Dragh pushed up a cloth from around his neck to cover his mouth and nose. The stench of death heavy in the square outside the Church of Zufier. He then took off his helmet, running his hand through his hair, pushing back the sweat and grime of killing.

It had been swift, he’d led the charge on the small garrison.

He turned back to the half built church, it’s timbers standing proud, emerging from it’s stone body in the sky high above them like the skeleton of half eaten animal.

“Quintus!” Dragh shouted.

The milling of soldiers was loud, their studded boots on stone, the clinking of armor, swords, shields and axes. Hundreds, thousands of them all waiting for a command from their Primus’, Legates and Generals.

His men had been wound, ready for a fight. The Dragon Legion and the Third under General Quintus.

A big man, shoulders wider than Dragh’s walked from among the throng of soldiers in the courtyard.

“General!” Quintus stood at attention before Dragh.

“Cut that shit out my friend.” Dragh said.

Quintus grunted.

“You do not approve?” Dragh asked. “They were mercenaries Quintus.”

Quintus looked around, taking in the dead bodies of the guards. They were mercenaries of no discernible nation. Some darkened by the sun, like men of the south and Ralarian Islands, some red haired and pale like those of the tribes in the north.

“The Church, the Council are involved Quintus.”

Quintus squinted, but not from the sun hitting their faces in the early morning light. “You know I believe in the gods, that I pray to Zufier.”

“They killed my family Quintus.” Dragh said.

Quintus chewed on his lip.

“You think that attacking this church will bring down the gods ire on us? You think Zufier will strike us down?”

Quintus nodded.

“They are false priests Quintus. They believe that Zufier is the only god. But we know different. We are men of war, of Palegh. We protect the weak against the wolves of this world. We know that Ussil puts wind in the sails of our navy, Heeseir fills us with the love of our family when we are here.”

Quintus looked around, making sure that none were within earshot. “General, I worry that Zufiers priests will curse us. That we are marked men.”

Dragh put his hand on Quintus’ shoulder. “I promise you, these are false priests. Their business is not religion, it is information. Their spy network is larger than Landor’s. We are fighting a war of ideas. They try to convince our people that the world is small, that Zufier is all. Then, when our people no longer believe in the old gods, all of them, they will tell them that Zufier speaks only to them. That they should listen to only them. And what do you think will happen after that? After they have convinced our people to listen to the one god?”

Quintus blinked, once, then twice. “They will turn them to the churches will.”

“And they are against the Sunborn. That we know.”

Dragh saw understanding dawn on Quintus’ face.

“What needs to be done General?” Quintus stiffened, understanding the stakes of the war that Dragh was starting.

“NORTH!” The shout went up from the scouts beyond the church interrupting Quintus’ and Dragh.

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They were surrounded by rolling hills. They were south of Landor, in another nations land where The Dragon and The Third Legions had staked their Camps in search of Lucille and Fabien’s killers.

Dragh looked north and could see a man on horseback riding hard across the empty hills.

The church was placed in the south on it’s own, intended to bring a village with it when it was completed. Now there were only stonemasons, carpenters and soldiers.

They’d let the workmen run off after they’d killed the soldiers.

As the man grew closer Dragh recognised the man by his horses gait. One trained in Landor, many years ago. One of the Second Legion before it was destroyed by his uncle. Destroyed by men from the east under the guise of warring tribesmen. He and his squad that had survived the plot to kill off the Second and start a war between the Tribes and Landor had thwarted his betraying uncle. They’d foiled his plot and uncovered something far more insidious than betrayal.

Men of the Third and the Dragon began to move to form a defensive unit between Dragh and the oncoming threat.

His soldiers defended first, trusted second.

The shouts of a young Primus in charge of the makeshift squad rang out above the crackling fires behind him.

“Let him through!” Dragh called out to the soldiers that had began to form ahead of him.

Cello urged his hose though the soldiers, pushing hard to the very end where he reined in and dismounted at a trot.

Cello saluted. “General Dragh, General Quintus.”

“What news Cello?”

“A letter, from Landor, I met a messenger on the road back from the Clover Inn. He had news, we traded and I made for you as soon as I could General.”

Cello gave a short bow to Dragh.

“What does the letter say, Cello?” Dragh asked, uncorking his canteen and taking a long drink from it, then offering it to Cello.

Dragh trusted his men implicitly. The Legates with him now had been with him for a generation. They’d been with him since the Second was destroyed.

“The King, he marches to Skellen, the Council calls for an army to defend the Pass from the Hordes attacks. The Council says they are moving in numbers we’ve not seen in a generation,” Cello panted.

“Get some rest Legate,” Dragh waved Cello off.

Dragh moved forward, towards the church. “Come General,”

Four soldiers of the Dragon Legion, more red than gold in their uniforms emerged from the church doors. They drug forward a shouting priest between them, two men on his legs, two on his arms.

Dragh walked to the men, meeting them in the middle of the courtyard of death.

“You’ll be HUNG for this!” The priest screamed.

The man was slight, his face and shoulders narrow. His cheeks pudgy, his complexion grey.

The men of the Dragon Legion dumped the priest on the ground, the thud audible as he hit the pavers of the courtyard.

“Tell me of the Alamata priest. Tell me of the death you purchased for my blood.” Dragh said, yanking the man’s head back by his hair.

The priest froze in fear, his eyes bulging at the name Alamata.

“What - what are you talking about. This is Blas homey against Zufier!” The priest shrieked.

“Tell me priest, or I will show you the old ways of speaking to Zufier, the ways of the Northern tribes. The ones that they tell you little boys stories of to make you cry when you are a bad boy,”

Dragh wrinkled his nose.

The priest began to cry, a dark stain spreading out from his robes, a puddle formed on the ground where he was knelt.

“Palegh’s balls you coward,” Dragh slapped the priest on the back of the head.

The priest shouted out in pain.

“Tell me of the Alamata, tell me everything you know and I will let you stay with your church, here on this ground,”

“It’s - it’s inside,” The priest said, defeated.

“Show me,” Dragh said.

The four soldiers of the Dragon Legion followed Quintus and Dragh as the priest hobbled back into the church. The holy man sobbed as he saw the dead bodies around him, taking in the horror of the death around him for the first time.

The church was simply laid out, a large hall with ceilings reaching up to the sky, to Zufier. Benches in rows looking inward at a central pulpit, a center walkway with a door to the priests quarters behind it.

They followed the priest back into his quarters. The room behind the sparse church was opulent. There was a bed with silken sheets, a fireplace with jelled artistry on either side of it, books in a corner study with a desk of beautifully carved oak. The fireplace was alive with flame and had stew bubbling in it’s cauldron, steam issuing off the top, giving the living quarters a mouthwatering smell.

“Hard living priest,” Dragh commented.

The priest winced but said nothing.

The priest went to his desk, rummaging through the papers atop the desk.

One of the soldiers moved to stop the priest.

“He’ll not try anything foolish Res.” Dragh said to the solider.

The soldier nodded and took a step back.

Dragh watched the priests eyes flash with recognition. He palmed a small knife from within his belt.

The priest looked up, shrugging as his eyes met Dragh’s. “I must have misplaced it, the letters.”

It happened quickly.

The priest bunched the papers in his hand and lunged towards the fireplace.

Dragh reacted, his years of warfare honing his instincts. He threw the blade from underhand, aiming low and lunging forward himself.

The blade spun, catching the priest in his thigh just before Dragh threw his shoulder into the little man.

The crack of the priests head on the stone wall let Dragh know that he’d hit the man hard enough. Dragh stepped back and let the man crumble to the floor. Blood spilled down his face from a gash in his temple. The knife that had embedded in the little man’s leg would have been enough to stop him.

Dragh pulled the crumpled papers from the man’s hand.

The priest woke as if from a nightmare, then his eyes found Dragh and he shouted in pain and horror. He was in a waking nightmare, much worse than what his mind had conjured.

Dragh opened the letters, letting the priest shout in pain while he read through the papers.

“You should have burned these. Did you intend to use them against Father Kent? They are a weak cypher at best,”

The priest sobbed more quietly now, nodding. “Please-”

“What do they say General?” Quintus asked.

“They damn the church, they damn Father Kent. They speak of the Alamata and the price on my blood,”

“The Alamata?” Quintus asked.

“Aye, the killers in dark gray robes that they spoke of in the south. The shadows in the darkness,” Dragh said, reading the letters over again.

“Kiever below. You were right,” Quintus muttered.

“Please sir, please, I was just doing what I was told,” the priest sobbed again.

“I know,” Dragh said. “But you killed my son, my wife. And for that, you will go to the pit,” Dragh said.

“Kent! It was Kent’s idea!”

“Burn it down Quintus,” Dragh barked. “And hang him from the rafters of the place, as is fitting of a priest of Zufier,”

The priest screamed, soldiers held him back. “You said you’d let me stay here, with my church. You lied!”

Dragh smiled. “I said you could stay, and you will, as fire consumes this church of lies. You will meet your Zufier soon enough, you will be hung in the sky so that you can see him on the way to Kiever in the underworld,”

“Nonoo!” The priest sobbed.

Dragh flipped the priest two coins of gold. They clattered on the ground in front of him. “Tell Kiever that this is advanced payment for the souls that will be joining you,”

“You’ll rot in the Pit!” The priest shouted in vain.

Dragh walked from the church, the screams of the priest echoing out of the carcass of the unfinished church.