Silver Blades: Plate Male

Five

St. Zane's Hall, The Cathedral of One

Elathon.

Kneeling, I donned greaves and bellowed orders with an attitude of humility, sending knights and soldiers racing through the dimly lit hall. My voice, normally clear and resonant, competed with alarm bells tolling from every temple and watch tower on Cathedral Row, including the eighteen blessed bells of the Cathedral of One and its several surrounding chapels and monasteries.

"Send a runner to the Priory and gather in as many of the Temple Guard as the other orders can spare," I commanded, sending Varl dashing into the hallway as rapidly as he had arrived. He nearly tripped over old Colven, who, in his eagerness to report, had entered the room too quickly.

"Report!" I ordered. Men liked a leader who gave them instructions they wanted to carry out.

"There are reports of creatures all over the city, Lieutenant Commander!" Sir Colven gasped, short of breath. "And a group of men in red capes have been sighted marching on the Cathedral.

He had returned from my lieutenants' office, where I had assigned him upon discovering that all three of my lieutenants, the watch captain and all the sergeants who should have been on duty were missing. The dormitory was likewise strangely vacant. It was an evil night.

"And Lord Perinor?" I asked calmly. Men liked a leader who maintained control when circumstances were most dire.

"No sign of him, Lieutenant Commander," Colven said, looking as lost and worried as I felt.

"You checked the bodies in the dungeon?" I asked. "All of them? Yourself?" I had to be sure. It wasn't proper to take The Hand to a war footing without express orders from Lord Perinor, but in the commander's absence, and under the circumstances... "Gulman says that Perinor has been killed."

"There are no bodies in the dungeon, Sir Elathon."

I paused in donning my helm and fixed him with a penetrating look. He flinched and gulped hard. I sometimes had that effect on people. No matter. I will apologize when there is time.

"Sir Magrawt," I called, lowering the closed-faced helm onto my head. It would make me still harder to hear, but there was no more time for delay. "Has anyone taken it upon themselves to clear the dungeon of Lord Perinor's deceased patients since yesterday?"

"As I understand it, Sir Elathon," the Knights' Captain Steward replied, "Lord Perinor himself ordered the bodies carted by wagon to twenty specific points throughout the city. If Gulman may be believed, these bodies are the very hosts being possessed by demons."

I turned with a frown for my prisoner, the guardsman who had kicked our little anthill with his frightening report. His testimony was so troubling I'd ordered him into chains until the veracity of his claims could be made plain.

"It appears likely you have told me the truth, Gulman," I told the soldier reluctantly. I had known it for truth immediately, but that meant Perinor had been playing a devil's game with The Hand for a very long time—a thought that filled me with dread. "But you understand that I am loathe to trust two fugitives from Temple Law, who claim to have killed our own Holy Commander, Lord Perinor."

"I understand, your worship," the soldier said, his chains rattling with frantic nodding. "But with due respect, it was Perinor who ordered Arn and I to take a body to North Wall Street, where it split open and changed into a demon right before our eyes! Those tilwens put the creature down fast as ya blink, and it was they who said the city was in danger. Lord Clasicant seemed in total earnest, if ya don't mind me sayin' so, your worship, considerin' he was dead last night hisself."