The spire of Sacred Grace Cathedral pierced the sky as warning bells rang in frantic bursts, hoofbeats thundering down the street — a squad of knights riding hard toward the cathedral, which stood not within the city but to the north of it.
A mass of grey-black fog had swallowed Sacred Grace Cathedral whole, and from somewhere inside came a cackling laugh tangled with ghostly wailing:
"I'll send every last one of you straight to hell!"
Through the haze, shapes moved — skeletons lurching in every direction, wraiths howling as they swept through the air, Holy Light flaring in brief and scattered bursts. Human screams. The ring of steel on steel. It sounded like the end of the world.
Twelve heavily-built knights came riding from the south. At the sight of it, the lead knight pulled up sharply, his horse's forelegs leaving the ground with a whinny, and the eleven behind him did the same — mounts rearing and crying out, filling the street with noise. They wore heavy plate, their horses barded in armor as well, greatswords hanging at their hips rather than in hand. Gemstones were set into the armor at precise intervals, not as decoration but as nodes in magical arrays traced in mithril; once activated, Holy Light would shield the wearer.
"Johann — take five through the rear entrance. The rest of you, follow me through the front!"
"Yes, sir!"
Johann's visor snapped down. Six riders broke left with a shout, Holy Light blazing across their plate as they swung wide toward the cathedral's rear gate. The remaining six drew their greatswords — light kindling along the blades and across their armor in varying degrees — and drove into the fog. Skeletons surged to meet them and were cut apart, hacked to fragments of bone.
Inside, almost no clergy remained. Bodies lay across the stone floor. Only three priests were still standing — one of them barely, his Holy Light no longer covering his full body, the skin it had left exposed already darkening. Before them stood a black-robed figure in a deep cowl, chanting steadily, Shadow Arrows streaking pale and green from his gestures toward the three men.
When the knights broke through both doors and the skeletons outside began to fall apart, the black-robed figure took one look and smiled coldly.
"Perfect timing. Go to hell, all of you."
The bodies on the floor began to rise.
The fallen clergy lurched upright and threw themselves at the knights, who cut them down without hesitation, greatswords splitting the corpses in two — but these people had died only minutes ago, their blood not yet congealed. It sprayed with every stroke, and wherever it touched armor, white smoke curled up from the metal.
Corpse-poison. None of them had ever seen venom carried in blood so fresh.
Shadow Arrows found gaps in the confusion, and two knights went down screaming.
"Watson! Polly — hold on!"
Bones erupted from the floor around them, locking into a Bone Cage that slammed shut and cut the group apart. Greatswords rang against the bars, Holy Light crackling at every impact, but the opponent was too strong. The cage held.
Then a shaft of Holy Light came down from above, and the Bone Cage was gone.
Cardinal Mainz strode in with two Holy Tribunal Inquisitors at his flanks, and the moment he entered he unleashed a purification — the grey fog flinched back, thinning and dissolving.
"Andrew, you heretic." Mainz's voice came out hard with anger. "You seduced the novitiate Philomena and led her into corruption. You have slaughtered the Maker's servants across seven churches. By the Maker — today is the day of your purification."
The voice that answered was raw with grief and fury both.
"Philomena and I loved each other. You were the ones who put her on the pyre." Nicholas Andrew's words cracked at the edges, then settled into something colder. "I swear by the Death God Hadir — I will not stop until the Creationist Church is destroyed."
"She had fallen. Only that way could her soul be saved. You have butchered seven churches in as many days — your sins are beyond reckoning." Mainz raised his cross-star high, his voice rising into the words of a sacred hymn. "You are the eternal light. You are the beginning and the end — I call upon the holy angel Gabriel to descend!"
The sky split open. Sacred hymns poured through the gap, and the holy angel Gabriel descended — three pairs of wings spreading wide, Holy Light cascading down, cross-star sword in hand. The sword came down in a single arc, and a column of Holy Light dozens of meters tall crashed through the cathedral roof. The walls came apart.
Countless bones and wraiths rose from the wreckage and fused into a wall to meet it. The wall crumbled the moment the Holy Light reached it, and from somewhere behind the ruin came one last shriek:
"You'll pay for this. I will come back."
The grey-black fog erupted outward in every direction — plants withered as it passed, trees losing their color in an instant. Two more people fell as their Holy Light went out. Cardinal Mainz stumbled, and when he caught himself he looked far older, his face visibly aged. Above, the angel came apart into scattered points of light and was gone.
The two Holy Tribunal Inquisitors moved to give chase. Mainz stopped them, his voice thin with exhaustion.
"Don't go after him. Report to the Holy Eton Curia — request the Holy Inquisition's involvement."