Mordecai watched with interest as the military men dispersed to equidistant positions around the Willow Tree Inn across the street. He wiped the dust from the dirty window of the attic loft where he had been hiding since last night. The business below, in the main part of the building, was a store where general goods were sold.
“Now what is all that about, I wonder,” Mordecai whispered to himself.
“Fascinating isn’t it?” a deep voice asked.
Mordecai whipped around with a dagger in his hand ready to hurl it at the source of the voice. When he saw the unexpected yet familiar face standing before him, he relaxed, if only a little. His pent up tension escaped with a measured sigh. “What are you doing here, Jericho?”
“I usually like to make sure men in my service are fulfilling their duties properly in accordance with my design.” The demon leaned against a bare support beam in the dusty gloom of half-light.
“You’ve nothing to worry about,” Mordecai assured him. “I’ll carry out my part of this, just as I said.”
“Oh, I’m not referring to you, Mordecai.”
The former priest eyed the demon warily and then looked back out the window toward the Willow Tree Inn. “You mean fancy breeches? Who is he anyway? Those colors remind me of old Macedon armor.”
“Very good, Mordecai, I’m almost impressed. As we speak, an emissary from Macedon is baiting my trap.”
“For the boy? How so?” Mordecai asked insistently.
“I never put all my eggs into one basket, Mordecai.”
“I said I would get him and I will.”
“Look at it this way,” Jericho explained, “If you can eliminate the boy, then you’ll find the priests somewhat distracted by the news this emissary is carrying. It can only work in your favor.”
Mordecai grimaced. He was being insulted, but there was nothing he could do about it.
“I trust you have all the equipment you will need?” Jericho said evenly.
“In this very store I’ll find what I need. It will be a simple matter of taking it tonight while everyone is asleep.”
“I want no witnesses, Mordecai, and no evidence of what you’ve taken,” Jericho said. “If someone were to discover mountain climbing gear missing in a theft, then they might suspect something amiss and send word to Isaiah so that he would have his priests watching for the thief.”
“I’m not afraid of the priests,” Mordecai spat. “I trained half of them.”
“Nevertheless, I want no evidence left behind.”
“Not a problem,” Mordecai said.
The demon smiled unconvincingly and then faded into the shadows. Mordecai turned his attention back to the soldiers in the street and the sun now beginning to set upon the western horizon. Soon it would be time to journey into the Thornhill Mountains.
It was well after the midnight hour when Mordecai stirred from his daytime slumber. For the most part, he had been able to ignore the commotion caused by the Royal Emissary from Macedon across the street at Millertown’s Willow Tree Inn. While everyone in town slept, he would get his supplies and set off on his journey to the Temple. No one had seen him enter Millertown and no one would see him leave.
Mordecai stole down the side of the building and forced the lock on the back of the General Goods Store. He crept inside without a sound. Mordecai smiled. He watched the storeowner and his wife as they slept near a wood burning stove. They kept the room very warm this evening as a cold snap had descended upon the Thornhills.
The storeowner, an elderly man of good reputation, slept soundly beside his wife. She was well known for her delicious pies. In fact, people would mention those wonderful pies after her passing-not to mention the awful way in which she and her kindly husband had passed-such a tragedy.
A trail of lamp oil crept across the floor toward several hot coals which had been aided in their escape from the wood stove. The embers glowed red on the floor as the oil slid snake-like toward them. Beyond the spilt lamp oil were a number of powder kegs. Mordecai had shifted their location somewhat in the last ten minutes. It would be said, the old man was foolish to keep his black powder stores in such close proximity to his wood stove. Others would curse the day they placed their own businesses near the General Goods Store, even knowing the sort of volatile agents being sold there.
Mordecai slipped out the door to lay hold on the horse he had stolen along with the gear he had stolen from the store. The assassin-priest rode at a hard gallop, escaping Millertown completely by the time the flames bloomed from the lamp oil stain and leaped across the room to the black powder kegs. The General Goods Store blew apart in every direction at once, sending fiery debris onto the neighboring businesses located in the middle of town.
The explosion shook everyone staying at the Willow Tree Inn from their beds. The thunderous shockwave shattered every window in the Inn. The volunteer fire department of Millertown would later record it as the worst disaster they had ever faced in their eighty-year history. Moreover, the storage and sale of black powder would be prohibited in the Millertown for years to come.
The least realized effect, but perhaps the most important to the nefarious schemer who had caused the deed, was that no one knew a theft of mountain climbing equipment had taken place-equipment necessary for a deadly assassin to gain access to the Temple of Shaddai without its priests noticing. Mordecai ascended into the Thornhill Mountains. He still had a prophesied Deliverer to kill.