The Sceptre of Samnos

Ilandia Part 6

     Colonel Vento entered the chapel on the sixteenth floor of Battleaxe Tower and looked for the high priest, Resalintas, most senior of the seven priests of Samnos currently stationed in the city. Resalintas was easily the most powerful of the War God's worshippers in eastern Ilandia, perhaps in the whole country, and had been awarded the title ‘Defender of the Faith', the highest honour a priest of Samnos could receive, for his part in the redemption of Baliksburg ten years before.

     Vento found him meditating in an anteroom adjacent to his private quarters, and as he went in he was struck, as he always was, by the almost tangible aura of power and righteousness that surrounded him. Resalintas was a man awesome in his faith, terrible in his holiness, who made any lesser man in his presence feel humble and unworthy, as was the intention, no doubt. When Resalintas focused his steely grey eyes on a man, that person got the uncomfortable impression of having become totally transparent, that all his sins were plainly visible, bared for critical scrutiny. Even Vento felt like that, despite the fact that, militarily at least, he outranked the priest. He had no doubt that, should they ever have occasion to differ seriously on anything, Resalintas's will would easily win out over his own.

     As he entered, the priest stood to face him. He was an ageing, grey haired man whose face and body bore the scars of many battles, but he kept himself fit with daily exercise and weapons training. No-one doubted that he could still easily defeat any number of men half his age by weapon skill and muscle power alone, without needing to draw upon the tremendous power of his lord and master, the God of the Fight against Evil. He wore a chain mail shirt beneath his flowing blood red robes, and beside him on a table stood his steel helm, with its crest of needle sharp spikes and a badge of two crossed swords above and between the eyes. His holy symbol, the Golden Griffin, hung on a chain around his neck. He wore steel and leather boots with kicking spikes on toes and heels, a short sword belted around his waist, a great two handed sword strapped across his back and two daggers in wrist sheathes only partially concealed beneath his sleeves.

     "I'm sorry to interrupt your meditation, Captain, but I need your advice on something that happened earlier today."

     "What was that?" asked Resalintas brusquely. He had a strong voice that sounded like great slabs of granite sliding against one another, a voice of complete confidence and power, a voice that perfectly matched the flinty hard glare of his eyes even when speaking to the man who was the closest thing he had to a personal friend. Another man standing there in the chapel would never have guessed the respect and admiration the two men felt for each other. He might have thought instead that Vento meant nothing to the priest and that he was annoyed by the interruption. Only a man who knew the old priest as well as Vento did would have noticed the slight change in his stance as he turned to face him. The slightest relaxation of the eternal state of alertness and readiness with which Resalintas held himself which told that the old priest was in the presence of a man he regarded almost as an equal, a man whose wisdom and fighting ability he trusted almost as much as those of a fellow priest.

     Vento told him briefly of Diana's visit and her warning, which apparently came straight from Caroli Herself, that another invasion was coming soon. A fourth Shadowwar soon to begin. Resalintas frowned as the Colonel spoke. "If this is true, why has my Lord not informed me of this?"

     "I raised the very same point myself," said Vento, "and she was unable to give me a satisfactory answer. For this reason, I was tempted to dismiss the whole thing as a product of her over zealous imagination. You know how a young cleric can sometimes misinterpret an ordinary dream as a true vision. Then again, it may have been a true vision, but sent by one of the evil Gods to deceive us and cause mischief. After some thought, I decided to bring it to you, to see if you could shed any light on the matter."