Asheara, the captain of the Iron Wolves, pushed open the door into the small gatehouse. Two soldiers rose from their seats and saluted. They looked just as frustrated as she did.
"What is this mess? Why is the gate locked?" She said, keeping her tone demanding.
"A thousand apologies, Captain Asheara, but this man insisted on seeing you. He was trying to bring a bound-up corpse through the gate." The older soldier said.
Asheara sighed. "Did he say why, or who the corpse was?"
"The man claimed the corpse to be Valla, but I told him if that was Valla the legendary daemon killer, I would eat my own shoe." The older soldier said, his colleague laughing.
The name of the daemon huntress gave Asheara pause. "What does the man look like?"
"Bald, dark-skinned like he's been working in the deep desert for weeks. Armoured."
"Has a fancy-looking sword." The younger soldier added.
Asheara had an idea who the stranger might be. "Right, you two stay here, I will speak with this man alone." She said and strode to the door.
"Alone? What if he's dangerous?" The older man said.
Asheara turned about, a hand on the hilt of her captain's scimitar. "Trust your captain." She could not imagine that the man they had detained meant any human in Caldeum any harm.
Without another word Asheara opened the door and closed it behind her, shutting out the protests of the two soldiers. The room beyond was small, meant simply for detaining suspicious characters until further actions could be decided. A window cast a dusty light on the simple furnishings inside. The dark-skinned man sat in a chair that had not been designed for a man of his size in full armour, one hand on the large wrapped-up bundle on the table. It had an ominous red-brown stain.
"Tyrael. It has been too long." Asheara said, keeping a respectful distance. Her convictions about the man's intent were being sorely tested by the presence he had in the small room.
He looked up at her, his eyes carrying a dangerous energy. "Captain Asheara."
"I apologise on behalf of my men. They're recruits from within the city walls, not veterans of the battle for Caldeum like you and I." Asheara said.
Tyrael stood up, the light falling on his ornate armour and the hilt of his sword. "There is nothing to apologise for, they seem like able guardsmen."
"You always were generous, Tyrael." Asheara said with a smile.
"Though I must admit I want to know, in my position as watch captain, what's the bundle."
Tyrael did not answer at first, but instead reached out and drew back the cloth covering one end of the bundle, revealing a human face, pale with death.
Asheara gasped. "Valla. So, my men heard true."
"It happened a week ago, out in the desert." Tyrael said and replaced the shroud.
Asheara made sure the door behind her was closed and secure, she did not want this information escaping this room before the city guard had been alerted properly. "What happened, Tyrael? Are you okay?" It seemed an odd question to ask the man but still she felt compelled to ask.
"We were investigating the destroyed villages and caravans out in the desert." Tyrael began.
"I remember seeing reports from our scouts about that. 3 towns and a caravan were destroyed before we even noticed." Asheara put in.
"Just so. Daemon attacks." Tyrael continued. "We expected to find a Hellgate and some daemonic overlord, but it was far worse."
If it's bad enough to kill someone as powerful as Valla, then I'm not sure I want to know Asheara thought to herself.
Tyrael was silent for a moment, the veins on his temple working hard at whatever the man was going to say next.
"Tyrael, what did you find? If it was so powerful that not even Valla could handle it, I, no, Caldeum needs to know about it." Asheara prompted.
"Captain Asheara, first I must ask you a favour." Tyrael said, a hand on Valla's chest.
Unsure what to make of Tyrael's tone, Asheara merely nodded at his request.
Tyrael continued in a tone Asheara normally heard from confessing criminals. "I cannot lie. It goes against both my nature and my station, so I will need you to lie for me."
First confused and now worried, Asheara nodded again.
"I would like to hear you say it, Captain Asheara. The spoken word holds more power than most humans think."
"I am not sure what you want me to lie about, Tyrael, but I will do as you ask." I practically owe you and Valla my life.
Tyrael sighed and stood away from the table. "It was no daemon or common monster that killed- that did it." Tyrael started.
"Nor was it one of the Lesser Evils or some mercenary. No, it was an angel. An Archangel of the High Heavens, Imperius, Aspect of Valour and commander of the Luminarii, guardians of the Crystal Arch."
"He used some daemonic tool he had devised, made from a sliver of the Worldstone under Mount Arreat, possibly under daemonic influence, and weakened Valla before making use of the situation. I was unable to stop him." Tyrael said.
Asheara stood in stunned silence. Many of the words and names she had heard before but only in whispered stories and fairy-tales.
"Are you ill, Asheara?" Tyrael asked after a moment had passed.
"Nay, but I think I'll have a headache soon enough. Angels? Mount Arreat? I have heard of these things, damn, they were in the fairy-tales my mother told me when I was a kid, when my father wasn't beating training exercises into me." Asheara said and sat down.
"I assure you; it is nothing but the truth." Tyrael's face took on a pained expression, "But in this instance, I believe the truth would not serve us well.
Asheara's mind whirled. "The angels in the stories are always on our side. If one of them killed Valla, then some would see it as a punishment from the Heavens."
"One might say it is." Tyrael said quietly.
Asheara paused for a second. "You're going to have to explain that to me later. So, what now? Where will you go? Do you want a coach to take you out of the city unseen? If you wrap her up again, I doubt anyone would look twice, and if they did, their curiosity would not be about the identity of the corpse."
"No, I do not want to skulk out of town like some common thief laden with plunder. Valla would not have wanted that either." Tyrael said.
"I think she rather would. She was a smart lass." Asheara interjected.
Tyrael's glare silenced her. "The world needs to know that the Nephalem is dead, so it can prepare."
"Prepare for what?" Asheara said, a slight shiver passing through her.
"I cannot believe that the Nine Hells will sit idly by until a new champion arises to protect Sanctuary like Valla did. We may well face another invasion."
Asheara wanted to scoff at him, but the man had a way of making any suspicion sound deeply credible. "So, Tyrael, what is it you want me to do?"
"I want you to tell your men and the people of this city that a great daemon killed Valla." Tyrael said, looking pained as he did so.
"Not an angel." Asheara said.
"Indeed. Even if it is the truth, I do not think the truth will aid us for the time being."
"And what do I get in return?" Asheara asked, rubbing thumb and forefinger together in a gesture customary for traders and mercenaries everywhere.
Tyrael was still for a moment, his mouth hanging slack jawed. "The safety and security of Sanctuary is in peril, and you're asking for payment?"
"Relax Tyrael, I was only joking. Old mercenary habits. You and Valla saved this city, we owe you a great deal." Asheara put a hand on her chest and met Tyrael's eyes. "You will have the help of me and my Iron Wolves, I swear it."
Tyrael's expression softened. "Furthermore, I wish to entrust the body of Valla into the care of the Palace. I have some urgent business that cannot wait, and I cannot bring the Nephalem."
"Very well, I will ensure the Palace's physicians don't get too curious. Wait here, I will bring a coach, and by the looks of you, a meal as well. When did you last eat, Tyrael?"
Asheara was surprised to find Tyrael suddenly unwilling to meet her gaze. "I have a tendency to forget to attend to such needs. It is, uh, still a new thing to me."
"Such needs? A new thing?" Asheara was flabbergasted.
Tyrael tried to stand but shaky legs failed the man and he fell back into the wooden chair.
"Tyrael!" Asheara rushed around the table, putting a hand on the man's shoulder.
He was shaking and gasping for breath. "I am fine, there is no need to worry."
"Tyrael, you can barely stand." Asheara said.
"I WILL be fine, then. Let us get Valla out of this room as soon as possible." Tyrael said.
"You will be fine staying here. Don't make me lock the door." Asheara said with authority and walked out the door, trusting that the man would be sensible.
Asheara instructed the guards to not let anyone in or out, but if Tyrael wanted to force his way out, not to resist him. She trusted in her Iron Wolves, but Tyrael was clearly on a different level. At her command a coach was brought from the palace to the western gate, a hot meal and several full waterskins loaded on board. When Asheara carried in the tray, Tyrael was sat where she had left him, staring unblinking out of the small window in the room.
Tyrael started as she sat down the tray on what remained of the table. "Sorry Valla, I'll have to scoot you over a bit." Asheara said jokingly.
"Eat up, Tyrael." She said when he just looked at the steaming bowl of soup for moments without moving or speaking.
He hurriedly picked up the spoon, looking for all the world like a child being told what to do. "Ah, sorry, it is still sometimes difficult to remember how."
Asheara wondered what he meant as Tyrael began eating, but she figured it could wait.
"Send in the palace physicians." She told the guards that still waited outside. "And once the coach leaves, you two are free to leave. I'm sure your next shift is anxious to start."
The two white-robed men from the palace arrived in short order, a stretcher between them. But as soon as they had placed the stretcher on the floor and began to shift Valla's body, Asheara making sure the veil was securely in place, there was a clatter of metal and Tyrael's gloved hand rested gently but securely on the forearm of the closest man, the remains of his meal on the floor of the room.
"Do not touch her." He said, his voice calm in the way of a fighter before a battle.
Asheara stepped in and put a hand on Tyrael's shoulder. "Tyrael, they're here to help. The sooner we can get her to a cool place, the longer we have to bury her properly."
The stare that Tyrael returned unnerved Asheara but she forced herself to not reach for the hilt of her sword, to keep calm. "Very well. Let us leave right away then." He said and threw away the empty waterskin in his other hand. The physicians gave Asheara a confused look as Tyrael lifted Valla's body by himself, leaving their stretcher behind, but she simply motioned for them to follow him and did so herself, the palace tray under her arm.
The guards looked hopeful as the procession left the small room. Asheara stopped for a moment and looked both in the eye. "Clean up, then you can change the shift."
With Tyrael deigning to let the physicians carry Valla, she was placed in the bottom of the coach, out of sight of people on the street. For all they would know, it was just another coach on palace business.
Tyrael continued his soul-searching through the window even in the coach. The physicians and Asheara sat opposite the man, looking at each other in the uncomfortable silence as the coach rolled along the streets.
"For what it's worth, Tyrael." Asheara started, trying to break the silence. "You and yours really helped our city."
Tyrael looked away from the window, his dark eyes coming back from a thousand miles to look at her.
"Caldeum would not be the city it is today without your help. I hear children talking about you, more than they talk about my Wolves."
"They were both heroes, you know." Tyrael said quietly after a moment. "Far more than I."
"I know." Asheara said, though to her the whole band were heroes equally. She had always been surprised not to have heard of Tyrael before he showed up alongside Valla and Leah to save the Iron Wolves from an ambush. His armour and shining sword alone should spread stories far and wide.
She was about to say another word when the coach jolted and stopped, everyone inside bracing against the interior to avoid being knocked over.
"Illam! Explain yourself, what in the Nine Hells!?" Asheara banged on the wall behind her and shouted once the jolts had settled down.
"A thousand apologies, captain Asheara, but there is someone blocking the road!" Illam the coach driver shouted back. There was a tinge of fear in his voice. The man was a former Iron Wolf, so anything that would make him nervous required Asheara's attention.
"Stay in here, I'll see what this is about." Asheara said, grabbing hold of the handle of her sword and exiting the coach.
A man stood in the road, clutching his left arm that was dripping blood onto the dirt. A trail was clearly visible leading to an upper terrace visible from the coach. His face was a grimace and the way his head moved unnerved Asheara. It was twitching like an insect.
"Move aside! This is Palace business!" She shouted. The whole square stopped in place and looked at the coach. So much for subtlety. Asheara thought to herself.
The man jittered in place and stepped forward; his eyes locked on the coach. "Please, you have to help me. Please!" He sounded in extreme pain.
Do I tell him we have physicians in the coach? Does he already know that? "Step aside and I will ensure you get help. Now move aside!" Asheara shouted again.
Again, the man stepped forward. He still had not spared Asheara even a glance. "Please!"
"Is your hearing as pained as your arm." Asheara grumbled, drew her sword and grabbed the man by his collar, lifting him up. "Did you not hear what I said."
The man's eyes switched, quick as lightning, to look Asheara in the eye, and what she saw there made her flush with sweat. "Leave us mortal." The voice was different, deeper and harsher and unlike any human Asheara had ever heard.
Before she could step away the man screamed in pain and his back arched, four segmented chitinous legs erupting from his back in an explosion of blood. More blood spilled down the sides of the man's head as his face ripped open, revealing a set of pus-coloured eyes faceted like that of a fly. With a cry of disgust Asheara tried to step away but the segmented legs wrapped around behind her, preventing any retreat. Despite still being caught in its throes of transformation, the daemon was trying to keep her close. She did not intend to find out for what. She placed the tip of her sword against its human abdomen and pushed, the sharp blade finding little resistance. The creature gasped but did not relent its grip, so she let go of its collar and thrust her hand into its open stomach, and with an arcane shout, discharging a thunderclap in its innards. The creature flew back a metre before landing in a bloody heap in the dirt, the segmented limbs curling around it like a dead spider. Asheara's focus withdrew from the immediate battle and she heard the screams and shouts all around her. Hers had not been the only assailant. Many creatures had transformed around the square, fighting guardsman and slaughtering traders with their spikes and blades. Even as she watched, a guardsman across the square impaled the creature facing him, only for it to grin with an impossibly wide mouth and crush his helmet and head with a massive claw.
"Daemons!" Asheara shouted, wishing she had brought her battle gear rather than her captain's uniform. The closest guards that had survived the initial transformations forming up around her with their shields and spears at the ready.
"You two," Asheara started and clapped their helmets, "Run to the nearest guardhouse and sound the alarm, then return here with as many guards as they can spare. Hurry!"
With those two away, Asheara hurried to the coach and flung the door open. The physicians were as pale as the white robes they wore, but Tyrael sat calmly with his shining sword in his lap. "What has happened? Are you injured, Captain Asheara?"
"It's not my blood." She responded and climbed the first step quickly. "Daemons are using the populace to attack the city, somehow. Cultists might be at work. We need to get you and the coach to the palace as quickly as we can."
Tyrael simply looked at Valla during Asheara's report. "If there are daemons, I am dutybound to fight them."
"Tyrael, my Iron Wolves can handle it." Asheara said. "You don't have to fight."
"It is not a matter of choice. Their presence here and now cannot be a coincidence." The dark man said and rose from his seat.
"At least let the coach move on to the Palace." Asheara said while Tyrael walked past her out of the coach.
Tyrael simply nodded at her, pulling his cloak back over his shoulders to reveal his gleaming armour. How does he keep that so clean in this place? Asheara wondered as she ordered the coach to move and her nearest guardsmen to ensure its safe travel.
In the meantime, the murderous brawl in the square had turned into a losing battle, the corpses of Asheara's guards piling up. The daemons too had taken many losses, but they seemed undeterred, slashing and clawing at their opponents with the usual abandon of their kind. As Tyrael and Asheara moved towards the battle the remaining guards were being pushed back, the daemons slowly surrounding them. With a shout in some language Asheara could not understand, Tyrael raised his shining sword and charged, leaping past a horrified guard and decapitating the bull-like daemon opposite him in a single swing. The lifeless body had barely fallen to the ground before the blood had vanished from Tyrael's sword with a hiss.
Do I wish I had a sword like that. Asheara thought to herself as she dodged and slashed at a tentacle from another daemon, her falchion cutting the pink skin. The guard at her side shouted praise to Caldeum as he stepped in and put his spear through the daemon's abdomen, only for his praise to turn to curses as the daemon's abdomen opened into a toothy maw and snapped his spear in two. Before Asheara could react, the tentacle whipped back and across the guard's face, the man crying out and the guard fell back, his hands clutched to his face and blood pouring out between his fingers.
Cursing herself, Asheara thrust her palm forward and released a stream of fire. The daemon's skin caught immediately, and it fell back shrieking in agony but before Asheara could move in to finish it off, a daemon with a horse's body growing out beneath a groaning man's torso kicked her square in the chest, sending her flying back into a pile of bodies, daemonic and human. The savage kick had knocked the air out of her, and she desperately gulped down air as the grotesque centaur moved closer. She held her falchion out in front of her as best she could despite her aching chest, but she could not hold it back for long, her falchion kicked out of her hands and away by another kick from the creature's hooves. But before it could strike again a shining blade sheared the leg off at the knee, parting the flesh and bone like it was not there at all. Tyrael bull-rushed the daemon as it reared up, his shining sword slicing it apart with ease. Its smoking corpse hit the dirt and Tyrael extended an arm to Asheara.
"I had it, Tyrael. I was just about to finish it off." She said and accepted the hand. Even with her weapons and uniform, Tyrael lifted her with ease.
"I have no doubt about that, Captain Asheara." He said with as much of a smirk as Asheara had ever seen on him.
Tyrael pointed across the battlefield with his sword. The battle in the square was still on and the guards were definitely losing, but the daemons were not pushing their line as hard as Asheara would expect. She had never known the vile creatures to relent.
"What's going on, Tyrael?"
His sword dipped a finger's breadth, pointing at the dirt in the centre of the square. No, Asheara thought quickly, Not relenting, working. In the centre of the square the bodies of the dead guards were being piled up by a few bull-like daemons, arranged in a huge circle of blood and guts.
"A summoning circle." Tyrael said with a hint of dread. "They mean to open a gate to the Nine Hells, bring an army."
"An army?" Asheara said. "We will need every guard in the city to combat that!"
"There is no time." Tyrael said and started off for the few guards still struggling in the square.
Most of the daemons were now working at some ritual, cavorting and chanting, ribbons of blood lifting up out of the corpses arrayed in the bloody square. Tyrael charged and skewered a bloated daemon that was about to bite a guard in half. The remaining guards cheered and formed up around the man, their weapons ready and pointed out at the daemons moving towards them. Torn between helping and calling for reinforcements, Asheara watched as a spell impacted with Tyrael's armour. Four huge, spiny legs held the spellcaster aloft, the host's remaining legs dangling uselessly beneath it like a grotesque belt. Tyrael rising to his feet, the two clashed in the middle of the melee. The segmented legs of the daemon stabbed and poked at Tyrael while the grinning daemon suspended above slung bolts of magic at him.
Cursing her luck for bringing such a tragedy onto her city, Asheara sheathed her blade and began chanting her own spell. As her fingers worked and the phrases of the spell left her lips her hair began standing away from her skin, the crackle of energy and ozone in the air growing. Power coursed through her body, begging to be released before it became too much.
"Tyrael, get away!" Asheara shouted as the spell completed, holding her stance to contain the energy the spell had built up.
With a grunt of effort, Tyrael shoved the segmented limbs aside and hopped back. The daemon turned around with that arrogant smile on its hideous face before Asheara thrust her arms forward, discharging a massive arc of lightning across the square. The segmented body locked in place and then spasmed as its being was suffused with deadly energy, it's borrowed body destroyed in seconds and it dropped to the ground.
"The circle! Destroy the circle!" Tyrael shouted as he scrambled to his feet.
"No need, Tyrael" Asheara said, gasping for breath from the exertions of the spell, "No need."
In the centre of the square, smoke was drifting out of the open mouths of the corpses of the daemons, Asheara's spell using the first daemon as a link in a deadly chain.
Asheara could count the surviving guards on the fingers of one hand and she herself was covered in dirt, gore and other fluids from the mangled bodies of the daemons. If not for the spatters of blood on his armour, Tyrael looked like he had been in a procession, not a battle to the death. As if emerging from thought, he began walking and looked over at Asheara.
"We must hurry, the daemons could launch another attack."
She took a deep breath and did her best to reply. "Why would they attack again? Why not just attack in one big force?"
Tyrael sheathed his sword somewhere inside his cloak and started down the road out of the square towards the city palace visible in the distance. Asheara felt like she had no option but to follow.
Ordering the surviving guards to clean up with the help of the reinforcements, Asheara followed Tyrael the rest of the way to the palace. Out of something between caution or paranoia they ran towards any sudden shouts they heard on the way, but no daemons presented themselves, only woman with broken pottery or men with hammer-bludgeoned fingers. The physicians awaited them in the palace's infirmary that had been cleared out at Asheara's request. Now with the ambush by the daemons, she would need as much space in here as she could muster.
"We decided to delay the examination until your arrival, Captain Asheara." The senior physician said. A woman named Sherade, she had been a steady part of the palace staff even before Valla and Tyrael blazed through the city and the palace. Her greying hair was set in a tight bun which, along with the glass lenses set in a brass frame that she wore, gave her an air of authority that fit well with her great knowledge of her craft.
"Excellent call, doctor Sherade. This man was there when it happened, so we need not know how she died. We simply need her body to last while he," Asheara searched for words. Tyrael had not been very clear about what his business was. "Attends to some business."
That got a raised eyebrow from doctor Sherade, but Asheara could only shrug. That is all she knew. "Once you are finished here, I expect a lot of guards to come here. We had a daemon incursion not long ago."
The faces of the assembled physicians paled. "What happened?" Said Sherade.
"They appeared out of nowhere and attacked anyone present in the Alabaster Portium. Not many survived but I instructed my guards to bring any survivors here."
"The daemons attempted to open a gate to the Nine Hells, but we managed to defeat them before it was completed." Tyrael said. His metallic boots were loud against the tiled floor of the infirmary.
Sherade sighed and attempted to calm her colleagues, the two younger physicians clearly shaken by what they had heard. "So, the city is safe?"
"On the way here, I sent messengers to every guardhouse in the city. Should the daemons strike again, the Iron Wolves will be ready to meet them." Asheara said. She resisted the impulse to affect the old salute of her company.
"Good, that is good." Sherade said and approached the operating table, a simple raised marble slab in the centre of the infirmary. Valla had been placed there and unwrapped. It struck Asheara that this was the first time she had seen the daemon huntress in nearly a year. Even in death, Valla had an impressive air about her and a calm expression that looked ready to turn serious at any moment.
"Now, you will be welcome to stay if you so wish, but we will not make any efforts to wake you up if the sights of the embalming prove too much for you." Sherade said and picked up a metal tool from a container in the side of the table.
"Embalming?" Tyrael said with sudden confusion in his voice.
"Captain Asheara, if you would instruct your guest in what that entails, I would like to begin." Sherade said, looking at the two of them over the room of her operating lenses.
Before Asheara could turn to Tyrael the man had stormed up to the operating table.
"I requested that the palace keep her safe, not cut her open." He said, both hands placed against the edge of the operating table.
Sherade kept her ground even when "With all due respect sir, if the palace is to keep a corpse-"
Asheara only just managed to step in and stop the debate escalating when Tyrael stepped back and moved to draw his sword in the middle of doctor Sherade's sentence.
"Tyrael! Calm yourself!" Asheara said and moved to stand between him and the physicians, Sherade still having not moved even an inch from her position, a fact which both impressed and frightened Asheara a little.
"Doctor Sherade is an experienced physician, she knows what she is talking about. Valla cannot simply stay here as she is."
Tyrael stood with a hand on the hilt of his sword but had yet to draw. "I will not allow the Nephalem to come to any further harm."
What? "Tyrael, Valla is dead! She cannot come to any further harm." Asheara said.
With a grimace Tyrael drew his sword an inch, but then stopped. Her back to the operating table, Asheara could only hear the gasps of the others in the room and see the golden glow that now shone on every surface in the room. The walls of the infirmary were polished sandstone and the floors were similarly a pale wood brought from the deep desert. Both now looked like matte gold.
"What in the name of…" She heard Sherade say. Tyrael said nothing, simply let go of his sword and walked past Asheara to the table.
Turning about, Asheara was equally dumbfounded. Valla's corpse was still on the table, but the traits of expression that the captain had attributed to her were now gone. Valla's corpse was just that now. But above her a golden sphere hovered, not solid but like a ball of pure, golden energy. Small flecks emerged from the surface only to trace an orbit around the orb to eventually merge again with the orb.
This time Tyrael drew his shining sword fully. "Daemon trickery!" He roared and struck, the sword sweeping through the air before anyone in the room had truly registered that he had drawn. A crack of energy and sound assaulted the occupants of the room and the sword flew from Tyrael's hand to clatter against the far wall. The man stood stunned with empty hands for a moment before collapsing to his knees.
"I was mistaken. It is no daemon." A shaky finger pointed at the golden sphere. "That is Valla's soul. The soul of the Nephalem."