The town of Remmen sprawled in front of the green-cloaked man, bustling with activities that are otherwise uncommon for such a sparsely populated town.
The green-cloaked man moved closer to the top of the cliff, his greaves crunching another patch of succulents. A wave of dust wafted around him, blurring his sight on the town, but his eyes remained open.
Buildings made of golden-colored brick and clay, decorated with green tendrils of plants dominated the sight in front of him. At the center of the town was a white tower with a scintillating golden orb floating at the center. Anti-thaum shield. To protect the inhabitants from magic users.
He stood there for a moment, looking down at the town, his heart filled with an assortment of emotions that are not supposed to be there. Regret. Desire. Rage. Sadness. Nostalgia. He was taught never to let emotions sway his judgment. But now, the emotions overwhelmed him.
He felt the urge to back off. To step back and leave all this. The comfort of being a priest, leading weekly rituals, and making speeches are tempting for the pious man. That life had fled him the day he decided to become an Inquisitor. Now he has to face great enemies and hard decisions.
The prospect of facing his greatest nemesis is daunting. But the days of cowering behind the skirt of his mother were long gone.
That frightened child has gone. A powerful man has replaced him.
He gripped the pommel of his sword tightly, desire and anger welling in his heart, ready to be unleashed on those who mistreated him in the past.
"Begging your pardon, Arch-Inquisitor," said a man with a hulking body behind whose shadow loomed over him, taking him away from his reveries." How do you want to approach this mission? Diplomatically? Or horrifically?"
The hulking man grinned after giving an emphasis to the last word as if expecting him to choose the latter. After all, Wygrun was not there for nice talk over a feast table of sizzling venison meat. He was there to serve a head on a plate. He was there to sever people's knees from their bodies, not to bend them.
Sending Wygrun with him only means one thing: a bloody slaughter to come.
Arch-Inquisitor Helprinar didn't know if he should be thankful or not to bring Wygrun alongside him for this mission. His heart told him to approach this mission diplomatically. That there is hope for the people of Remmen to be saved from the wrath of the goddess Eristides. That they deserve better than to be razed to the ground with fire.
But he understood that such hope was futile. The church has sent a messenger a fortnight ago, asking the lord of Remmen to declare allegiance to the church of Hesperia. To renounce his full power over the town of Remmen. And more, to convert to the religion of Hesperianism.
No news came back from the messenger. Perhaps the infamous lord of Remmen decided that it was better to throw the messenger into the dungeon or worse. No one knows better about the lord of Remmen than Helprinar, after all. No one knows better than the son of the nefarious lord himself.
"If it has come to the worst, are you ready?" Wygrun asked again. Normally, it would have been offensive for a man of Wygrun's position to question an Arch-Inquisitor a question like that. But Helprinar grew to respect the man after being together for a while.
"The two of us are worth an army of slaves. We can put the city to the ground."
"I didn't mean that," answered Wygrun.
Of course, he meant Helprinar's willingness to put his hometown to the ground if things go south. The Arch-Inquisitor looked at the hulking man again. He could easily be taller than most people in the world, and bulky at that. He can squish a man's head as easily as most men to an apple. But he's not stupid.
Brain and brawn. A rare combination. That's a rare companion to have, especially considering that prior to joining the Inquisition, Wygrun was just a common guard working for a slaver. If there is any man in the world Helprinar would feel safe to fight alongside, it is Wygrun.
Helprinar made another step closer to his hometown.
–
The town of Remmen was as he remembered in his childhood. The smell of spices, urine, lemon, sandalwood, and cactus blossom mingled in the air, creating a mixture of fragrant that was dizzying for Wygrun. For Helprinar, the smells reminded him of pain and fear.
The difference was that nobody cared about a young child running to the streets, and crying back then. Now all eyes were on Helprinar and his sky blue cloaks, wandering to the symbol of Hesperia they bore. And of the huge swords, Helprinar and Wygrun hung on their waist.
Stories must have circulated about Hesperian Inquisition all over the continent, even in a small town like this. What was it in their eyes? Fear? Helprinar thought. They didn't even recognize him. They fear not what I represent. They fear the looming conflict that will change the shape of this town once and for all.
But they didn't understand.
Another thing that never changed in this city was its slavery. Underfed people with blistered skins were loading carts with heavy materials. Rage welling again in Helprinar's stomach from this injustice. For him, slavery is the worst injustice done to mankind. There is no life without freedom, and slavery took it all away from them. A dehumanizing process.
Helprinar touched a burn scar behind his neck. A reminder of his past days as a slave. Night and day being forced to carry out the tasks given to him by the. But worse, he had to carry that interminable anger. Have that anger receded somewhere along his life as a Hesperian, though?
As they walked through a small marketplace, near the center of the town, two city guards came at them. "Halt!" shouted one of them, a scraggly old man familiar to Helprinar.
That scar on the nose. Helprinar remembered him. An incompetent guard who never cared about anything other than getting his weekly wage. He didn't care when Helprinar's father beat his wife. Now he cared when Helprinar and Wygrun came in peace to the town.
Anger seethed inside Helprinar. This city truly was filled with hypocrites, transgressors, and unbelievers.
One more reason to put this city under the cleansing wrath of Eristides, Helprinar told himself.
"We don't want your kind here," the old man spat to the ground.
"My kind?" Helprinar spoke for the first time. "Have you forgotten that I am a human being of flesh and bones, just like you and the rest of your people?"
The bony man put his hand on the hilt of his sword. Wygrun snorted behind him. He could kill the two guards without having to unsheathe his weapon. None of the citizens of this town will, by the look of it. The church should have sent Wygrun in the first place.
"We came in peace," Helprinar said. "And I prefer to leave in peace, too. Escort us safely to the hall of the lord of this city, and I'm sure we can avoid unneeded bloodshed."
The old guard gazed at the Arch-Inquisitor intensely. His hand trembled hard. But then he released his grip on the steel sword on his waist scabbard. "Lord Trossard won't like it if I arrest his guests," the old guard said, smiling like hungry carrion.
That was the first time for Helprinar to hear the name of Lord Trossard uttered in a long time. Their last meeting was a long time ago, but the scars Trossard carved in his heart would last as long as Helprinar lived.
–
The hall of Lord Trossard was as lavish as Helprinar remembered, with a glimpse of expensive trinkets here and there decorating every sharp end of the building. Mosaics made of colorful stones and beads on the window pane greeted Helprinar. He remembered how his mother commissioned an artist from Arrakech to make that one. She had been a cheerful person despite all that befell her.
The hall inside the building was practically littered with people. Some of them reminded Helprinar of a long past. His brothers and sisters. But none of them recognized Helprinar as he walked through the aisle, eye focused forward to the throne and the man who sat on the throne, women sitting on his lap.
"Oh, so the Archangion decided to send messengers again?" Lord Trossard barked a laugh, spittles flying from his mouth. He didn't even take a moment to see the person coming to his hall, his eyes fully focused on the whore on his lap.
"I am no mere messenger, father. If only you would take a moment to see the humble servant of Eristides in front of you."
It took a moment for the Lord or Remmen to understand how Helprinar referred to him. Trossard raised his brows as he looked at Helprinar. Then realization dawned upon him. He was taken aback for a moment, then he found his composure.
"You do have my eyes. One of my whelps, borne from the power of my loin. Talpri, was it?" He said with mocking eyes.
"Helprinar," the Arch-Inquisitor said, ignoring the taunting attempt made by his father. If there is anything he admired from his father, it was his eidetic memory. He knows the name of every face and every name of people he met.
Murmurs began sounding from the entire hall. Of course, they have heard of Helprinar. Of how he challenged Lord Trossard to justice combat after he beat his mother to death. How the guards took him away and sold him to the slavers all these years ago.
Worry was painted on their faces. Is there going to be bloodshed here?
"Look at you, boy. Dressed up like those jesters from that stupid church. Do you come here to enact your childhood vengeance on me or do you want to inquire about the jester that came here a fortnight ago?"
So he does know about the man sent by the Archangion.
"What was done to me in the past is irrelevant to what we need to do today," Helprinar said, trying his best to suppress his rage. "Herald Mallon is a holy representative of the Archangion himself. We would like to know his whereabouts because in the last letter he sent to the Archangion, he mentioned that he had already arrived at this town."
The room went still. Murmurs around the hall stopped abruptly, replaced by tension. Wygrun, meanwhile, looked calm as always with his playful smile that hid beneath that stubbly bush of a red beard. People inside the hall are uncomfortable with the presence of Wygrun. They are not used to seeing a person as huge as him with scars lining his face.
Lord Trossard stroked his stubbly chin and broke the tension. "Do you really want to know what we do to jesters like you? We cut his lying tongue. We mutilated his fingers, one by one. When he stopped crying, we slit his throat. Then we threw his corpse for the pigs to eat."
Everyone grew nervous after that answer. Hands are readied on the pommel of their weapons: axes, swords, spears, and shields. Bloodshed is inevitable at this moment. Helprinar could feel Wygrun's smile growing larger. He had been waiting for this moment: to behead everyone in the room.
One wrong answer and everyone in this room would be dead in a matter of minutes. Wygrun is too deadly that he can carve the guards of this room without breaking a sweat.
"Poor Mallon. But we didn't come here for revenge. We came here to demand exactly what he had demanded when he came here. We want to liberate this town from the wickedness and immorality that blighted the world. We want to save you."
Trossard looked at him incredulously.
"Liberate us from what, exactly? When you were little, you were just an angry little whelp. Complaining about everything and crying at every moment. And now you grow up to be a mad jester. That makes me think."
Trossard looked at the rest of the inhabitants in the room. Sweats trickled from their forehead, anticipating any looming blood spill inside the hall. That won't be the first time it happens in the very hall where Helprinar saw his mother being beaten in front of him as a child.
"What should I do with him?" Trossard continued, asking the men and women present in the hall.
"Feed him to the pigs!" said one of the men drinking in the corner.
"Sell him to the whorehouse of Foenisia! He'd fetch quite a money," said a fat man who might be a petty nobleman of the city.
"Throw him to the dungeon and let him rot for being an insolent turd he is!" screamed a young girl, perhaps not even into her fourteenth wet season.
"Send his severed head to the Archangion in a crate!" A man draped in a lavish suit added to the arguments.
"See," Trossard said, his hand making a gesture. "The court has spoken. We want nothing to do with your offer. Now, get out of my sight before you end up like that Herald too! I might be in one of my merciful moods, but I can be predisposed to filicide. Not that I consider you as my son after you became a slave all those years ago!"
Pain and anger shot up through Helprinar's spine again. He wanted to take the sword in his hand and kill his father for what he had done in the past. But to conquer the thirst for vengeance is to find order.
That's why he chose to join the Hesperia. To kill that pointless desire. To quell that rage. If he gives in, then he would become what he was years ago. If he had to kill his father, then he had to do it without rage.
"It was not an offer. It was a demand. If you spit upon it, then that's the end of your lordship in Remmen as we know of," said Helprinar calmly.
The Lord of Remmen rose from his seat.
"We don't take threats kindly here!"
For a moment, Helprinar let his rage take control. "What do you take, then? Unjust violence toward your wives and concubines?"
"Enough! I have sired too many sons and one less insolent son won't change anything. Guard! Kill him now!"
One of the guards was ready with his bow and sent an arrow flying in the direction of Helprinar's throat. But the Arch-Inquisitor caught it mid-air. He looked at the arrow in his hand, then it burned into ashes. Another was swinging his sword at Helprinar, but Wygrun shoved him aside with a swing of his huge sword that left a dent in the guard's steel armor.
Screams were everywhere as Helprinar realized that Wygrun already left two guards beheaded, another limping after losing one of his legs. Then he saw Wygrun move again to bash a guard with the boss of a shield. A dozen guards breached the gate from the outside. With a move like a dancer, Wygrun made a swinging arc that disemboweled some of the guards.
Seeing Wygrun work is like seeing a Foenis dancer. He might be oversized for a warrior, but there is a rhythm and quickness to his movement that makes him a formidable foe for whoever stands in his way. Even Helprinar himself wouldn't want to face Wygrun in a battle.
The rest of the surviving guards made their way from the hall, perhaps thinking that dying to protect a corrupt and cruel lord is not worth their lives.
"Useless, every fucking one of you," Trossard said, the whore still sitting in his lap as he complained about the bloodbath in front of him.
One of Helprinar's brothers tried to attack him with a table knife, but Helprinar was too quick with him. He spun his body from his attacker and twisted his offensive hand. He let the momentum do the damage to his hand, letting out a cracking sound of the bone. He fell to the ground crying.
"And how many whores do I have to fuck before I can get one half-competent whelp?" Trossard came to Helprinar, his hand glowing with a dark violet miasma emanating from his hand.
You're showing your true color, then. Helprinar thought to his father. Dark violet aura. Necromancy. Even the damned Erostides put condemn the users of necromancy. And it was unnatural. A magical power that came not from communion with any of the divine aspects.
One more reason to put this place under its heel. None of the Hammunsa aspects allowed that magic.
"Do you want to know why I killed your father, boy?" Trossard said
As Trossard made his speech, the whore behind him who just sat on his lap suddenly sagged to the front, her skin becoming withered. Her limbs turned unnaturally to impossible places, and her tongue lolled to the front.
"Murdering whores give me power beyond your comprehension," said Trossard while smirking.
Suddenly the ground of the hall shook. The wooden structure on the ground started breaking, and hands started to rake their way up. Then dead bodies started coming out of the ground.
"Get back to the ground!" shouted Wygrun as he stomped one of the undead coming out of the ground. A hand grabbed his leg, another tried to puncture his body with a bone. Wygrun stopped the attacking undead with a powerful strike of his hand.
Helprinar created a column of fire with his magic to stop the coming undead that tried to rake his eye. But it passed the fire unharmed. One of them managed to pierce Helprinar's shoulder with a sharp bone.
Necromancer's undead is filled with dangerous poisons that can debilitate or kill its target if left untreated. He needed to end his father quickly. But he was defended by two huge undeads who stood next to him. He looked behind, finding Wygrun in grave difficulty as many hands and undead were pulling him to the ground with them.
Helprinar tried another barrage of flame at the undead, but they appeared unaffected. He tried to sever the head of one of the undead, but they were as stiff and firm as rocks. They were practically unbreakable and as powerful as Wygrun is, he won't be able to help Helprinar while being practically dragged to the grave.
The undeads were cornering him to the very spot where he ran and cry as a child all those years ago. He came here to put his father to his knee, and yet he failed again. Failure. That's the biggest bottom line of his entire life. A disappointment to his mother as he failed to help her escape his father's hands. A disappointment to the Archangion's trust. A disappointment to Wygrun who had served him faithfully.
On the verge of his death, Helprinar came to find something to the irony.
The reason he joined the Hesperian church in the first place was to put an end to his seething desire for vengeance. He only wanted peace. And it only brought him to this place, where his uncontrollable anger rages. And at the same time, he was powerless against his father yet again.
Things never change. As long as I am driven by desire, everything will always be a failure, Helprinar told himself. All the lack of ruthlessness from him against his father when he had the chance. He could have taken his father by surprise. He could have done better than letting himself be trapped with all these abominations.
It's all because he wanted his father to admit that he was wrong. That he was sorry. Even today he was still tethered by his childhood need that he should have abandoned years ago. How can a man carry out such a huge responsibility when he is still bound by a childish need?
Then darkness.
What was it, the effect of the undead's poison? No. It was a familiar place. Where he first met Eristides. Where he communed with her after denying his ego. A column of white flame swirled around him and engulfed him.
Then he was back in the hall.
What was that? A communion?
There is something tugging in my mind that compelled him to use his magic again against the indestructible undeads. The golden magical aura of thaum swirled around his hand and something materialized out of it. Not the usual ring of fire. Something firmer, thicker, and hotter. Molten rocks appeared and devoured the undeads in front of him.
"How did you do that?" asked Trossard, taken aback that his son just put his powerful horde of undeads down without moving much.
He sent two of his personal undead guards to deal with Helprinar. With a quick swing of its sword, the undead targeted Helprinar's neck but missed. Helprinar made a zig-zagging dodge to avoid his two enemies before burning the two undead behind him to a cinder.
As he readied himself for fighting his dad, Helprinar looked back to see Wygrun already neck-deep into the ground, trying to scream and swallowing sand. He had to kill his father quickly. Trossard was already with his fencing sword. He picked one up from one of the fallen noblemen on the ground.
His father made the first thrust, and Helprinar answered that with a quick parry.
"Your whore of a mother and you have always caused trouble for me. I have to admit, killing you would be a pleasure."
He jumped around and tried his best to keep a distance from Helprinar, knowing that he had the advantage of time. He simply has to wait so Wygrun will drown in the sand. He didn't have time for this.
Helprinar lunged at his father, only to be swatted quickly with a riposte. The counter-attack from Trossard was swift and brutal, like a serpent, and it connected to Helprinar's spaulder.
The screaming sound from Wygrun was now fully muffled.
Time to let it go, Helprinar thought. Let all desire for his acceptance and respect go. Time to do what it requires me to do.
Their swords clashed again, but this time Helprinar emanated fire on his sword in impossibly intolerable heat, spreading to the pommel of Trossard's hand. Shocked by the sudden sensation in his hand, Trossard dropped the sword, his hand burned.
"You chea…"
He didn't manage to finish his sentence as Helprinar's sword pierced his chest. Helprinar pulled his sword and made another hole right in the old man's heart. He looked at Helprinar with disbelief in his eyes, then slid down to the ground.
"Finally!" said Wygrun behind Helprinar. The undeads disappeared behind him, and Wygrun was hauling himself up from the ground.
Helprinar looked back at his dying father. Vengeance felt empty for him, and he was glad for that. And he didn't berate himself for cheating. He earned all that befell him.
Helped by Wygrun, he left the blood-smeared hall with assurance in each one of his steps. They opened the gate and let the sunlight pierce the darkened hall.
People were surrounding the building with glimmers of curious eyes. They were afraid, but they were also excited to find that someone might have slain the cruel Lord Trossard.
Helprinar started talking.
"The cruel regime of Trossard has come to an end," he said. Helprinar looked at the slaves who looked at him with wary eyes. "This town is now under the rule of the Archangion Vignolas. We will tear down all corruption and cruelties done by my father! We will begin this world anew, where we all strive for common wealth and happiness!"
The murmurs sounded between them, signaling doubt, curiosity, and fright at the same time. More than anything, they were feeling uncertain about this. As a town located near the center of conflicts in Arrakech, they have heard about how the transition of power often leaves lives lost. What does this change mean for them if not another series of death and destructions?
That's why they sent me here, Helprinar thought.
To liberate not only the slaves but the people of Remmen. To show them that Hesperia is the way to true freedom. But now they are still frightened of the uncertainty that will come after this.
Let me show them the way.