Nate Kenyon - The Order

Something stubborn set itself inside of him, making him shake his head. It cannot end here, he thought again. He was not strong enough alone, but the men who remained could still fight. Who was to say they couldn’t rise to the occasion? They had fancied themselves Horadrim once. Why not now?

Wasn’t that his true talent, finding the strength within others?

Cain hobbled across the clearing. Someone had cut down Lund’s body, but the cross remained intact, the bloody rope still wound around the bar. He stopped underneath it, waiting. Eventually, the conversation died down, as the men began to notice him. He stood patiently.

It was Thomas who spoke first.

“Are you leaving us now?”

It could have sounded petulant and angry, but it did not. Cain pointed up at the cross. “An intimidation tactic,” he said. “As old as time itself. A show of strength, meant to break your will. But we cannot be broken. We are part of an ancient order formed to defeat the dark forces that plague us.”

“We are no Horadrim,” Farris said bitterly. “It’s better that we just leave. You said so yourself.”

“You may not be, in the way the mages of old would have described them. But have you studied the ancient texts of the schools of magic? Do you know the legends, understand the teachings of the order?”

Cain looked around the small group. “Have some of you performed magic in the spells you have found, even small magic?” Several of them nodded, while others looked away. “So have I. But this alone does not make you Horadrim.”

He hobbled over to Cullen and put his hand on the man’s shoulder. He had taken off his glasses, and his face had become softer, more expressive. He looked like a boy. “You are gentle,” Cain said, “yet you hide it deep inside yourself. Let your mercy and kindness come through.” He turned to Thomas, who kept his gaze cast toward the ground, and waited until the man looked up at him. “You, Thomas,” he said. “You’ve lost someone close to you, and your friendships run deep. You are loyal to the end, and your loss enrages you. This is a strength, not a weakness. Use it to your advantage.”

Cain looked at Farris. “You are a skeptic,” he said, “always questioning the truth of things. But deep inside, you have a burning desire to believe. I was once like you, Farris. Instead of embracing who I was, I hid from it until it was almost too late for me. You must let your faith come through and trust in others, and in what you know to be true. The ability to become more than who we are lies within all of us, but we must seek it out and strive to be better than we ever thought we could be.”

Others in the small group were nodding now, glancing around at each other. Cain recognized two of them as former members of Egil’s inner circle, but one man had formerly been aligned with Farris.

“But what hope do we have?” one of them said, a man named Jordan who had cuts to his face from the attack. “We are a dozen men, and some of us are wounded. There are hundreds, maybe thousands of those demons out there. And our former master is a powerful mage. What can we possibly do against such a force?”

“You have me.”

The voice came seemingly out of nowhere. Cain turned to find Mikulov standing behind the group, at the foot of where the ground rose up to meet the cliffs. The monk had his muscled arms folded across his chest, and he stared at the small group with a fire and energy that seemed to lift him up and make him appear larger than before.

Mikulov’s eyes flashed. He was only one man, but he looked able to take on an entire army. He reached out his hand, and Cain clasped it.

“You have found your gods once again,” Cain said. “They have given you strength.”

Mikulov nodded. “With them on our side, we will not fail.”

Cain hesitated. The voice of his long-dead wife and son, channeled through Egil, came back to him, and he felt as if his heart might break. He knew that it was far too late for them. But Leah had become a physical representation of all he had lost. She was still alive; he could feel it in his bones. He could not lose her, too. It seemed as if his entire life had come down to this single moment in time: all that he had been, and all that he had wanted to be, coming together to point him in a direction he was destined to go.

“The Dark One will have a force like nothing we have seen before,” he said, looking at the men around him. “I have learned enough from the texts to suspect an army of the risen dead, entombed beneath Gea Kul, in the remains of what was once a city called Al Cut. There will be other foes as well, human and demonic. But we are not helpless. Whether you are Horadrim does not matter; whether we are willing to face our fears, and refuse to let them win, is what matters now. We must use our wits and our own particular strengths to fight through hell and pierce the enemy’s heart.”

Cain described the plan taking shape even now within him, a way to use the tunnels of Gea Kul and turn the small size of their group into an advantage. He could only hope that the others would not see how thin the plan was, how fragile. He noticed more of them nodding as he went on, warming to what he was saying. There was hope yet, and he meant to use every bit of it.

Finally Cain knelt in the dust, slinging his rucksack down before him, feeling the men’s eyes upon him. What they needed now was a symbol, something that would inspire them to embrace their fear and use it. He withdrew the pieces of his shattered staff that he had collected after the encounter with the possessed Egil in the Horadric chambers, laying them out in the dirt. His aches and pains had faded to a distant throbbing now, as his pulse began to speed up. He took out the jewel he had pried from the portal, then removed the Horadric cube and slid the items into it, one at a time, the pieces of the staff disappearing with a low thrumming of energy into a space that should have been far too small to contain them.

But the space inside the artifact was infinitely larger than it appeared. The inner workings of the cube were a mystery long lost to time. It could transmute certain objects into others far more valuable, combining magical traits in a way that led to a more powerful whole. This staff, and the portal jewel, would be transformed.

He had not used one in a long time. But he felt the familiar thrill as the cube did its work.

There was a buzzing crackle and what felt like a surge in the air, as the hair on Cain’s arms raised up. Then he reached in and removed the new object. It was taller than the old staff, the wood whole and strong. Intricate designs had been carved like flames along the wood’s surface. Blue fire licked over the shaft, then faded. Cain could feel the energy held within it.

Cain got to his feet, waving off Mikulov’s offer to help. He set the bottom of the staff in the dirt, leaned upon it, and stared out at the men, who looked back in astonishment. The staff was his talisman, a source of power that would lead them all like a beacon through the blackest night. But they would need far more than that to prevail.

“True Horadrim,” Thomas whispered. He had dropped to his knees in the dirt, his eyes sparkling with tears. “You are the one from the prophecies, just as Egil said.”

Cain went to him, and put his hand on Thomas’s shoulder. “Get up,” he said. “I am no hero. You are. I am nobody to kneel in front of, certainly, and I am old, but you are not. Be strong. We are not alone in this fight, and we have a few tricks left.”

The others followed him as he climbed the slope. It took him a long time, with his old bones protesting again and his muscles cramping as he went. But he would not hold onto Mikulov or anyone else. This was something he needed to do on his own.