Diablo 3: The Reaper of Souls

by Vandoren, Elias

  "Who is it?" Valla asked.

  "Durgen, the blacksmith. He—he could barely speak when he came to my door... only said a few words before he passed on, but that was more 'n enough."

  "What did he say?"

  "Heh?"

  Bellik was a relic of a man, thin and stooped, and hard of hearing despite his overgrown ears. His discomfort in her presence was palpable.

  "The smith's words, what were they?" Valla asked louder.

  "Oh..."

  The healer attempted to pull back the sheet, but the drying blood held it fast. Bellik yanked and the cloth came free, revealing a weathered man, one half of his head misshapen from the blow.

  "He said, 'My boy did this to me.'"

  Valla was silent for a long moment, looking, and there was that sensation again, the worrisome notion that she was forgetting something important. She pushed it to the back of her mind, focusing once again on the situation at hand, on the dead man betrayed by his own son.

  There was a scream then from the street outside— the desperate death wail of someone whose life was coming to a violent end.

  Valla spun for the door. "Stay here."

  An instant later she stepped into the pre-dawn light. In the street a boy, perhaps thirteen, stood over the body of a female merchant. The boy held a smith's hammer, its head covered in pulp. What was left of the merchant's skull was strewn among the wares arrayed nearby on a ragged blanket.

  Valla thought of the fact that there had been no children among the bodies in the storehouse in Holbrook, and suddenly she understood.

  There were no children because they had done the killing. Pawns doing the demon's bidding. For a brief instant, Valla was so shocked, so unsettled by the very idea, that she was off her guard. Vulnerable. She came to her senses and continued to assess the situation. She must act soon, or die.

  The scream had drawn others out now as well, but Valla took special note of a little blonde-haired girl in a pink dress at the end of the thoroughfare; she held a crimson-stained knife in one hand and supported a bloody, ravenous-looking infant on the opposite hip. Her eyes were wide and bright.

  There was a creaking noise on the overlook above Valla's position, someone stepping out, but a short, high creak—indicating a person of light weight.

  Another child.

  The smith's boy was approaching Valla now with an open-mouthed smile.

  Two other kids appeared in the gathering, one small boy dragging a sheathed sword, and an older girl with a large stone held in both hands.

  Then, a final child, a fiery red-headed boy missing two front teeth, skipping with a hatchet in his right hand. A small crowd of five adults had emerged onto the street as well. A few faces peered from windows.

  "Anyone of a mind not to get hurt best get behind locked doors," Valla commanded from beneath her hood.

  "Now!"

  The adults in the crowd complied.

  Bellik stood at the window, watching.

  He would have considered the woman beautiful once, back when he cared about such things. Now he saw only a harbinger of doom. It was known: where the demon hunters went, death followed.

  The townspeople had moved inside, but the children... the children had stayed out, and they were positioning to attack. The smith's words came back to Bellik...

  My boy did this to me.

  What sort of madness had overtaken the world to turn children into butchers? And the woman... the demon hunter, surely she would kill them.

  A cloudburst of smoke exploded from the woman's feet and immediately billowed, obscuring her from sight. An instant later, a small form dropped down into the haze from the lookout above Bellik's viewpoint. As the cloud began to clear, a hatchet flew end over end, missing the child who had jumped down by scant inches.

  Bellik's head swiveled to see a figure rise to a stand several feet away in the thinning, dark mist. It was her. The smoke had been a distraction executed by the hunter. Her wrist flicked, and a little red-headed boy who had skipped into view—the Travers boy, Bellik thought it must be—slapped a hand to his neck as if he'd been bitten.

  Bellik's chest tightened.

  She's killing them!

  The smith's son, Kyndal, rushed forward, eyes bulging, spit flying from his open mouth. He swung the hammer in a wide arc. The demon hunter stepped in, grabbed the boy's wrist, and turned into his swing, circling him around and sending him crashing into a boy Bellik didn't recognize, who was in the process of trying to pull a sword that was larger than he was out of its sheath.

  That boy went flat on his back. The demon hunter snatched the hammer and swung it underhand, smashing the head into the bottom of Kyndal's jaw. Teeth flew. The woman sidestepped, and Kyndal toppled onto his face, out cold. A few feet away, the Travers boy, hand still pressed to his neck, fell down in a heap.

  The demon hunter's hand flicked outward again, toward the child who had dropped from the lookout, someone else Bellik didn't recognize, like the boy with the sword. Visitors from Holbrook, perhaps?

  Bellik's hands tightened into fists. Outside, two children rushed the woman—Sahmantha Halstaff, bounding forward as if playing a game of kickball, waving a bloody dagger before her, and Bri Tunis, hefting a weighty stone above her head.

  Bellik had seen acrobats from the distant land of Entsteig years ago in Caldeum. They flipped and tumbled, somersaulted and cartwheeled, with an ease that was nothing short of incredible. The healer was reminded now of those acrobats as he watched the woman leap upward, tuck, and roll in a ball, unhindered by the hard-edged plate mail she wore, landing behind Sahmantha. It was a blur of motion and almost too quick for the eye to follow, but most amazingly of all, after the demon hunter's passing Sahmantha stood bound in a thin rope.

  Not far away, the stranger who had jumped from the lookout collapsed, just as the Travers boy had done.

  Enough!

  Bellik ran to the door and opened it as the demon hunter spun, swinging Sahmantha next to Bri, her movements impossibly fast, arms whipping like a flag snapping in a gale. When she was done, both girls were bound.

  Sahmantha's brother, little Ralyn, was crawling forward, seemingly in an attempt to gnash his teeth on the demon hunter's leg. She lifted him up, drew her dagger—

  "No!" Bellik called out.

  —and drove it through the back of the boy's shirt, into a nearby support beam, leaving the child kicking and flailing harmlessly. She turned and strode toward Bellik.

  "The children," he breathed.

  "Are alive. I used darts coated in a strong sedative. They're safe, for now, and will remain so only with your help."

  Bellik's fists unclenched. His shoulders sagged in relief.

  "You're surprised?" Valla asked.

  "It is said by some that your kind..." Bellik looked down.

  "Say it," Valla challenged.

  Bellik summoned his courage. "... are no better than the demons. That your eyes burn with Hellsfire. That everywhere you go, death follows."

  Valla stepped closer to Bellik, who stumbled backward.

  "It is said that when a demon peers into you, healer, into the deepest recesses of your mind, then you may peer back if you know how. And then you will see only vengeance. Only the hunt. And your eyes will burn with its obsession."

  Bellik's lower lip quivered. "Your eyes... do not burn."

  Valla's features softened. "No. I live for more than just vengeance." Valla turned. "Now, I need a place where the children can be held. Separately."

  The healer thought for a moment.

  "We got no more than one jail cell... but we got stables for the packbeasts. Stables could work, surely."

  Valla stood looking through the small barred window into the stable stall. Sahmantha sat there, hands and feet lashed together, head inclined, straight blonde hair concealing her face. The rest of the children were held in the remaining stalls, two or three in some, but Valla had insisted Sahmantha be kept alone.

  When the children had been tra
nsported here, a throng of townspeople had gathered around the wagons used to haul the young ones to the stables. Many of the citizens had grown violent, and much of their ire was directed at Valla. But Bellik, Bellik they trusted, and it was his counsel that had averted catastrophe, for the time being at least. The people waited outside the stables even now. Valla could hear the echoing din of their curses and lamentations.

  Bellik had just finished speaking to them. "They want to know: why is this happening? Why the children?"

  Valla opened the stall door, stepped inside, and kneeled in the dry straw.

  "Lock the door behind me."

  "But—"

  "Do it."

  As she heard the latch being slid into place, Valla parted Sahmantha's hair. She tilted the girl's chin up. The little one's eyes were closed.

  The blonde hair, the fair skin... reminded her so much of Halissa. She thought of how Halissa's face always lit up at the sight of her older sister. She thought of Halissa's bright, inquisitive eyes and boundless energy.

  Valla could not show weakness to the healer, but now, now a wave of nausea rolled through her, a tide of sadness and disgust, and suddenly Valla felt very tired, tired in both body and soul.

  She remembered her village in Westmarch. She remembered her family. She fought back the rapidly unfolding memories of the massacre, when she herself had been little more than a child, the same flashes that plagued her night after night: screams of the dead and dying; blood; a demon claw swiping at her neck but cutting her jaw instead; running, Halissa's hand in hers; hiding near the river...

  And, later, being found by others who had suffered similar fates, learning of the demon hunters. Being mentored by Josen, remade into an avatar of vengeance, a weapon forged to strike at the heart of darkness.

  Valla had been absently rubbing the scar on her jaw. She leaned close now to Sahmantha. "Speak, demon."

  Valla waited. No response.

  "Do not play coy with me. This is a game you cannot win. Your only hope is to be sent back to your light-cursed master, to pray that perhaps the Hells will show you mercy, because I will not. Now speak your name."

  Sahmantha did not stir.

  Lowering the girl's head, Valla rose and stood at the barred window.

  "Healer! You asked if there was a reason this demon chose the children... and I tell you yes. This pathetic wretch of a hellspawn chose the young ones because it is weak and the fledgling are vulnerable, easy prey for the scum that begs for scraps discarded by its masters."

  Bellik was standing just inside Valla's view. He stared at her, eyebrows raised.

  Valla felt it then: movement behind her, accompanied by the faintest sound.

  The sawyer's daughter turned to see the girl standing on her toes, back arched, head tucked against her shoulder... Her hair had fallen from a face broken out in veins, her eyes wide, unfocused, bloodshot. When her mouth opened, it seemed almost to struggle in forming the words at first. Then...

  "TURN NOT YOUR BACK, OH PRIDEFUL ONE!"

  The voice was a loud, grating strain, like a continuous intake of breath.

  "SEEK YOU TO STAND BEFORE ME?" The girl's head whipped from one shoulder to the other. "SUCH REACHING EXCEEDS YOUR GRASP, SUB-CREATURE. A DISTRACTION, NONETHELESS I MIGHT FIND AMUSING. RELEASE ME, THEN, AND SEE..."

  Valla drew a blade. Bellik protested, his hands pressed tight against his ears, lips quivering. Valla appeared not to notice as she severed the bonds holding Sahmantha.

  Let us see indeed.

  Settling back on her feet, the child took two halting steps. Valla moved to the side, and the girl lurched forward to stand before the barred door. Her head rotated, chin rolling over her shoulder, vacant eyes staring.

  "COME."

  Valla called to Bellik, "Unlock the door."

  Bellik's eyes shot back and forth between Sahmantha and Valla. "Is it safe?"

  "No harm will come. I'll see to it."

  After an instant's hesitation Bellik did as he was instructed. The girl, chin to her chest and hair hanging so that it was impossible for her to see where she walked, nonetheless proceeded unerringly into the stable.

  Bellik gave her a wide berth, and then he and Valla followed as the girl passed the first stalls where the other children were held. To their right, the older girl who had hefted the stone earlier stood at a door, grasping the bars, and when she spoke, it was in the gushing voice of the demon.

  "I AM OLPHESTOS. I AM THE INFILTRATOR, PROCURER, HERD OF THE WRETCHED, AND FLAYER OF THE WRITHING DAMNED..."

  Bellik glanced about in horror, his palms pressed once again to his ears as Sahmantha shuffled on. The boy who had dragged the sword in the street pulled himself up to peer through a window on the other side, the voice continuing, issuing now from his mouth.

  "THE FOMENTER, GATHERER, INFLICTOR, AND THROAT OF THE SILENT SCREAM..."

  Another child spoke from a stall on Sahmantha's right. "THE FERRYMAN OF LOST DREAMS, SHATTERED HOPE, AND WITHERING DESPAIR..."

  At the final stall appeared the smith's son. There was a bloody vacancy where his front teeth had once been.

  "THE READY RIGHT HAND OF TERROR. THE INWARD-STARING EYE. KNOW ME, AND KNOW THE UNSPEAKABLE."

  Bellik stayed close to Valla as Sahmantha stepped out into the sunlight.

  Valla exited behind her, pushed back her hood, and forced her way through the gathered crowd.

  "Make room! All of you! Bellik, a hand!"

  The townspeople pressed in, questioning, accusing. Bellik shouted for the throng to make way as Sahmantha staggered forward.

  Valla parted the crowd ahead of the little girl, who continued on. Her movements were erratic, spasmodic at some points, yet graceful and almost liquid at others. The knot of people proceeded past the shops on the eastern edge of town.

  Sahmantha sped up her pace, and several of the townspeople fell behind. Bellik gasped for air, his face red with the exertion.

  They had made their way along a desolate stretch of dirt road, little more than a path out into the fields beyond. Sahmantha stumbled out onto a patch of dead grass, stopped, turned. Her head straightened, and the demon's gale-speak burst forth once again.

  "SEEK YOU TO STAND BEFORE ME? THEN COME..."

  The girl grinned slowly, but when she spoke next, it was with the voice of only a child, of little Sahmantha Halstaff. "We can play roughhouse together."

  Without warning the girl's eyes closed. Her body went limp and collapsed.

  Valla rushed forward and leaned close to make sure Sahmantha still lived. She could hear the child's breath.

  Most of the townspeople who had fallen behind caught up now, circling the demon hunter. Bellik stood nearby, steadying his breathing. Valla looked up as if expecting the demon to fall out of the sky.

  Then, she looked down. She took note of the blighted grass, running her fingers over it. It spread out over a large expanse, stretching far and tapering on either side, forming the general shape of a massive eye. There were black spots throughout as well—demonic contamination.

  "Healer, what's below us?"

  Bellik's eyebrows lifted. "Nothing."

  "That ain't 'xactly so."

  Both Valla and Bellik turned to one of the observers, a rotund farmer with a bushy white mustache.

  "The river Bohsum would be right 'bout underneath our feet."

  Bellik watched Valla, and whether or not it was a trick of the light, he was unsure, but it seemed that she had gone slightly pale.

  "But I heard the river as I rode in last night. I hear it faintly even now."

  The mustached farmer's brow dipped in what appeared to be mild annoyance.

  "That ain't the real Bohsum... Just a channel dug out by the settlers ages ago, meant ta divert the water... 'Cause the real Bohsum flows outta the Deadfall Mountains—"

  The farmer turned and pointed northeast.

  "—and pretty soon comes to a sinkhole. Then it goes underground... runs through these parts deep below for quite a ways
'fore comin' back up two days' journey to the west."

  Valla scanned the immediate surroundings.

  "No well?"

  "Soil outside o' town's fertile enough, but the ground right here's harder 'n iron. Easier for the old timers to dig the channel."

  Valla sighed as she replied, "This sinkhole and the place where the river resurfaces... there are no other ways to get down there?"