, we believe him to be Tainted. A man with a very powerful touch. The strikes grow more accurate whenever he’s on the battle field.”
“And his combat skill?”
Dragmund frowned. “It’s less about his skill and more about his strength.”
Ezril turned to him. “You’ve fought him?”
“No,” Dragmund shook his head. “But I’ve seen him fight. He’s stronger than any Hallowed I’ve seen. He’s fast and strong, and what’s worse, he seems to fight on only instinct.”
There was more he wanted to ask, like how a Tainted could be stronger than a Hallowed, however, he had to accept the fact that even the answers he had gotten from them was an over indulgence on their part, so he held his tongue and swallowed his curiosity. The meeting easily fell back into more tactical matters and he was soon lost to the melancholy of battle plans. When it came to an end, he bid Darvi goodbye with a single nod, and as Lord Commander Bilvion, who had been sulking somewhere in the room perhaps from having his war taken from his command, had informed him he could; he made his way without question to his room.
Along the way he considered visiting his brothers, but they had waited three weeks for him; they could wait longer.
He retired to his room as the darkness embraced the sky.
Nothing had changed of the keep in the time Ezril had been away. A brief stop at the infirmary proved Nixarv still slaved away at his now outnumbering patients, though the man didn’t notice his arrival, or his exit. The soldiers still flaked the mess halls in comfortable banter in the absence of priests, and the smithy was still manned by a foreigner with skin the color of night.
The only thing that was different was the number of white cassocks that littered the place. Ezril couldn’t turn his head without seeing at least one priest. If the cassock wasn’t white, then it was black, and if it wasn’t a cassock, the dual scabbards worn with pride strapped to various positions said it all. Surprisingly, there were a few priestesses too.
The church may not have been pleased with having the seminary take control over a scriptural anomaly, but it was good to know it would not shirk away from being a part of something that would no doubt find its way into the pages of the taught scriptures.
Morning found Ezril waking to a sweat drenched bed and a need for distraction. Unsurprisingly, the night had come with its terrors. He’d had a brief reprieve from his monsters in the dark for a while, but after Lenaria’s death, they’d returned.
At first he’d welcomed them. He had convinced himself that there too could be a solace found hidden behind all the fear. After all, his dead always seemed to find him there. It had taken him all but two dreams to give up all hope; Lenaria would not be coming to him in any of his dreams.
Ezril stopped a soldier. The man was somewhere in his mid-ages, and if Ezril trusted his instincts, a veteran. This was the fourth soldier he’d stopped to ask of Levlin since leaving his room. And unlike those before him, the man had an idea of where he might find the scribe.
He made his way in the direction he was given, thinking perhaps continuing on his Merdendi tongue would serve a good distraction from the war he was to go to.
The veteran’s directions led him to familiar grounds. A massive cavernous walkway spread out before him, and as he walked the ground descended very subtly. He took his first turn through the arched pathway, tracing old steps vague to his memories. The only time he had walked these parts he hadn’t done it alone. He turned again. A few more turns found him lost.
Fuck!
Muttering nonsense, he took a calming breath and ran his hand through his hair. He’d forgotten to pack it up and a few stray strands fell over his face and into his view. He paused, looking at a few of the strands. Naturally they would be hidden beneath the black, but having been disturbed, they teased him in his view.
The whitened hair mingled with the black almost as if threatening to taint them as they had tainted themselves. He frowned and brushed the hair from his face, tying it in a haphazard knot. A few strands fell to his face but he was certain all of them were black. He’d been dealing with it long enough to know when he’d tucked the whites out of sight. He’d been dealing with them ever since he’d set what was left of Lenaria ablaze.
A few more steps and he almost thanked Truth.
The soldier stood in uniform, the light from one of the lit torches nearby casting upon him. Not a soldier, Ezril observed. A King’s guard. It didn’t matter. If the man was all the way down here, then he knew how to find whatever he was supposed to be looking for.
“I’m looking for where the scholar that came yesterday was taken,” he told the man.
The King’s guard afforded him with a look of confusion. “Scribe,” he said, casting a look into the cavernous passage behind Ezril.
“Yes, scribe.” Ezril looked behind him wondering what had the man so enamored. Nothing seemed out of place. Except… are those that come here expected to have escorts?