Four Horsemen: Chapter 13 Part 2 of 2

Valter drank from his canteen, looking at the altar, its motifs had been cleaned away, leaving it in its silver coated glory. Runes and lines traced through it, the metal plate underneath and across the walls creating a massive runic.

Stone masons and smiths rubbed their tired eyes, the last of the silver being poured into the cut grooves in the floors.

Bells tolled in the distance.

“Clear a path!” A guard yelled. People dropped to their knees in prayer as a man of blue eyes, brown hair and freckled skin wearing runic engraved armor turned into a piece of art with Lord Jorai’s crest strode into the room with a sword on his hip.

He looked over the runes.

“Clear them out.” His voice was familiar but Valter couldn’t pin it down. “The Defilers are at our gates it is time that we showed them the power of our lord.”

Defilers? He remembered that word being yelled in a similar, no the same voice. He must be the champion of Jorai, Berox.

Armored men wearing Jorai’s armband and led by a priest, looking entirely too confident in armor he didn’t know how to wear properly, guided them out of the tunnels.

“Where are we going?”

“We need to keep you close incase we need to repair the altar,” The priest leading the guards said.

“What about our families?” One of the stone masons asked.

“Lord Jorai will look over them.”

A few looked like they wanted to argue as they were marched out of the tunnels and the cathedral.

Guards and priests were running around the Cathedral. People in the barracks cried out for help. In the direction they were going.

“Guards!” The priest called out.

Several buildings had been leveled, the remains turned into defenses circling the cathedral, barracks and administration building.

A couple dozen guards wearing armbands joined the dozen already around the smiths.

“Imprison them.” The lead priest waved to the group.

“What the hell?” Remin growled

“What are you talking about?” Voices rose in alarm as the guards surrounded the group, drawing weapons.

“Lay down your gear! Do it or else we’ll have to use force!” A guard yelled, hands grabbed weapons and drew them.

“Fucking bastards! Who do you work for?”

“We’re citizens of Sorelli!”

“Put your gear down!”

“Make me you bastard!” One man yelled, stepping forward, holding his chisel.

A spearman lowered his spear and stabbed him in the chest.

The man gawped like a fish upon the shore, looking at the spear point in his chest, chisel forgotten as pain, loss and fear filled his expression, cries of horror and then silence filled the air as the man collapsed on the ground, confused, trying to hold his life in as he coughed and shuddered and went still, the only movement, his blood through the cobblestones.

Shock, fear, realization, it filled faces. Their realities fell out from under them.

The hell?

The man’s body withered, crumpling in on itself, every drop of his essence and mana drained from him and drawn towards the cathedral.

Similar to Petor’s. He knew where the power went, after all he’d been part of the group that created it.

“Gear down!” The priest yelled.

Valter laid his gear down, rubbing his hand over their runes, the age-stained wood and pitted metal. I’ll be back for you.

He could taste the fear in the air as the crafters dropped their gear. Pale faces and wide eyes. Guards that were supposed to protect them and go after others why were they now pointing their weapons at them?

“Get moving!” The guards ordered them into the barracks.

The only thing one can control is their thoughts. Plan, prepare, patience. The words rang through his mind, his muscles relaxing, come what may he would take it, he would accept it, he would silently suffer. A fire kindling in his chest. But he would not forgive.

Images started to flow into his mind, a boy, barely able to grow a stubble, holding onto his shoulder like a close friend as Valter drew his blade out from his stomach. The boy’s eyes filled with pain and an unwillingness, knowing death came for him.

Valter glanced around, focusing his mind, taking it all in. Through the gate, main parade square, towers at all four corners, rectangular. Enlisted quarters on the right, officers on the left.

Mana and essence, like warm currents in a flowing river passed him, streaming for the cathedral. It didn’t have the tangible feel of essence from crafting or killing. It was like that bit of essence that always escaped, slipping between planes.

They continued towards the enlisted quarters. Stone buildings with windows too small for any but a child to crawl through. The doors had hastily added hooks and wooden bars.

Guards pulled the bars out the way, another opened the door to a room six meters wide and twenty long, half filled with prisoners all looking out and yelling their own arguments, careful to not get close to the door.

“Back up, get out of the way!” A guard at the door yelled.

They backed up.

“Get in there!” The guards with spears stayed right behind. The crafters pushed one another into the barracks. Leery of getting stabbed by the spears directed at their backs.

The door slammed shut as soon as the last was through. The solid wooden bars dropped into place.

“What’s going on?” someone asked.

“I didn’t do anything, why is this happening?” Another called out.

Others looked around blankly, some cried.

The men already in the barracks ignored them, taking up places at the windows, others sleeping on rough cots, others chatting or throwing stones against the wall.

He read their faces, a few understanding that the world had already changed infront of their eyes, many still trying to force it off, like lies would change the world they now lived in.

Valter looked over the room, seeing a familiar face, bruised and battered as he sat in a cot.

Valter walked through the crafters.

“We can appeal to the head priest and get this all sorted out.”

“Why did they kill Jorgan, he had two little ones.”

“We’ll get the priests to listen and, some of the real guards and they’ll see them hung for killing him.”

“Real guards? Those were our guards?”

“They were all the ones sent from the other nations, none of them were Sorellian.”

This was some dream they would surely wake up from, a nightmare that would change, right?

Valter didn’t waste time on worrying about the world changing, it had, now was time to deal with the new realities.

“You’re Clemens right?” He asked the battered man.

He coughed and turned his eyes to Valter, red-rimmed and broken.

“Who’re you?” He said through a mess of broken teeth.

“I saw you down at the Head Rags, Mya my friend told me about you.”

“One of her adventurer friends?”

“Yeah.”

“Fine mess we got ourselves in.” Clemens shook his head and looked away.

“You know what’s going on?”

Clemens spat blood on the floor and sat up.

“They captured the council, locked them up in the officers barracks. They’ve been forcing every prisoner they have to devote power to Jorai.”

Valter looked through a window at the enlisted quarters. “Do you know about the alchemy and the inscriptions?”

“Alchemy, inscriptions?” Clemens’ eyes sharpened.

“They had us inscribe the altar beneath the cathedral.”

“Silver one?”

“One and the same.”

Clemens was quiet for a time.

“Something you know?” Valter asked.

Clemens looked about, keeping his voice low. “I was part of the crew that found the altar, was in a big room, thing was covered in runes and formations of all kinds, we had no idea what it was. On the walls there were carvings.”

Nothing left of those now.

“What did they show?”

Clemens eyes  narrowed. “It was three lines that hit the top of the mountain, people were bowed before the altar, then four people stood infront of them.”

“Anything else?”

“No, that was it. We had no idea what it meant and the thing was covered in runes. We had no idea what it was.” Clemens’ jaw worked. “Called on the church to help us out and then they took everything from us. I guess it was some king of artifact from another god.”

Valter nodded.

“Would make sense, a secret altar and some kind of ritual. Though what for? Four people arriving at the mountain?”

Like how we did? Some kind of tear between planes? He didn’t sense a difference in the balance of elements that came with a planar tear.

Desari would have a better idea.

Valter focused on his soul, the part that was hooked to the contract with the others. Tracing it back to them.

A smile spread across his face as he looked around the room.

“What’re you smiling about?”

“Reinforcements on the way.” Valter tapped the wall, listening.

“The council is in the officer’s barracks right?”

“Yeah,” Clemens got his feet on the ground.

“Alright. There are twenty enlisted barracks and two of the officers. That should make a good distraction.”

“For what?”

“I think that altar is in the middle of all this, its drawing in people’s souls and mana across the city.” Unbidden the inscription for the second formation rose in his mind. The one that would combust all of its mana in a directed blast under the city.

If we want to save the city, we’ll have to use the altar.

“Just one god’s champion in the way,” Valter moved to a window and looked out of it. A man rode a cart pulled by a donkey with his child beside him. “Thankfully we’ve got a god’s champion of our own.”

He chuckled to himself and pulled out a medallion, pressing it to Clemens’ arm. He let out a groan and Valter eased him back onto the cot, securing the medallion.

“This’ll heal you back up.” He took out a milky vial and put it in Clemens’ pocket. “That’ll get you running again, though you’re going to need to eat a ton and sleep for several days afterwards. Get your people inside and away from the fighting.”

“Who. Are. You?” Clemens got out through his teeth, no one else focusing on them, trying to peek through the windows at the bells or caught in their own thoughts.

“I’m one of the four horsemen,” Valter patted him on the shoulder and moved over to Alan.

“Hey boss.”

“Sorry about this Valter,” Alan sighed.

“Ah, just another day.” Valter waved him off. “Things might get exciting in a few minutes. I suggest that you get everyone headed for the safest places in the city and if you can get the others to help out opening up the other enlisted doors, that would be great.”

“The other doors, safety, lad,” Alan closed his eyes. “We’re but men caught between gods.”

Valter chuckled and summoned his armor. People gasped and moved away. Alan’s eyes went wide, fixated to the runes and armor.

Valter drew in the mana filling his armor, igniting the runs across its surface.

“Good, I need some practice in killing gods. The last one isn’t staying dead.” Valter turned towards the door.

“Knock knock mother fucker.” He took out a length of steel and ran forward, turning his shoulder for the door.