Episode 2 - Chapter 11

Was this how I was made? If so… how many more will there be?

Ianc slowed his pace, letting the trio from Havenstead draw ahead. “What if I can’t signal?” he murmured to Rahorh.

“Then Campa will assume you’re dead. Or a puppet.” Rahorh’s gaze sharpened. “These people reek of deceit. Too confident by half.”

Ianc’s eye stayed fixed on a distant shrine, newly lit and half-hidden in the corn. He addressed the smiling sister. “Where are your templars? They should be patrolling.”

“We don’t need them to. Our place is perfectly safe.” The rhys answered instead.

Rahorh glanced and Ianc could translate it as, stay on edge. “With all of these plagues occurring, you sound overconfident of your safety.”

The rhys turned slightly. “I haven’t even introduced myself. I’m Karlsen, Ardrhys and acting Magister of Havenstead. This is Lyra and her niece, Poly.”

“What happened to your Magister?” Ianc asked. His fingers already grabbed the dart’s handle.

“He passed away recently,” Karlsen said, his calmness was unnerving. “Solfire is not just for the chosen. The time of hoarding light is over. Let the river flood the fields.”

Rahorh went still. “That’s not the doctrine.”

“Not yet,” Karlsen said calmly. “But miracles happen in dire times.” With that, they traveled without any more words exchanged.

Ianc steered close to his fellow rhys. His infravision caught glimpses of heat in the far cornfield again. Fleeting red dots scattered like spooked birds, then swirled back into a single, pulsing globe of heat. He stared at it, waiting for another loop. But it didn’t happen.

As they approached the feast hall on the left side of the village, he lost sight of the magical disturbance. A boy, around ten, waved at them on his porch. He mouthed words Ianc couldn’t catch. Then a woman emerged from the dark doorway and placed her hands on the boy’s shoulders. She offered Ianc the same thin smile as the sister.

He guided his horse closer. “Hello.” He let the silence hang before continuing. “Ianc Myr. Herald of the Inquisition.” He let the title land with its full, heavy weight.

The woman bowed, but her eyes only left sight of him for a fraction of a second. “My blessing, Herald. I’m Helen, the boy’s Ciaran.” Her voice was not shaking.

“Well met.” Ianc’s eye held hers. “The village is quiet. After harvest, there should be a feast. Where is everyone?”

“They have gathered in the cornfield, where the big rocks are.”

“And why are you not?”

The woman stepped forward and lit the lantern on the porch. “My husband, Kieran, is a templar, and he is fighting undead in the frontier. I would never attend any kind of festival and regret it later.” She was a fine woman with plum features and blond, curly hair.

Ianc nodded, secretly admired Kieran for his choice of life partner. “Well met, lady Helen. I’ll be on my way.”

“Cornfield danger.” The word seemed to form without her lips moving, a ghost of sound on the still air.

Ianc said nothing back, just a brief lingering glance at Helen. He nodded at the boy then rejoined Rahorh. Karlsen and the revered mothers didn’t seem to notice but Ianc knew that they were trying to read his reaction.

The air inside the feast hall hung dead still, as if the air held its breath. Shadows clung to the corners, undisturbed by the faint draft that should have stirred the tapestries along the stone walls. Rows of candles stood unlit in their polished silver holders, their wicks pristine, expectant. Platters of bread and salt, symbols of hospitality, sat untouched on the long oak table, their surfaces dusted with the faintest sheen of neglect. Wooden benches flanked the table’s length, their surfaces worn smooth by years of gatherings, now empty—silent as execution blocks awaiting their condemned. The place felt like a tomb and stillness was just a prelude.

Ianc stepped through the threshold first, his boots whispering against the cold flagstones. His hand hovered near the darts concealed beneath his cloak, fingers twitching with the instinct of a man who’d learned to trust silence less than noise. Rahorh followed, his posture deceptively relaxed, but his eyes darted across the room, scanning every shadow, every glint of metal. The air seemed to thicken around them, charged with the weight of unspoken threats.

At the far end of the hall, the Ardrhys—Karlsen—moved with a predator’s grace, his robes gliding over the floor like liquid shadow. He stopped before the high table, his silhouette framed against the towering stained-glass window depicting Sol’s radiant ascent. “Let us share in Sol’s light,” he intoned, his voice smooth as oil, resonant with a quiet command. With a flick of his fingers, flames exploded from wick to wick. Each candle ignited in perfect symmetry. Light burst across the hall, sharp and unrelenting.

Too bright—blinding, like the sun itself had been dragged into the room.

Rahorh cried out a raw, guttural sound. Li—!” He stumbled back, his shoulder cracking against a bench.

Karlsen whirled. His movements were serpent fast. Palms lashed out, Light gathered at his palm, coalesced into a pulsing knot of white-hot energy. The spell cracked through the air like a whip, a jagged arc of radiant energy that took Rahorh square in the chest. He flew backward, slamming into the wall, bouncing on the bench with a sickening crunch. Wood splintered, shards scattering across the floor like broken bones. Rahorh slumped, dazed, his breath ragged, his eyes unfocused.

Ianc was already moving. His muscles coiled, senses screaming. His hand snapped forward. A dart flew, its tip molten. It grazed Karlsen’s forearm, slicing cloth and flesh with a sizzle. A second dart followed, burying itself deep in Karlsen’s hip. He snarled, a sound more beast than man, and staggered, his balance faltering as pain rippled through him.

Ianc didn’t pause. He surged forward, low and relentless, his shoulder driving into Rahorh’s side. With a swift kick, he shoved his partner behind the cover of a toppled bench, shielding him from whatever came next. The air vibrated with the aftershock of Karlsen’s spell, the scent of scorched wood and death-sear was sharp in his nostrils.

Lyra and Poly descended like twin vipers, their movements synchronized, a deadly dance born of desperation and devotion. The elder clutched a kitchen knife, its blade worn but wickedly sharp, held aloft like a sacred relic. Her eyes burned with a mother’s fury, her lips set in a grim line. Poly, younger, wilder, bared her teeth, her voice low as she muttered a prayer that crackled with unnatural heat. Her palms glowed amber, a crude mimicry of Solfire, the air around her hands shimmering as the flame burned the air.

Ianc ducked under Lyra’s slashing strike, felt it whistle past his ear. He countered with brutal efficiency, driving his elbow into her throat. She gagged, her body folding as she staggered back, clutching at her neck.

Poly lunged, her glowing hands outstretched. He sidestepped, the heat from them scorching black lines across his sleeve. Seizing her wrist, he twisted hard, bending her arm into an unnatural angle. His palm slammed into her ribs with more force than he intended, and she crumpled, breathless, her eyes wide with shock.

Lyra’s scream tore the air—and cut off as Rahorh’s spell hit her. Flame raced over her clothes. She screamed again, launching herself at Ianc. He pivoted, his heels driving into her gut with a dull thud. As she doubled over, he struck the side of her head with his forearm, a precise blow that sent her sprawling to the floor beside her niece. Both women caught flame, their breaths screeching the entire hall, their defiance extinguished.

Ianc stood over them, his chest heaving but his stance steady, his eyes cold as steel. The hall was silent again with only the dying groan of the pyre on the ground and the faint crackle of the candles on the wall.

Behind him, Rahorh stirred, dragging himself from the wreckage of the bench. He wiped a trickle of blood from his split lip, his voice hoarse but laced with grim humor. “You should give a better signal,” he muttered.

Ianc’s gaze didn’t waver from the far end of the hall. “We’re not done.”

He turned toward the rear exit, where the Ardrhys had escaped through a narrow window framed learning to the cornfield beyond. In the flickering candlelight, the stalks glowed an unnatural red, pulsing like a heartbeat, alive with something malevolent. The sight sent a shiver down his spine, a warning that whatever waited out there was no mere superstition.

“Let’s go,” he said, raising the bone whistle to his lips. A single, piercing note tore through the hall, sharp enough to rattle the glass in the windows. He blew it twice as agreed with Campa then doubled back to the village and found Helen. Her slight frame was half-hidden in the shadows again. Ciaran clung to her side, his small face pale, his eyes wide with fear.

Run to the Iron Maiden’s camp. Find Clementine. Tell her everything.” His voice was low and sharp like a blade to cut through fear. “Now.”

She tightened her grip on Ciaran’s hand, then vanished into the darkness beyond the doorway, her footsteps fading into the night.

Ianc shifted his attention to Rahorh, still wiping blood from his chin. “You good?”

Rahorh grimaced, testing his weight on his injured side. “We’ll have to walk. Bloody horses ran away.”

“Then we walk. Can’t let them finish whatever is brewing in the cornfield.” He felt it now, the power of the Necromancy orb loomed true. Its presence pulsed faintly, but gradually increased, like a beast awakening.

“No. We should wait for reinforcement,” Rahorh protested.

Ianc nodded. “We could, but it might be too late. The orb could have turned them all to undead.” He grabbed Rahorh’s hand. “I don’t want to see another Camelford.”

---

The high corn parted reluctantly as they crept forward. Its dry stalks rasping against their cloaks like a chorus of restless spirits. Boots crunched on packed dirt, the sound muted by an oppressive, windless hush that seemed to press down from the starless sky. The air carried the damp weight of turned earth, laced with a faint metallic bite—like blood or rusted steel left to rot. Ianc’s breath clouded briefly before him, each exhale swallowed by the night. In his vision, a molten point pulsed—a second heartbeat only his cursed eye could trace, tugging him onward through the maze of shadows.

The corn gave way to a clearing trampled flat. A couple hundred villagers stood gathered around a raised platform of six boulders. A Sacrosanct was bound to each. Templars of Havenstead, they seemed. Their armor was dulled with rust, pocked and peeled as though devoured by time. Thornvines burrowed into their limbs, their chest, their neck. They dripped not just blood, but Bloodfire—golden strands shimmering like molten arteries. A grotesque sacrificial altar. Rahorh’s breath hitched. “Ashenvines. How did they even get that cursed thing?”

In the middle stood a hooded rhys, next to him was an anvil forged of many Ishchoir. The once sacred light now inverted and contorted into a blasphemous color of muted green that seemed to squirm in the dim light. Encircling them were brass rods thrusted deep into the earth, latticed with glossy black grease. The Magister of Havenstead, judging by his clothes in a ragged stage, stirred on a boulder. “He’s not… Rhys. This… no Sol.” He roared, but his voice was weak and raspy.

The templars next to him seemed to hear the beacon of their last hope, also stirred, struggling in vain. Rahorh whispered, “This is… no. It couldn’t be.”

A hooded figure emerged on the raised platform. His silhouette sharp against the sickly glow. He spread his arms wide like a dark prophet commanding the night. “Behold the flame denied to you!” His voice cut through the silence, clear and venomous. “No templar will chain you! No Church will bar your way! Solfire belongs to the people! Let the river flood!”

He pivoted, hands tracing patterns in the air as he began to chant—a braided spell, ancient and warped. Its cadence twisting the very fabric of the dark and the people started to repeat after him. Rahorh stiffened beside Ianc, his breath catching in a hiss of recognition.

The ritual erupted.

The Ishchoir blazed into a unified circuit, their lattice igniting in a spiraling helix of light. The energy surged into the anvil, and the Bloodfire it consumed flared red-orange, growing brighter, more unnatural, until it seared the eyes. Then, at its core, a spark kindled, then bloomed.

A new orb of magic took form.

Unlike the white sphere of Camelford. This one shimmered with radiance, pulsing in hues of orange and molten gold, replicating the very sun that just left the day. Rahorh recoiled, his whisper was barely audible over the hum of the people. “M-my creation…”

From the gathered throng, a woman stepped forward. A Suledin given her dark color fabric, her face carved with the deep lines of wind and labor, giving her brown skin and uneven walk. She hesitated, her gaze locked on the orb, trembling yet resolute. “Will it hurt?” Her voice was a fragile thread, nearly lost in the murmur of the crowd.

“Only briefly,” the zealot Rhys replied, his tone dripping with false warmth, a shepherd luring a lamb. “Then, you will breathe fire.”

She nodded, a desperate smile on her lips, and stepped forward into the light.

The orb flared a searing burst. A tendril of liquid fire lashed out, piercing her chest, then her entire body. Her scream ripped through the clearing, but she did not fall. She staggered upright, her body trembling as molten light traced her veins, a glowing web that spread from her feet to the crown of her skull. Her gasp was sharp, pain first then relief. A gout of flame erupted from her mouth, an Emberspit that roared across the clearing and reduced a fallen log to smoldering ash in an instant.

The crowd drew a collective breath. Then it erupted.

“I want it!”

“Bless me your Holiness!”

“Let Sol flow through me too!”

Three villagers shoved forward, their faces alight with desperation and greed, hands clawing toward the Orb as if it were salvation itself. The zealot’s smile widened, his arms spreading in a parody of grace.

Behind him, the orb shuddered.

Its tendrils struck again, too swift, too many. Four spears of light lashed out, one punctured a man’s throat; another pierced a woman’s eye; and a third caught a girl mid-prayer; silencing her plea in a heartbeat. Their bodies jerked violently, limbs thrashing as though puppeted by unseen strings, then crumpled to the earth.

When they rose, their eyes flickered green for a brief moment. Their skin turned ashen, flaking like burnt parchment. Their mouths gaped, hollow and slack, and their eyes—once alive with hope—were opaque white. The Emberspit they exhaled twisted into acrid smoke, curling upward like the breath of the damned. Undead.

The cheers died, replaced by a silence so heavy it seemed to crush the air from the clearing.

The rhys who escaped appeared next to the zealot. “Brethrens of the new dawn! He corrupted the ritual.” He pointed at the Ianc. “The Inquisition is upon us. Fight! Kill them if you want to live.”

The villagers turned towards Ianc. Their eyes were flaming with anger.

For a moment, the world held its breath. Then the screams were deafening.

Ianc moved without thought, dragging Rahorh with him. “Run!”

He ducked beneath a searing tendril, just pure luck. The heat blistered the air above him. He rolled into a mass of corntree, almost entangled by it. Rahorh crouched next to him, casting several Ishchoir on the ground before them. A sigil flared on his palm, “Varathas!” He threw it out like feeding chicken. A wall of flame roared up from the stones, cutting them off from the mob. The people fell back, eyes wide with shock and rage. Behind them, shadows flashed to either side of the firewall.

Ianc plunged back to his feet. “Told him I need a fucking sword,” he gritted through his teeth. The mace could bash one person and he would be swarmed. At least with a sword, he could swing for a while. A tendril flew in and Ianc had no response but tossed his last weapon on it. It bounced against the magic, then a black cloud shot from Rahorh’s sleeves. Red lighting flickered as the cloud engulfed the orb’s magical tendril.

The magic collided as blast mid-air, throwing everyone down. Ianc swirled around hard, clutching Rahorh with him. “Run!”

They left the cornfield and the Sacrosanct of Havenstead behind. The cornstalks lashed at his face as he ran, their edges sharp and unforgiving, the uneven ground threatening to trip him with every stride. His lungs burned, but he pushed on, driven by the weight of his recklessness and the will to survive.

Hearing no footsteps chasing him anymore, he turned around again. Smoke billowed in thick, choking waves, carrying the stench of charred flesh and molten metal. Screams rose and fell, some distant, some so close they clawed at his ears. Above the now tiny altar, the Templars still dangled, their delirious whispers mingling with the hum of the Ishchoir. Each one glowing brighter, feeding the orb’s insatiable hunger.

A horn blast shattered the night. Three piercing notes that rolled down from the hills like a judgment. The Iron Maiden’s company stormed from the treeline in waves of steel and vengeance. Campa led the charge, his shield a battering ram that smashed through whoever entered his path. Clementine followed, her lance streaming Solfire like a comet’s tail, cutting a blazing path through the dark. Abby rode at her flank, her spear flashing in the firelight, and behind them surged columns of templars in lockstep—a righteous tempest descending upon the field. They offered no mercy.

“There are innocent people in there!” Ianc yelled, but his voice was lost in the din.

The Suledins fell down like wheat before a scythe. Some crumpled without resistance, their minds surrendered to the void, or hopelessness of fleeting power. The zealot rhys here had tricked them. He raised a trembling hand to cast, but Abby’s spear found his chest first, pinning him to the earth. Clementine leapt from her mount before the Undead, her sword igniting with the brilliance of dawnlight distilled. With a single fluid strike, she cleaved through them. The undead let out a collective shriek before collapsing into lifeless heaps.

Only the hooded culprit remained. He knelt at the clearing’s heart, still as stone, his head bowed as if in reverence. Ianc edged closer. The zealot lifted his head. His face was a void—no features, only twin flames of green fire blazing in the sockets. Rahorh hissed, “He’s possessed by a lich.”

The flames curled upward, spiraling like smoke from a dying ember, then vanished. The body slumped forward, abandoned.

Ianc’s heart thudded. “It can wear people,” he muttered, the truth settling in his gut like a cold stone. He turned to the orb. Its light now a faint, twitching pulse. But the silence that followed was not peace. Around the clearing, survivors huddled, their whispers threading through the air like tendrils of their own.

“He gave us a holy flame…”

“Why did it burn us?”

“But it worked… didn’t it?”

Ianc shut his eye, the weight of their words settling in his chest like ash. This was no triumph. It was a spark—buried, smoldering, waiting to ignite something far worse. Was this how I was made? If so… how many more will there be? He wondered and looked at Rahorh. He had the answer, and Ianc was ready to trade it. Quid pro quo.

Lost in thoughts, but his infravision caught a sight. A shadow slipping between tall grass at the clearing’s edge, not the Ardrhys of Havenstead but someone taller. Just before it vanished, it turned back. Two pinpricks of green flame swirling in its shadow. The slender man, the archlich, Mirari’s master. Ianc’s infravision burned with its presence. He sprinted forward, but in the space of a breath, the figure was gone. He clenched his fists to keep him from screaming, but the word only became louder in his mind. Mirari.

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