Chapter 21: Templars
"We are the Maker's chosen, the elect, his sword, shield, and hand of judgment! We are the future of the faith, its rightful inheritors, and now, brothers and sisters, now…we are VICTORIOUS!"
The cheers of hundreds of Templars rang out, swords and torches were raised, and the chant of "For the order" and "Martel" filled the air. The crimson banner of the order's burning sword was everywhere, fluttering proudly in the evening breeze.
Quite a show, Reaper thought to himself, to the unenlightened it might even feel genuine, that the order was unstoppable, that its rise to its rightful place was not only inevitable, but ordained by Andraste and the Maker himself.
Things were not that certain Reaper thought to himself, and the order was far from the invincible juggernaut that it pretended to be.
It had been almost a month since the ship that had brought him to Ferelden sank during a storm. Since that time Reaper had found himself drawn back into the order that had first formed him years ago. He might not have had any memory of that time, but the skills that he had learned there remained.
Had he been on his own, he would have scoured the coast looking for Dee, for evidence that his partner had survived. Alas the Templars had discovered him in Amaranthine, and though he had went with them willingly, had he tried to resist he likely would not have survived, not given his history of delivering justice to the more corrupt members of the order.
He tried not to think about Dee. He tried not to let his fear turn into despair. After all, when they had abandoned ship the launches had been scattered all along the coast, some ending up in Amaranthine and off the Highever coast.
She could be anywhere, he realized. Though he feared her dead, the part of him that had admired her strength refused to believe it. He would have done as Sister Leliana had instructed and sent word to all nearby chantries, to see if she had left any messages, but the Templars had not allowed him to do that.
He had been watched too closely, watched and guarded even when on missions, and had been so since Ser Amelia had discovered him in that tavern in Amaranthine.
Perhaps that was for the best, he thought, though he could feel the hole her loss left in his soul, though he had screamed his throat raw calling her name during the storm, he recognized the danger Dee would be in if the Templars found her. They had put the chantries in Highever and Amaranthine under lock down.
What would they have done if they had found Dee before him? Would they have taken her hostage, used her to make sure that he obeyed their orders? Would they not use her if they thought it would give them power over him?
No, perhaps it was better for her, safer, if they thought she was dead.
Since that time, he had participated in four armed forays for the order. Three of those had been mere reconnaissance missions to determine the location of the rebel mages, and the fourth to deal with a coven of Maleficarum that had threatened the lives of a small village to the south.
It was during that last mission that he had finally earned a bit of trust. Before that the Templars had looked upon him with both fear and suspicion. He had had assigned watchers around him until they were sure that he was not a spy.
Killing those blood mages had done much to earn him credit with the Templar officers, Knight Commander Martel first among them. Through the use of his new abilities, Reaper had saved the lives of many Templars who would have normally perished in a pitched battle against the blood mages and the abominations that had come when two of those mages had given into despair and realized they had no chance of escape.
Now, he was heralded as a hero by most of the young recruits, some of the officers still looked upon him with suspicion, but that was to be expected.
They likely saw him as a threat to the power they had gained since the split with the chantry. The common soldiers only saw a young man that served the faith first, and no doubt saw themselves in a similar light...
…Even If he had only proved that by killing mages, blood mages perhaps, but still mages.
Reaper felt no shame in the role he had played during that battle. He was a servant of the faith after all; it was his duty to protect people from abomination and Maleficarum. The coven they destroyed had come from the Ferelden Circle, but they had broken away from their fellows, the freedom of not being confined anymore had gone to their heads. They turned to the forbidden to protect themselves, attacking an innocent village, seeking to use the villagers' blood to power some massive spell. Martel had sent Reaper and his men to deal with it; they had arrived in time and stopped the mages. They had all died in battle, but that had been their choice, they had turned to the forbidden, and had paid for that choice with their lives.
It was the first justifiable thing Reaper had done since Amelia had recruited him in Amaranthine almost three weeks ago.
It was what the order should have been doing.
As he continued to listen to the Knight-Commander's long-winded speech, his third such in as many weeks, Reaper did his best to hide his emotions, to keep his face a bland and unreadable mask. Fierce and almost fanatically dedicated to this war, Martel was a man who, for the moment was on the rise. Though he had served in the order for almost thirty years and had gone gray in the service, he fought like a man half his age, and was, the paladin was forced to admit, as skilled with words as he was with his blade, his fiery speeches and cold avian features appealing to the more aggressive of Templars.
But, according to Ser Amelia, he was only one of many. More than a few of the Knight Commanders and officers had aspirations to rise beyond their current status in the order, to rise to the height of power. Martel was one of them, and had bullied several others into following him.
That was the truth of the order now, power, not the faith that it proclaimed.
Martel's posturing and propaganda disgusted Reaper, especially when he began to talk about the chantry and Divine Justinia. Calling it a paper lion being held up weak little girls led by an idealistic and naïve fool, according to the Knight Commander it was the priests that started this war by not accepting that it was the Templars and the Templars alone that had the Maker's will in their hearts. That the circle's corruption had grown so great in the last decade that a purge of the mages was the only true way to restore true peace and justice. That it was the order, not the chantry, who had had the courage to see things as they truly were, and now needed to step up and claim the recognition and independence necessary to see the Andrastian faith protected for all time.
A grand goal, the Knight-Commander assured them, a goal that would finally come to pass once the circles had been brought low and defeated.
Right, reaper thought sarcastically.
He did not doubt the existence of corruption within the Circles. The blood mages they had slain were proof enough that that corruption did exist. However, that did not mean that the Templars were all virtuous heroes, oh no.
He had seen ample proof in the last few days that showed that that wasn't true. Foraging raids on merchants and small settlements, the seizing of chantry assets by sword point, but the clearest example of that corruption was the Knight-Commander himself, Martel had come from a storied family among the Templars...
…A family that was known for its treason.
Almost twenty years earlier, there had been another Knight-Commander Martel; he had led the Templars of the White Spire during "The Day of the Dragons." That Knight Commander Martel had conspired with the Grand Cleric of Orlais, and a blood mage named Frenic to murder Divine Beatrix during the event's of the Ten Year Gathering of the Faith, a conspiracy that had been foiled by loyal mages and Cassandra Pentaghast herself. Grand Cleric Callista had died that day, murdered by the blood mage Frenic, while her ally, and rumored lover, Knight-Commander Martel had died in single combat with a sixteen year old Seeker Cassandra. Who defeated not only Martel, but Frenic, and the dragons that the blood mage had summoned to try and kill the Divine.
The stories since that day had tried to shift the blame for The Day of the Dragon on to Frenic alone, claiming that he had used his powers to control Callista and used her to bring the Knight Commander into his service. The current Commander Martel, that man's nephew, claimed that his uncle had been led astray by the Grand Cleric, and that it was she and the blood mage working together that were truly to blame for his predecessor's fall. In the current political climate, it was more accepted to blame a priest for the order's troubles. Martel had likely even won some sympathy for what his poor uncle had endured.
Reaper was not the sympathetic type, though he did not believe that an entire family should be blamed for the actions of one of its members.
Regardless, the man's name alone should have been enough to keep him out of a place of command among the Templars. Yet, he had managed to rise in spite of it. He had left the empire, and served for a time in the Free Marches and Nevarra, rising in rank through skill and determination.
Reaper respected that, a man should be judged by his own merits not his family. Had he stayed loyal to the chantry, Reaper would have thought nothing more of it, unfortunately Martel had not; he had led his warriors out of the Free Marches, and launched his forced against the mages of Ferelden.
Now he had seized control of both Highever and Amaranthine. The nobles of those cities could call the Templars guests if they liked, but it did not change that the Templars had arrived without invitation and now had garrisons holding the city.
If that wasn't an act of conquest, Reaper did not know what one was.
As for the order as a whole, the paladin could not say if they approved of Martel's actions or not. The Seekers of Truth were supposed to be the new officers and leaders of the order, yet none had accompanied Martel on this journey. It was said that Lord Seeker Lucius Korrin now led them, but from what Reaper had heard around the camp, the Lord Seeker was not the war leader that the order should have had. He was a decent man, respected, but not one to stand up and take charge, one who preferred to let his advisors make the decisions, a perfect figure head for the overly ambitious, and now those ambitious men and women were fighting with each other behind the scenes, hungry to secure the order for themselves.
For that was the true legacy of the late Lambert Van Reeves, an order divided, its leaders killing each other in alleys and dark rooms. Martel was one of many who had stepped up and tried to fill the late Lord Seeker's shoes.
So far, he had been unsuccessful.
Reaper slipped away from the crowd, he had heard enough of the Knight-Commander patting himself on the back. The paladin hoped that he might still get a chance to get a missive off to one of the local chantries, a letter for Dee, telling her he was alive.
Provided she was alive of course, that cynical part of his mind reminded him.
If she was still alive.
Though he worried about Dee, he was forced to ignore the worry and the pain, to continue to soldier on here. Though he had not been commanded to infiltrate the Templar order, he saw the value for the chantry in doing so. Both the Divine and Sister Leliana would find much of what he had learned here useful. They may even find some way to exploit what he had learned, to bring at least some Templars back into chantry service.
He felt no shame in that either. Though any Templar here would call him a turn cloak for what he was doing, he only needed to remember that it was the Templars who had turned their cloaks first, betraying their oath to serve the chantry and the Divine, and that what he was doing would hopefully aid the chantry in bringing the order back under control.
He made his way through the camp, past cook fires and men sitting before tents cleaning armor and servicing weapons. The bulk of the Templars that Martel had brought into his service were very young, either new recruits or knights that had only just finished their vigils when the order had broken away. These soldiers were green, but they did have the advantage of possessing a sense of certainty, the devotion of the young. The certainty of righteousness that only the young and innocent possess.
We are right and the mages and everyone else is wrong.
They were young and looking for something to believe in, and were being led by officers that had mostly come from the merchants and the nobility. Third or fourth born sons and daughters who had thought the chantry a better option than waiting to see if they might become their parents' heirs.
They were practically buzzing now, riding high on their victory over the blood mages. Of course, none seemed to recognize that that fight had been with a bunch of disorganized outlaws, that the true Circle mages were still out there, unified by their Senior Enchanters into a single powerful force.
Those mages would, no doubt, have much sharper teeth than their criminal brethren.
"Lord Reaper? Lord Reaper?"
He sighed, and put on a gentle smile.
He turned to see Ser Amelia approaching, and forced himself to appear welcoming.
She had after all been his way into the Templars.
It was best that he appear that he was on her side.
"Ser Amelia," he said bowing slightly.
"What do you wish if me?"
IOI
Ser Amelia DeCarrac had been the Templar that discovered him in Amaranthine. It was she that brought him back for Knight-Commander Martel. She had also been the same "Sister" Amelia that had spoken with Dee shortly before they had left to deal with the werewolves in the Brecilian Forest, a fact that he had confronted her on.
She had merely smiled.
"Didn't we all begin as brothers and sisters of the chantry? Before we took up our blades to defend the Maker's kingdom?"
The paladin had acknowledged that, though he still looked at the matter as a lie on the Templar woman's part.
She was smart this one, he thought, and cunning too.
He recognized the need to watch his step around her.
Ser Amelia had grown up in the chantry. Like most of the officers he had met, she had been a child of an Orlesian knight, the fourth born down, so unlikely to ever be the man's heir. Amelia was also likely the highest ranked woman serving with Knight Commander Martel. Whether that was because of her skill, connections or charm, Reaper was not sure, and make no mistake; she could be charming, with her curly black hair, dark almond shaped eyes, and tanned pretty face.
Was that why Martel had tasked her with finding him? She had admitted as much. It seemed that his fears about the Templars serving the Divine were right, some of them were only still serving in the Grand Cathedral to gather intelligence for the order.
She had asked about Dee, and offered her sympathies when he told her she had been lost in the storm. It sounded genuine enough; perhaps the woman mourned the fact that they had lost something that could have been used to leverage him.
It seemed the Templars still had designs on the chantry. No doubt they realized that eventually they would need to bring the mothers under their control if this…new order of theirs was to become a reality. That meant they needed strength within the Grand Cathedral, and news from inside.
News of his journey to Ferelden for example, he realized, had it not been for the storm Reaper and Dee might have fallen neatly into Knight-Commander Martel's hands.
Ser Amelia admitted to searching first in Highever, and then in Amaranthine where she had found him... She had found paladin in one of the local taverns there, waiting for an opportunity to slip into the chantry and hopefully get a message to one of the Nightingale's agents, so that Dee, if she survive would know that he was alive.
From then on, Amelia had been among the shadows watching him, and by far the most tenacious.
She had apparently been one of Lord Seeker Lambert's most loyal supporters; her seeking out of Dee that day in the Grand Cathedral had been under his orders. The Lord Seeker had been intrigued by the paladin, and sought more information from the only one who likely knew him as well as the Divine or Sister Nightingale.
"It must have been a shock when the Lord Seeker died," Reaper said to her that night in the tavern, "I'm sure he had so many grand plans."
If the woman was thrown off by his statement she did not show it, in fact she had chuckled.
"It was a shock," she confessed, "His Lordship should not have stayed in the capital after the mages had fled, he should have taken to the field immediately, instead; he stayed in the capital to consolidate our power, where either the Divine or the mages could get to him."
Her admission surprised him.
"You think the Divine had something to do with Lord Seeker Lambert's death?"
"Her or the mages," the Templar had said grimly, "Who else profited from my lord's death?"
Try your own people, Reaper thought darkly, but held his tongue.
"Ser Reaper," she said sincerely, "I will not lie to you, the order is in dire straits, we find ourselves in a world we never expected, cut off from the chantry and struggling to find our way on our own for the first time."
Her smile returned.
"We need strong men to guide us now, determined men, loyal to the faith. Our enemies will no doubt seek to undermine our position with lies. While the mages turn to darker pursuits without our watchful eye and guidance. The Knight Commander has already received reports of blood mages kidnapping people south of here. He intends to deal with this matter swiftly."
She put her hand on his.
"We could use your help."
That had been the start of it. That appeal to his faith and his duty to the people of Thedas, and it had worked to a point.
He had rode off with her, agreeing to aid her, to see that the order was not as corrupt as the Divine feared.
If the woman meant to seduce him to the Templar cause this was her way in.
Of course, it was also his way into the order, to find out what was truly going on, and find a way to exploit it.
They were using each other.
It was only a matter of time now to see who would get to where they wanted to be first.
IOI
"The Lord Seeker has called the war council," Amelia informed him, "He wishes you to join us."
Reaper nodded and fell in step beside her. Curious what Martel would have his Templars do next.
Several of their soldiers looked up as they passed, they whispered nervously about the man in black armor. Stories of what had happened with the blood mages and with Ser Reginald back in Val Royeaux had reached the common soldiers' ears. They now spoke of the one who was not one of them, but still had the abilities of a Templar, powerful abilities...
…The lord in black
Ser Amelia smirked.
"They are in awe of you," she murmured.
"No they are afraid of me," he answered grimly.
That only made her smirk widen.
"Fear and awe, they are an amazing combination, Lord Reaper. They make a man more than just a man, not just in the eyes of their enemies, but in their allies as well."
The Lady Templar's eyes twinkled mischievously.
"Such a man is needed in this time, Lord Lambert was such a man; Andraste keep his soul. The order has been lessened by his loss. Now we seek someone new, a great unifier, he could make things better for the order; keep us all on the right track, provided he has the aid of the right allies and the support of the men."
Reaper did his best to keep his face bland, but could not entirely hide his surprise.
What was this now?
Amelia would not have risen to where she was without the trust of the Knight-Commander. So what could he say about what she just said. Was this a test? Was it some kind of trap set by Martel to rid himself of the paladin? Was the statement genuine? Was Ser Amelia attempting to play Reaper against Martel?
Too many questions, he thought.
Dangerous questions.
"You should be careful who you say such things to," he warned her, "Someone might get the wrong idea."
She laughed again.
"Or the right one," she said, "We are in a war, Ser Reaper; we need the best leaders we can find."
He shrugged.
A diplomatic answer, he thought, if not a reassuring one.
Apparently, Ser Amelia liked to live dangerously.
He would need to be extra careful, especially around her.
"Come," she said, still looking more like a mischievous young girl than a knight of the Templar order.
"The Knight Commander is waiting."