Diablo 3: The Reaper of Souls

by Vandoren, Elias

  With a feral snarl, he stepped out. Anajinn's heart sank. His left arm was around Bea's throat. His right fist hovered an inch away from her ear. Worse, Lilsa was in Bea's arms. The girl clutched her mother's abdomen, staring at the man holding them both hostage.

  Sparks flew from the paladin's right fist. Bea didn't flinch, even when the sparks found her flesh. Good, Anajinn thought. Show him nothing. Show your daughter nothing.

  "How proud would the elders be to see you now?" Anajinn asked. "How proud would the congregation in the Travincal temples be to see a champion of their faith cowering behind a pregnant woman and a child?"

  Cennis laughed, a desperate sound. "There is no congregation. Not anymore. Travincal... I don't believe I have any elders, either. But I will do the task they assigned me."

  "And what task is that?"

  "Heretics. There's always so many heretics. I know what you are." His half-mad laughter echoed through the street. "Few in my order do. But I know. You think we are corrupt. Damned. But you are the ones who left, crusader. You and your kind, you ran. You faced nothing. You scuttled away into the swamplands to hide. We stayed behind to deal with the problem."

  "Is that what your elders told you? They lied."

  It was as though he didn't hear her. His expression twisted from anger into horror in mere heartbeats. He was staring a thousand miles and twenty years away. "Why did you run? Why did you leave me?" Tears fell from his eyes. His voice seemed to turn childlike. "The things they did to me... the things they made me do... Why didn't you help? Did you know? Did you know what was waiting for me? They made me hate. They filled me with hate." His fist trembled but didn't move away from Bea's head.

  "We knew enough," Anajinn said softly. "Evil had already claimed the foundation of Zakarum. We couldn't save it. Not on our own. So we looked for something that could."

  "Did you find it?" That child's voice again. Hopeful.

  "Not yet," Anajinn said.

  "Then it was for nothing. All for nothing." Cennis seemed close to weeping for a moment. Then, the child vanished, and the paladin returned. His gaze hardened. "Put your weapon down, crusader. Put your shield down. Cast your armor aside. Or I will kill them." His arm tightened around Bea's throat. Her eyes met Anajinn's, silently pleading, not for her life but for Lilsa's.

  Reiter crawled out of the alley, head swiveling, staring at nothing. "No," he cried. "My family. Mercy. Please. Mercy!"

  "Do it, crusader!"

  Anajinn could see her apprentice peeking around the corner of the cooper's building, behind Cennis. She could also see the apprentice shake her head slowly. Anajinn exhaled. Her apprentice could do nothing, not with the paladin in full armor and clutching hostages. Any attack strong enough to eliminate him would eliminate them all.

  A sense of peace fell upon her. She let the shaft of her flail slip from her fingers. It tumbled to the ground.

  "I want you to know something, Cennis." She firmly stuck her shield into the sand. It stood upright on its own. "I want you to have hope." Her gauntlets hit the sand next. Then her chestplate. The simple woven shirt she wore underneath was still stained with blood and sweat. "I did not find what I was looking for. Neither did my master, or her master before her." Her shoulder plates fell. Then her leg guards. "But despite that, I have no regrets. Someone will find what we need. The faith will be cleansed. And no matter what you do to me"—her boots she kicked off carelessly—"I have not yet reached the end of my journey. My crusade will continue."

  Anajinn saw a child's hope flash across Cennis's face. The moment passed quickly. Only cold murder remained. The paladin extended his right arm, and a glowing hammer leaped toward her.

  She kept her eyes open and smiled to the last.

  ***

  Bea shut her eyes tight. A moment later, the sound died away. The man's arm slipped from her throat.

  "Don't you dare move, woman," the paladin growled into her ear. She nodded, but he had already stepped away toward Anajinn.

  Toward what remained of her, anyway. Bea held Lilsa close, keeping her from turning her head and seeing. Tears leapt to her eyes.

  "Looks like the end of your journey to me," the paladin sneered. He kicked the crusader's chestplate. "Looks like your search is over."

  "It's not."

  Bea and the paladin turned together toward the voice. The apprentice stood with her sword in hand. With a roar, the paladin flung a hammer at her.

  There was a tremendous crash of sound and fury, and a great, billowing cloud of fire flared where the girl was standing an instant ago. Of the crusader's apprentice, there was no sign.

  For the briefest moment.

  Light crashed down from above. The apprentice crashed down with it. The paladin saw it coming. And a childlike look of relief passed over his face.

  And then it was over.

  The apprentice knelt down next to her master and whispered something Bea couldn't hear. But there was no mistaking the glints of light falling to the sand. Tears.

  The teenager stood up. Picked up Anajinn's shield.

  "Bea?" Reiter croaked. "Bea? Are you hurt?"

  Bea ran over to him. "I'm fine. Lilsa's fine."

  "Anajinn?" His voice trembled. "Is she—?"

  "I'm here," the apprentice said. Bea looked at her with confusion.

  Reiter cocked his head. "A-Anajinn? Is that you?"

  "Yes," the apprentice said. She strapped on the last of the crusader's armor and stepped over to the blinded man. Carefully, she laid a hand on his forehead and opened Anajinn's book of laws. She softly began to recite a different passage. Reiter blinked repeatedly. His head swiveled back and forth. His eyes were no longer pure white. His restored pupils darted around. The apprentice sighed. "That is all I can do. Are you well?"

  Reiter looked directly at Bea. "I can... It's not... It's blurry," he said, squinting. He looked at the girl. "Thank you, Anajinn." There was still uncertainty in his voice. Bea realized he could see the shape of her armor and not much else. "You sound different."

  "I suppose so," she said.

  "That is what the oath entails," Anajinn said. "It's about the dedication to the search. About the commitment to saving the faith, even if you are not the one who will save it."

  Reiter listened in closely, hunched over, back sore. The crusader's words were muffled but audible from the library, even with the door closed. When the inn had been rebuilt nearly twenty years ago, he'd had to settle for thinner walls. He'd sold half the land to pay for it. Sacrifices were made. Still, the inn would never be restored to its former glory.

  "I think I understand," Lilsa said. She had been overjoyed to meet Anajinn again for the first time since she was a little girl. For days, she had sat and talked with the crusader for hours on end. "It's not hope; it's purpose. That's why you pass down the original crusader's name. You're trying to live up to their sacrifice."

  "That's one of the reasons," Anajinn said.

  Reiter felt a pain in his stomach. He quietly sat down on the stairs, joints creaking. He didn't want them to know he was eavesdropping on them. His hands, long since gnarled with age, reflexively opened and closed. His heart pounded and sweat dripped from his brow.

  "Is this something you're truly ready to commit to, Lilsa? My master once told me, if you choose this life, you can embrace it; you can curse it; but you must never regret it. Our kind rarely lives long, and the years we're lucky enough to experience are filled with hardships."

  "Yes," Lilsa said firmly. Reiter squeezed his eyes shut, suppressing a groan. "I want to go with you on your search, to..." She paused. "Where would we go first?"

  "Truth be told, I've changed my plans in recent days," Anajinn said. "I've heard that a star has fallen over New Tristram. Nightmares walk the land. I suspect I won't be the first crusader to arrive, but perhaps we'll manage to make ourselves useful."

  Lilsa clapped her hands with excitement. The door to the library burst open, and Reiter quickly stood up and pretended to shuffle down
the stairs, as though he were simply heading back to the common room. He tried to keep his dread from his expression. A thousand words fluttered through his thoughts, forming admonitions, warnings, refusals, ultimatums. Anything that would make Lilsa change her mind, make her see reason.

  None of which, he knew, he would ever have the courage to say.

  "Father," Lilsa said. "I have something important to tell you."

  "I suppose you do," he said.

  Hatred and Discipline

  Valla smelled the rotting dead from a mile away.

  The air was warm despite the clouds that blanketed Khanduras as the demon hunter arrived in what was left of Holbrook—once a tiny, struggling farm community, now a deserted ghost town. Or so it seemed; the heavy stench of putrification suggested that the residents were still present, just not among the living.

  Valla's mentor, Josen, stood in the center of the village, considering a pile of debris: scattered mason stones, upturned rock and soil.

  He was dressed in the attire of the demon hunters' calling. The soft light reflected dully off the plate armor that adorned half his body. His twin crossbows were slung from his thighs, within easy reach. His hood was down, and his cloak snapped in the gusting wind.

  Valla was clothed in similar fashion, the greatest difference being the long, dark scarf she wore that even now covered the lower half of her face. The sawyer's daughter slowed her horse, dismounted, and waited for a moment, silent and still, assessing.

  There was a barely discernible, persistent hum. The only signs of life came from Josen and two other hunters, one searching the derelict structures, another standing near a rundown storehouse. Whatever had happened here, they were too late to do anything about it. Now it was a matter of looking for survivors. That was, after all, the second most important thing her people did: feed and shelter those left homeless in the aftermath of unthinkable catastrophe. Guide them, encourage them, heal them, educate and train them... to do the most important thing, should they so choose: become a demon hunter and annihilate the hellspawn responsible for evils like this.

  Josen continued studying the rubble intently as Valla approached. "I came as quickly as I could," she stated, lowering her scarf.

  The faint thrumming sound droned on. Josen's eyes remained fixed.

  "We should not be here." His voice was loose gravel. "Had Delios succeeded in his task, we would not be here." His shimmering eyes finally met hers. "Tell me what you see."

  Valla gazed at the upheaval. The masonry and timber were familiar... as was a dark liquid spattered across them. But there was also a black substance throughout, like tar, that she did not recognize.

  "The town well," Valla offered. "The demon emerged from here... wounded, given the presence of demon blood. Delios managed that much at least. I only pray that he died a hunter's death."

  Josen kicked at the dirt. Beneath the surface, the soil was wet. "This happened not more than a day ago... after."

  Valla waited for Josen to continue. When he didn't, she asked, "After what?"

  The master hunter's expression was unreadable. "Follow me," he replied.

  As they approached the storehouse, the hum rose in volume, a penetrating, vibrant buzz. As the thrumming grew, the fetid stench grew also. The hunter stationed out front swung open the tall doors.

  A thick, dark mass, a living cloud of flies, escaped. And though the smell of degenerating flesh was familiar to Valla, the potency of its assault nearly drove her to her knees. She pulled her scarf tight and choked back bile.

  Within the barn-sized enclosure, the townspeople were piled in haphazard mounds. Men, women... many of them bloated, their midsections distended. Some of the bodies had ruptured, insides spilling out, maggots working their way over and through the viscera. Fluid seeped from eyes, noses, mouths. Beneath the odor of decomposition was the unmistakable smell of feces. Hundreds of flies swarmed the carnage.

  Valla frowned. The wounds, while gruesome, were not those common to a hellspawn attack. These were stabbings, impalements, crushed skulls—not the shredding, dismemberment, and decapitation associated with most demon slayings.

  Josen spoke. "Delios was seen one day ago outside of Bramwell. He stormed into a bordello, killed everyone... then disappeared. Last night there was another massacre. Fifteen victims inside an opium den. Killed by crossbow bolt and blade."

  Valla's eyes widened in disbelief. Josen answered her unspoken question.

  "He fell to the demon's corruption. He's lost to us now. No better than a demon himself."

  It was a horrific development, one every demon hunter faced, navigating the threshold between good and evil. All too easy for hunters to lose their ability to control their fear or hatred and cross over to the other side. But this... this was not the work of Delios. This was something different. Valla hid her unease. "Perhaps that is so, but no hunter is responsible for what we see here. No demon, either."

  "Agreed."

  "Do you think they turned on one another?"

  "Possible," Josen answered flatly before departing. Valla scanned the corpse mounds once more, noting something odd: there were no children among them.

  Outside, Josen stood at his horse. Valla hurried to him. "I completed my last assignment. What orders now?"

  "We continue searching for survivors. Come sunrise I'll ride to Bramwell, and I'll find Delios. Perhaps... it's not too late for him," the master hunter said, but his minor hesitation spoke differently.

  Valla squared her shoulders. "I'll go and seek out the demon, then."

  "No," Josen shot back. "You're not ready."

  Valla stepped closer. "Come again?"

  The master hunter turned to her, his tone remaining even. "I said you're not ready. We know very little of what we're dealing with. What its methods are. We believe it's a demon that feeds on terror... but Delios had that information as well, and it wasn't enough to prepare him. A demon such as this..."

  Josen's eyes fell slightly. "It will reach into your mind and uncover every fear, every doubt, every regret, no matter how deeply buried. It will pit you against yourself." The master hunter's eyes snapped up, locking on Valla.

  "Remember your failure at the ruins."

  "That was different. A demon of rage," Valla protested.

  "Rage. Hate. Fear. They all feed upon one another. A demon hunter learns how to direct hate. But such a balance is precarious. And when that balance is lost, the cycle begins: Hate begets Destruction. Destruction begets Terror as Terror begets Hate as—"

  "I've heard it a thousand times!" Valla blurted.

  "Then mark it well. You're still young, and you have much to learn. If I've taught you anything, it's that a demon hunter must always temper hatred with discipline. So calm yourself. The demon is wounded. Inactive for now. I'll send another hunter."

  Josen turned to leave, but Valla was not done.

  "I'll go after Delios, then."

  Josen looked back. "You'll stay and help search for survivors. Delios is mine. Those are my orders." The master hunter then strode away. Calmly. And somehow, that infuriated Valla all the more. She wanted him to yell, to scream, to show some damned hint of emotion.

  Not ready? I'm not ready? After all I've been through... "How dare you tell me what I'm not ready for?" Valla whispered.

  An instant later she was astride her horse.

  Which way? Which way would the demon have gone? Valla glanced at the blood among the debris. There was no trail outside the radius of the castoff. No help there.

  To the east sat only mountains. To the west, the Gulf of Westmarch. Far to the south lay New Tristram. But the demon was wounded. Would it take a chance on the longer journey south, or would it travel northeast... where it might find more small farming communities like this one?

  More easy prey.

  The closest village, Havenwood, was less than a day away.

  The choice was made.

  Ellis Halstaff was concerned for her daughter's health.

  S
ahmantha lay still in the downstairs bedroom, a cold, wet cloth draped across her forehead, her breathing shallow.

  Sahm had woken up the previous night, screaming. It had taken a fair amount of time to calm the girl down; when Ellis finally did, and asked what was wrong, her daughter replied that "it feels like there's something bad inside my head."

  Bellik, Havenwood's healer, had visited earlier in the day. He had provided a tonic that would allow Sahm to rest, and prescribed a cold bath when opportunity allowed.

  But Sahm was resting now, and Ellis's little son, Ralyn, would need to be fed, and there was still work to be done before nightfall. It was easier before—in the days when Sahm's father was still present, before he left without a word, without so much as a note, never to return.