Chapter 93: Ten Thousand Candles

Chapter 93: Ten Thousand Candles

Even with the great dome of the temple toppled and the sun missing from the sky, the surviving leaders of the church would not listen to him. He, like so many of the other veterans who had survived the onslaught of monsters they’d all faced, urged their leaders to act with all the strength they had left and strike at the heart of the evil that had silenced their god and almost eradicated his temple. The ecclesiarch refused, though.

He wasn’t the only one. They all refused. The Hierarch of Purgative Flame refused to fight the decision, and his few surviving high priests did likewise. “We must defend this sacred place! We do not have the men to hold the walls, let alone strike out with an expeditionary force!” they said as one, no matter how many times they were petitioned by the surviving Brothers of the Purgative Flame in the long silence that followed their terrible tribulation.

For the strongest holy warriors to huddle behind the walls of their fortress city while the world was plunged into darkness was folly, of course, but what could he do? He could not even make the argument that they must defend the farmers who fed them as long as the sun no longer existed to ripen the grain.

Every bone in Templar’s battered body told him that staying on the defensive was the wrong decision, but he would have accepted it because that was his nature. Then, the sky filled with shooting stars.

To most, it was seen as an omen, though people could not agree on whether it was a sign of hope or something more sinister. Just the same, everyone watched it, including Brother Fearbar, who was praying at the ruined altar high on the temple mount for more guidance.

That was when he was struck by a star that came careening out of the night sky and hit him like a lightning bolt through the giant hole in the roof above him. The original appearance of this chapter can be found at Ñøv€lß1n.

He barely noticed the stars and didn’t remember being struck. He’d looked up briefly at the start of the shooting stars through the ruined tangle of the nearest stained glass window but quickly focused on his prayers to Siddrim. Those efforts were earnest and fervent enough to block out the talking and chanting that otherwise filled the holy place for the next several minutes, and then the world was suddenly lost in white light.

For a moment, Brother Faerbar thought that he had died, but it wasn’t heaven he’d been gifted with, but a vision of hell. He saw a struggling, dying god, as well as the terrifying evil that he had fought, as well as the suffering that creation faced without a light to keep the terrors of the night at bay.

He woke up on the floor of the chapel surrounded by other acolytes and warriors, miraculously healed from the injuries he’d still been suffering from. More importantly, though, he woke up filled with light. He literally glowed with power.

Brother Faerbar had always been sensitive. Most people would have considered him too sensitive for the role of a Templar, but he’d reveled in it. What he’d seen before paled in comparison to the sights he saw now, though. Until tonight, he’d been blind, and it was only now that he could see. The light that filled his soul shone with a purity that let him see right through the men that surrounded him.

It was a depressing moment of exaltation as he saw the amount of cowardice and sloth on display. The church had not been defeated by an army of darkness. They had been defeated by themselves long ago. Some part of the aging Templar had always known this. He’d struggled with his orders many times throughout his career, though he’d always eventually obeyed and done what he’d been told.

It wasn’t until morning that the church elders came with orders and admonishments. They’d obviously been unable to work up the courage to do so in the dark when the growing camp of the Crusaders was lit more brightly than the holy city. Now though, by the wan bluish light of morning, when the frost was still heavy on the grass, they came with banners and censers and all the pomp that they could muster to reassert their authority.

The council of Hierarchs from the different branches of the church started with bluster, but when that failed, they were reduced to reason and then finally pleading.

“Would you dare risk your immortal souls by defying the Ecclisearch?”

“Marching off with so few men in times such as these would be the height of foolishness!”

“Please, Don’t you understand? For the sake of church unity, you must obey us. The men respect you too much. Anything less would cause a rift in the church...”

Each time, Brother Faerbar rebuffed them, and each time, they returned only slightly more humbled than before.

Finally, though, during dinner, after his following had doubled and then doubled again, he denounced them. “Siddrim has left us, and it is because of old men like you!” he yelled. “I no longer take orders from men that have no light in their souls.”

That was something everyone could see. There were over a hundred men in the camp now, and most of them had a little light in their eyes. The church fathers, though, were a notable exception to that, and they left almost immediately once that was pointed out.

“Humility could still save them,” he told his comrades that night by the fire, “But that is a straight the church hasn’t prioritized in truth for a long time.”

All the confrontation did was cause the powers that be to shut the main gate to the best of their ability, but that was, in a sense, an admission of defeat, and over the following day, the trickle of men that had left Siddrimar to join Brother Faerbar’s crusade became a flood, but he never left his growing camp, nor spreading the tales that would inspire hope in the beleaguered men.

It was only when his dozens had become thousands that the Templars finally started to march to the west. He knew that others would join him along the way, both from Siddrimar and from every city that they passed through, but he could no longer wait. The evil they sought to vanquish continued to grow every day, and if they hoped to drive a stake through its heart, then time was of the essence.