Nate Kenyon - The Order

Eyes glowed like coals buried deep within pockets of bruised skin above a black hole where a nose should have been. Its lips were drawn back from toothless gums, its slick, suppurating flesh crossed with blue veins that pulsed with each beat of its heart.

“Garreth Rau,” Cain said. He got to his feet. “You don’t know what you’ve done—”

Rau spread his arms wide toward the window and the bruised sky. “The way of the Horadrim has long since passed, and a new era has begun, one that will embrace the Burning Hells and all that are birthed from its hellfire. I will lead the way, and you will be the last witness to a dying world, imprisoned here forever. How fitting that will be!”

“Belial has corrupted your thinking,” Cain said. “You must listen to me, Garreth. You cannot believe his lies. He will use you until he no longer needs you, eat you alive, consume your soul, and then he will cast what is left of you out.”

Rau smiled. “Clever,” he said. “Using my name. Gaining trust, and trying to make me remember who I am? Then perhaps you should address me as Tal Rasha.”

“I don’t understand—”

“My true ancestor and namesake, one I have taken for my own. Imprisoned forever in Baal’s tomb by your flesh and blood, Jered Cain. Betrayed by the only one he really trusted.” The Dark One’s face had twisted itself into a vicious grimace, and his eyes burned even brighter than before. “Or don’t you remember?”

Cain shook his head. “Tal Rasha was not betrayed,” Cain said. “He chose to take Baal within himself, to save Sanctuary.”

“That’s the story the world has been given. Lies, spun to hide the truth. Your Jered Cain was no hero. He used demonic magic to trick Tal Rasha, and shoved the soulstone into him against his will. He turned his back on his friend and left him to rot for all eternity. Instead of saving him, Jered chose to sacrifice him so he could escape with his own life. He was a coward.”

“Jered and Tal Rasha were colleagues . Both of them were Horadrim, selected by Tyrael himself to lead Sanctuary from darkness. They were—”

“ I know the histories! ” the Dark One shouted. “Do not pretend to lecture me, Deckard Cain. I have read the secret scrolls, the texts that tell the truth about what happened.” He whirled and picked up a text from a stand, showing Cain the crest branded into its cover. “This is the crest of the Tal Rasha family. And this—” he took a piece of torn paper from his robe, showing the same crest—”this is from my own parents, who died when I was just an infant.”

Cain shook his head. The entire idea was preposterous; Tal Rasha had never had children and certainly had never had a family crest. “You’re wrong,” he said. “There is no Tal Rasha family tree. There never was.”

The Dark One’s face grew more furious, and Cain caught a glimpse of the petulant little boy he must have been. “You dare to try to tell me this,” he said. “When your own family felt so abandoned by you, they ran away, only to fall victim to demons? Do you know their souls still suffer, crying out for you? And you still cannot and will not act. Still you turn a blind eye to their suffering. And once again, you cannot protect a child who depends upon you. It is too late. Your precious Leah will die, in order to give life to the destruction of Sanctuary itself.”

“No.” Cain shook his head. “Belial has lied to you yet again. My family was attacked by bandits. It was a robbery, nothing more. They—”

Rau reached out a hand. Blue fire coursed from his palm across the space between them, catching Cain in the chest and throwing him backward, pinning him to the floor. As he lay on his back, helpless, the trembling of the tower increased until the sound of thunder threatened to drown out everything else.

The Dark One turned his attention to Leah, washing her with fire. She convulsed again, and something exploded from deep within her, a flash of power so strong and bright that Cain could not hear or see anything but the beating of his own heart and the rush of his blood.

The wave of power raced through the Black Tower, flowing down into the ground where the containment chamber sat, pregnant with the lifespark of thousands of mortal men. The chamber exploded in a flash of light, energy racing through stone tunnels in all directions.

Far below, within the silent catacombs of Al Cut, a man stood waiting. Anuk Maahnor spread his arms wide and smiled as things long buried in the earth began to stir.

Bones creaked; sinews cracked; leathery muscle and skin, mummified over years of entombment, returned to an approximation of life.

But this life was unnatural. Creatures dead for centuries rolled in their graves, hidden from view until they burst through walls and into open spaces.

The power continued to course down the tubular center of the Black Tower and through the grid of tunnels beneath it. The symmetrical pattern of the tunnels themselves lent strength to the spark, feeding upon itself in a circular pattern with the tower at its center.

Veins regrew on top of bone and sinew, and black fluid flowed like blood. The dead marched with purpose, joining together in lines that grew longer as more joined the others, their moldy, eyeless sockets staring blankly forward, hairless, patchwork skulls oozing. Jaws worked soundlessly, teeth cracking together as if they attempted to speak. But their throats and vocal cords had long since rotted away.

They marched, led by Maahnor, toward the surface.

The woman and child ran hand in hand through the high grass. Their clothing was torn, and there was blood on their faces. The woman tried to comfort the small child with soothing words, but the carnage that still lay behind them in the road told the real story: a wagon overturned, wheels askew, the two oxen that had led it slaughtered, their innards spilling into the dust. The man who had driven the wagon lay nearby in two pieces, his head ripped from his shoulders as the creatures dragged him into the brush.

The woman’s face registered shock. She stumbled and almost brought the boy down with her. He was crying in the way that small children did, his chest hitching, but he kept up, his little legs churning.

The goatmen behind them gained ground quickly. There would be no escaping them, the woman seemed to realize, and at the last moment she sank to her knees and gathered the boy to her chest, wrapping both arms around her child as if she could protect him with her own body.

But the creatures did not tear the woman and boy to pieces. They surrounded them, howling up at the darkening sky and clawing at the ground as if in ecstasy or pain. The woman glanced back at the road, hoping for a miracle, someone to come along and save them; but the road to Caldeum remained empty.

“Deckard,” she whispered, tears running down her cheeks, “I’m—”

Whatever words she might have spoken were cut off abruptly, as the ground before them trembled and split. The shuddering landscape threatened to throw them headlong, as a glowing, smoking cavern appeared where moments before there had been nothing but grass. The cavern swallowed up the land until it reached the woman and child, and then it stopped abruptly.

The creatures shrieked and beat themselves against the ground in a kind of religious fervor, as something monstrous reached up from below and began to pull itself free. Huge clawed appendages gripped the earth. A bony carapace loomed over a skull three times the size of the woman. Eyes that glowed like hellfire fixed upon the two humans before it, and the creature opened a maw that stank of death and destruction, laughing into the hot wind.

The souls of your wife and son came to live with the creatures of the Burning Hells long ago , the voice thundered inside Cain’s head. The archangel Tyrael, that stinking beast, is here with us as well, as our prisoner. Now you will join them and bow to me, Belial, ruler of Hell and all who live within it, and soon to be ruler of Sanctuary and the High Heavens above.