Fear mixed with excitement the day that the priest-candidate stormed across Todd’s path to see Brother Faerbar. There could only be one reason for such a visit: to bring them orders that he was to ready his men for another mission. Even after being here for over a year, Todd was still on edge whenever one of the lower priests crossed his path. They were a fickle bunch in their red robes and much more likely to scream at him and his fellow acolytes for imagined sins than to praise hard work. Worse - those beratings usually ended in lengthy punishments. As Brother Faerbar’s squire, he was often singled out for those while he was told how he needed to ‘hold himself to a higher standard.’

By contrast, the priests and high priests barely noticed that he and his fellow acolytes existed. Anyone that had been elevated to the white no longer seemed to see the gray and brown robes of the acolytes, even though many of them had worn them for much longer than they’d worn the white or the red. Todd thought it was funny, but he didn’t really care beyond the extra chores. He had less than zero interest in ranks and titles. All he cared about was that Brother Faerbar had been good to him, and he was teaching him how to fight. One day he would no longer be a squire but a full-fledged warrior, and then he could go back to the broad plains of his birth and finally get his revenge on the goblin tribes that still lingered there even now.

That wasn’t what would happen today, though, based on the sense of urgency on display. The red-robed man barely glanced at him long enough to scowl before he hurried to speak with his master. A priest candidate would never hurry half so much for a lowly goblin. He was almost certainly here because some heretic or bandit needed to be dealt with like usual.

Being ignored suited Todd just fine. He’d just finished mending his master’s chain mail after their expedition north last week. Right now, he was rolling it back and forth across the small courtyard of the guardians, where most of the sparring practice took place to get the last of the rust off. The swamp they’d trudged through to track down their last fugitive had been tougher on everyone’s armor than the self-styled bandit king of the Greenwood had ever been. Besides a single ambush where Todd had taken his first arrow, they’d barely put up a fight.

Todd paused in his exertions to scratch the place the wound had been on his arm. There was barely a mark now, thanks to the paladin’s healing magic, but sometimes it still tingled. Pausing for a quick break to stretch was just a cover, though. He’d chosen his spot well. It was almost directly outside Brother Faerbar’s window. The rumbling of the barrel made it impossible to hear anything, but as soon as he stopped, he could listen to them speaking again.

“...nothing beyond that. The letter claims that the palace was filled with evidence of a slaughter, and we have been ordered there with all speed,” the strange priest-candidate said.

“Well - if it’s a rebellion and not something darker, we could well be walking into a trap. The light will not avail nearly as much against mortal enemies as infernal ones,” Brother Faerbar responded thoughtfully.

“There is definitely a taint here. I could feel it through the ink,” the other man said stiffly. “Make sure your cadre is ready because, in Fallravea, we will face true darkness.”

Afraid of being caught, Todd started rolling his barrel once more as soon as he heard that. The details didn’t matter. They could wait until his master felt like doling them out. All that mattered was that they would finally fight real evil, and his heart thrilled at the news. That wasn’t to say what they’d done in the past wasn’t important and that they didn’t help people, but there was a world of difference between a ghoul or a demon and an old witcher-woman.

The rest of the morning passed without incident. Once Brother Faerbar’s armor was clean and his sword was sharpened, Todd devoted himself to his drills even more than usual. After all, he would have to be ready. He’d grown stronger over the past year as the dual magics of age and training had done their work. He’d begun to feel the light flow through him with purpose now, even if he still had no control over his sight. When it would show him things he’d rather not know, it was great progress, and he felt more than ready to charge into battle with the other Templars. His master saw Todd sweating as he battered the poor training dummy and smiled that knowing smile of his that told Todd that he already knew exactly how much he’d heard and that he was pleased with his squire’s eagerness.

That silent combination of compliment and rebuke kept Todd working hard throughout the day. It was only when the entire cadre sat down to evening prayers and bowls of hearty vegetable stew that he announced the plan.

“We’re off to Fallravea at sunrise,” he declared. “It will be a hard four-day ride. Plan accordingly; bring your full kit. This isn’t going to be another exercise in bandit hunting.”

Everyone took a minute to absorb the words. He’d probably left out the key details so as not to spoil anyone’s appetite, but it was easy enough to read between the lines and hear what he was actually saying to the veterans. ‘Our enemies are infernal, not mortal.’

“Why can’t we take a ferry downriver,” Brother Darrius asked, “It would save the horses and a whole day besides.”

“You know my stance on the river, Darrius. It’s been tainted, and I believe it might have something to do with the rest of the mission,” Brother Faerbar answered between bites of his meal. “I aim to cross as far upriver as possible and stay well clear of it until we get to the city. Too many ships have disappeared to risk it.”

Brother Darrius shook his head but made no argument against his leader. He lacked the sight, so while he respected Brother Faerbar, he’d always been skeptical of the man’s stance on the broad and meandering Oroza. Especially since that fixation had cost all of them quite a few extra days in the saddle. Todd understood too well, though. Even though the river might look picturesque, he could see the gray-green film that clung to it like an oil slick. His master had petitioned the Hierarch on more than one occasion that he be allowed to go upriver and investigate the source of the taint. However, to date, it had not been deemed to be worth the church’s time.

Perhaps this mission would change that, Todd thought hopefully as he wolfed down his meal. He would sleep sounder if they could find and fix such an apparent evil, but truthfully the world was full of them, and they couldn’t be everywhere at once. He’d even felt the taint of the monastery at Garvin’s Gift sometimes. So much blood had been shed in the world that it was hard to find true purity outside the walls of the fortress city of Siddrimar.

While Todd might enjoy his new home’s clean air and holy aura, he loved being out of it almost as much. Until he’d been taken away by Brother Faerbar practically two years ago, he’d hardly traveled at all in his whole life, now they did it constantly, and he’d grown to love it. As they traveled west on the high road, he looked around at sights he’d already seen a dozen times with fresh eyes. Siddrimar was large enough that small villages crowded every road that led to it for miles and miles in all directions, but after a few hours of riding, they came only every hour or two, and eventually not at all, as the fields gave way to forests.

He’d been told more than once that before the Drowning swept across the land, there were twice as many villages and that the forest never crowded this close to the main roads. It would be years before that was true again, and everything was in its proper place, though. Now you could see the thickets encroaching on the overgrown fields, and occasionally, you could pick out a cottage all but engulfed in ivy, but mostly the communities that had been swept under by the sickness had all but vanished.

On the third night, they camped in what used to be a town on the far side of the river. There were dozens of buildings that were no longer occupied, and the only part that had any life to it was the inn and tavern that stood at the crossroads. They ate there, giving Todd a chance to listen to a bard sing a song about some heroes in a swamp, which seemed appropriate given that they’d just fought in a swamp themselves, even if there hadn’t been anything as exciting as zombies waiting for them.

This was enough for his master to decide that the run-down place was too worldly for them, and as soon as everyone had finished eating, they quickly paid and left. Instead of nice warm beds, they slept on the dusty floor of an empty cottage in their bedrolls. The roof had begun to sag badly in the middle, but it was still enough to keep the rain off and the fireplace still worked, which was all that mattered. The constant drizzle had shown that the autumn had finally begun and that the mighty Oroza would soon fill its banks rather than the muddy trickle it was now.

The most exciting thing that Todd did the rest of the night was gathering firewood, though, even as run down and empty as the area was, he didn’t feel afraid. Not even the rain or distant thunder was enough to make him jump at his own shadow these days, and this place still smelled too much of man for the monsters to move in yet. He still carried his mace with him at all times, of course, but he never once felt the need to lift it from where it hung on his belt.

Things didn’t start to grow worrisome until they were less than a day outside Fallravea. There the sun-ravaged fields had yet to heal, even after all the rain they’d gotten in the last week, and they were greeted by stunted crops and starving people in every little village. Only the villages right on the river had been spared the worst of it, but those families had an evil look that Todd didn’t care for.

Since Brother Faerbar’s trip to the red hills, most of their questing had taken them north and east, but the short conversations that he heard the stoic Templars sharing amongst themselves certainly agreed with his assessment: things had been much better when they’d last passed this way.

At the end of their journey, all that awaited them was a city in mourning. Their cadre entered just before sunset, with cloaks covering their armor and as little fanfare as possible. “Evil rarely welcomes our arrival,” Brother Faerbar said as a reminder as they rode down the side streets single file. When they reached the palace, they closed and locked the outer gate, commissioning the city watch to hold the public at bay while they dealt with whatever darkness was contained within in private.

They would sleep in the garden until morning, and only then, after prayer and fasting, would they finally enter the palace proper and discover the truth of the matter.