They were about twelve feet apart, one where Richard now stood, the other within the frames of the doorway. The horror of death was frozen on each face: the bodies had been dismembered by a blade that had cleanly cut through muscle, bone, sinew, and arteries—one had lost his legs below both knees, the other lacked an arm and had a large gash in his armored chest revealing torn metal, shattered ribs, and a bloodied lung.
The pouches containing the Grail water had been punctured.
Richard stepped over the Templar Knights, sweating freely now, and glanced in the doorway and up into the reaches above.
No one waited in ambush that he could see.
He climbed the staircase, leaving the gruesome scene behind. He took the stairs two at a time, eyes ever ahead. Bolstered by the magic of the Dark Thorn, Richard ascended as quickly as his legs would carry him.
Halfway up, he encountered another body: a Swiss Guard.
The soldier lay limply upon the stairs, eyes staring sightlessly, dead from multiple stab wounds.
Richard continued.
Coming to a platform where another set of stairs continued to the roof, Richard deviated to a side entrance leading into the interior of the basilica and the multiple rooms not allowed entry to tourists that looked down upon the Square. The door, which appeared as though it had once been locked, had been pushed off of its hinges, hanging crookedly aside. Four bodies of Templar Knights and Swiss Guards lay intertwined, their lifeblood pooling together and drying upon the stone floor, the remnants of a battle that had recently transpired.
Richard stepped between hacked limbs into a grand hallway.
Like the eastern façade of St. Peter’s, the corridor he found himself in was more than a football field in length. Beautifully wrought chandeliers hung from the high ceiling, chasing away shadows. The wall on his left featured luxurious tapestries and paintings; seven doors broke up the opposite wall, between which tall statues of previous pontiffs stood, bearing scepters of office.
Dead bodies lay strewn about in the hallway.
Leading to one door.
As he moved around them as best he could, a soft gurgling came from one of the bodies near a statue that had been sliced in half from shoulder to other knee as though it were butter. The Templar Knight died slowly, the man slashed through his abdomen, the rent armor and white mantle soaked in blood.
Richard knelt but there was nothing he could do.
“Pleeasse…millloord…”
Richard watched the man’s passing. The warrior gulped his own blood, struggling to find breath, before finally dying.
The knight stood and ran his hand over the dissected statue. The marble had been hewn in two by some instrument that could cut through stone. Whatever had destroyed the effigy had also cut through the armor of the knight with ease.
“Open the Vault now!” the voice of Arawn raged from an open doorway nearby.
“We will not step aside!”
Gripping the Dark Thorn with conviction, Richard entered a room full of tension. Arawn and two Templar Knights surrounded two older men draped in black robes of the Church who were pressed against the only wall devoid of a bookshelf. Arawn gripped a kneeling Swiss Guard by the front of his uniform, holding a long dagger to his neck, but his harsh gaze never deviated from the older of the two Churchmen.
Pope Clement XV and Cardinal Vicar Cormac Pell O’Connor.
Danger pointed at the head of the Catholic Church. No matter how Richard felt about the Pope, his presence prevented Richard from unleashing the power of the Dark Thorn erratically. It added a risky dimension to the situation. Like the Cardinal Vicar, Clement held a sword in front of him, the length of the blade bright where blood slicked it. Both men were positioned defensively before the Templar Knights beside Arawn, far from any protection Richard could create.
“If you do not open the Vault, I will kill this man, his soul’s death on your conscience,” Arawn growled, twisting the point of the knife into the neck of the Guard. “The magic on the other side of this wall drew me here. Make way!”
“His sacrifice for upholding the laws of our Father in Heaven will be rewarded upon his entry,” Clement grunted. “What of your own?”
Arawn said nothing. Clement noticed Richard then, his lined face filling with a mixture of annoyance and hope. Arawn followed the Pope’s stare, his burned face darkening.
“Come to join me at last, Heliwr?” he asked, grinning.
As the Templars spun to confront the newcomer, Richard steadied