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The Hallow of Blood
Chapter 40: Die Here

Chapter 40: Die Here

The test of the tongue took place in the same room where they had stood before three elders in attendance of the test of awareness. The room, however, was devoid of the mist Ezril remembered so vividly from his last visit. But somewhere in his mind he could see it swirling upon the expanse of the ground beneath them, free and ominous.

Father Talod was the only priest of the seminary present. He took the single parchments upon which Ezril and his brothers had written their desired tales. The same elders that had administered the test of awareness sat upon their elevated seats with the addition of Monsignor Crowl, and Ezril found himself wondering at the sight and how they would be tested.

After the submission of their parchments they were presented new ones where they were required to rewrite the tales already present on those they had submitted. It was obvious that trust for the children was not something the seminary possessed in great quantity. The new parchments were reclaimed at the close of an hour. Ezril and his brothers submitted their parchments and sat in silence under the watchful gaze of those who would decide the outcome of the test.

“You have told your tales,” the Abbess of the convent told them, sitting with an old man and an old woman they knew from only the test of awareness. “And I’m sure you remember them as surely as you have told them.”

“You will all present your tales to your brothers, and us as well,” Monsignor Crowl added. “Choose your words wisely. Vrail is the language of the seminary, but the church holds it in significant regard as well.”

What followed was a nerve racking event where a brother was called by name to narrate the tale told in his parchment in the language of the seminary.

Darvi, being the first of the brothers, told a tale of the holy martyrs of Alduin. The priests upon whom the seminary was named. He spun their tale with a display of adequate knowledge of the language. He used basic vocabulary, adding more complex words only to give color to the tale where basic words proved insufficient.

The tale of the holy martyrs of Alduin was one of tragic heroism. A few years after Brandis Algon was committed to the fire, Tamaron Duret led wars against the neighboring cities around Alduin which was, at the time, a small kingdom under the reign of King Marnasesh Dinat, the second to ascend the throne. His expenditure had his brothers—as there were neither priests nor seminaries at the time—waging war in the Umunna forest, a land the church deemed important enough to declare a crusade upon.

They conquered the Umunnas, driving them from their forest and the king stationed some of his soldiers, two hundred strong, within the forest under the command of five of Tamaron Duret’s brothers. Sadly, the king had underestimated the strength of the Umunna tribes and the power of the mist. An attack came in the night and the king’s men were slaughtered. Their allies felled in one night, the Hallowed brothers of Tamaron defended the encampment for four days before the arrival of reinforcements.

When reinforcement arrived, they were met with what was left of the bodies of the Umunnas rumored to be over one hundred strong. Signs of pyres where the soldiers of the kingdom had been committed burned dark in the ground and the priests were scattered across the battle field, dead at the hands of the tribe.

Tamaron Duret later requested the land from the king. Upon it he built the seminary. The seminary joined the church five years before the death of Tamaron Duret, after the church had sought their submission to the Credo. Tamaron being a man of the Credo accepted the seminary as part of the church but an entity that would not submit complete and utter control. It would obey the church’s guidance in the Credo. In over ten centuries the church had played more active roles in the seminary.

When the time for Olufemi to speak came, he rose with the confidence of a child in a new place.

Surprisingly, he chose to narrate the tale of Father Anude. The priest was known for his different achievements, but what he was famed for was the nickname his brutal display in battle had earned him: The Berserker.

So great was his rage in battle that most men thought him blinded by it. He would slay enemies and allies alike. Even his brothers did not venture near him in times of battles. Stories had it that during one of his wars he suffered capture at the hands of the Itseks, where his brothers had been forced to mount a rescue. One that had proved unneeded.

Father Anude’s legend claimed that his brothers witnessed him slaughter his captors, pulling the encampment to rubbles without their aid. Before his action he had looked into the eyes of his torturers where he gave his famed words of madness.

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“My people say we kill our enemies so we do not kill our friends. But I say let’s kill our enemies first then we can kill our friends.”

Father Anude died in his fifty first year at the hands of his brothers’ Sunders when he attacked an Abbess of the convents. She had referred to him as a Broken who brought nothing but shame to the Credo after she had burned a woman the priest held dearly alive under the accusation that she was Tainted and a heathen unwilling to denounce her false gods. The priest died as his brothers’ Sunders protruded from his body, spewing bloodied curses upon the Abbess and the Credo.

The Abbess had died a week after. She was murdered in her room. Some said it had been done by one of the priests. Others said the Tainted woman, in anger for what had befallen the priest, reached from the clutches of death to enact revenge for the Father Anude.

Whatever had been the cause, it did not change the simple fact that she had died. Another reason for the fame of this legend was because it was the beginning of the lack of trust between the seminary and the church.

Olufemi told the tale with such beauty, employing words that seemed to bring it to life. Ezril noted even Unkuti for all his inability to comprehend what Olufemi said was transfixed by his words. Their judges nodded their heads with each sentence Olufemi made and Ezril almost expected a round of applause for the boy. One thing was certain, Ezril knew the pride that came with speaking vrail, but Olufemi in his tale had shown him the beauty of it.

Olbi told the tale of Monsignor Dravaral, one of the only three Monsignors to actively participate at the fore front of a battle in his time as Monsignor in his seventieth year. Ezril had no interest in the story and, while Olbi spoke, Ezril paid no heed, deeming it unimportant.

Raylin spoke of Brother Marnis. Although he had not lived long enough to be ordained into the priesthood of Truth and served in no wars, his achievement was of the kingdom. He had foiled the rise of a criminal guild into power within the kingdom.

The brother had been posted to a parish in a city to the far reaches of the kingdom where the then infamous Midanoth guild was rising to power in secret. It was a guild that employed only the Hallowed and the Tainted. He discovered the odd behaviors of the parishioners and took it upon himself to discover the root of it. He uncovered the guild and its members, and in time the seminary dispatched its exorcists to aid and bring the guild to naught.

Brother Marnis died at the hands of a Taited after slaying countless members of the guild.

Unkuti spoke of Father Trenni. Unlike most priests, Trenni was not one known for his blade. He brought Amnifat under the realm through the Credo, converting over two thousand people. He was an evangelist and was known for his devout study of the scriptures.

Ezril bore no interest in the priest.

Takan told his tale and, though it began as one that would prove grand, Ezril had no interest in it. His tale pulled for thirty minutes, but to Ezril it seemed like less.

Of all the tales told in Vrail only one bore true meaning to Ezril.

Salem proved a storyteller who stood above Darvi and, even in his mastery of the language, below Olufemi, he told a tale that weaved a world of threads, pulling his listeners into a world, like providence. He spun his tale of pain and tragedy, and in its solemnity, presented it in glory and honor.

He told a tale of two priests under the reign of king Abbas. Father Drimor and Father Griet. They were brothers of the same company and fought alongside their other brothers. But as they grew in their service to the Credo, Griet grew distant from it.

In time, his belief in the Credo wavered. The church only came to know after his death when Father Drimor informed the Monsignor of his brother’s fate. The priest had fallen for a dissident woman and it had torn him in two. Only Drimor had known of his dilemma and he had kept it from their brothers.

The dissident woman had fallen into the hands of the exorcist and had been burned at the stake for the crime of being Tainted and the practice of the worship of the heathen god Berlak. Her death had drowned Griet in sorrow and the priest, handling it poorly, had turned his wrath towards the wars of the kingdom. In time, while they fought in one of such battles, the leader of their company had ordered a retreat.

As they rode in retreat Drimor favored his brother with a look. Finally understanding what Griet sought in war, Drimor gave a command which had him defrocked.

“Griet,” he had said, “die here.”

Griet had no compulsion to obey. But with a smile on his face and peace in his eyes he brought his horse to a stop while his brothers bellowed and demanded his continued retreat. Griet charged the enemy horde and, as he had been permitted, died there. His body was later found amidst the dead dissident horde when the battle was won. But what had Father Drimor defrocked was not his insubordination against the commands of a superior priest but his words at the end of his hearing after revealing the secrets of Father Griet.

“I pray Truth gives my brother release to be with the Tainted and her god, so he can find a peace we could not give him,” he’d told them. “A peace he cannot find in Truth.”

Ezril and his brothers listened with awed expressions and a new emotion towards the tale of the heathen priest. The brothers watched and listened with similar expressions and the judges exchanged questionable glances. But Ezril did not hear what his brothers had heard. Instead, Ezril saw a message in Salem’s story.

A message designed only for him.

It seemed Salem was determined to have him keep the promise he had made under a dark sky when he had returned from the Elken forest.