The Ring Thief - Chapter 8 - The Algadrian Order

 Chapter 8 - The Algadrian Order

Taenith had only witnessed Oakheart’s rural district at night, when the flames of rich homes illuminated their polished exteriors. So, when the day revealed a different story he was somewhat taken aback. Indeed, the few homes lining the trade road - those with smooth stone foundations and painted fences - maintained lush and plump green fields filled to the brim with crops maintained by indentured workers whose sweat and labor nourished them. Then, there were the others… hidden in the distance behind the wealthier establishments. These weathered and barely held together barns looked abandoned - ruined even. Countless circles of rotted wood and weathered stone, which once housed families, were now crumbled and shattered skeletons, absent of any present use. What little remained of their cracked wooden fences was shabbily held together by fraying rope. The once-fields they protected were now but patchy splotches of overgrown vegetation, being eaten away by unassuming cattle that now belonged to their wealthy neighbors. 

One property in the near distance stood out above the others, however. It was the same home he’d visited the night before. Stationed outside were a few guards, all adorned in standard apostilian mail. One stood taller than the others, however. Their armor was dark red and betrothed on their back was a finely painted blue symbol. It was hard to tell from his distance, but he thought it bore a resemblance to the standard draconic claw symbol worn by Kingswatch apostles. Taenith’s stomach sank at the realization, and stress shot into his chest. If they were in Oakheart, then… 

His thoughts were cut off when Tex scoffed, “Ugh, deacons.” 

Grizzel squinted. “Huh, I’ve never seen a red one before.”

“Most haven’t. They’re the Grand Paladin’s hounds. Damn good fighters too,” she said. “I’d hate to be whoever pissed that one off.”

Taenith’s throat knotted, and his hand itched for the scimitar at his side.

A frown settled on Ohen’s face. “This far north?”

Tex shrugged. “Sightseeing, probably.”

Sham gave an unamused glance to the knight, who responded with a light chuckle.

Once they were a mere mile away from the gates - which were surprisingly vacant, save the single cart out a ways ahead of them - they could finally see Oakheart’s high-reaching stone walls. To the surprise and dismay of Tex and Sham, however, dozens of white flags lined them, each waving Lunas’ holy symbol with the exaggerated fervor typical to Kingswatch cultists. Taenith, however, became breathless when he noticed blurry shapes dangling from ropes hung by long wooden cranes stationed on the walkways. He couldn’t make out their features from where he stood, but he knew they were people.

“Gods…” Sham exclaimed, almost breathless. “Tex, hide him before someone sees.” 

Without hesitation, Tex dug into one of the many bags lining her armor’s belts, pulling out what looked to be a few pebbles before approaching Taenith. “Hold still,” she said, rolling them around in her palm. They almost looked like colored marbles. Their shells were glassy, and their insides contained stationary swirls of blue and white. Intermixed in them were small starry dots that reminded Taenith of the night sky.  

Tex crushed one of the pebbles and threw its dust at his feet. The sugary substance stuck to his metal boots like sap.

“Rude,” Grizzel said.

Looking down at his feet, Taenith began to feel a numbing sensation steal into him through his armor. Seconds later, his very feet began to disappear. 

“What did yo-?” he began, nearly dropping Han in panic when he noticed his legs were gone. He stumbled backward, but managed to catch himself and maintain his grip. But as more and more of his body began to vanish, he felt his mind racing to comprehend what was erasing him, and why he was able to stand as if he were still there at all. 

“What’s happening?!” Taenith said, his eyes widening as he struggled to maintain his balance. 

“Calm down, it’s just cloaking magic,” Tex said. When Taenith nearly bumped into her, she offered a hand for balance. 

“You could have told me that!” Taenith said tensely, accepting the gesture. 

While Taenith figured out how to stand again, Grizzel nudged up to Tex. “Do I get one?” he asked.

“No. We’ll need you for the guards,” Sham answered.

Grizzel blinked. “Wha- Why?”

“Since our apostle hosts seem like they’re here to stay, it might be best to get through under their own terms. You’ll be our key inside,” he said. “You are an apostle after all. Yes?”

Grizzel gulped. “Yeah. Sure am. Trained at the Lunas Academy and everything.”

Tex folded her arms, clearly unamused by the plan. “Why leave it to him?”she eyed Grizzel. “The guilds should still control the inner city. Our credentials should be enough.” 

Sham shook his head, “You and I both know why we can’t do that. Not with these people,” he said, gesturing to the hanging bodies from above the walls. The dangling, sun-dried bodies of the demihumans told her he was right. Even though she hated the idea of trusting a complete stranger, it was their best bet.

Grizzel closed his eyes and took a deep breath before glancing over Tex. She was covered foot to neck in armor, but alongside her waist there was a leather belt bound with small bundles of what he could only assume were other invisibility orbs. 

“Maybe I’ll help for some of those...marbles,” Grizzel grinned, wiggling his fingers.

“You son of a,” Tex spat as she reached to draw her sword and stepped towards him. Before she could slice the apostle into pieces, however, Sham stepped between them.  

“That’s enough!” he roared, looking into Tex’s green eyes with a flicker of flame in his own. After a few moments, however, he relinquished his stern glare and faced the apostle. 

“Grizzel,” he said, putting a wrinkled tan hand on his shining pauldron. “You said you wanted to help repay us. This would be a good start.” 

 Reaching behind his neck and scratching his nape, Grizzel took a deep exhale. “Fine, fine. I was only teasing. Trying to lighten the mood is all,” he said. 

Sham took a deep breath and patted his shoulder. “Good. Now then. Shall we?” he said, ushering him onward.

After the momentary confrontation, the group walked in silence until they reached the front gate. There, they could see in full view the horror of the apostles’ gruesome menagerie. Even though Taenith was invisible, he felt as if every eye in the world was on him. Looking up, he could see with gruesome detail how each victim’s body was covered in lash marks, starved and stripped naked to demonstrate their demihuman features to travelers. Some had feathers and more closely resembled avians, while others were scaled and reptilian - though not draconian. As they dangled there like mutilated puppets, with ravens plucking out their eyes and chunks of sun burnt flesh, Taenith couldn’t help but imagine himself or Groa in their position. The mere thought soured his stomach. 

At the front gate was a pair of guards examining an old man’s hay wagon. Both were coated head to toe in white plate mail. However, the taller of the two in front was adorned in a purple cloak with various stitched insignias covering it, suggesting a higher rank. Once they approached the gate, the blemishless emblems of Kingswatch and Lunas speckled over various parts of their chests, shoulders, and even helmets became glaringly obvious. Looking at their waists, Taenith could see they were equipped with standard swords. They didn’t seem to glow or emanate auras of any kind, so they weren’t magical. If it turned to combat he was somewhat confident they would be able to win. Though, he hadn’t encountered a higher ranked apostle before. 

“Don’t get us killed,” Taenith whispered to the apostle, anxiety fueling his words. Moments later, the hay carriage moved onwards into the short tunnel leading into the city, leaving their group next in line.

“Pffft. Don’t worry about it. They got nothing on a chosen one like me,” Grizzel said, cracking his knuckles. 

“Chosen one?” Tex raised a brow. “Only thing you’ll ever be chosen for is a dragon’s dinner,” she scoffed. 

Sham sighed. 

Grizzel sneered at Tex for a moment before a pair of hefty footsteps approached him. Certain he was ready to swoon the guard with his heroic charm, he turned around with a wide smile and outstretched hand, ready to greet his fellow apostles and move on shortly. But as soon as he looked up to the tall, muscular man and his vibrant light blue eyes, Grizzle’s muscles tensed and his mind froze. The captain’s presence and gaze gleamed down on him like rays of judgment, the likes of which he was all too familiar with. Air became heavy in his lungs, and the very flesh on his bones seemed to weigh him down. Even his mace, light as air, became a mountain in his grip. 

The captain's form began to distort and mutate. His flesh warped and writhed around like a living mass, and his very height increased along with his muscle and armor. Before long he was face to face with a behemoth of a man armored head to toe in golden plate mail. During the delusional transformation, Grizzel was so fixated on the golden warrior that he didn’t even realize that the environment around him had changed and he had shrunk, losing his armor and weapon too. 

---

He was now standing on a muddy cobble road, surrounded by the stench of feces and rotting corpses. Among the barely living were those with leathery reptilian skin, spikes protruding from their animalistic faces, and other abnormalities of the flesh. Despite their abnormal and terrifying appearances, however, they wore tired and sunken faces. They all groaned and moaned for a bite of food or a sip of scumless water. 

To Grizzel’s dismay, he was once more a child in the haze of this decay. He tasted the filth of the air on his tongue like a thick mold. His mud-stained nostrils clogged with the malaise smells of the streets. His shoeless feet swelled with blisters and cuts from broken glass, and his body stunk of the rank of death from the sewage hole he frequented as a resting space. In those days, he was a walking corpse, miraculously unsullied by terminal diseases that killed many others around him, including his demihuman friends who he’d grown up around. 

“Child, what are you doing down here?” the figure asked. His voice rolled over Grizzel’s body like a soft breeze. 

The boy stood silent, his bones rattling like snapped animal bones in a gambling bowl.

He knew why he was there. It was where he always had been. 

“P-please don’t hurt me, mister,” the boy murmured, shyly averting his gaze to the ground. He’d seen others killed by the men in white. Skulls and ash collected on the streets like snow. Sometimes he’d even heard the marching of the apostles called ‘winter’ by others who were full-bellied enough to speak.

The apostle kneeled down to the child, eyeing his torn clothes and sunken flesh.  

“You’re skin and bone,” the apostle said. “When was the last time you ate? Where is your mother?”

The boy felt a tear fall down his cheek, collecting dirt and sweat as it dropped. Down the road, he could still see the few sliced and burnt bodies that had been slain a day or two before. Blood and charcoal coated their blistered and naked bodies in a thick crust. None bothered an attempt to peel them from the stone they were cemented to.

The Grand Paladin extended a hand to the child’s shoulder. Grizzel flinched, but the warmth approaching him caused him to accept the gesture. When the figure’s grasp fell upon his exposed shoulder, he felt a wave of warmth flow through his body. The soreness in his feet dissipated, and the stench penetrating his senses turned to strawberries and roses. 

“Come, child of Lunas. You do not belong here,” he offered his other hand. 

“Child?” he thought to himself. He hadn’t heard that word in years. Not since his parents died…

“Father…” the boy muttered, grabbing onto the apostle’s colossal hand. In an instant, his body was cleansed. The grease and grime in his hair were destroyed. The blood and dirt in his eyes and exposed sores were cleared and patched.

He was happy. Yes... Yes that was it.

Happy.

---

“Are you high? Reveal your badge. Now,” the captain’s voice echoed through the dreamscape. In a moment’s notice, Grizzel’s vision turned back to reality. He was once more face-to-face with the apostle, who had begun impatiently snapping his fingers at him.

Tex watched the scene unfold intently, and could tell something had snapped inside Grizzel. He was no longer his giddy and annoying self. Rather, his face was blank - like a deer’s before the slaughter. 

“Sham,” she said, nudging the wizard as Grizzel stood there, frozen in place with his eyes dilated to the point they were almost completely black.

“Give him a moment.”

“Dammit, Ohen,”  she said, nodding to the streaks of red running alongside his veins. “He’s going to get us killed!”  

Grizzel’s tongue swelled as he failed to form a response. More beads of sweat began to form and drop from his forehead to meet the pool that stained into his cloth undershirt as he stammered in place, patting his sides for a badge he knew he did not have. 

“Sorry.... One second,” he said, quickly retracting his still hand before turning to face Tex and Sham. 

“What’s the matter?” Sham asked. 

“I...I don’t have it,” he said. Sarcasm, wit, irony, and any other form of his past demeanor had been lost. It certainly caught the two off guard, at least for a moment.   

“What do you mean? Where is it?” Sham asked. 

Grizzel lowered his head, afraid to even look Tex in the eyes at that moment. But she knew just by looking at his defeat. 

“He never had one,” she said.

Sham rubbed his forehead and sighed. He had to come up with something quick. Teleportation? No, that would be too risky in a dense city… His thoughts trailed off further.

Grizzel tried to come up with something to say, but he was too late. The guards were already growing impatient, and their hands crept towards their sheathed swords. Tex moved to action first. 

“I’ll deal with you later,” Tex seethed and shoved Grizzel to the side, nearly causing him to trip and fall into one of piles of manure piled on the road. In a few short strides, she stepped up to the captain. He was certainly well built for an apostle. His armor was chiseled to outline rows of muscles that may or may not have existed beneath the steel he wore. Regardless, the make was impressive and the skin that did show beneath his armor rippled like stone. As admirable as he seemed, however, she felt herself holding back laughter at the obnoxiously long cape that dangled over his shoulders like an elaborate dress. It was a bit too flashy for her taste. 

 When she met him eye-to-eye, the captain glared back, his sword aimed towards her.  

“Stay back, wench,” he said, the tip of his blade pointed a few inches from her heart. “I have no words for you, only him,” he said, gesturing to Grizzel. 

Meanwhile, the other guard eyed Grizzel and Sham. His fingers itched for the sword at this side. Catching this movement, Taenith cursed under his breath before sneaking over behind him, carefully holding his breath despite the weight on his shoulders so he would not be detected. If something were to happen, the guard would need to be taken out before he could call for reinforcements.

“Let us through,” Tex said, unconcerned by the blade that floated only inches away from her chest.

The captain laughed. “Old man, you would let her speak to her superior this way?”

Sham rubbed his forehead. “I-” he began before Tex interrupted. 

“You’re talking to me, not him,” she said. 

The air coming from the captain’s nostrils may as well have been steam as his heart roared in anger at the woman’s commands. Never in his life had a peasant, let alone a woman, spoken to him in such a manner. 

While the two continued their…interaction, Taenith loomed over the second guard with his scimitar aimed down at the soft fleshy space between his chest armor and helmet. If the captain’s sword pressed even an inch closer to Tex, he was prepared to end what he assumed would otherwise be a losing battle.

“Speak again, and you’ll lose your mongrel tongue,” the captain spat, bringing the tip of his blade up to the base of her chin, jutting into her flesh just enough to draw a trickle of blood. A smile stretched on the man’s face.

Tex breathed, and glanced at the dead bodies dangling above her. The smell of their rotten flesh writhed in her nose, causing her stomach to curdle. Witnessing their naked, bruised and dried bodies…their pain. She took a deep breath and faced the apostle in front of her once more. 

“Tex, don’t...,” Sham said. He wanted to give her an excuse, but he was quickly running out of any other ideas. At that point, it seemed the only solution was to fight.

“Don’t try to stop me,” she replied. 

“So she does listen,” he said, watching the small river of blood trickle down into her armor. 

Tex smirked and the captain blinked, surprised that she wasn’t quaking in fear.

“Insolent bi...” he started, bringing his sword back for a strike. 

Before he could land a blow, however, Tex unleashed her glimmering sword upward.  Before anyone could react, the apostle’s head was in the grass, and his body flat against the ground. His precious purple cloak, once decorated with lofty awards, was now drenched and marred, caked in a pile of sweltering feces and blistering maggots.

Smiling at the sight, Tex looked to the remaining guard and pointed her sword at him. 

“Stand aside. Or die,” she said.

The remaining guard blinked a few times, failing to understand exactly what she was telling him. A shout stirred in his throat when everything finally clicked in his mind, but before he could release it for backup, Taenith brought down his scimitar onto him. The guard yelped for a moment before blacking out completely. Blood spattered against Taenith’s and Han’s invisible forms as the dead guard crumbled to the ground without a word spoken. When the recruit’s face splattered against stone, however, another scream penetrated the air. Turning around, Taenith noticed a woman and a small group of other passerby citizens from just beyond the small tunnel that led into the city. How she noticed the commotion so quickly, he did not know. At least, until he realized that the invisibility cloaking his draconic form had completely faded. Now, anyone passing by would be able to see in their periphery a blood-covered demon standing over a dead guard - holding its latest victim above its shoulders.

Dozens of cries perforated the air, and soon the sound of alarm bells banged throughout the city. And all Taenith could think of in that moment was the red deacon in the distance. If they had any magical capabilities like Sham did, they would be upon them in seconds. 

“We should go now!” Taenith shouted.  

Sham’s eyes widened as an  arrow suddenly slammed into his shoulder. Letting out a short yelp, the wizard fumbled backwards, nearly falling before Grizzel caught him and held him upright. Grasping his wound, he thanked the apostle before summoning a healing spell.

A cold wash went down Taenith’s spine when he turned to see a few of bow-armed apostles gathering at the end of the short tunnel. Before he could think of a plan, three arrows released from the bowmen, this time aimed for Taenith. Without thinking, the draconian dropped Han to the ground and charged forward - a ball of flame rising at the base of his throat. Before he could release it, however, two of the arrows slammed against his chest, digging through his old armor before stopping at what were the strongest scales of his body. The steelheads stung as they drew blood from him, but they were unable to delve further to be fatal.

Snarling, Taenith hurled a wave of flame unto them. Screams released from their collapsing throats as their armor turned into ovens in seconds. Taenith listened to their deathrows contently while plucking the arrows from his chest. The stinging sensation of the biting tips leaving his flesh made him wince. But whatever pain he felt was surpassed by the pleasure he received from hearing their flesh pop and their futile religious howling go unheard. When he was sure they were dead, he returned to pick up Han, checking to make sure he hadn’t sustained any serious injuries from the encounter.  

“Come on!” he said, waving over the others before sprinting to the exit of the entrance gateway. The fires had already died down, and any citizens who had remained nearby out of curiosity quickly turned and ran to their homes like ants to the dirt, terrified as the massive draconian sprinted at them like a bloodthirsty devil.

“Tex, what were you thinking?!” Sham shouted, trying to keep up while Taenith cleared a path, shoving away anyone who got in his way.  

“Me? The lying bastard’s who got us into this!” she shouted back, throwing a glare at the apostle who remained silent.

Sham groaned as he felt the healing spell on his shoulder finish stitching together his flesh, leaving behind only his stained clothing and the hole in the fabric accompanying it.

“You saw the bodies, Ohen. Do you really think they were just going to let us through peacefully?” she continued. 

Sham fell silent. He knew she was right. He had the magic to get them out peaceably, possibly through another jump into Sheol, but doing so in such proximity to a city would be a fool’s errand. And without Grizzel, the odds of them getting through without some form of pass was impossible. He didn’t want confrontation, but in this case it seemed the only solution.

“Which way?!” Taenith interrupted as he came to a lone fork in their path. The gonging bells continued to shake the very stone ground they stood on. Before anyone could answer, another arrow brushed against one of Taenith’s horns, missing him and instead slamming against a nearby wall. Without hesitating, the wizard faced the group of apostles and summoned a row of flame to close them off. 

“There. Hurry!” Sham pointed to the right, which led to the center of the city where a circle of marbled towers stole away into the sky. 

“Kill the scaled one!” a shout could be heard over the flames. It was a woman’s voice, and her shout echoed through metal with the force of a giant. As they passed under the marble arch leading to the guild center, Taenith looked back, spotting the massive shadow of a warrior stepping through Ohen’s magical fire without hesitation. His eyes widened when he realized it was the deacon. Her black, shadowy eyes pierced through the flames wrapping around her, striking fear into Taenith. He had never seen such a force before, and he could practically smell the blood running off her armor from the hundreds of demihumans she certainly had slain.