Imperious Order, Part 3

Reiner tried to lower the sword but, to his distress, even knowing he was being manipulated, he found it difficult to fight against the power of the banner. It took every last ounce of his will to force the arm down. The feelings of pride and patriotism that very rarely moved him and which he scoffed at seeing reflected in the pretentious and foolish knights who thought the Kingdom was not only the center of the world but the whole of the world, were flooding him now and made him want to kill. I wanted to kill Barrister for the glory of the Kingdom. I wanted to murder everyone who questioned Lady Roselyn or doubted her motivations. He wanted to...

"No!" Reiner gave himself a hard slap. The pain broke the spell of the banner for barely a moment, but that was enough.

He looked Hals and Pavel in the eye and his anger reinforced it. Behind them, the others were petrified in tortured postures, all fighting the urge to kill Barrister. Little Franz was trembling, his short sword motionless above his head, and there were tears in his eyes. Reiner shook the boy by one shoulder.

"Don't let yourself be beaten, boy."

But Franz remained motionless.

"I won't!"

The bellow made Reiner turn around. Ulf, his face contorted with fury, hurled across the room the sledgehammer he held aloft, which brought down a suit of armor with a resounding clank. Like a sleepwalker, Franz flinched at the noise. Feeling stronger, Reiner turned to Roselyn.

"We will not follow you. You are not our captain."

"In that case, you are traitors," Erich said as he unsheathed his sword and stood in front of the holy woman.

"It is you, the traitor.," growled Hals at the same time as he unsheathed his short sword. Pavel drew a dagger.

"The captain," warned Franz. "He's bleeding."

"What?" Reiner turned around.

Barrister lay on his back and blood was pouring from under his breastplate.

"Captain?" said Reiner as he advanced toward him. He heard hurried footsteps behind him, and turned immediately. Roselyn was running with a haste most unbecoming of a priestess towards the secret door, banner in her hands.

"Stop her!" cried Reiner.

Only Franz, Hals and Pavel had recovered enough to react. They broke into a run with Reiner, but Erich intercepted them by brandishing the sword.

"You'll have to step over my dead body," he said.

Franz tried to run past him, but Erich kicked him in the hip and threw him into the pile of treasure. Pavel and Hals moved left and right, feinting with daggers. Reiner grunted, annoyed - had there ever been such a stupid knight? He grabbed a book from a trunk and hurled it at Erich's head. The knight parried it with ease, but the century of dust that covered him exploded in his face and made him bend at the waist between coughs and curses. Reiner knocked him down with a shoulder blow and ran with Pavel and Hals toward the staircase.

Lady Roselyn was standing just outside the door, muttering and gesturing with her free hand.

Terror gripped Reiner's insides. She was closing the crypt door. He intended to leave them trapped there forever, like the poor dead priestesses.

"Franz! Giano! Break it down!" he shouted over his shoulder. It was too late. Before the boy or the mercenary could aim their weapons, the door began to slide and Roselyn bolted for the spiral staircase.

Reiner cursed and redoubled the speed of his run, ascending the steps three at a time. Hals and Pavel were at his heels. They leaned their shoulders against the closing door and pushed, but their combined weight had no effect. Their boots slid backward on gravel composed of ground bone and marble.

"Ulf, Engineer!" shouted Reiner. "Bring a trunk! Something big and lined with iron!"

Gustaf, Franz and Giano reached the door and also started pushing. Between the six of them they managed to slow it down a bit, but it continued to close. Reiner looked over his shoulder. Ulf, his face red as a tomato, was laboriously advancing toward them with a heavy oaken trunk in his hands.

"Hurry up, you piece of ox!" he looked at Franz, who was pushing with all his might but ineffectually.

"Give it up, boy. Go after her. Warn Oskar. Tell him to shoot her dead." Reiner ordered.

"Yes," said the young man, and hurried out through the opening that was getting narrower and narrower. Almost instantly, Erich ran after him with sword in hand.

"Deserter!" shouted Reiner to the knight. "Will you let us die?" he let out a curse. "He'll kill the boy," he said to the others.

"Go after him. Catch up with him." Pavel said urgently. "We can handle this. Don't worry."

Reiner looked back. Ulf was carrying the trunk up the stairs with difficulty. He was biting his lips from the effort.

"You'd better be able to."

Reiner squeezed through the remaining gap and ran down the hallway toward the spiral staircase, expecting to bump into Franz's body at any moment. He stumbled up the uneven wedge-shaped steps and burst into the burned chapel.

Roselyn, surprisingly, was still in sight. She had just reached the large arched doorway that led to the garden. Reiner thought he must have had some trouble getting the cumbersome banner through the spiral staircase.

In the center of the chapel, Erich had caught up with Franz, who was darting this way and that and ducking to avoid the slashes of the knight's sword as he shouted at the top of his lungs.

"Oskar! Stop her! Stop the priestess!"

Reiner ran towards Erich at the same time as he unsheathed the saber.

"Coward!" he shouted. "Are you messing with the children again? Face me, if you want to fight."

Erich looked up but, unfortunately, so did Franz, and Erich, trained in hand-to-hand combat, took advantage of the circumstance. The sword struck the boy a glancing blow to the head, and he fell to the ground.

Reiner cursed and slashed at the blond knight, but continued running towards the door, shouting as Franz had done.

-Oskar! Stop her!

Erich caught up with him in the huge open doorway and threw a lunge at his back. Reiner contorted as he lunged to the side and fell over the massive bronze doors that lay, twisted, on the floor. He rolled sideways as Erich's rapier descended upon him, then launched a thrust toward the knight's knees.

Erich jumped back and Reiner leapt to his feet.

They stood facing each other, both too preoccupied with the opponent to run after the priestess.

Oskar was trotting across the garden from his guard post across the square, long pistols in both hands. Roselyn was running straight at him.

"Oskar!" shouted Reiner. "Stop her! Shoot her!"

"What?" said the gunner, confused.

"Stop her! She has betrayed us all!"

Oskar looked at the woman running toward him, a puzzled expression on his face.

"My Lady?

The woman raised the banner and he stepped back as confusion turned to fear as he gazed at it.

"Stand back!" she shouted. "Bow before my power [Cause Fear]!"

Oskar stepped back as he raised his arms to shield his face from the banner. She waved it at him and knocked him down, then disappeared down the stairs.

Reiner cursed and set out to go after her, but Erich stood in his way.

"No, traitor," he said. "You will not pass again."

Reiner growled angrily. Even if he could beat the knight, which he wasn't sure of, it would take too long. Roselyn would have already mounted a horse and been long gone before the fight was over. With a sigh, Reiner shrugged and stepped back.

"All right, you win."

He turned and ran back toward the chapel. Franz was picking himself up off the floor and clutching his bleeding head.

"Has she managed to escape?" he asked.

"We'll catch up with her later" Reiner muttered as he helped the boy to his feet. "No woman can go faster than I can on horseback. Let's go down to the vault."

Erich came through the door.

"Where are you going, are you afraid to face me?"

Reiner sheathed his sword.

"I am going to try to save my comrades. The men you have left to die."

"They are traitors."

"They did not rebel against their captain."

Reiner and Franz ran down the stairs.

"How are you?" asked Reiner as he looked at the gash on Franz's head.

"It's nothing serious, I think so."

A loud metallic grinding sound reached them as they exited the staircase, and they both broke into a run toward the crypt. Ulf had placed the iron-banded trunk between the massive door and the wall and prevented it from closing, but it was slowly being crushed, its iron bands buckling and the wood cracking.

Ulf and Gustaf were already on the other side of the door, from where they were holding Barrister in their arms, and Pavel and Hals, still inside, were helping him with the wounded captain.

"Take him upstairs," said Gustaf, "I'll need more light to examine him."

Pavel, Hals and Giano stepped over the splintered trunk and joined them. Reiner heard footsteps coming down the corridor, and looked back.

They were approached by Erich, who was sheathing his sword.

"Is he alive?"

"Like you care." Reiner replied.

"Of course I care" assured the knight. "He's a good man. He's just a little confused." He seemed calmer, almost contrite.

"Out of the way," said Gustaf, who was making his way with Ulf up the spiral staircase carrying Captain Barrister. The rest followed. Erich closed the march behind Reiner.

"I feel no desire to fight my fellow soldiers of the Kingdom, but you must see that you are wrong."

Reiner rolled his eyes. As they were halfway up the stairs there was a horrendous creaking sound and a deep resonant detonation as the crypt door finally crushed the trunk and closed. It sent shivers down Reiner's spine.

As the group entered the chapel, they heard a faint, high-pitched, inhuman, terrified scream.

"Lady Roselyn," said Erich, alarmed. He drew his sword and ran for the door.

"If that's her" replied Reiner. "I am a goblin."

He followed Erich out of the chapel and ran with him through the garden and then across the square towards the front courtyard. The screams, which had diminished to sibilant sighs of pain, came from farther away. Erich and Reiner stopped as they reached the broken gates and then cautiously exited the convent while looking around. The horrible sound came from the hidden ravine where they had left the horses tied up. They continued to advance cautiously.

Turning cautiously at the entrance to the ravine, Reiner jerked back in shock.

There was a lot of blood.

The mule and horses were in pieces, as if attacked by a giant beast. Limbs and backs were scattered everywhere. One or two horses were in agony lying on their sides with their entrails out, weakly raising their heads and groaning with suffering.

"Lady Roselyn!" exclaimed Erich. "Some horror has killed her and the horses."

"Don't bet on that," said Reiner. "I don't see her white horse."

He turned and broke into a run toward the edge of the cliff. Erich followed him.

"What are you doing? We must find her."

"That's what I'm doing."

Reiner looked over the precipice. A figure mounted on a white steed was turning one of the sharp bends in the winding path that had led them to the convent. Her hair floated in the wind and a dark red banner fluttered above her.

Reiner groaned.

"Damn Witch."