Adel looked at me with eyes full of expectation. Between his hands was the covered helmet of a low-level Inquisitor. I was surprised at how eager he was to kill Lord Forester. Though for him this would be a matter of his continued survival. If the Absolver demanded it, he needed to get it done. There was just one problem with his plan.
“Hold on a second Adel. If I go into that camp with this armour or get seen with you, and I kill Lord Forester – they’ll think you were involved with it.”
“I didn’t realise you were concerned for little old me...”
I sighed, “Listen, asshole or not, I like to do my jobs properly. A plan where parts of the ‘team’ get burned or left behind isn’t a job done properly. We should do this without putting ourselves at any risk of retaliation.”
It was a little late for me to be saying that. No doubt the ones who survived my rampage were regaling the story to their compatriots as we spoke. The tale would only become more embellished with time as a game of telephone dripped down into every corner of the Sull military. It was already an utterly absurd thing – but people had a way of making it even worse.
Cali’s eyes were sharp; “What kind of encampment is it?”
“It’s the main camp on the East side of the city. It is big. Hundreds of tents, more permanent fortifications. But there are gaps.”
“Gaps?”
“They don’t have the time or resources to construct a full enclosing wall. They merely assume that the large number of soldiers present will be enough to deter any potential thieves or criminals. They are confident that the Federation will not be able to break through the Bend and reach here as well.”
I nodded, “So they sent the wood somewhere more useful.”
“That’s right.”
“But that’s good for us. It means there are a lot of places to enter and exit from the compound. If we can kill him without anyone noticing, we could be out of there before they find the body.”
“He’ll be guarded at all times,” Adel explained, “It won’t be so simple.”
“Why not attack him while he sleeps?” Cali suggested, “He will probably demand that no guard enter his tent while he rests.”
“Tents are rather insecure. We could easily sneak under the edges,” I mused – recalling my recent experience in breaking into one of their compounds. There were still too many unknowns to reach a firm conclusion. Forester could be doing any number of things to try and protect himself now that I was running loose around the city.
“Hm. I believe that John will dispatch what remains of his garrison to protect Forester, unless they have a falling out.”
“What are the odds of that?”
“High. Forester is a stubborn old mule. He won’t accept responsibility for any of the deaths that have occurred at your hand so far. John by comparison is rather compassionate. They’ll be arguing into the cold hours of the morning.”
“I wouldn’t use a word like ‘compassionate’ for a man who associates with Forester. They killed hundreds of people in the Bend for nothing.”
Adel bit his tongue and emphasised his point, “By comparison. He is still a hawk. He wants conflict but despises seeing men die for it. He’s a fool.”
I eyed him out of the corner of my eye. Cali seemed to share my scepticism. Adelbern had presented himself as many different things to me and her. A man of rational thought, one who stood aside from the politics of the Inquisition, an unwilling puppet to its leader, yet here he was towing the party line. If he hadn't told me that he didn’t like the Inquisition when we first met, how would I have perceived what he was saying now?
The sense of manipulation I felt around him was growing every time we met. This was the job that the Absolver had given him, and I was rapidly approaching the end of my tether on the matter. I regarded the helmet he had placed on the table with disdain.
“Hold on. What’s your play here?”
“…My play?”
Cali hammered the nail as well, “You seem to be rather invested in the internal fighting between these two factions in the Inquisition. Yet you attested to us on multiple occasions that you didn’t care.”
Adel sensed he was in dangerous territory. He looked like a deer in the headlights.
“I reserve my own opinion of the men and women who make up the Inquisition. Petty King John and the militarist wing are the types of people you yourself were just speaking ill of. They kill and execute with impunity – and desire to spread the influence of the organisation to where it is not wanted.”
“I’m not buying it,” I concluded. I crossed my arms, Cali was nodding in agreement.
I could see Adel debating internally on whether to spill the details or not. It didn’t take long for him to crack and launch into a more detailed explanation; “If it earns some small amount of trust from you. I will state my position right now.”
“Go ahead, I’m all ears.”
“There was a time after my rebirth when I wanted to believe in the values that they tried to instil into me. This was a new, wonderful world, with magic and monsters and legends. I foolishly believed that the answers would be simple and straightforward. I dedicated myself to the Inquisition’s cause at an early age and trained endlessly in the belief that I could be some kind of storybook hero.”
“But…”
“But the illusion was shattered, and rather quickly at that. For all the numbers and fantastical sights, this is a world filled with people who are just as two-faced and exploitative as any other. A year into my duty as a squire and I had concluded that those stories of heroism were just that, stories – convenient fictions designed to fool the common man into supporting their divine right.”
“And they use that divine right to kill and pillage.”
“You don’t even know the half of it,” Adel sighed. “This isn’t petty theft we’re speaking of. This is a theft that can only be executed by an institution. Enough money to clothe and house every man, woman and child on this continent, and perhaps on the others as well. Self-interest has become the driving force behind their decisions.”
“And what about the Absolver?”
“He is the same, regrettably. With time I have also come to accept that he has his own goals and wants that are not kind in nature. He seeks answers and truths, and does not care how many people are hurt in the process of finding them. But there was something that he said to me that I took to heart – even if he didn’t intend for me to.”
Adel pointed to the hilt of the sword poking out over my shoulder, “They fear Stigma not because of any ‘corruption,’ they fear Stigma because it is an irrational weapon. A weapon that defies the numbers and hierarchies that they rely on so dearly. It can transform a normal person into one who does not abide by their rules or expectations, a monster in every sense of the word.”
It all came down to numbers, huh?
“Stigma is the last great mystery; the one that he has his heart set on solving. The only way for him to do that is for an individual to unlock its full power. A weapon reviled and adored by so many different cultures and histories. How can a man hope to separate the truth from the fiction?”
“By seeing it for himself,” I murmured. “But what about you? What’s your end goal?”
Adel blinked. That was the one question he wasn’t prepared for.
“I… I suppose I feel some small responsibility. I have a position within the Inquisition that allows me to mitigate some of the damage they cause. If not for me, they would appoint someone with a heart as black as coal.”
“You are just trying to convince yourself,” Cali sniped. That statement really cut to the core of the matter. Cali didn’t talk about herself much – but it was times like these when her personal experience started to peer through the cracks in her stoic façade. “You understand that they are beyond saving already. You position yourself as a helpless spectator before the gears of a grand machine.”
Adel laughed, “You are sharper than you look. Indeed. I am helpless. One man cannot hope to topple something like the Inquisition. It has fingers and ears in every government in the world, the dogma it preaches is accepted as nothing but the truth. Which is why I’m so interested in you, Ren.”
“Me?”
“An irrational man wielding an irrational weapon, with the ability to turn one’s strength against their own allies. The Absolver believes that he will emerge the victor at the end of this journey, yet he does not know the real danger that he is creating. You are already stronger than any mortal man should be, what do you suppose will happen if you unlock Stigma’s full power?”
I remained silent.
“I’ll tell you. All the fear they spread is not unjustified. When the time comes, no number of Inquisitors will be enough to destroy the menace of his own making.”
“Lord Forester, I have a report…”
The words were said with much trepidation. The officer, a man named Malrey, stood at attention by the entrance to the tent. The camp was buzzing with activity. Preparations for the second offensive through the Bend continued, though the sudden appearance of an assassin with a cursed weapon had sent the Inquisitors into a frenzy.
A bellowing voice threatening to blow the front flaps open, “I told you that you should have exercised more caution!”
Malrey stayed his tongue. Lord Forester was arguing with Petty King John once again. His pleas were going to be unheard until the two of them were done. The debate was loud enough that some of the passing soldiers had stopped and lent their ears.
“I cannot dedicate our food and supplies to maintaining your presence here,” Forester replied. “The success of this attack is more important than my safety. We will be away from the city in due course and I highly doubt that such a foolish man is capable of killing me. The trap we set worked perfectly.”
“But he escaped.”
“And who’s fault was that again?”
John slammed the table, “He killed some forty of your men! I’m warning you about the power of the weapon he wields. The longer this menace is allowed to fester, the stronger it will grow.”
“It’s too late now. We’re departing within the week. Bringing your men back here will take too long and be for nothing. How many are here now?”
John was silent for a second, “Sixty. But we just lost one of our best officers, we found him at the start of that trail of destruction the criminal left. He choked him to death.”
“Choked?”
“Yes. It was a disrespectful death for a talented and virtuous man. I know not of how he was bested, but it speaks to a certain willingness to do whatever he pleases.”
The two men quieted down. Malrey took his chance and spoke up again, “I have a report for you, Lord Forester!”
“Enter!”
He ducked beneath the front entrance and entered the tent proper. A large wooden table dominated the middle of the space, covered with maps and charts covering their approach to the next segment of Federation territory. This was the grand plan that would deliver an unprecedented victory for the Kingdom – and permanently shift the tides of their decade’s long rivalry.
Lord Forester was a towering pillar of a man. Dressed in his parade armour at all times. He had a crop of dusty blonde hair and a long, twirled moustache. Malrey was always taken aback by his striking appearance. “What is it?” he snapped.
“I have the report from the coroner and eyewitness accounts from the surviving men.”
Forester snatched the papers from between his hands and shuffled through them. But before he had even ingested the information that had been provided to him, he had already reached the first of multiple conclusions.
“Have the men who survived penalised for retreating in the face of the enemy.”
Malrey withered, “Yes sir.”
“Forty-two dead? Clearly they weren’t cut out for this kind of thing.”
Malrey could see John wincing as he said it.
“Put extra men on guard duty. I doubt he’ll be foolish enough to attack a fort of this size alone.”
“Yes sir.”
“Dismissed!”
“Yes sir, thank you sir.” Malrey ducked back out of the tent and walked as fast as his legs could carry him. There was going to be hell to pay in the camp when he told the head barrister what Forester had asked of him.
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If this was modern times that lord might find that someone accidentally dropped some grenades in his tent, and forgot the pins.