Elfborn: The Quest

Chapter 10: A City within a City

With a low creak, the massive double doors that served as the entrance to the cathedral opened. The cathedral was built in honor of Saint Mark, an Apostle of Hristus the Ebrahin crucified, giving up his life shortly after Hristus was crucified, when he wouldn't deny the faith. Being one of the first built after the Ristusians took power in Romis, it was old and beautiful.

As the doors swung open, a knot of men in black, heavy long swords strapped to their waists with elaborate belts, stepped out to walk across the porch. And as they walked, they talked amongst themselves in low voices as they headed towards the stairs that would take them to the street and their waiting horses. One look was enough to identify the men's martial nature, seen in the way they walked and gestured: spare, efficient, and deadly. Such men were common in Romis, the city being home to the Grand Headquarters, the central command of what was once the unified Order Militant of the Ristusian Church. They were paladin, holy knights of the church.

These particular paladin belonged to the Order Militant of Saint Raphael, the warrior angel who, according to the Book of Hristus, was one of God's generals in the war against the Great Enemy, the war which saw a third of the Hosts of Heaven follow the Adversary into destruction. The losers were summarily cast from Heaven down into Hell, to torment Humanity forever after with their evil ways. The order was one of the smallest, but most martial of the all the orders militant, preferring to be in the vanguard in most attacks.

The Raphaelites were just finishing their noon services, always held here, in the cathedral of Saint Mark, and were seeking to return to their great hall close to the Vestican, to renew their study and training. And so they weren't prepared to see a carriage abruptly careen out of a side street and onto Halifrin's Way, the broad avenue that ran past St. Mark's. But it didn't take them long to recover and react.

Swords sliding out of sheaths with steely hisses, the paladin raced forward, leaping the stairs several at a time as they stared hard to their right, eyes focused on the hard charging carriage. Wait a moment! Wasn't that a bishop sitting in the back?

"You three, cover the side road," a big knight barked, pointing three paladin out with hard stabs of his forefinger, scars on his face marking him a veteran of not a few armed encounters.

"The rest, you're with me!" Leading the way, the big man charged out into the street, intent on blocking the wagon's wild path with his own body.

Unhesitatingly the other Raphaelites followed the big man, keeping an eye on the wagon as it swerved closer and closer. Hands gripped sword hilts tightly and boots shifted slightly as they braced themselves, faces masks of determination.

Just as the wagon was about to run them over, its driver sawed back on the reins, somehow pulling the four horses that dragged the open conveyance behind them, into a skidding halt. Sparks flew as their shod hooves dragged against the cobblestoned street. And then they were at a rest, a cloud of dust surrounding them like a cloak, the horses' sides heaving hard, foam flecking their muzzles.

Grimly the scar-faced man stalked around the horses, which shied as he went by, his sword held ready. When he came to the driver's seat, he looked up, eyes narrowed.

"I suggest you climb down from there, young lady," he grated. "I believe you have some explaining to do!"

"Oooo, that's going to get somebody's back up," Brice said sarcastically as a full dozen Raphaelite paladin raced by, their horses at a full gallop, heading back the way the carriage had come.

"I don't think the Bishop's Guard is going to appreciate the assistance."

Kira glanced at the slender Elfborn from where she sat, somewhat dejected after her interrogation at the hands of the scar-faced paladin, on the steps leading up to the porch of the massive cathedral behind them. Brice stood on the top step, his face aglow with a strange joy, as if he was happily anticipating the possibility of a conflict between the two military arms of the church. But he was quickly set to rights, and not by Eje or Panoni.