Warrior-priests ran out onto the training grounds with lanterns and weapons, trying to locate Ethan and the assassin. Sparks, from the two blades in combat, led the way as the priests and their lanterns began to light the training-field-turned-battlefield. Mordecai tried his best to get past the young man’s defense, but Ethan’s skill was simply too much to overcome head to head.
Several times, Mordecai made clear strikes past Ethan’s weapon only to meet thin air as the boy realm shifted out of the physical, changed position, and then came back at him. Mordecai’s surprise tactical advantage was gone. The priests of Shaddai ran upon him. Ethan backed away from the fight as the others tried to get around the assassin.
Mordecai stood exposed. Several arrow shafts launched from the crowd. But Mordecai struck them down with deft movements of his weapon or dodged them entirely. The time had come to change his plan. The boy was no longer a feasible goal. I can still hurt The Order though, he thought.
Mordecai charged, flanking of the crowd where the number of priests was fewer. Several tried to intercept him, but he cut them down quickly and charged back toward the edge of the training field. The crowd ran after him with Ethan following.
As Mordecai reached the first set of stairs, leading up toward the second level, he encountered more priests coming down, but they were unsure what was happening. He used surprise to his advantage and struck them down before they realized the situation. He charged upward again.
As he ascended to higher and higher levels, Mordecai encountered less and less resistance. The priests had taken other routes toward the lower levels already, but one man in particular would stay near his quarters. Mordecai pushed his aching legs onward and upward until he reached the seventh level. When he charged onto the landing, he saw the older man standing near the end of the walkway, looking over the stone railing, trying to ascertain the situation.
Mordecai sneered at the High Priest and charged at him like a rabid animal. Isaiah readied himself as the assassin in black rushed toward him. He had no weapon in his hand.
Isaiah let the first strike glide diagonally above his right shoulder. The cutting of the air whistled in his ear. He stepped inside Mordecai’s line of attack-his arms entangling the man’s movements so a second strike became impossible. Isaiah sent several rigid fingers under Mordecai’s ribcage striking his liver, then hammered the man’s right ear with an open palm as solid as a board.
Mordecai staggered backwards, allowing Isaiah to whip one fist out between his arms and knock the sword free. It clattered to the stone floor. Mordecai quickly recuperated and leaped at the High Priest. “I’ll kill you, old man!”
“Mordecai?” Isaiah realized. “I should have known. Only you would have the audacity to try and attack the Temple.”
The crowd quickly stormed up the staircases, trying to find the assassin. Mordecai launched a vicious round of kicks and punches at Isaiah. For a moment, the High Priest met them. But Mordecai soon overwhelmed him with youthful vitality.
He smashed Isaiah in the chest, complicating his already labored breathing. The elderly High Priest staggered back, but Mordecai pursued him, landing several severe blows to his head. Isaiah fell to the stone floor as Mordecai picked up his sword and prepared to deliver the deathblow.
Multiplied air-whistles warned him in time to turn and deflect Gideon’s sword whirling toward him from twenty feet away. Mordecai smiled at his nemesis. “You should never throw away your weapon so foolishly, Gideon!” He charged at the priest who had nearly killed him months before, revenge boiling in his eyes.
“I didn’t,” Gideon said. He pulled a cocked pistol from his robe and fired. The blast caught Mordecai unexpected in the sternum. He buckled to his knees, dropped his sword, blinked once in astonishment, then fell forward dead.
Gideon ran to Isaiah’s side as many more of the priests reached the seventh level and charged down the walkway. “Are you all right?” Gideon asked.
“I never would have thought to see the day when you would use such a crude weapon,” Isaiah said as Gideon helped him to his feet.
Gideon looked at Mordecai lying in a pool of blood on the stone walkway. “I’m starting to gain a new appreciation for them.”
ETHAN MUST GO
After all was said and done, Mordecai had taken the lives of four priests with one wounded severely and one burned across parts of his chest and neck. But the Deliverer was alive along with the High Priest of The Order of Shaddai. “I never thought something like this could happen,” Isaiah said. He stood, leaning on the walkway railing outside of his residence.
The lamps made the courtyard look like firefly season. The entire order had awakened. They conducted a full search of the Temple grounds for any other intruders who might have come in with Mordecai. So far, no one else had been found.
“Mordecai was impeccably trained, Isaiah,” Gideon said. Ethan stood next to his mentor, watching the lantern lights spread out across the courtyard, up onto every level of the complex. “If anyone could have gotten inside the Temple, it would have been Mordecai.”
Isaiah dabbed a facial cut with a damp cloth. “I dreamed this was happening moments before it came to pass. And the vision wasn’t just about Mordecai. I saw demons surging against the Temple and angelic guardians defending us, even pushing the hordes away. But Mordecai got through.”
Gideon scratched his chin. “It’s curious. I wonder how Mordecai could get through and not the demons?”
“Maybe the demons kept the angels occupied in battle while he got through,” Ethan suggested.
Isaiah brightened. “A diversion! Very clever, young man. Gideon, I suspect Ethan may be correct, but that worries me even more.”
“Why?”
“Because this means they know the Deliverer is here at the Temple. He will be Mordred’s primary focus and that means the enemy will stop at nothing to penetrate our defenses in order to get him.”
“What should we do, Master?” Gideon asked.
“I am beginning to think you were right when you suggested taking Ethan to Macedon. He cannot remain here forever if the prophecy is to come true. And this place may have become more dangerous than any other, now that they know where he is.”
Gideon pushed his advantage. “So we can take the Word to Macedon?”
“There seems to be little choice in the matter at this point,” Isaiah admitted. “Despite the dangers of such a mission and my desire to have your apprentice train longer here at the Temple, I’m afraid Ethan must go.”
They came to a place in the Temple where Ethan had never been before. Two of The Order’s most proficient warrior-priests guarded the entrance to the tunnel entrance. They nodded as Isaiah walked into the tunnel past them with Ethan and Gideon in tow.
The tunnel, lit on either side by lanterns, began a winding descent below ground. The distance was not far, but when they reached the bottom, another pair of guards waited to examine them before Isaiah and his company could go further. The chamber where the tunnel terminated was small with a freight elevator opening up on the right side. “How does that work?” Ethan asked.
“The elevator is powered by a water wheel which intersects with an underground tributary of the river,” Isaiah said. “When we want to transport a copy of the Word to the exit tunnel at the top of the chasm we engage the wheel with a special gear, which is attached to a pulley for the elevator. And if we want to bring it down, gravity is the driving force.”
Ahead of them, a massive door stood on the far wall. It took up almost all of the space on the wall. “This is where we will enter the Hall of Scribes,” Isaiah announced.
