Diablo 3: The Reaper of Souls (22 page)

The innkeeper was forcing words through his constricted throat. "Family... mercy..."

"Hush now," Cennis said.

***

"Honey, don't touch the nice lady's shield," Bea said gently, lifting Lilsa into her arms. Patting her daughter on the back, Bea frowned down at Anajinn. "You're not planning to sleep in that armor, are you?"

The crusader raised her head off the bed and smiled. "Looks silly, doesn't it?" With a deep sigh, she lay back. Her apprentice sat on a stool at the foot of the bed, pouring tea into three cups. Anajinn shifted her weight, and the armor softly clinked together.

It did look silly. Bea suppressed a grin. "I'm pretty sure you'll sleep better if you take it off," she said. Lilsa giggled into her ear. "See? My daughter agrees."

"She's probably right," Anajinn said. Her smile looked sincere, but fatigue pinched her eyes. Bea suspected this wasn't the first time she had been close to death recently. "But if those gentlemen return, I may need to act quickly."

Bea went quiet. Lilsa was staring in fascination at the way the lamplight was playing off the armor. "I cannot believe that they would actually mean us harm. Serious harm." But the paladins' words to Reiter had carried through the inn's walls. She had heard their anger. Could she really be sure what they were capable of? "I grew up here. I've seen all sorts of people come and go. Paladins weren't rare. They always seemed so nice when I was a child. In recent years, they seem..." She hesitated. "Do you know what's happened? Why they're so troubled?"

The apprentice gave Anajinn a questioning look. Anajinn was silent for a moment. "Their darkness has come to the surface. That darkness is what drives my crusade," she said.

"You hate paladins?" Bea said.

"Not at all," Anajinn said. "Our faiths share the same roots. I see them as brothers and sisters. Lost, but family." The apprentice handed her a cup of tea. She sipped it before continuing. "Centuries ago, a very wise man noticed that the core of the Zakarum faith had been corrupted. Infected. It was subtle, but elements of evil had crept deep into our foundations. Judging by the news out of Travincal, that evil is no longer creeping but has been leaping and shouting openly for the past few years. It has literally become the home of Hatred. Whoever destroyed that place did the world a favor."

Travincal had been destroyed? Bea shifted uncomfortably on her feet. She hadn't heard that news, had heard only that something terrible had happened there.

"There are good people among their order. But those inclined toward evil have overwhelmed the righteous, I fear," Anajinn said. "The destruction of their haven might unbalance the rest."

Bea accepted a cup of tea from the apprentice. Her hand trembled only a little. "And your crusade is to eradicate them?"

Anajinn shook her head. "My crusade is to eradicate the evil that corrupts them. To search for something that might cleanse the faith. I thought it was out in that desert a few days ago..." A tired smile appeared. "We cleansed something, to be sure. It wasn't the faith."

"My bowels, maybe," the apprentice mumbled.

Bea was shocked at the language, but the crusader simply laughed. "Seeing a few demons leap from the shadows is an excellent way to cleanse those. We took care of the stronghold, and that's never a waste of time. I'm not sorry we made the trip." Anajinn frowned as though something unpleasant had just occurred to her. "Where is your husband, Bea?"

"Probably sulking upstairs in his study," Bea said in a mischievous whisper. "He does that when he doesn't get his way."

Anajinn did not smile back. "I haven't heard any footsteps upstairs. Or anywhere else in this inn. Can you find him, please?"

"I suppose so," Bea said. Still holding Lilsa, she stepped out of the small room. "Reiter?" she called.

Lilsa's voice joined hers. "Faaaaaather!"

There was no answer. Strange. Bea wandered into the common room and called Reiter's name again. Silence. "Where do you think your father is?" she quietly asked Lilsa. The girl shrugged her shoulders. Bea walked back to the crusader's room. "I guess he left for a moment. Anajinn, why—"

The crusader was already on her feet, gripping her shield and flail. Her apprentice shucked a short sword out of its sheath.

"I fear," Anajinn said, "your husband has made a terrible mistake."

The cord of Light—or whatever it was—around his neck didn't ease a hair when the paladins forced him to stop. Reiter could hear his skin beginning to sizzle from its heat. His hands scrabbled in vain behind his back, bound by the wrists.

His eyes... his eyes. Akarat, my eyes! Darkness everywhere. The paladin had crooked a finger at him, and pain had blazed through his head and destroyed his vision.

Reiter was blind. Utterly blind.

"It is good that you came to us with your sin as quickly as you did," the lead paladin whispered in his ear. "We will send you to the judgment of Zakarum without too much pain. At least you have given me extra practice. Your eyes will remain in your head." A hand shoved Reiter to his knees. He wheezed helplessly, only able to suck a tiny thread of air down his throat.

He could hear the three paladins spreading out in the street. Reiter desperately tried to choke out some final plea—spare my family; take the crusader, but spare my family—but all that escaped from his mouth were incoherent rasps. He fell onto his side. He strained his ears, hoping to hear a door or a window open anywhere down the street. No, he realized. There would be no help. Not from anyone else in this town. It wouldn't be reasonable to step into this fight.

The lead paladin called out in a clear, strong voice. "Heretic!" After a moment, he tried again. "Heretic! The one named Anajinn! I am Master Cennis. In the name of the Zakarum faith that you choose to defile, surrender immediately for judgment."

Heavy footsteps sounded from the inn's wooden balcony. Reiter could see nothing but darkness, but he could clearly hear her. She was stepping out of the door without hesitation.

"Innkeeper, know this," Anajinn said. "I will do what I can to ensure your family's safety." Her voice was filled with pity and sadness, not with the anger and recrimination he expected.

"A waste of time," the lead paladin spat. "Anyone who harbors a heretic—anyone—must face the same fate as the heretic," he added with a leering grin.

***

Doors and windows slammed shut up and down the road. Other than that, there was no sound anywhere else in Caldeum's Rest. The whole town held its breath.

Anajinn eyed the three paladins. The one in the middle, the one standing above Reiter, seemed to be in charge. The other two stood ready, but she thought she could see hesitation in their eyes. It was to them that she spoke.

"Your leader is speaking of murdering an innkeeper, his wife, and a young girl. And the wife is bearing another child," she said. Contempt dripped from every word. "Master Cennis would kill them without a moment of regret. Have you truly fallen so far? Have you truly sunk to his level of evil?"

That sparked another torrent from Cennis, angry words about justice and righteousness and heresy, but she didn't listen. She watched the other two. They stole glances at each other.

Indecision.

Guilt.

They knew who Cennis was. They knew what kind of monster he had become. They almost certainly never admitted it to each other or to themselves, but they knew. They knew, deep within their bones, that what was about to happen was wrong.

But as she watched, she saw the expression of one harden. The second soon followed. Only hatred remained in their eyes. Anajinn bowed her head. They did not like the idea; they did not relish the idea; but they would obey. They might regret their actions; perhaps this would even be the moment that could one day lead to their redemption. But the price of that redemption would be the lives of innocents.

The paladin continued to rant. Anajinn took in a very, very deep breath, allowing the air and the Light to fill her completely. It did not erase her fatigue. Exhaustion seemed embroidered across every inch of her body.

But the Light gave her strength. As it always did. As it always would, until she reached the end of her journey.

"So be it," she said, and charged.

And the Light whirled around her.

***

A terrible and wonderful tone rang out. Bea flinched. Lilsa listened in silence, mouth open with awe. New noises arose, the sound of unearthly fury. Of battle.

"Reiter, oh no, Reiter," Bea breathed.

The apprentice led them behind the buildings along the town's single street, taking them away from the confrontation. Her short sword was in her right hand, point up. Her left hand had a firm grip on Bea's. "Keep moving," she whispered. Other residents of the town were fleeing into the desert, in ones and twos and small groups. They looked prepared to take their chances in the barren wilds rather than stay a moment longer.

"My husband, is he...?"

She shook her head. "Anajinn will not let him die as long as she lives." Another deep, echoing noise cascaded over the buildings. "And she still lives."

A tremendous crash cut off any further comment. Something—someone—smashed through the back wall of the inn, tumbling through the sand. Bea's breath caught in her throat. Someone had been thrown through the entire inn. Pieces of the roof began to collapse. It looked as if the building would soon follow. The figure skidding to a stop in the desert wasn't Reiter, but who—

"Into the alley," the apprentice said. "Quietly, now."

Bea allowed herself to be herded into the tight alley between two adobe walls. "Who was that? Are they dead?"

The apprentice stole a glance back around the corner. "It was one of the paladins, and no, he's not." And reluctantly, she added, "He's heading around the side. Trying to sneak around the fight, to strike Anajinn from behind." She looked down at her sword and then at Bea.

"Do you need to help her?" Bea asked.

The apprentice hesitated. "She told me not to leave you."

"We will stay out of harm's way," Bea said. Still the apprentice didn't move. "Will these men stop at killing your master? At killing my husband?"

"No," the apprentice said softly.

"Then go," Bea said.

***

Anajinn raised her shield and let the hammer glance off. The impact shook her to her bones. She spared a quick look through the hole in the inn. The paladin she had blasted away was beginning to rise to his feet. Not dead. She was more fatigued than she had realized. The blow should have put him down for good.

The other two paladins advanced relentlessly. The lead paladin, the one called Cennis, spun hammers of the Light at her again and again, while the other sent a continuous barrage of shimmering, bright bolts. She kept her shield high, intercepting each attack. When the second paladin rushed to within three paces, she lowered her shoulder, braced against her shield, and pushed.

A solid wall of power, of Light, met the charging paladin. Red mist expanded outward. When the Light faded, crimson hung in the air. Bones, only bones, cracked and fractured and dry, fell to the sand. Even the man's clothes had been scattered like dust.

Anajinn did not exult in his death. She simply turned toward Cennis and swung her flail. With a startled, angry cry, he leaped backward, flinging another hammer, which caught her across the right shoulder. Agony erupted, but she coldly ignored it.

The paladin hissed and squinted at what remained of his brother. "You filthy, interfering murderer. Spawn of evil."

"It'll be more pleasant for everyone if you stop talking," Anajinn said.