Our Ascended, our Angels, represent the very best of us. The eight of them give hope that we might yet be saved. The blessing the Light bestowed upon them is still new - they will learn to control it better in time. You must make the Templar understand, to be unafraid. It is better to fight with our Angels than the Divine.

--A note from Highlord Oswald to the leaders of the Order - 25th of Highsun, 459

ARC 4 - RADIANT

CHAPTER 10 - KNOW YOUR ENEMY

Another night, another attempt at stumbling onto something remotely worth looking for. Tera tried to keep her head up. It wasn’t as though her reputation rode on the eventual success of these missions. She really didn’t have much of a reputation to begin with other than her namesake, if she was honest with herself. Besides, she’d only made the initial discovery. It was the Inquisitors and the leadership of the Order that had decided to take the investigation this far.

Ephraim brought the small formation to halt outside a wooden door with a rounded top set into a stone wall. There was no sign above it and it looked as unassuming as any random entry could be. Tera scowled and pulled out the small map segment that had been drawn for this assignment.

“This place doesn’t even connect to the underground tunnels,” she mumbled before stuffing the map back inside one of the pouches strapped over her armor.

A blackbird with feathers the same shade as the night cawed and eyed them from a nearby rooftop. Tera looked up at it as she tied her pouch shut, wishing that she might be as free to fly from this place as it was. The blackbird was a mere scavenger, regarded as an omen of death despite its ability to soar amongst the clouds as well any other creature graced with wings. A pang of familiar loneliness crossed her as she considered how she, too, was looked down upon despite her blessings. Caloman’s were strong and noble, worthy of the same respect of any noble family, yet Tera was cursed with limited use of the Light and little more than a usurper of her namesake.

The blackbird cried out once more, then disappeared into the moonless night. The longing thought of being able to do the same tried to take a deeper hold on her. To leave behind the whispers and the disappointment of what people thought she should be was akin to growing her own wings and becoming one with the sky. That was, she realized as the idea came to its logical end, quite impossible.

“Maybe it’s where they’re hiding all their supplies, though,” Ephraim offered.

Tera sighed, but nodded in acceptance of her reality.

“Come on, then,” Ephraim ordered. “You all know the drill.”

The Templar drew their swords and lined up on either side of the door. Ephraim took the lead and Tera followed close behind, mostly eager to get off the streets where one couldn’t be sure that the mud was only dirt and water. The smell of it certainly alluded to more.

The descent down the stairs was slow and the wood groaned its complaints under the weight of ten armored bodies. Another door at the bottom creaked at Ephraim’s push and his torch failed to light the storeroom completely. There were crates stacked here and there, but not nearly enough to supply an army. Tera willed herself not to groan. Another bust.

“Alright, let's crack open a few and inspect the contents,” Ephraim ordered.

“I wouldn’t bother,” a raspy voice called out.

Tera whirled at the sound and found nothing but darkness. Ephraim extended out his torch, but Tera whirled back towards the door they’d come through as it slammed shut. Two men stood there, partially hidden in shadow. Sharpened steel glinted in the torchlight and the bulkiness of their form indicated some sort of armor.

“Form up!” Ephraim called.

There were shuffled strides and sounds of clattering metal as the Templar came together. A robed man with the slight hunch of age stepped out of the black in the far corner of the room to greet them. He used a short, gnarled staff to walk and the only thing that stood out to Tera’s eye amongst his otherwise drab appearance was the white gemstone strung around his neck.

No muggers or thieves would have the audacity to take on a Templar squad outright like this. This meant she’d been right - there was a Void Cult! Her blood went cold at the reality of it. Thinking it existed was one thing. Being proven right a dreadful other.

The robed man chuckled and eyed them like a baker who’d just caught a boy stealing a sweet. His face full of amused pity, he raised his gnarled staff and pointed it right at Ephraim. Tera’s throat caught and she ceded a step back the same as the rest of the Templar.

From the same shadow the robed cultist had emerged, stepped out fear incarnate. It looked human, vaguely, though its limbs were too long and its knees stayed bent even when standing still. Despite that, it stood taller than any man. Most noticeable was the fact that its ribs were cracked and jutting out through layers of degloved muscle across its torso. That type of injury was prevalent on nearly every part of its body and each wound seeped a red liquid too thick to be blood but too akin to be anything else.

The monster approached, saliva dripping from a torn-open mouth, then reared back to strike at Ephraim with its claws.

“Fight!” Ephraim roared.

He met the monstrosity with all the bravery of a Crusader, plunging his sword into the beast's shoulder. It didn’t even flinch. It ripped out Ephraim’s throat and tossed his dying body over the rest of the Templar like a rag doll.

“Run!” Tera screamed.

Her first barrier was enough to keep that beast at bay, but more swordsman had appeared at their sides. The Templar fought back towards the exit and scored a few kills, but they did not come without losses of their own. The first fell from a slice to his thigh and was met by two blades through his chest once on the ground. The second was impaled under the arm and driven away from the formation into shadow.

Halfway back to the door, Tera felt her barrier break. She shoved off a cultist’s attack and kicked out his legs before turning to see not one, but three of the horrendous creatures barreling towards them. They crashed into a newly raiser barrier and went into a rage at the new obstacle. This time, Tera put most of her focus into maintaining the wall of Light as she backed away, trusting the others would protect her.

They did, for a time. Once three more fell, however, her tactics were forced to change. She threw up two more barriers, blocking every side except the door and effectively creating a tunnel to their escape. She abandoned her sword in a cultist’s side, instead committing her arms to hold up their only defense. The Light surged through her limbs, forcing them stiff while the Templar made a mad dash to the door under her protection.

Two of them made it.

The third was taken as one of the beasts crashed through the golden wall on the left side. It slammed massive fists down on him in a sound like a mallet tenderizing meat, then drug him away by a leg as he tried to scream through blood-filled lungs.

Tera made it to the door a moment later. She didn’t hear the hinges squeak as it closed over the blood-curdling howl from behind her.

The force with which the horrid thing hit her barrier rippled into her body and she collapsed back against the wall. Thankfully, the tiny half dome she’d used to save herself stayed together. She could hold - would hold, to buy her brethren time. These monsters were quick. If they had all fled together they would have been torn apart in the streets. No one in the Slants would have thought twice about a few extra death wails in the night. No, the Order must be informed and for that, someone had to live.

Her arms shook with each swing the beast rained down against the golden shimmer and Tera began to doubt in her own strength. She knew what the others said, that her affinity with protection could stop the swing of a war hammer. That much was true. What remained to be seen was how many.

A particularly hard hit brought out a wince that turned her head to the side. Ephraim, his eyes forever frozen in horror, stared back up at her. His armor was mangled from impacting the wall and the floor around him covered in his blood, but the hand he held against what remained of his neck offered some small form of hope.

Tera reached out, timing her movement to fall between the attacks on her barrier, and ripped the bracelet from Ephraim’s wrist. Desperation is what it was, for she did not want to die. Calling more of the Order here might only lead to more of their deaths, but if they met the fleeing members of her squad along the way at least they would be prepared for what awaited them.

Tera bit her glove and pulled it off her hand, then clutched the gem nestled in the leather band of the bracelet. With a small squeeze, it crunched like a fragile shell and fell to the floor as dust.

A simple action. Her only hope.

There was nothing left to do but wait; wait, and try to outlast the brutal assault she was under. She’d trained enough to know that these tests of endurance, whether of the body or of the soul, could alter time. What felt like minutes would be reduced to mere seconds as the agony of exhaustion built.

To the best of her ability, Tera tried to think of anything but the trembling that grew in her arms. She thought of all the times she’d failed to manifest the Light. All the times she’d envied her sister for her prowess. The anger kept her going for a short while, but was soon replaced by regret. She wanted to see Nora again, to tell her she was sorry for the times she’d been cold to her. That regret twisted and grew into desperate bargaining as she remembered her time spent with Raegn. Heavens only knew her prayer of how she might have done things differently.

“Like a little mosquito, always buzzing and whining in our ear,” the robed cultist scolded. He spoke casually, tauntingly, and oblivious to the cries of the half-dead Templar having their limbs torn from their bodies all around him.

“Trying to take what isn’t yours,” he continued through a devilish grin. “Our hands are unbound, now. It’s time the little mosquito learns that it can be easily squashed. Time the Order learns what happens when it sticks its nose in too far.”

Tera groaned and struggled to keep her arms raised and the barrier whole. Were it not for the Light in her she never would have had the ability to discern the cultist’s voice amongst the anguished cries of her brothers and sisters. As things were, she wasn’t going to have to endure them much longer.

The edges of her barrier waned as she forced the last drops of Light through her soul. With another swing of the beast's arm, her final shield shattered. A thousand tiny shards of gold disappeared before they could even hit the floor.

It was over. The two Templar that had escaped would have to be enough. They would tell the Order. Someone would come to find their bodies, at least. Perhaps the cultists might still be here when a larger force arrived.

Tera lifted her head to face death. She’d always imagined it would be peaceful - just an endless quiet. Here and now, though, in the moments just before, all she could feel was the heaving of her chest as she gasped for air. All she could hear was the grotesque sound of the monsters ripping apart flesh and cracking bone. The last thing she would see was a creature more horrid than she ever could’ve imagined. Her eyes wouldn’t even close to spare her the burden for they were too grossly enthralled with the sight of the thing.

It wasn’t peaceful at all.

The robed cultist laughed, the beast raised its arm to slay her, and the door exploded.

Tera was too tired to even flinch away or use her arms to cover her face. As luck would have it, being beside the door saved her from being in the path of the debris that shot across the room. Even more fortunate was the blast knocking away the beast and interrupting its executioner’s swing.

All of it happened in the same moment, including someone flying through the air and alighting some distance into the room.

Golden streams from the shockwave’s wake flowed over this newcomer like magnificent ribbons dangling from his shoulders. Maybe it was the sudden brightness that hampered her vision, or simply how far he had entered without touching the ground, but for a moment Tera would’ve believed him an Angel, for he’d almost certainly been flying. The way he landed, however, revealed a portion of the truth.

The newcomer channeled the momentum from his leap into a hurl of his spear. The weapon bolted across the room and took one of the cultist swordsmen in the chest, pinning him to the far wall like a nail in wood. As her savior drew his sword and spun to face down one of the beasts, Tera was made to realize it was not an Angel that had come to her aid. A white, expressionless mask covered the man’s true face. A Justicar.

Two of the beast's savage swings were blocked by the Justicar’s blade before he rolled out of the way to put some distance between them. He summoned a Light lance, but the creature dodged in the moment it took the white orb to manifest. It lunged at him wildly and was met with a deft thrust, the sword sliding into its chest.

Somehow, the Justicar anticipated what Ephraim had not. He ducked what should have been a decapitating swing of knife-like claws and abandoned his blade in the monster's torso. A shockwave put the creature on its back some distance away, but another of the three was quick to take its place.

Out of the corner of her eye, Tera caught a cultist who had recovered from the Justicar’s arrival advancing on her. She scrambled along the wall toward one of the fallen Templar who still clutched his sword. She managed to wrest the weapon from death’s grip only to find that it weighed as much as an anvil to her fatigued arms.

The swordsman scowled and reluctantly took up a fighting posture as Tera rose to her feet. She met his first swing admirably, but he shouldered into her and forced her back with the follow-through. Another two parries and she was backhanded across the face by a gloved hand.

The taste of blood filled her mouth. She was too tired. Her soul couldn’t take any more Light and without it she held no hope of overpowering or outmaneuvering her opponent. Not when her body had long since reached exhaustion, anyway. Despite the noble effort of raising her blade, the cultist batted it away with ease and grabbed her by the throat. He grinned as he pulled back his arm to run her through.

Tera’s vision was filled with stinging white and when she blinked through the burning she found that the cultist was no longer holding her in place. His hand was still on her neck, though his grin was gone. His whole head was missing, she realized as she stared at the rest of the room that had been blocked by the man’s face a moment ago. The body collapsed and she whipped towards the ongoing fight at the center of the room.

“Run!” the Justicar yelled.

She caught his hand lowering from the lance he’d put inches in front of her and marveled at how quickly he formed barriers over his forearms. They were there for only a flash and broke with every attack, the small size failing to fully absorb the swings from the two beasts that showered him in blows. Even so, the dampened the impacts enough that the bits of armor he wore was able to handle the rest.

The Justicar used a shockwave at every opportunity to create separation from his larger opponents and the average Templar might have believed him able to win, but Tera recognized that even a Justicar had limits. A single wound might turn the tide against him and even with the more energy-conscious use of small barriers, he would tire soon enough. That was, if he survived long enough to tire.

The Justicar ducked under a swing and committed himself to an attack. From inside the beast's arm span he formed a lance and angled it up through the chest. The creature howled in pain, a sound far more human than it had any right to be, as the Light bore a hole through where its heart should have been. Unfortunately, while it thrashed and writhed on the ground, the other continued its assault. The Justicar blocked a few more swings using the golden barriers formed on his arms, but one connected into his gut and sent him careening across the room.

The sickening thud of him hitting the wall killed what was left of Tera’s spirit. He landed on his feet, but it was not graceful - it was pained and fatigued and the Justicar slumped as if he might fall completely. When he raised his head, Tera noticed a crack in his mask and a thin line of blood running along its edge.

“Run,” the Justicar gasped, but Tera was frozen where she stood.

None of this was supposed to happen. She was supposed to find the Void cult and help dismantle them. They weren’t supposed to be strong. Light, they weren’t even supposed to really exist! The Templar squad wasn’t supposed to get massacred. She wasn’t supposed to lose! Even with a Justicar they were losing!

The robed cultist let out a hoarse laugh and the surviving swordsmen joined in the revelry. The two remaining creatures took prowling steps to put themselves between the small group and the wounded Justicar much like dogs protecting their master.

“You’re a fool, Justicar,” the cultist declared. “Valiant, but a fool.”

“You’re a fool to think you’re leaving here alive,” the Justicar growled and pushed himself away from the wall.

The cultist's grin vanished behind a disgusted scowl. With a raise of his gnarled staff, one of the beasts charged forward.

“I said RUN!”

Tera was thrown toward the doorway by the shockwave the Justicar slung at her. This time, the word hit home. She regained her footing and turned as the creature leapt at the Justicar. Her legs found some meager bit of strength and a mad scramble up the stairs brought her back onto the cobbled streets. She took a moment's breath, but a snarl from below and the sound of claws scraping wood sent her fleeing down the muddy road. Over her own panicked breaths she could hear the heavy panting and powerful strides from the monster. Every exhale of its rancid breath only brought it closer.

She ducked around a corner just as it caught up. It slid past the turn as she glanced over her shoulder, then made a lunge fueled by unholy strength. Extended claws were mere inches from turning her face to ribbons when a glimmer of Light flashed through the limb. Two more quick strikes and the beast lost its other arm and leg. It twisted and howled on the ground, its half-human screams piercing the darkness, until a blade slid into its neck. Then all lay quiet in the night.

Tera scrambled away from the blood spurting from the leg nearby, still half-seated on the road as she did so. There were knives in it, she noted once she’d backed herself against the closest wall.

It had been able to run that fast even when wounded? By the Seven, what are those things? And who—she looked up at her new savior. Another Justicar, this one female and—oh no.

Tera was overwhelmed by a sudden and massive urge to hide. No. No, no, no. Why did it have to be her?

The sword was unmistakable. A golden and white hilt with wings for a handguard, a flawlessly sculpted blade with a golden inset, and the language of the Divine carved into the steel. The Sword of Mourning. Nora’s sword.

“Where is he?” Nora asked.

Her sister sounded worried. Or angry. It was impossible to tell with the muffling of the mask and the panic-fueled thoughts spiraling in Tera’s mind.

“Who?” she asked feebly.

You know who, she scolded herself, but something in her refused to believe the truth. She shook her head. It couldn’t have been him. That would mean she’d left him to…

Nora huffed in frustration and rounded the corner. Tera crawled in the same direction, peering around the building to confirm that no more of the monsters had followed. Nora was already halfway to the open door, her sword still drawn and casting a faint glow against the buildings as she ran.

“I still can’t tell if this is punishment or not,” Raegn grumbled.

Nora grunted and gave a shrug, but didn’t offer to continue the conversation. Despite the incident at Klementien’s Palace being a few days ago, they’d not been granted another assignment. Instead, they were confined to the Citadel grounds and had their training interrupted by half a dozen Inquisitors prying into every detail of the event at all hours of the day. Having nothing else to steal his focus, the memory of the man taken by rage was left crisp in Raegn’s mind.

“I mean, what was I supposed to do?” he complained. “Let the fucker kill her? Or me? Did they expect me to kindly ask him to stop when he was crushing my arms?”

He huffed and shifted on the bench he laid atop of. Trying to get comfortable with several pouches and a sword belt on his waist was hard enough. The small pauldrons, greaves, bracers, and light chainmail he wore beneath a tight gambeson made it impossible. The worst part was the waiting, though. Being a reaction force wasn’t all that interesting when there wasn’t anything to react to.

“Let’s just focus on the now, hmm?” Nora offered from where she sat with her eyes closed on a bench nearby.

A woman, one of the Templar assigned to monitor duty, coughed from behind her desk at the far side of the room. Raegn glanced over, ready to scold her for her abject agreement, but long brown hair fell over most of her face as she looked down toward her lap. Still focused on the garment she was sewing, he figured. And just as bored as us.

Behind the Templar, several rows of small pegs, some with bracelets dangling from them, stuck out from the wall. Each circlet was no more than a simple band of leather with a small portion split so it could cradle a gem. It was an interesting technique, Raegn had thought when he’d first learned of it.

The gems weren’t natural, but created by a concoction of liquids and heated in fires hotter than a forge. The Acolytes that made them imbued each with some sort of blessing that bound the stones together in set pairs. Were one to break, so too would the other. More interesting was the fact that they were as hard as any rock until completely surrounded by flesh, in which case they could be crushed like a berry. An effective alert system that only required the user to grasp their own wrist.

There were other potential uses as well, but with the Order having several groups of Templar out at any given time the stones served perfectly as a communication tool. The glaring weakness, however, was that they communicated remarkably little. The single message was simple: were a Templar squad to break one of their gems it would be interpreted that they were in some sort of danger.

Raegn sighed and turned his attention back to watching the flames dance on the brazier that hung above him. They were liable to be sitting in this room on response duty for another season if the past few nights were any indication. No one had the authority to free them of it besides Cenric, not unless the Highlord himself—

Raegn bolted upright and stared at Nora. She looked at him, eyes wide, then together they turned their attention to the Templar. The woman seemed petrified for a moment, then grabbed the book from atop her desk and darted out of her chair to the circlets behind her. She’d heard it too - the faint pop like a shell underfoot.

“Which squad and where was their assignment?” Nora asked as she stormed towards the Templar’s desk.

“Umm, squad one and a storage cellar in the Slants,” the Templar said, hurriedly flipping through the pages of the book and comparing the information within to the placard above the peg. “Should only be two doors down from Biscan’s Bakery.”

Raegn saw the color drain from Nora’s face and frowned at the way she paused with her mask only halfway atop her head. She had been dutiful and studied the missions the Templar were on that night. He hadn’t bothered after how boring their first shift had been. Now she knew something he didn’t.

“Go,” Nora muttered.

“What?”

“That’s Tera’s squad! Go!” she yelled and all but threw him toward the door.

In those short seconds between the desk and the moonlight night, Raegn came to realize how desperate the situation might be. The Light poured into his legs as he ran. He was far faster than Nora in an outright race and she’d made it clear she had no intention or desire for him to wait. He wasn’t even racing her in the first place - he was racing fate.