Three days of walking alone in snow-sprinkled pine forests gave Samson time to think. Think about how he was a confidant, yet here he was being sent to guard a Church facility. A job for a vanguard. His anger at being removed from his de facto home had stymied over the course of the hike. Yet his pangs of betrayal, and his sadness from missing Maribel and Shiner had not. And despite using a simple spell to lessen the weight of his armor and travel pack, he was beginning to ache from the effort of lugging it across the northernmost portions of The March.

  His thick cloak served well to cushion the shoulder straps of the pack, but his nights beside the road had offered little time for recovery. He was so relieved by the rough, cracking facade of the Happfield Chapel. It stood alone in a clearing in a pine forest, perched atop a lonely mound, most likely artificial. Sprinkled around were dirt roads terminating in stone foundations with nothing on them apart from slushy, melted and refrozed\n snow. The town that the chapel had supported had withered.

  A wrought-iron fence wrapped around the chapel with a large, bent gate in the center. Despite the rest of the run-down appearance, the grounds of the chapel were well groomed. Perfectly pruned trees dotted the yard with astoundingly clean hedges and creeping vines framing the weathered wooden door. All wonderfully green despite the cold. Just above, the three-story chapel boasted what would have once been a very impressive stained glass window, but now it was a grimy and dusty mess.

  With a mix of relief and melancholy, Sam pressed through the gate and approached the chapel. The creaking was shocking.

  “Hey!” came a strident call from a spat of hedges. Sam looked to see an old woman with an intimidating pair of shears.

  “Uh, hello!”

  “Who are you?”

  Sam reached into a pocket inside his cloak for his orders of transfer. “Corporal Bleedingheart from-”

  “Church business! I don’t need to hear about that!” she said sweetly. “Just give me your given name. I like to keep it friendly. No business for me!”

  Sam was shocked. “Uh. Sam. I’m Sam.”

  The old woman strolled over to Sam. She was clad in a thick, cotton coat, and despite a pair of cloth muffs, the pointed tips of her ears poked out. She was an ethnic druid, and most likely, the reason the flora was still so bright and green.

  “Well Sam, welcome to the chapel. You're looking for Father Pryce.”

  “I believe so,” Sam responded.

  “Wasn’t asking. Learn to listen, dear.”

  Sam did his best to stifle a chuckle, the woman noticed and laughed as well.. “Good! There’s the laugh. You looked so dour coming through the gate there. You lot with your armor and your robes need to lighten up. Let me take you in, Sam. Pryce is inside. Probably doing nothing.”

  Sam was led through the front door of the chapel. Contrary to its exterior, the inside was well kept, perfectly clean, and even the stained glass looked beautiful from inside. The massive installation was the visage of Gessel’s avatar, a colossal man in massive white and gold armor with his gauntlet-clad hands folded over a greatsword plunged into the ground.

  “Pryce! There’s someone here!” the druid cried through the chapel, shattering the calming silence. At the front of the sanctuary, a figure stood and turned.

  “Gretta, Gretta. Sweet Gretta. Stop yelling.” The man began to laugh.

  “Shut up, old fool! Come talk to this boy so we can send him back on the road.” Gretta called back in a singsong manner. She looked down at Sam with a smile and a wink.

  “Such a mood,” Father Pryce mused as he moved to approach. “I suppose Corinne left you with some more of that tea?”

  “Don’t let the Hag on the property for any other reason! I’m going back outside. Come get me when the food's ready.”

  “I hope Gretta did not offend you,” Father Pryce said softly. “Her behavior toward me has often left me wanting.”

  “Not at all, Father,” Sam said with a smile. “She was just fine toward me.”

  “A better concierge than houseguest,” Pryce said, wagging his finger. “I am Father Pryce, of Happfield Chapel.”

  “Corporal Bleedingheart. Samson Bleedingheart. Dispatched from the Back City Mission of The Throne.” Sam reached for his documents and passed them to Father Pryce. The old man touch them with trembling hands and turned them over, reading over them quickly.

  Father Pryce was not what Sam had become accustomed to from a priest. He wore modest robes, like Maribel did. But it had been clear that Maribel was rather new to the business. The priests that had been higher in years had wandered around the throne decked in trimmed, gilded cloths with towering hats or wreaths of pendants.

  Following that logic, Pryce should be crumpling under the weight of his dress. Yet this man was modest. Suddenly, he scoffed.

  “Nathan’s in executive charge of a mission?” he asked with incredulity. He shook his head. “There’s no way in Gessel’s Will that’s going well.”

  Sam’s jaw dropped. He had never heard anyone, much less a priest, speak about another priest like that.

  “Unless it is?” Pryce asked, looking mildly surprised.

  “Uh, no-” Sam started. “I mean, it is.” But then he thought about Nathan’s leadership. “Although. I guess-”

  Pryce broke Sam’s nerves with a soft laugh. “Welcome to the chapel, Sam. The apse in the far back corner is our old guardhouse. You can put your things there. It has its own well and spout, as well. Take as much time as you need to get settled in, but if you are interested, dinner will be ready in two hours or so.”

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  Sam, trying to wrap his head around the old man, gathered his things and made his way to the guardhouse.

  It was not the passage of time or hunger that brought Sam out of the guardhouse, but instead Gretta and Pryce’s loud conversations. Now that he was out of his armor and in casual clothes, he was much more comfortable, and significantly better equipped to meet his new hosts.

  Sam stepped out and was surprised to see the main altar at the front of the chapel pushed toward the back of the stage. The shaky wooden table that was in its place was topped with a modest spread of open face sandwich makings. Pryce and Gretta were sitting at either end of the table and a third rickety chair was sitting empty. Gretta noticed Sam right away.

  “Hey! Sam! Come eat. Pryce took several hours to just put some cheese on a plate.”

  Pryce laughed till he coughed, then turned to gesture Sam over.

  “So, tell me, Corporal,” Pryce said, handing a slice of bread to the paladin. “How has the Church of the Will treated you so far?”

  “Well enough,” Sam said as he took the offer. “Thank you for your hospitality.”

  “Sam, let me tell you a secret,” Gretta said softly. “When you get as old as the Father and myself here, you learn that it’s better to skip the pleasantries. We aren’t long for this world, after all. Just say what you mean.”

  There was an awkward silence and then Gretta and Pryce burst out laughing, and Sam looked down, embarrassed.

  “Sam, sorry,” Pryce said, patting his shoulder. “Did not mean to embarrass you. You don’t need to tell us anything you don’t want to.”

  “No, no, it’s okay.” Sam took a deep breath and looked up at the stained glass image of Gessel. For a moment he became homesick, and thought about how he had nothing to lose. Who knows how long he would be with these two anyway. And so Sam shared his story.

  The elderly couple rode the tale, listening intently. They laughed when they saw the Church’s hypocrisy and humor, and got livid for Sam when he was beaten down by his leadership. They empathized with his near-death incident, and with his shame at his naming ceremony. And then he explained the circumstances that brought him to the chapel.

  Pryce scoffed at Brother Nathan’s actions in the Lieutenant's office. “And neither of them told you why you would be coming? They just fed you some damnable ‘sense of duty’ garbage?” the old man grumbled.

  “No, Father. They just sent me here with my paperwork and nothing else.”

  “Well, you’re smart. I’m sure you understand it has something to do with the Wrath Liches that rioted, right?” Sam noticed Gretta wince at the mention of the Liches. He thought about how these two would almost certainly have been alive to see the scorching.

  “I supposed they were connected.”

  “Well, we happen to be a potential target for a raid of theirs. They wanted extra muscle.”

  “So they sent me?” Sam asked, dumbfounded. “The church always thought I was too weak-willed for vanguard work.”

  “Well, it’s clear that Nathan wanted you gone,” Gretta chimed in. “But I think it worked in our favor! You know both schools!” She smiled warmly, comforting Sam.

  “What would they be raiding this place for?”

  Pryce straightened in his chair. “I’m sure you have heard of the Halcyon?”

  “Of course!” Sam said with reflexive excitement. She was one of his biggest heroes. The most significant vanguard to work for the Will after Gessel’s First Shield. She was known for donning a massive suit of armor. She carrier a tower shield and a silver blade, and wore a bright blue cape on the back of her armor. She rose to prominence to battle the Avatar of Pestilence and went on to defeat many other monsters and villains, becoming a hero of the Church of the Will.

  “And you know about her enchanted armor? The armor sewn with gold magics so as to empower her beyond anything the Church could otherwise produce?”

  Sam frowned this time. “Enchantments? The Church does not use enchantments. Nothing more than an alarm bell or a Justicar’s Gavel, right?”

  “Well that’s the case now.” Pryce said forebodingly. Gretta grinned as Pryce shifted in his seat. “During the Halcyon’s time, though? We enchanted everything we could.”

  “You see, will is an interesting thing. And way back when, we thought we had a handle on it. We believed that our will to carry out Gessel’s Will would have been strong enough to imbue an item. Or we believed that Gessel’s Will was strong enough to fall onto an item. The details did not really matter, just that we had figured out Blue Magic long before Duskfall did, and we hated ourselves for it.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Because the priests and paladins were no good at it,” Gretta chimed in. “Half-baked stupid contracts. Self flagellations made manifest.”

  “Precisely,” Pryce agreed. “Sacrifice was the name of the game for our enchantments. Huge sacrifices. Ones that a person should not have to bear, especially a woman like the Halcyon.”

  Sam looked down, his imagination searching for what Father Pryce had meant before another question came to mind. “So what does this chapel have to do with the Halcyon? Is her armor here?”

  “Oh, no,” Pryce said, waving the idea away. “That’s locked away beneath The Throne. But the armor was not the crux of the enchantment. The key was a wristguard the Halcyon wore at all times. The Halcyon Band.

  “That, Sam, is what rests beneath this chapel. That is what the Wrath Liches are seeking.”

  “Why here?” was all Sam could think to ask. The question was answered with a long silence. Then Gretta guffawed.

  “That is exactly what I asked when he told me he was harboring a magic bracelet.”

  “It’s not a bracelet,” Pryce retorted. “It’s a wristband.”

  “Sorry,” Gretta said mockingly as she reached for another piece of bread.

  “I can’t believe it. I’m defending the legacy of the Halcyon. From the Church’s greatest threats no less.”

  Pryce gave Sam a warm smile. “There, son. That’s what is worth seeing. Your story is hard, Corporal. Your heart, though, is not.”

  Sam looked with confusion.

  “I mean to say that we all joined the Church for a reason. We all gave up our lives. Our last names because we believed in the Will of Gessel. Because we believed in the hope that civilization will last.

  “And if you were motivated by the heroics of those that came before you, then remember that. The sacrifices you have made are nothing compared to what she has faced.”

  For a moment, Sam looked shamed, but Gretta interrupted.

  “Do not misunderstand him, Sam. Everyone makes sacrifices. And every sacrifice is difficult. And you may never compare one person’s hardships to another’s. All it will do is make everyone really depressed.”

  “Right, right,” Pryce corrected. “I mean that you should just hold on to that motivation. Remember who and what you want to be. Don’t let the Abbots and the Nathan’s bring you down. Don’t let them take away what you want to take from all of this.”

  “I appreciate that,” Sam said, smiling. He was slightly taken aback by how serious the conversation had suddenly gotten.

  “And you can apply that to life outside of the Church, too,” Pryce tacked on.

  “Don’t mind him,” Gretta interjected. “He gets grim when he gets tired. Please, eat some more, Sam.”

  The young paladin, feeling suddenly welcome in this strange place, ate and talked with the elderly owners of the chapel late into the night.