The Abyss, 1527

Shrouds of darkness stretched in every direction. Misty tendrils of black that slithered and crawled, a flat plane of the endless night.

Don't look up.

Without awareness of direction, he simply walked. He wondered where he was. This place. He knew this place, but he couldn't remember it.

Don't look up.

He looked down, and saw his blood-stained hand. No, not his hand. He traced the blood, up across his skin. From his hand, to his elbow, to his neck, until he found the source of the injury. A hit to his head.

Pain drummed. A staccato beat, in echo to the throb of his heart.

His chest hurt. His head hurt.

His heart hurt.

He dropped on his back, huddled around his knees. It started with a sting in his eyes, it ended up in choked sobs.

Ansaldo cried.

And cried.

And cried until his tears ran out and all he could feel was the emptiness of certainty. He understood now, what his life would entail.

Where could he run from nightmares like Lombardia?

Where could he hide from monsters like Roma?

All he'd ever wanted was…

All he'd ever wanted was to learn.

"Why?" he whispered.

WHY?

He looked up.

At first he saw, then he perceived, and finally knew with certainty. His blood froze in his veins, his mind crawled to an empty halt.

An ant.

Ansaldo was an ant.

And God was looking down.

The sun's light was the blackest night to this all searing gaze. The mountain height was the flattest of plains and what utter silence was the roar of thunder to this singular sound.

This overpowering sound.

The earthquakes would have quailed before it.

Cities leveled to dust, and the dust made naught.

He couldn't breathe.

He couldn't look away.

He couldn't understand.

But he could sympathize, he could empathize, he could know one singular thing. What this one singular sound meant.

Pain.

"Why?" Ansaldo asked again. And the shadow of that which dwarfed the sun fell on him.

WHY WAS IT SO?

The place of shadows reacted. It shifted, it transformed into a place more real than reality. The sight of five children - or so he assumed, from their smaller stature. All at various ages, kneeling before a figure just out of sight. Their fear and dread of it is palpable.

He could hear their breaths, ragged on their mouths; feel the tension and apprehension. Bodies wound and coiled, as if awaiting a blow.

The air was palpable; saturated in acute emotion and terror.

Their utter fear of it made manifest.

OUR PROGENITOR

The voice came from everywhere. Booming and shaking the abyss. And the vision looked up, and Ansaldo screamed in fear and terror and he cowered.

That thing of might.

That thing that was tyranny.

That thing that dwarfed them all as it beheld them with a dagger, and a promise of death. Of no remorse or hesitation to bring death upon them.

All of the children were small beneath it.

All of the children were its weapons.

Blades to be sharpened, or discarded.

THEY CALLED HIM REGIS

And its gaze was royalty, and its eyes were a calculation of power, and its presence was authority.

KING OF ALL KINGS

Ansaldo dared look up, and saw that Regis was gone. Instead remained the children, separated. Spread apart across time and space. He walked around images, frozen in time.

Ansaldo marched along fields of war, a sequence of endless battles that ended all the same. So many victories. King slain by them, crowns shattered. Legacies of blood and ash and conquest so grand, they put heroes of history to shame.

Ended by singular defeats.

He walked across the water of a naval battle, two flagships battering eachother with cannons. One sinking, its leader one of the children. Dying as cannon shells fragmented and tore their body apart.

Their expressions. Singular vistas of rage and fury.

Arms reaching out, Ansaldo paused. Fists clenching. Children, barely adults.

Trained like war dogs.

Another child, beaten down into the mud of a battlefield. Wrestling in full plate armor, warding away daggers as they were dog-piled and stabbed, time and time again. Screaming, raging, shouting.

Falling silent.

Falling dead.

Cut to pieces.

The third child. Loud. Proud. Towering and mighty. Victor of four thousand and eight hundred and seventy three conflicts. Their body held up, by the throat, dangling. A single fist holding them up, clenched around their throat, squeezing.

Snap. Their neck broke.

The body was hurled aside.

Only two remained, bloodied and battered.

Two children who had brought the broken remnants of the crowns of their defeated enemies to their father.

And were met by only disappointment.

And so he sent them out once more. To serve, or die trying.

NO SAFETY, NO RESPITE, NO ESCAPE.

So they had learned by the cruelest and most proficient means. So they had mastered, from the very earliest of age, to fight and kill. Until all their enemies had been killed bar one who they could not defeat, no matter what.

FED ON BLOOD AND WAR, HE WAS OUR MONARCH.

WE WERE HIS WARMASTERS.

HIS WEAPONS. HIS TOOLS. HIS OBJECTS TO WIELD.

And Ansaldo watched as the last two brothers slaughtered each other, the victorious brother feasting on the corpse of his brother, as their father watched on. They were no longer young, they had grown.

They had grown almost as large as their father. Almost as sharp of daggers as him.

TO BE RID OF.

A memory, of another place, of an adolescent Ansaldo standing in a monastery church and praying together with his fellow friar. Then his long evenings as he hand wrote own travel bible. A professor stood and leisurely took a class in humanism. Himself deeply buried beneath books and artifacts. Finally, he was at that library with the orb. His hand shook as he reached for the orb and his eyes lit up with a burned purple frame.

Happy.

Content.

Memories of his mother, of his father sparring with him, of his brothers and his sisters and their love. Of that singular send off his father gave him, a smiling so loving on his lips.

That moment he touched it, the scene around him melted away. Replaced with a fragment of a memory beyond his comprehension.

WHY WAS IT SO, DID FATE MERELY DECLARE IT BE?

SCIONS OF THE CROWN OF ALL CROWNS, NOT PRINCES, BUT BLADES.

BLADES SHARPENED IN MIDNIGHT.

Ansaldo beheld a thousand cities aflame. Beheld the armies of the last Warmaster marching on his father. Besieging his fortresses, dying in droves for inches of ground, for fractions of districts of towns. For years that became decades that became aeons that became eternities of blood spilling.

A rebellion.

A rebellion by a son whose father had taught him how to kill, and had left no room for error or escape. Ansaldo walked amidst ashen faced knights, erased of Humanity. And he could see, there was nothing in them but war.

They had been bred for war. Born for war. Lived for war. Only to die in war.

Nothing else.

Bellators, was their name, a nameless mass of death refined.

FATE, THAT THERE WAS NO ESCAPE. NO ALTERNATIVE. NO CHOICE.

ONLY THIS CERTAINTY.

THERE IS NO PATH BUT ACROSS THE RUBICON.

Until the last Warmaster was forced to either die a slow death, or meet his father on the field. So he did. Ambushed, trapped, locked. To retreat was to make later death certainty.

NO PATH.

The army of the Warmaster turned.

NO ESCAPE.

And marched straight into the jaws of the enemy.

BUT THROUGH.

Their commander at their back. A prince, now, of his own crown. No care for his armies as they died by his orders. No empathy, no care, as the ground turned red with the dead.

Ansaldo looked away.

He looked away from those broken, battered, subjugated meat weapons. These Bellators that were the living dead.

He looked away from the armies of the king, of Regis. Resplendent in gold, and no different, not at all, not one bit.

They stripped cities in their battle, they devoured the dead when supplies ran out. Carved and butchered them no different than livestock. No pity, no return, no remorse, no stop. The King and the Warmaster fought for one purpose alone.

To kill.

The lands were aflame.

The cities dead.

The fields choked with gore.

And its rulers cared not.

REGIS, KING OF ALL KINGS.

The Warmaster stood over his father. Missing an arm, guts strewn out and ribcage open and dagger in his chest and in his neck, half his face burned, the other half broken and shattered beyond recognition. His eyes, azure pyres. Alight with contempt.

The Warmaster, last of his kin, stood over his father, bloody blade in hand.

And swung, splitting his father's crown and head.

BROKEN OF CROWN.

SLAIN BY HIS WARMASTER.

WHY WAS IT SO? FATE? CHANCE? CIRCUMSTANCE?

DICTATE?

LET IT BE, SO AS IT MAY BE.

THAT THERE BE NO PATH.

NO ESCAPE. NO PATH.

EXCEPT THROUGH.

Ansaldo's mind snapped back to the dark. He was on all four, gasping at the flood of images and the shapeshifting reality he was in.

His head pounded.

WHY WAS IT SO?

Ansaldo looked up, and saw a brief flash of a billion billion eyes, barely open. Barely looking at him. An infinitesimal fractional fraction of the total gaze.

Something cracked in his head.

Blood poured out of nose, out of his eyes, out of his ears.

IT WAS SO.

IT IS SO.

IT SHALL BE SO.

THAT IN THE CRUCIBLE OF FLAME.

A thousand images.

MORTAL IRON IS REFORGED.

A thousand names.

REMADE TO GOD STEEL.

A trillion words. Books would fill the forests and plains, and all the ink would run out, before the knowledge was rendered in full.

Ansaldo fell, limp, tired, aware.

Enlightened.

THROUGH THE CRUCIBLE.

BY STRUGGLE.

UNTO PAIN.

WITH HOPE.

TO TRIUMPH.

The darkness covered him.


Passetto di Borgo, Rome, 6 May 1527

Ansaldo could feel he was carried along over rough cobblestones even as his head thundered. He fluttered his eyes, seeing a misty outline of a figure ahead him. Then memories flooded back. The Sack of Rome. The last stand of the Swiss Guard.

The monsters.

The monster.

Lombardia.

"Back with us?" Leonheart said, breath heavy. Running with Ansaldo on his back. "If you're not, tell me how many fingers I'm holding up."

Ansaldo coughed, spitting out blood and red phlegm. He took in deep, gasping breaths.

"None," Ansaldo groaned.

"That is true, not for a lack of trying," Leonheart said. "If I had four hands, now, that would make it quite a bit easier to hold up a few fingers while running."

Ansald laughed despite himself.

"I have bad news and worse news," Leonheart said. "Which do you want first?"

"I do not desire any news," he said, putting his swimming head down.

"That's excellent," Leonheart replied. "Bad news is that I wasn't quite sure if you were dead, or alive, which lost me an arm. Positive side, you had a good sleep, it seems."

With a start, Ansaldo processed the fact that Leonheart was missing a hand. His dominant hand. His sword sheathed across his waist, and his pollaxe carried by another.

He stared at the empty space where that limb once was.

"Worse news is-"

There was a long raging roar.

"Warlock!"

"-That son of a French whore inbred with a Saracen heretic that has incestous relationship with his father seems quite hellbent on killing us," Leonheart wryly said.

"Oh God," Ansaldo muttered.

"So, here's the plan," Leonheart said. "We're almost at the gates of the Castel Sant'Angelo, but at this rate, he's going to catch us."

There was another roar, closing now.

"I'm going to take out his eyeballs," Leonheart said.

"What?"

"Gauge his last eye out, with a knife," Leonheart elaborated. "Problem is that I already pulled it off, once, and he's wiser to me, now. Hence this missing arm while you slept," he wiggled the stump.

"What?"

"Now I'm going to drop you, can you stand?"

"I…I think?" Ansaldo replied.

"Good," and Leonheart dropped him, wheeled around, and drew a knife. "Master Eagle!" he called out. "The Friar is awake!"

Hit the ground on his back, hard. He scrambled to a stand, feeling dizzy. Feeling tired. Feeling aware of all those around him.

Of the whispers of their thoughts, all bar one. His thoughts cloudy and unclear. Mixing and matching as though a dozen personalities in one.

"Most excellent!" there was a reply from an unfamiliar voice. "All hands! To arms!"

Ansaldo turned and faced a man in white, his armor woven between his thick white cloth. A strange pattern of was on its steel, wavelike shifts in color from lighter to darker.

He drew out a longsword, pointing at something coming in the distance.

"Ansaldo," Leonheart said, holding a long dagger in his hand. "All you have to do is distract him, we'll do the rest?"

It was then that Ansaldo realized something.

"Where is… where is…" everyone else, he was about to ask. The answer came to him unbidden. There was only the three of them left.

"Do not hesitate, knight," Master Eagle said. "Hesitation is death."

Everyone else had died on the way.

While he'd been unconscious, dozens had died.

Lombardia.

"Hear that Ansaldo? Our black rock worshipping friend thinks we'll hesitate!" Leonheart laughed. "Try not to get in my way, would you?"

"Would you then say that your other arm, too, had gotten in your way?" Master Eagle asked.

"Weighed me down," Leonheart replied, deadpan.

Ansaldo stood up, taking a shaking breath. "Stop it."

Leonheart looked away.

"Cease attempting to make levity, for my sake," Ansaldo unsheathed a sword he scarcely knew how to use. "I'm afraid. I'm terrified. I want to be anywhere else…But I can't be. Nor will I be. God has put me here. God has chosen me here. I stand here."

"Hmm," Master Eagle hummed.

"That's it, Ansaldo, that's it," Leonheart said.

Ansaldo's grip white knuckled his sword. "Here I stand, thy kingdom come!"

"They will be done!" Leonheart laughed. "That's it, Ansaldo, that's it!"

Then they saw him.

A cut clean across his helmet, through where one eye was. Gauged and scarred and blooded and hurt. The Archbishop of the Deep, Lombardia, ran for them. His gait a whirlwind of force.

He was coming for them without pause.

Ansaldo moved to the front. He felt the mind of the Archbishop. It was a flawless fortress. Battered and hurt. But unbowed and unbroken.

Then they felt him.

Perceived him certainly, as sure as death. Mace in hand, violent force made man.

Ansaldo took that power of his, that mental force inside of him and shaped it. He thought of it as a weapon, a mighty cannon - no- a mighty bow. Wielded by a titan the size of a mountain.

It made it easier to conceive.

Easier to comprehend it all.

He thought of the enemy, of Lombardia, and of his mind as a fortress. He imagined its armory. He imagined he was the titan.

So he took hold of a titanomach arrow.

Knocked the hurricane string.

Shot forth the lightning arrow.

Lombardia slowed down, burying his feet into the cobblestone of the bridge as he was forced to manually slow his speed. Stone and mortar flew about him.

And he stopped right before them.

As the arrow hit the armory.

So it was, that Ansaldo silenced Lombardia's power, as he'd done so before. His armory of power, struck down with an arrow of metaphor; of the lighting of his will.

He silenced that terrible strength of Lombardia.

"Warlock!" he growled.

Ansaldo breathed heavily, feeling his head aching. He had one more arrow in him, one more arrow to use. "Archbishop!" Ansaldo voice cracking, terrified. "I am Ansaldo Leonardo de Caramanica! To you, murderer, pillager, killer, monster, vermin, repugnant, degenerate, godless, forsaken abomination, I am the following!"

He took hold of that last arrow.

"I am the dawn after dusk," he spoke, and it was a promise and an oath and a mantra and his hope and his dream being born.

Leonheart was laughing.

Master Eagle was moving.

Lombardia charged them, mace coming for his head. Master Eagle blocked it, Leonheart rushed in, stabbed into a cut through the armor. Lombardia's blood splashed.

Hot red.

One hateful eye glared beyond the armor, mace sparking against Master Eagle's longsword.

Ansaldo pointed his sword right at Lombardia. It glinted in the morning light. Pure white silver alight.

"To you! To you and every last monster of your like in this world! To the despair, to the fear, to the terror, to the pain, to all the horror you conjured and all the evil you enjoy! I! Am! Emancipation from fear!"

He knew where that arrow needed to strike.

Lombardia roared, bucking off Master Eagle, mace slamming aside Leonheart, blowing coming straight for him.

It would cave his skull in.

It would kill him.

It was death.

Ansaldo met it, shaking and quivering and with eyes wide open.

He let loose that arrow.

The impact came.

Ansaldo was heaving, his head pummeling. His sword pointed straight at Lombardia. "To you, I am deliverance from despair."

Lombardia's arm was limp.

There was a breath, a moment, a second, as the mace fell, and the archbishop could not comprehend it. Standing as he was, in a strike so immaculate to kill.

The first arrow for his power.

The second for his mace arm.

"So try," Ansaldo said, feeling the fear rise up to his throat. Clog up his throat. "Try and watch the rebirth of these days. So try, Archbishop, try and watch your twisted ambitions be defeated."

Master Eagle rammed a blade to the side of Lombardia, blood gushed out.

Leonheart brought down his dagger, right into the eyehole.

Blood splashed out.

The two ripped out their weapons, and Lombardia staggered back.

A step, two, three.

"Ah," he said. "Ahahahahahha!" he laughed. Stumbling back as a pool of his own blood grew further.

Master Eagle thrusted.

Leonheart struck.

Lombardia threw his arm into the path of Master Eagle sword, and caught Leonheart's dagger hand.

Ansaldo's headache grew, until he relinquished his second attack. Letting loose his grip on Lombardia's arm.

Lombardia gripped Master Eagle's sword.

Step by step, he moved back, back to the edge of the bridge. The two weapons held tightly by him. Their own trying to skewer him, tugging and pushed and pulling.

"I heard you, Warlock," Lombardia said, weakly, hacking blood, voice wet.. "I make this promise, to you, here, now. Let all bear witness. I will break you."

He threw himself off of the bridge.

Leonheart and Master Eagle staggered back.

"I struck him through both lungs," Master Eagle said.

"I took out both his eyes," Leonheart added.

There was a dread.

A fear.

A question.

Ansaldo heaved for breath, hands on his knees from exhaustion.

"We must move," Master Eagle said. "Quickly."


Castel Sant'Angelo, Rome, 6 May 1527

The gate of the Castel Sant'Angelo slammed shut behind them. Ansaldo collapsed against a wall. Leonheart fell down flat, Master Eagle sheathed his sword.

Swiss Guards were yelling, orders being thrown around as the three rested.

"Holy God," Leonheart said. "I apologize for every sin and vanity I had ever committed, and I would get up and thank you, but I am too close to death and I also apologize for this."

Ansaldo snorted.

The snort became a chuckle.

The chuckle became a hysterical, bubbling laughter. "The sheer- the sheer - the blasphemy," Ansaldo wheezed, laughing at the absurdity of it all.

The laughter hurt his ribs.

"Ansaldo, that was the most sincere prayer I have ever given," Leonheart mumbled. "Please don't laugh, it hurts me deeply."

Ansaldo laughed harder. "Sister Anna would have your ear for that, would she not?"

"Oh God, she would," Leonheart winced. "Oh well, better that than death."

Shaking his head, Ansaldo deflated. "We lived."

And Leonhearts laughter grew and grew.

Ansaldo laughed with it.

And smiled when it stopped. "What now, Leonheart? What happens to us now, do you think?"

No reply.

"Leonheart?"

He noticed the red staining Leonheart's armor. The red covering his back. All the red, now forming a tiny pool around him. His breath caught in his throat.

Lombardia had taken an arm.

Had they- had the bleeding been stopped?

"Leonheart?" he asked, voice small.

Had-

It had to-

"Le-leon?" he repeated, feeling his voice echo in his ears.

No reply.

He heard ringing.

A noise that seemed to drown all else.

The remaining Swiss Guards ran in, grabbing Leonheart, carrying him off in a stretcher in a whirlwind of shouts and commands. He saw one of them bore a wolf sigil on his doublet.

They grabbed Ansaldo too, picking him up, patting him down as they searched him for injuries. He lost track of himself, lost track of it all in the whirlwind of motions.

Everything turned into a blur.

As it struck him that every single man he'd stood with was likely dead. Except for him.

His head was ringing. A dull noise that repeated itself, his vision faded out as the world faded into muteness. Nothing but the long, keening ring inside his head. He could feel time pass, he couldn't tell how long.

Only that he shambled along.

Insensate.

Hurt.

Confused.

They'd ushered him somewhere, sat him down, given him water. Something to drink. Between the ringing sound in his ears, the fog in his head, and the slow, monotone beat of his heart; dreading sense, fearing sobriety, hoping for escape.

Until he couldn't escape it any longer.

His senses returned to him in a comfortable chair, dull eyes looking at the face of Clement. Clement who kindly looked at him.

His hand was shaking, and everything was dull. He was exhausted.

Exhausted in spirit.

In body.

In mind.

The chambers of his holiness were quite simple compared to his residence at the Vatican. A small room with fresco and ornaments of mythological creatures from the pagan past. Almost heretical and yet the pope sat on his golden throne, quietly observing Ansaldo with kind eyes, and his cheeks unshaved.

"How… how long?" he whimpered.

"It's quite a terrible thing, isn't it, my child?" Clement said. "The blood. The fire. The death. The violence. It… it takes a toll. It breaks men. Tea?" he asked.

Ansaldo mutely nodded.

He picked up the teacup, his hands were shaking so badly, tea was splashing out. It splashed against his face and hands and clothes.

"He was-" Ansaldo started. "He was fine…we were laughing. He was laughing. Everything was…" Ansaldo looked into his reflection in the tea.

Blood splattered on his face. Dried and crusted.

He sniffled. His eyes burned.

"I thought it was over," he said. "We'd…we'd made it. He just stopped laughing."

Clement nodded, slowly, quietly.

"He stopped laughing," Ansaldo mumbled.

"Röist has not returned," Clement said.

Ansaldo opened his mouth. Then closed it shut.

"So many," Clement leaned back in his chair. "You've seen the face of an evil, Ansaldo, of an evil that despises everything that is human. They despise kindness. They despise mercy. They despise peace. They hunger, avariciously, to change everything that is human into their own image."

Silence.

"They will not stop," Clement added. "They never will, not for all of their history have they. Good and evil mean nothing to them. Right and wrong are meaningless to them. They are indifferent to the lives they shed."

Nothing.

"I…" Clement hesitated. "Its different, when the face of man's evils goes from theoretical to visible. To the human face behind it. That justifies it, that rationalizes it. That can make the worst of the worst deeds into the unquestionably righteous. That they seek no forgiveness, for there is nothing to forgive. "

Ansaldo glanced away from the tea. Away from his own reflection.

"Holy Father," Ansaldo said.

"Yes, my child?"

"I have a confession to make, my greatest fear, father," he hesitated. "Of trying."

"Trying?"

"All my life, I had avoided everything that brought about difficulty," he admitted. "I had no desire, no ambition, no wishes, and no responsibilities. All I'd ever done, my whole life, was to do as I wished."

Clement raised an eyebrow.

"Everything was too… difficult, scary, requiring effort," he continued. "I could have had office, my father wanted me to serve. I did not, I chose a path of my own enjoyment. All I'd ever wanted… was to enjoy my life."

Ansaldo put down the tea. "Because I'd always told myself, I didn't matter. There was nothing I could do."

"Ah," Clement said.

"Holy Father," Ansaldo said. "I have no doubt about heaven or hell. Holy father, I have seen such terrible deeds done by the hand of man - I have no doubt in God - for only by God's hand could justice ever be done… I … Holy Father…"

Ansaldo thought of a hundred and one words.

None of them meant a damn.

"For the first time in my life, I am called to be," he said. "Against everything I desire, I am called to be."

"And you wish to reject it?" Clement asked, frowning.

"Holy Father," Ansaldo shook his head. "I dream, holy father, I dream of being raised from the grave, being called by my name, holding my head high, and saying. 'I, Ansaldo, have died living for heaven.' that I, Ansaldo Leonardo de Carmanica, have done all that I could."

Clement smiled.

"That I-" his voice trembled. "That I, when given power, when I have seen the face of evil. Did not look away, I did fight. I did fight, no matter how it hurt."

He stopped laughing.

He felt tears.

"Holy Father, if I am given the chance I will hesitate and go back to my old ways, please, I beg of you, while my courage beats in my heart against this terrible terror," Ansaldo met the Pope's eyes. His gaze full of resolve. "Please, hurl me into this gauntlet against this evil. I beg of you. Make me a weapon for the righteous."

Clement gave a small, singular nod. "It will be violent, Ansaldo, difficult. More full of horror than you could ever dream of."

"Only by the struggle, only into the pain, only with the hope, will triumph ever be found. I beg of you, your holiness, you know best this war, make me an instrument of its ending."

His holiness looked out, glancing outside at the city aflame.

At Rome being sacked.

"This was not what I had wished for you," Clement said. "All the same, it is what has been willed for you."

Ansaldo gave a nod, tired, teary face gripped in an expression of resolve.

"This siege will be long," Clement said. "And all we can afford, for now, is to-"

"No, your holiness," Ansaldo said.

Clement paused.

"Every day, I will be out there, every day that I can, I will save what lives I can, I will not hide, your holiness, I will not hide any longer in comfort."

The man smiled at him. "So shall it be."

The embers of a city aflame, and its smoke and embers wafted out.

Oh God, oh almighty God, holy, holy, holy is your name oh almighty.

He took a breath.

Deliver me onto righteousness, forgive me of my sins, bless me with the wind of victory.

And let it out.

Let me not be of those forsaken, of the evils of this world you will not forgive.

Amen.


Castel Sant'Angelo, Rome, June 1527

With a dip of the quill into the ink, he wrote an entry into the journal.

A long month of the siege had gone by. The barbarous Germans had descended into gratuitous brutality. The churches were desecrated, stripped of their treasures, sacraments and the relics of the saints. Sacred furnishing destroyed and ornaments thrown on the grounds. Nuns subjected to the worst sins, and women uprooted from their homes. All the palaces of the prelates and nobles were devastated, even those loyal to the Imperial Majesty.

Corpses litter the streets alongside gangs of drunken landsknechts dragging women of all walks of life, and looters carrying stolen goods. The very city ravaged by plague and sickness. Such is the loss and spilling of blood, and the pain and injury of both spirit and body, that the city seems as if never had it been at peace before. Haunted eyes loom large.

Haunted eyes.

Wails of the women.

Children walking the streets, numb, searching, calling out.

Men, desiccated, despairing carcasses that yet breathed.

Hope seems a foreign dream, an esoteric word in an odd language for alien minds to utter. There are whispers of being lost, a feeling of abandonment by God. The holy city of Rome, pillaged and raped and brutalized.

And the piles of dead.

And the rotted and broken bodies.

And the ravens plucking out eyes, scavengers atop the roofs and worms crawling and-

For nothing of true value.

They are wrong. We have not been abandoned by God. We have been visited by the Devil and his whispers. He wants us broken and despairing, horrified and lost. Lost amidst the misery he has sown in our midst.

Roma, Germania, Lombardia…

He and his disciples of horror, calling for power, violence, and conflict.

God has not abandoned us. He is with us. He is our sun in this night. He is our dream in this nightmare. He is the only one who will answer our prayers, who will strengthen our arms.

Who will aim us.

Aim us like an arrow to split the midnight to dusk.

Ansaldo took a second. He dipped his quill into the inkwell and let the pen flying over the parchment

Even in this state of affairs, so forlorn of grace.

Of the hundred eighty-nine Swiss Guards, only forty-two survived. Those who at the last moment had accompanied His Holiness in his escape along the Passetto di Borgo to Castel Sant'Angelo.

Commander Röist is nowhere to be seen and assumed dead. His subordinate Hercules Coldil had assumed the leadership of the Guard. I and a small party of the guards bravely walked the streets at night to save what we could, but the warlocks and their followers had been long gone by that time. By some miracle the Vatican library had been saved even as it was molested, and the orb still stands on the pedestal.

My journals and works stood untouched as if none were interesting in the writing.

He paused as he heard a warhorn sounded over the city. The friar looked out of the window and over the ruined city. There on the horizon, an army carrying red-gold banners appeared on the horizon.

The Papal Army had come.

There was a tiny space left on the page.

The Papal Army has arrived now. This siege is over, at last. We have lived, we have survived. It is not over, it has not even begun.

So let the Devil know.

His servants rely on a lord of nothing and a master of whispers. We are the servants of the Lord of All Words, the Master of All Creation. Our ally, to the end of days.

Who has an ally mightier than ours?

He closed the book, stood up and buckled his sword to his belt. Ansaldo left, knowing that the arrivals would come straight here.

In moments, he'd found the Great Hall, the Holy Father already sat. His eyes sunken, hair disheveled and beard grown long. He had spent almost every day in mourning prayers, his sorrows felt by all.

"Holy Father," Ansaldo bowed, taking the Holy Father's hand and kissing the ring.

"Ansaldo," Clement greeted. "You have come early," he said. "Sit."

So he obeyed and sat.

The air was filled with the sense of defeat. He watched, and felt, as members of the Church staggered into the hall. Their thoughts winding paths of dread, discomfort, and uncertainty.

Ansaldo rubbed his throat, struggling to breathe.

It was oppressive. Almost lynching him it how certain of damnation they felt, and how they all hid it behind thin veneers of propriety.

Behind pretence.

A horn blew, the doors opened, and they arrived. The Imperial delegation walked in, heads high, smiles predatory. Unveiled sneers displayed with all gratuity and contempt.

Their leader sat opposite of the Holy Father. Golden threads woven into his German-styled robes, peacock feathered felt hat, bejewelled rings and emerald brooch glimmering. An aide of his, easily missed, sat at his side.

Whispering in his ear.

Hushed mutters gathered, as the two sides sat on opposite ends.

Father Clement on one end.

Louis Gonzaga on the other end, representing the Imperial delegation. "Holy Father, I am pleased to see you well."

"It pleases me too, my child, to meet in more peaceful terms," With a nod of his head, Clement returned the greeting. "It is time to begin, I believe."

"Very well," was the answer. " The offer of his Imperial Majesty is as follows: 800,000 ducats and ransoms, in return for our withdrawal."

Extortion.

It was nothing short of extortion.

Hushed whispers grew. Cardinals leaning into each other, until the aid of the Pope would lean into him, and inform him of what had been whispered.

Someone leaned into Ansaldo's ear, and whispered.

"Ansaldo, it is good to see you," Master Eagle spoke, dressed as an Papal official.

Ansaldo startled. "Eagle?" he hadn't so much as noticed a hair out of place. He hadn't seen the man since the gate, and hadn't felt it prudent to speak of it. He had read of the Assassins, now that he had access to Venatores records.

An Assassin in the vicinity of the Holy Father would be hunted down.

He did not think Master Eagle meant them harm. Causing him to be hunted down, or killed, no matter how reasonable felt….

Wrong.

"Expertise and training," Master Eagle replied with a tiny smile. "I had expected an alarm to be raised regarding my presence. My thanks to you, for this kindness. Why have you done so?"

Ansaldo let out a small smile of his own. "You…" he hesitated. "You have kind eyes."

A slight movement of the shoulders was all the hints to Master Eagle's laughter. A polite etiquette respecting laughter. Neither boisterous nor lacking heart.

"I am not a good man, Ansaldo," Master Eagle said. "I fear none of us are, or can be. None are good but the master of goodness Himself. All others need forgiveness from sin, and deliverance from error."

"That is why I think you are a good man, I think-" he licked his lips, hearing the voices grow. Hushed whispers turning to loud conversation. "-I do not think evil men want forgiveness. That they need to be forgiven."

"Hmm," Master Eagle hummed. "No, no they do not."

And louder the negotiations grew.

"Tell me, Caramanica," Master Eagle started. "If you could change the world, what would you change?"

Shouts came. Accusation of extortion. Heated replies. Bangs on the table, demanding calm.

"No war, no hurting others, no more of this," Ansaldo said, after a second. "Make this world good. Purely good."

"And what is war?" Master Eagle asked.

Ansaldo frowned.

"What is it?" Master Eagle repeated. "If not the act of taking by violent means what you desire. So how shall you put a stop to that? Will you hold back the hands of all men? Or will you remove their desires?"

Ansaldo didn't reply. He didn't know.

"Hold back the hands of men, and therein you are waging war against them. Or shall you remove choice itself?" Master Eagle continued. "And then, what meaning does good hold? Is a rock good? For it harms none? Regardless, it could not be any other way?"

One man rose from his chair, finger pointing at the Holy Father. Yelling hard. The Great Hall was slowly erupting into organised chaos.

"Good, evil, wrong, right, they only exist in choice," Master Eagle said, eyes sweeping around them. "So how shall you make this world purely good, if good can only exist if evil does so too?"

Ansaldo rested his chin on his hand. Thinking it through. "You cannot," he felt his shoulders grow heavier. His fists clenched.

"This world, Ansaldo, is unjust, unfair, cruel," Master Eagle said.

Eyes cast down, Ansaldo nodded.

"And that is a lie," Master Eagle said.

Ansaldo glanced up.

"This world is full of rocks, they cannot make a choice. The wolf can no more choose to not hunt, than the eagle or the hawk or the lion. They are not evil, or good, they merely are," Master Eagle tapped the table, three times.

Someone else, across the table, tapped it four times. A precise vibration carried across the wood. They kept tapping, in intervals Ansaldo couldn't grasp. Communicating.

"But men, men choose. We choose, and we learn, and we decide. You cannot make all of men good, or all of men bad, and even in the worst of men, you will find good, and even in the best of men, you will find bad. Life is a journey, Ansaldo, even if you carve the best of roads, men will go astray at times."

Ansaldo looked around, at the angry faces and the shouting and the rising tempers.

"And they'll find the path again," Ansaldo added.

"You tell me, Ansaldo, you wish to make the world better?" Master Eagle said. "I say to you, you cannot, unless you can guide each and every soul, and unless each and every soul wishes to be guided. We are the goodness of the world, and its evil, the world itself is a reflection of us, more so than not, at the very least."

With a nod, Ansaldo took a long, tired sigh.

"Weary of the weight?" Master Eagle softly laughed. "Do not. You will not reach the mountain's height, nor split the Earth under your gait. You are a single life, you are the centre of the world, your own. I have watched you, so far, you have saved lives amidst the streets. Guided away the injured. Brought scores of the lost into this little sanctum."

"It doesn't feel enough, not in the face of…" He did not finish; did not reference the things they had both now seen.

"Then save more, and keep doing so, little by little, make the centre of your life good, and so the world will be good for however much it can be," Master Eagle tapped against the table. Once. Twice. A pause. Once. Twice. "A lighthouse for the lost, is sometimes all that we ever truly need be."

Clement's voice sounded. "This meeting is adjourned. We will reconvene on the morrow!"

The shouting faded away, as both parties started leaving, and the Great Hall slowly emptied.

Soon enough, there were only three left. Master Eagle, Clement, and another man. The man that had been the aide of Louis Gonzaga.

"Master Eagle," the man said. "Holy Father," he added, after a moment. "It appears your wolves, Holy Father, are missing."

Clement's eyes hardened. "You? A Templar?"

They were familiar with one another, on a deeper level. He felt it with his telepathy, a disdain that could only come from intimacy. It took him a moment to place it, to connect the facial resemblance the Holy Father and Strozzi shared.

"Why cousin, if anyone had to share blood with you, they'd also leave your Church. Such concentrated vileness would drive consecrated virgins into a whorehouse for comfort," Strozzi drawled.

"Don Filippo Strozzi, titled Exarch Auditore of the Illuminated," Master Eagle spoke loudly. "I prithee you not take too much joy at the pain of others, it is in ill taste."

"800,000 ducats, Templar?" Clement said.

"I suggest you consider your tone, Holy Father," Strozzi rolled his eyes. "This costly venture has been caused by the Catholic Church itself, and none other."

"The Cult has burned half the city due to your insolence," Clement shot back. "To blame others for one's sins is precisely why your order was dismantled."

A short laugh. "Oh, I can already tell, dear Giulio, that your position of worldly authority has gotten to your thick head. Not that you'd ever been pious, your own illegitimate son would attest to that. In person. Say, then, what has fouled your mood? Not enough whores for your golden bed? Coffers too full of coins you can't quite manage to spend on more gold rings? Mayhabs not enough young innocent boys for your sacred men to 'play' with?"

Ansaldo stood up, sudden, fists clenched.

"Sit," Clement ordered.

He hesitated.

"Sit," Clement repeated. Softer.

"Are you quite done entertaining yourself with your ill manners and provocations, Illuminated?" Master Eagle asked, for all impressions bored.

"Hmm," he wiggled his head around. "Very well. I come here representing the interests of the Order as a whole, and so too, Master Eagle, for the Assasiyun. This offer is... A ceasefire, between all three of us. The Cult has overstepped, and our hostilities against one another has given them too much room for… far too long. It is past time these vermin scurry off into the dark."

Clement was quiet.

Master Eagle spoke up. "We are willing to waive away several Death Marks on agents of the Venatores and the Inquistional forces, so too for the Holy Roman Empire and other agents of the Order, and the allies of the Church. We wish to formalise our current state of alliance more concretely, this will require that your encroachments upon the Holy Land of Jerusalem are taken back, and several of our prisoners are returned to us."

"As for us," Strozzi linked his hands, resting his head on them. "A ceasefire between our agents, and yours. In return, you will give away certain territories, guarantees, and hostages. We will, of course, return one suit of Hallows plate that we have captured, and its Paladin in tow."

Clement leaned back, head raised up. "There is more."

"There is more," Strozzi said. "The Warlock. You will agree to share him. We shall all make use of him. The Assassins have need to purge the latent encroachment of the Cult upon their lands, and we have much in our records regarding him. These are our terms. "

Ansaldo swallowed.

A beat of terror passed.

His eyes hardened. Resolve in them shifting from quicksand to steel.

He met eyes with Clement.

"Tomorrow we will agree upon the details, otherwise," The Holy Father sat back straight. "We accept."


Castel Sant'Angelo Infirmary, Rome, June 1527

At the threshold of the infirmary, he halted. Shouts, yells, groans, moans and the occasional screams drifted out. A part of him, small, terrified, didn't want to know. Couldn't dare to know. To know was to open a door, and once opened it could never be closed.

Ansaldo stood there.

There was the other part of him, the one that wanted to wear a mask. A mask called bravery, to pretend every breath he took didn't invite ten breaths of questions. Doubts that wormed in, nibbling bit by bit on his mind.

One could play a part in history, or accept their role in the shadows. The shadows were always where he belonged. There, all he needed to know, and all he had to know, were things of no consequences. Who's answers could bring no disturbance.

Nor pain.

Now he was aware that everything he did was a step upon a road. Going somewhere, or another. Had he never touched the orb, had he listened to his father, had he married when his mother brought an offer, had he followed his brothers, had he done this and done that.

It was a negotiation, a negotiation with fate itself he'd never known he'd been at. Where the tiniest of things built up and up and up towards somewhere. Or something. It was a sensation more than a thought, it was a feeling, more than a cognition.

Where did he stand on the weight of it all, when everything weighed something and every breath led somewhere.

He could almost see it, truth be told. Ansaldo could almost see it, where he wanted to be and how he wanted to be. Someone unimportant, someone insignificant, someone who had no need to bear the weight of lives.

He'd thought of himself so; as someone with no choices greater than what to spend his time and what level of enjoyment they brought. Now he held choices who's weight on the scales of consequences meant that people lived or died.

Leonheart lay beyond this threshold, and Ansaldo couldn't bring himself to cross it. To cross it was to open a door of knowing that he might have prevented this, had he only been braver.

Had he only been lion of heart and eagle of eyes, if only, then- then Leonhart wouldn't be on the other end of this threshold. It was one thing to think his lacking, his inadequacy, caused the death of men who's faces he only recognized as human.

It was another. Different, alien. It held his heart in a grip and constricted his chest.

It was another for it to have a name.

A face.

Relations.

A life.

It was another to know the weight of actions, and call it Leonheart, and know that this too, was the fate of countless others. How many had an Anna and a Marcello. What of Röist, too, he'd heard the man had a wife.

Röist.

Röist, who hid his fears and anxieties behind implacability and insults. His pride and prejudice a balm against all the things his eyes had seen. But try as they might, Ansaldo had felt it. The raw fear as Röist went out.

A man of stature. Of name. Of great character, if not great kindness or great charm. Ansaldo knew without asking why Röist had fought. All that disregard at Ansaldo, could not hide that he did not wish Ansaldo harm.

That he wanted Ansaldo away from harm. There was no doubt in his heart, not in the sanctity of his purpose and his mission, in creating a lifelong achievement in the lives of others.

Röist fought for others.

Leonheart fought for his loved ones.

Pope Clement lived his life for others.

Ansaldo had lived his whole life for himself.

What insulting audacity dare a man like himself have, walking into an infirmary where men who fought for others were dying, who lived lives connected to others, for others, for faith and kin, as if he held some right to them?

As if they owed him anything, anything at all?

He couldn't do it.

Couldn't bear it.

"Ansaldo?" a woman called out. Anna. "Is that you, Ansaldo?"

He didn't turn, or look.

"Goodness, it is!" joy, loud and clear. "Have you come here to check on Leonheart?" she asked. "Or- or Röist?"

Röist?

"Is he-are they?" he stopped.

"He's…" Anna struggled, a quiver in her voice. "He's a fighter. Always. Röist too. They brought him in some time ago. Saved him from death."

What right?

What damn right did he have, to walk in, to see Leonheart so that his deserved discomfort can be assuaged.

"Ansaldo?" Anna asked.

"No, no, I… I merely got lost," he said, turning.

"Ansaldo!" Anna called.

He slowed down. Stopped.

"He'll live!" Anna said, voice cracking. "They'll live!"

Ansaldo moved. Kept his legs moving.

If he stayed, he'd cross that threshold.

And then he'd know.

He'd feel who'd live and who'd die.

He would know.


Castel Sant'Angelo Courtyard, Rome, June 1527

Ansaldo watched the smouldering pyres. Ashen covered remnants of houses. Mercenaries yet roamed the streets, half-drunk and half-bored.

The streets were empty of innocents, all too aware that violence yet stalked the streets. If not for the Swiss guard around them, Ansaldo was sure the mercenaries would have tried to rob them.

Their eyes were predatory. Wishing for something. An excuse to hurt and steal. To enrich and enjoy themselves.

"It will take a generation to fix this," the Holy Father said, from beside him.

"It seems so…" Ansaldo struggled.

"Pointless?" the Holy Father mused.

"Wasteful," he said instead.

A nod.

"The terms have been decided," Clement informed him. "You will become a peace offering, between us all. There will be a four year term where the Grandmaster will train you, a Templar and an Assassin will accompany you. To ensure we keep our terms of the deal."

Ansaldo dimly nodded, watching the embers drift in the air. "Four years."

"Four years," Clement repeated. "And while you're being readied…"

"It will be war," Ansaldo knew.

"Several Masters of the Assassins, and their acolytes have been mobilised. The Templars and the Venatores have both rerouted troops once at conflict, to elements of the Cult. The Archbishops, Ansaldo, they will come out of their pits," Clement placed a hand on his shoulder. "This is the first time, in sixty years, that an Archbishop has been driven back. That an Archbishop has nearly died fighting three men."

"Because of me," Ansaldo replied.

"Because the Grace of God has fallen into our lap," Clement said. "If events had turned out another way, if the Grace of God had not come, we would all be dead. Light, Friar Ansaldo, can only be seen in the dark."

"When will I leave?" Ansaldo turned and asked.

"Tomorrow."

And tomorrow, he did leave. The city that had been his home for three years. His solace from his inadequacies and fears of the world at large. A place where he could have his books and his curiosities and enjoy life.

Enjoy life.

He'd thought himself a master of his own fate, having arrived at where he wanted to be. Now he was leaving it. A different man, wearing the same face. Would he even return here, when all was said and done?

Would he ever be free of duty's call?

Had he ever been free? Or was it the illusion of his arrogance to believe all of it was his choice, and his alone. He looked around, at the city outside hounded by mercenary companies, at the guards outside his room.

Freedom.

Was he free, when he was locked in his room obsessing over curiosities that made no difference or betterment to the lives of others?

Or…

Or was he a slave to his desires?

All that time he'd spent polishing ancient rocks and stones. Reading over scrawls of the ancient dead. Did it ever occur to him that his time was running out?

That he would reach this point, here?

If he'd been prepared, better, could one more person have been spared pain? Could Roist? Could Leonheart?

If he'd spent his time for the betterment of others, if he'd become someone more important, could Roma's life have been changed? Could he have been dissuaded?

Ansaldo washed his face, feeling the cold water run down it.

He took out a chest, a travelling chest.

His journals, books and writing tools went down in his chest. Not to forget his brush and colour plate. His extra set of robes in his chest nicely folded. Another set or rope placed above formed as a nest.

He took the cause of it all in his hands.

The mystic orb, swirling with black mist and azure reflections. Warm, as if it was alive. Heating up at his touch.

"If I'd never found you," Ansaldo pondered. "Would I have spent the rest of my life, so much if it had gone by, doing so little?"

It didn't reply.

"I wonder now, and my mind will not cease asking this question; can the debt of my existence ever be repaid to you, oh holy God?"

It did not answer.

He gently placed the orb down into the makeshift nest of ropes. He took out his handmade travel bible, kissed it, rested it against his forehead.

"My Lord, guide me for I am lost, embolden me, for I am afraid, grant me victory, for if you are not my victor none can be, " he started, quietly. "And I am impoverished. I beg, enrich me of your good," then he placed it down.

His chest had everything he would ever need.

He hesitated.

Lombardia's armored form flashed across his vision

Courage sparked.

His hand closed the chest.

The friar lifted the chest and walked through the halls for the last time. Soon he was at the castle yard. His wagon near the gate surrendered by Templars, Venatores, Assassins, servants and other individuals.

The chest dropped from his hands, as he saw who was leaning against the wagon.

With one arm, Leonheart waved. "Would you look at that! I yet live!" he coughed. "Well, mostly. I feel dead."

Ansaldo gaped. He rushed, grabbing Leonheart in a hug.

"Gentle, gentle," Leonheart hugged him back with one arm. "I swear to God, the Angel of Death personally rejected me due to you. I told them I was ready to go, and they just wouldn't let me in. You're the only magician I know, so I'm blaming you."

At that, Ansaldo laughed. "You're alive."

A loud hacking cough rose. The driver of the wagon turned, and glare. Face bandaged, expression unmistakably angry.

Röist glared. "Stop idling our time, and get in."

"Commander Röist?" Ansaldo asked. "Commander Röist!?"

"No, his damned ghost," the man spat bloody phelgam to the side. His skin was pale. Gasping for breath. "Yes it's me, Friar. "

A servant loading the wagon hummed. "A shame, Venatore, that your behaviour did not improve with so close a meeting with our Holy Maker. Does the Holy See not teach its bloodhounds good manners?"

"No," Röist's eyes twitched. Blood soaked bandages highlighting his temper. "Especially not to Heretics and Mohammedans."

"Ill manners are a sign of an ill heart," the servant smiled. Master Eagle winked at Ansaldo as he hopped onto the wagon. "It is a sign of healthy faith that the heart be hearty and pure."

"So help me God!" Röist yelled. Mouth clamping down as he seethed.

Leonheart leaned closer to Ansaldo. "Want to take a bet on if they'll kill each other," the man's lips quivered. "I have no money, but I'm pretty sure this one is all but destined to happen."

Ansaldo glanced back and forth, concerned. "That's not… that's not a good thing."

"I don't know," Leonheart mused. "Certainly going to make this very long trip more exciting."

There was another wagon, one with two Templars. In the most plain of sight. Had everyone not been executed or purged after that faulted Trials of the Knight Templars? And yet there they stood in plain sight in the heart of the Holy See.

Their plate armour shone in the light. Golden-blue iridescent, hidden behind a white tabard and a red cross. Filippo Strozzi, the supposed leader of the Templars, even had a polite conversation with the new Venatore commander Hercules Coldil despite their past.

There was a cough, and Ansaldo saw what he couldn't believe. He'd thought his eyes lied to him.

Röist flinched, but did not turn. There was a woman seated next to the Commander, leaning on him, though she was clearly asleep. Her skin was paler than his. She looked like half a corpse.

"His wife," Leonheart whispered.

Asnaldo mutely looked at her.

A horn blew, and all gazes looked up at a man who stood up atop a box. Hercules Coldil cleared his throat to the small assembly of Templars, Assassins, and Venatores. "The window of opportunity will close fast, so listen close. Six wagons will depart the city. All of them are decoys. A relief caravan organised by Exarch Auditore of the Illuminated is the true exit method. All of you here have been screened, and can be trusted."

He rattled off names, numbers, and routes. Giving estimates of when the escorts would break off, when to return, and when to continue the distractions.

Expected enemy attacks.

Expected locations of which branches of the Cult would move onto them first.

Only finally, did he move to them. "The rest of you? We will stay behind to protect his holiness. Cacciatore Anguillara and his pack will protect the escort targets." He gestured at the templars, led by Strozzi. "Exarch Auditore and his Templars will provide the rest of the escort until Florence."

Cacciatore Anguillara, from the third wagon at the front, raised a hand in greetings. Strozzi, with his escort of two Templars, jumped onto their wagon.

"All of us here, each and every single one of us, has a dispute against one another, this none of us can deny," Hercules Coldil took a breath. "But every last one of us here has been brought by God's hand to tear out the hearts of these faithless Cultists and their Satanic idols! Godspeed, soldiers!"

And the horses neighed and the men moved.

Ansaldo watched as the Commander and most of the venatores left the castle yard. The wagon clattered, as they moved.

Through streets filled with collapsed buildings.

Through scores of men, piling up bodies half-rotted for burials.

Through the stench of flame, sickly sweet death, and sorrows of a city sacked.

Until they met up with a massive relief caravan, emptied of its goods, that was now leaving the city.

Leonheart cleared his throat. "A Protestant Templar, a Catholic Venatore, and a Mohammaden Assassin jump onto a wagon…"

Everyone bar Master Eagle groaned. The man chuckled. Röist hacked, nearly choking as he settled into an aggravated growl.

"Oh please, that was clever," Leonheart bemoaned. "It had context, timing, situation!"

"It was," Master Eagle agreed.

"No," Strozzi rubbed the bridge of his nose. "No. It wasn't. It was a tragedy."

Leonheart leaned back, the wagon bouncing up and down. "Not as tragic as what happened to you guys. Last I heard, you'd been dismantled. Two centuries ago."

"Unfortunately, it didn't quite take," Röist said, from the front.

Strozzi clucked in return. "Dour, are we? Fear not, I'm willing to temporarily forgive and forget."

"Pompous heretical book-keeper," Röist spat.

"Some of us are civilised enough to be able to read and write, to do things such as diplomacy, rather than murder everyone we disagree with," Strozzi rolled his eyes. "

Ansaldo hesitantly spoke up. "Archbishop Roma claimed Venatores manipulated both His majesty Philip IV of France and His Holiness Clement V to claim you as heretical. The heresy of which was plotting to create a New World Order with principles based on the Commandments of God within…" Even to this day he was unsure whether Commander Röist told him the truth or merely told him what he wanted to hear.

He thought of how to phrase this last portion.

"The Ark of the Covenant…" He finished lamely.

"Heretical is a strong word, but not inaccurate, certainly not orthodox," Strozzi allowed. "What we are, Ansaldo, is a union of templars, merchants, aristocrafts and scholars of many faiths and cultures. United in the purpose of uniting humanity under a monarch of God Himself."

"The three of us? We have quite an ancient history, except these wolves of the Church, they're the youngest and most murderously uncivilised of all," Strozzi threw his thumb over his shoulder, vaguely pointed at the wagon.

"Oh make no mistake," Röist hissed. "The second this ceasefire is over, I will ram my knife into your throat. You pompous aggravating insulting heretical degenerate of a quack."

Master Eagle took a long, tired sigh.

Strozzi chuckled, shrugging at the threat.

"For you, however?" Strozzi added. "You were not the first to wear these abilities of yours. The god-given gift, not those corrupted by the Cult of the Black Priest, received but from the Eye of the Aten. He was a solar god from the Pagan Egypt if you must know. Our founder received his abilities from this very Orb you have in your chest thousand years ago."

A flash ignited in Ansaldo's mind. Everything seemingly kicked into place. Puzzles lacking the last pieces. Roman solar cult. The nameless Pharaoh. The templars. "That… for so long?"

"Oh yes," Strozzi purred. "The Ark of the Covenant did not merely hold tablets, it was inscribed with the location of a second Orb. That one, unfortunately, was lost. Or maybe it is the very same Orb you possess now. All the same, another possessed such power and might from an artefact alike to the one you hold."

Röist scoffed. "There is no location, the Ark is inscribed with nothing."

"Oh dear Röist, that's a lie and we both know it, you know full well what divine metal those tablets led to," Humming, Strozzi stroked his beard, musing for a bit before coming to a decision. "How about this, why don't you join us, Ansaldo, see the truth for yourself?"

The wagon nearly stopped. Röist turned around. "Absolutely not!"

Ansaldo reeled back.

"A reasonable offer," Master Eagle spoke up. "The Illuminated, for their many inadequacies in faith and truth, are well learned."

Röist opened his mouth, a loud, hacking cough instead came out. The man nearly doubled over. "You…" he wheezed. "Listen…to me… you will not."

Mouth opening to reply, Ansaldo closed it.

He wanted to know.

Every fibre of him wanted to know.

To know more.

He smiled. "I'm afraid I'll have to turn you down, Exarch, I wish to visit. To see what libraries your order holds. But to join you?" he looked up, at the sky. "My calling is to serve elsewhere… duty demands it. Honor calls for it. Debt requires it."

Master Eagle hummed, in appreciation. "He speaks well."

Exarch Strozzi blinked.

Laughed.

"That," he said, his smile bright. "Is a response I can respect."

Exarch Auditore left them at Florence one week later with the last of his Templar, and the party continued north. Days turned into weeks.

All throughout, Master Eagle and Röist exchanged barbs. His wife, shy and quiet, would speak little and would help around camp. Leonheart, as injured as both of them, helped as much as he could.

Leonheart grew a fever, second week in. Waving it off, with his usual humour.

Even as his cough grew and his sleep worsened.

Röist, undaunted and unchallenged, seemed immortal in the face of his severe injuries. Working with them, as little as he could. But he was simply too injured. The bulk of the work was on Ansaldo and Master Eagle, and the last, quiet Templar knight left with them.

The third week since they left Rome, they passed through the mountains. Finally they reached the valley in the fourth week.

The valley was embedded between the alps mountains with summer flowers and green trees covering the hills. In the middle a shining blue lake under a clear sky.

There.

Just off of the shoreline, a castle rose over the waterline.

The proud banner of a snarling wolf upon it.

His new home.