Four Horsemen: Chapter 13 Part 1 of 2

Chapter 13:

Petor was armed and armored, sitting in Desari and Mya’s room. Mya surveyed the city with her spyglass, focusing up the hill near the cathedral.

“Arresting adventurers in the middle of the night, taking the alchemists and smiths too,” Petor shook his head.

“Inquisition is out getting more than just a few people,” Mya lowered her spyglass “So what’s the plan?”

“I’m open to suggestions?”

“They got Valter and Desari, we need to get them out and escape.”

Light spilled in from under the door, someone approaching with a candle. Petor held up a hand towards Mya.

The candle stopped moving and someone knocked on the door. He pulled out his spear.

“Who is it?”

“Helena, hurry up,” She whispered.

They shared a glance. Mya put her spyglass away, drawing her pistol and putting it behind her back. Petor stored Valter’s spear, ready to draw it in a moment’s notice.

Mya opened the door. Helena checked the hallway with wide eyes holding a tallow candle and pulling the shawl around her head tighter.

“You two need to get out of her quickly.” She said.

“What’s going on?” Mya asked.

“The inquisition are rounding up the traders adventurers and anyone that has been looking into what was happening at the cathedral and throwing them into the barracks up there.” She shook her head, her hand tightening on her shawl, closing her eyes against tears. “How did it lead to this?”

“Why?” Petor asked.

“I don’t know. They’ve been rounding up people who formed the settlement, people questioning. Now they’re just rounding up everyone it seems. Clemens went to find out more and he’s been taken by them too.” Helena’s fist shook. “They took our settlement and built their city ontop. They treated us as second class citizens and now they’ve thrown away anyone that isn’t part of the church. I-I don’t know what’s going on.

Sounds like a coup.

Mya glanced back at Petor. What we going to do?

He looked towards the Cathedral, his expression hardening and turning back to her. We can’t leave Desari and Valter up there.

Petor nodded. Saying much more would put her in more danger than she already risked, if the inquisition was to know of her warning.

”Thank you Helena,” Petor said.

Mya drew out a potion and a coinpurse. “I hope that this helps you. The potion will heal ailments to your health and the money will help you if you need to run, make sure you hide it well.”

“I can’t,” Helena’s eyes betrayed her interest even as she shook her head.

Mya pushed it to her.

“If you don’t take them I’ll drop them,” Mya loosened her grip.

Helena grabbed them quickly with her free hand, her face going pale “You!”

Mya grinned, Helena shaking her head as her face split in a smile.

“Get somewhere safe, the wall is already weak, it won’t take much for the other armies to get in.” Mya gripped her shoulder.

“The priests abandoned the churches, heading up to the cathedral to ‘pray’. We can use those.”

“Good.” Mya patted her on the shoulder and pushed her down the corridor.

She paused for a half second. “Good luck and good fortune to you both.”

“We make our own,” Mya said.

Petor gathered up the remains in the room, Helena hurried down the stairs.

“What are we going to do?” Mya asked.

“Disguise ourselves to look like farmers. We head up towards the cathedral, praying or something,” Petor said.

“Grab a cart along the way, just another group moving supplies. Get us close to the alchemists,” Mya said.

“What about Valter?”

“I can sense his soul, at this distance it’s a vague direction, but he’s up near Desari. They’re the same distance away.” Mya focused on him.

“Didn’t Limos say that you wanted to be a god’s champion?”

“That might be something the old me wanted, but me, now, I don’t want to bend my will to someone that would condone these kinds of wars to exterminate another’s followers.”

Mya thought it over, the silence dragging. She nodded once. “Fair. Once we have them?”

“Then, well,” Petor grimaced. “Well, we’ll improvise.”

“Hah, that’s my specialty,” Mya’s eyes turned ghostly as she grinned.

He might have shivered before, called her out a demon. Now it made a grin spread across his face, mirroring the feeling. To embrace the chaos and dance with it.

“Inquisition open up!” A group wearing masks and the livery of the church of Jorai hammered on a door down the street, another group rushed up towards the Head Rags.

“Time we were going,” Mya led the way down through the inn and out back.

“Open up, inquisition!” A woman hammered on the door to the inn.

They slipped out through the alleys with the distinctive sound of boots smashing down a wooden door behind them. They meandered through alleys, taking several they’d used in their escape from the cathedral.

The sound of metal hitting metal and stone reached their ears, becoming louder as they reached an intersection. Stone masons carved a runic into the street, smiths pouring silver into the lines.

“Keep moving!” A guard wearing a Jorai armband waved them off.

Petor bobbed his head and kept walking slowly, the mounts plodding along with them. Mya followed, moving up beside him. Squinting at the wall, the cathedral and at the rest of the city.

“What you think that was all about?” he asked.

“Inscriptions are all about runes and geometry and that was placed in-line with the cathedral. They’re making a city spanning runic.”

“What for? Defense?”

“That formation, those runes,” Mya shook her head. “I think its pulling power in. But that doesn’t make much sense. They’d need a massive amount of mana to power a city-spanning inscription.”

Bells rang in the distance. Mya checked the street was clear before pulling out her spyglass.

“They’ve breached the wall in several places. Defenders are being pushed back. Stone and shadow golems are in the middle of it.”

“What about the priests?” Petor asked.

Mya tracked with her spyglass. “Not one damn blessing or miracle. They’re joining in the fight with weapons like they’re militia.”

“They’re going to get torn apart.”

Mya lowered her spyglass, frowning. “I,” Mya’s eyes narrowed into a grim visage.

“What the? Why would souls be going up the hill?”

“What you mean?”

Mya glanced back at where the runic was being made. Her eyebrows climbing.

“We need to get to the cathedral,” Mya closed her spyglass and ran.

“What’s wrong?”

“If I’m right then the church of Jorai is capturing souls.”

“When someone dies if they believe in a god and fulfill ther requirements then they can go to their realm in the celestial plane,” Petor hurried up next to her.

“This isn’t sending them to the celestial plane, its trapping them through inscriptions,” Mya gritted her teeth.

Who would steal souls? He glanced at Mya. Other than Mya.

***

Desari measured out ingredients, adding it to her cauldron.

Carl worked beside her as Kat gathered refined ingredients from other alchemists, keeping them both well supplied.

Desari moved the flame to heat the cauldron more evenly.

I forgot how annoying it is to use a normal flame over one conjured. It led to such uneven heating. Though it gave her time to focus on the others in the room and the concoctions they were making.

Production didn’t stop as people, tired from the constant stress and a night without sleep made mistakes.

A few burnt their concoctions, one was left in a coughing fit and pulled away. Desari had quietly dispersed a poison cure over them and the area they’d been working.

“Such a waste of ingredients,” Kat muttered as she offloaded her tray.

“Might be some kind of holy tincture,” Carl said. “A few prayers and a blessing turning it into something we can’t understand.”

“They can do that?” Kat asked with wide eyes.

“Of course, Jorai is capable of great miracles.” He smiled at her proudly.

Doubt he wants to pull off a miracle here. Poison doesn’t really pick out followers or enemies.

Desari scratched her hair, withdrawing ingredients from a hair pin into her hand and adding them to the concoction.

She let mana slip into the cauldron, creating a concoction that would appear similar to the others, but radically different.

She felt her connection with the others, a side effect of their oath. Their very souls linked together. But what did they really know about one another? They didn’t even know themselves. She was alone and would rely on herself.

She found it odd that the priests were carting away the alchemical fire instead of guards.

A man walked in with heavily armored guards, polished to a bright sheen.

The alchemists stopped what they were doing and raised their hands in prayer. Desari bowed, hiding in the people, working on her concoctions at the same time. She couldn’t lose them.

“Head priest you honor us with your presence.” The woman that had handed out the papers said. The head priest was an old man, grown soft with comfort and food.

“How goes the preparations?”

“We are ahead of schedule, everything will be ready.” She assured him.

“Good, make sure that you create plenty of the concoction. We will see our enemies smote by the power of Jorai!” He ran one eye over the room.

“To Lord Jorai!” Those in the room praised.

He nodded, as if satisfied with it all and headed out of the room.

Desari poured the alchemical fire she was working on into a cask, filling it up. A priest stoppered it with a hammer and cork, a new one moved up. With their back turned she slipped a silver and grey stone from her cauldron, her second potion. It was sticking to the touch as she slipped it into her pocket.

She hid the shiver as essence broke through the flecks congealing into a sphere of yellow in the middle of her core.

Thanks for all the ingredients. Made that a bit easier.

Carl passed her more ingredients as she reached the cauldron.

“You are faster than any of the other alchemists and not one sign of mistake.” Carl laughed, born of a sleepless night, shaking his head.

“Just doing my part,” Desari started putting ingredients together. She had been taking her time. Trying to figure out just what part she was playing for the church of Jorai.

Bells started to toll in the darkness beyond the workshop’s sole window.

Alchemists stilled as the female priest looked to those in the room with a grim determination.

“Your efforts will hold back the tide of the heretics. We must prevail.”

I wonder if she knows what we’re really doing.

With just a few ingredients the slurry would turn to poison. Well, all the casks without her special concoction.

***