Nate Kenyon - The Order

Deckard Cain saw a flash of an empty, overturned wagon upon the road to Caldeum, the splash of blood across the spokes of the wheel. Red-stained shapes under rough blankets that men had draped over them. “You . . . lie . . .”

The demon roared, throwing its head back and howling at the ceiling, its laughter shaking the foundations of the building like an earthquake. “Everything is a lie, old man. All that you see, all that you believe. Your family was a lie, your sad little life of solitary study, your loneliness and anger. Even your pathetic little quest to find us. You think all that you’ve done, the things you have found along the way, the signs that brought you here—all that was your doing?”

Cain’s legs gave way, and he sagged against the creature’s arms as its fingers tightened around his throat. Everything seemed to click into place: Akarat’s discovery of the texts that had led them to the ruins, and the Horadric prophecies he had found there that had been left by the First Ones seemingly by accident, texts that had eventually led him to Caldeum, Kurast, and finally to Gea Kul. So many coincidences, so many close escapes.

“Even now, you do our bidding, old man. This shell we inhabit will die in a moment, yet you will be too late to stop what is happening.” The thing grinned at him. “The little girl. You left her alone, didn’t you? Left another one alone again. You thought she was safe. You poor fool. Check the book. You—ahhhhh.”

The creature sighed, eyes suddenly growing dim and fixed, face re-forming, features bubbling back to their original shape as its hands went slack and Cain dropped, gasping, to the floor. Egil slumped, already dead, falling toward Cain and wetting his face with blood.

He looked up as Mikulov slid his punch dagger back out from the base of Egil’s skull. Mikulov stepped back, breathing hard, his eyes wild, as the green light that had bathed the room began to fade into darkness. Cain pushed Egil’s body off him, scrambling backward as the blood soaked through his tunic, wetting his skin. He fumbled in his rucksack, pulling out a bag of Egil’s powder and throwing it against the wall. The pop and flare filled the room with light once again, and Mikulov retrieved the torch and lit it.

Cain found his staff in one corner, snapped in two. The cracking sound he had heard when he had fallen earlier came back to him, and as he gathered the pieces, a deeper fear spread through his limbs and urged him on. His fingers touched the piece of parchment paper in the hidden pocket of his tunic, the edges old and crumbling, its message seared once again across his memory: We regret to inform you . . .

“Wait!” Mikulov cried, but Cain ran as fast as his trembling, nearly useless legs would carry him, careening through the shadows with the torchlight following behind and Mikulov continuing to call out. Egil was dead, poor Egil, another young man who had trusted Deckard and had paid the bitter price for it, as had Akarat, the young paladin who had been filled with such confidence. Used like all the rest.

I will not let you down, Akarat had said, back at the Vizjerei ruins. Egil had said much the same thing before they had come here. And they had not let him down, but Cain had been unable to protect them in return, as he had promised himself he would. And now he feared the worst for someone else under his care and protection. Someone he had promised to keep safe.

The demon lies.

Yes, of course it did. But lies were often wrapped in truth.

Deckard Cain reached the library, Mikulov close behind with the torch. The room was silent and empty and shrouded in shadows, the remains of their search strewn in piles on the floor. The book of Horadric prophecies was still open on the table. Check the book, the demon had said. Cain flipped through it with trembling fingers, all the hidden text still legible as Mikulov stepped to his side and the flickering torchlight brightened its pages.

“What is it—?”

Cain let out a small cry, stepping away from the table and the book. But it was too late. He had already seen what had been scrawled across the last two pages, written in blood, still fresh and wet.

The words were seared into his brain:

The girl is mine.

Long before they reached the caves, they could smell the smoke.

Cain and Mikulov had caught up with Thomas and Cullen before the two men left the tunnels. They had been slowed down by their heavy burden of books, while Cain and Mikulov had been propelled ever faster by their fear of what they would find when they returned to camp. The two men sagged as Mikulov explained briefly what had happened to Egil, Thomas leaning on Cullen for support. Thomas and Egil had been close friends, Cullen explained, as Mikulov assumed Thomas’s sack of books for him. It was a tough blow to take.

But it was nothing compared to what they found when they reached the clearing.

Black smoke billowed from the cave’s entrance. The bodies of men and other creatures still lay scattered across the ground, many of them with arrows buried to the fletching in their necks and chests.

What drew their eyes was the huge wooden cross that had been erected in front of the cave, and the thing that hung there.

Lund’s chin rested on his chest. The huge man was naked, his hands and feet lashed to the wood, rope digging cruelly into flesh the color of white marble. But Lund was beyond any pain now.

He had been split from throat to groin, his innards spilling out and hanging down to the dusty, blood-soaked ground.

The crows had been at work on him. One still remained, perched upon the right crossbar above Lund’s fingers, a gigantic black bird with glossy feathers and curved talons. It pecked at his fleshy thumb, pulling loose a string of meat, and cocked its head at them, peering, as if deciding whether they were a threat. Then it opened its beak and cawed, the sound echoing across the hillside like the scream of the damned before it flapped its wings and rose, still screeching, up and over the tops of the dead trees and out of sight.

Thomas fell to his knees in the dirt, a high wail bursting from deep within him. Cullen closed his eyes and looked away, then was violently sick. Cain’s apprehension turned to a full-blown, galloping panic as he shouted Leah’s name over and over and received silence in return.

Cain held the sleeve of his tunic against his face as the smoke washed over him, along with another smell that made his stomach churn: burning flesh. The heat from the fire inside the cave nearly beat him back, but he pressed on, shouting Leah’s name again and hearing nothing in return but the crackle of the flames.

He got close enough to the fire to see the remains of charred bodies, clawed hands reaching upward as if searching for salvation, before his eyes threatened to boil in his skull and the hairs on the back of his hands started to curl and burn. There was no hope of finding her in here; he had to turn back. But the smoke was thick and swirling all around him, filling his lungs, and he lost his bearings, stumbling in the searing heat until someone grabbed him with strong hands and pulled him back out into the cooler air as he gasped and coughed and spat into the dirt, tears streaming down his face.

The girl is mine. The words had kept running through his head as he’d hobbled into the cave’s entrance. Garreth Rau had Leah. He felt it in his heart, like a black hole that threatened to swallow him up. He remembered a night not so long ago when James had pulled him and Leah out of the burning house in Caldeum. This time it was Mikulov who held him up.

“She’s not in there,” Mikulov said. “Listen to me. They saw her being taken away. She’s alive, Deckard. She’s alive .”