It had only taken another hour to get Grimwald's hybrid army to the archway which led into the main Temple courtyard. Normally, Gideon would have expected a number of guard patrols to intercept intruders before they got this far. And he already understood what it meant that they had not.
The priests of Shaddai were preparing to face an army-one they knew was coming. This was why they had sent out the lion pride. This was why no guards had been waiting for them along the way-why no audible alarm had been sounded. A battle was going to take place, perhaps in moments and everyone involved knew it.
Gideon felt sweat evaporating upon his brow in the cool breeze which now reached them. As he and General Grimwald rode to a stop under the great stone archway, they surveyed the vast, empty training ground of The Order of Shaddai. Normally, priests by the hundreds would have been assembled in small groups, sparring with one another, training with bows or practicing sword techniques. But nothing at all moved.
His eyes darted across the expanse, but he could not locate one single priest. Gideon hoped that the priests had evacuated, but he couldn't make himself believe it. The priests of Shaddai did not run away from a fight. He supposed some would have certainly escaped with the parchment scrolls so precious to their Order; however, the majority would be waiting inside, somewhere, ready to strike.
Grimwald looked over at Gideon, a smirk on his face. He looked almost victorious. "I would have expected more from warriors of your caliber, Gideon," Grimwald said.
Gideon looked at him in disbelief as the General turned back to the hybrid army lined up behind them. "It appears the priests have taken advantage of our delay back in the forest and ran. Nevertheless, I want a thorough search of this entire complex. Any parchments are to be brought to the center of the courtyard. If you locate any stragglers, I want them brought to me alive." He turned back to Gideon. "We can find out where they've all gone, one way or another." Grimwald rode forward beneath the arch into the courtyard.
Gideon stared at the man as he confidently led his hybrids beneath the arch into the Temple. "Oh, I already know where they are," he muttered. Demon hybrids backed up behind Gideon's horse. "Get moving, priest. Don't think you're going to hang back and get away."
Gideon regarded the hideous features on the demonic face and then turned in his saddle. He rode on after Grimwald and his army as they began to fan out in the courtyard. As they passed several training stations on his right, Gideon noticed that all of the weapons were missing-in this case bows and arrows. Another station had an empty wooden barrel, which he remembered usually had been filled with swords.
Gideon's eyes ran across the courtyard, then beyond to the first sets of stairs leading upward into the higher levels of the Temple. He searched the terraces and walkways running through the rock face of the chasm. There was not a soul visible, but that didn't mean they weren't there.
He suddenly realized what was about to happen-what plan of action the priests would execute. He reached for the heavy shield attached on the right side of his stallion's saddle. Gideon turned around as the horse continued steadily forward with the flow of traffic.
All of Grimwald's army was now inside the courtyard-beginning to fan out toward the lower level archways on all sides of the field and the great stone staircases in order to access all of the higher levels of the complex. Gideon realized now would have been the time to-
Arrows fell out of the sky like rain, sinking into the flesh of hybrids all around him. Gideon barely managed to raise the shield above his head before several trembling shafts sank into the black leather bound to steel on the front side. Howls of anger and pain rose up from the army of hybrids as war cries echoed out from the terraces and walkways above the courtyard, on every side.
Gideon saw his fellow priests rise from behind the stone walls with bows-more than a hundred in all. Arrow shafts flew from quivers to bowstrings with dizzying speed as they continued the onslaught upon the hybrid army below them. Several arrows pierced his stallion, sending the animal into a wild panic. Gideon pulled his sword from its sheath on the saddle and leaped away with his shield as the horse tore through the crowd in terror. It plowed through hybrid soldiers before being cut down by the ever-falling hail of arrows.
The entire host of Grimwald's army had now scattered in search of cover. Gideon ran among them, dodging here and there, bumping into demon soldiers, many of which had several arrows sticking out of their bodies like pincushions. Still, these otherworldly soldiers carried on, defiant of death despite what their mortal bodies cried out for.
Gideon had no idea what had happened to General Grimwald in the ensuing chaos down on the training grounds. It was every man, or hybrid, for himself now and the majority was running for cover to the arched tunnels on all sides. But as they grew near, more cries resounded from the darkened archways which led back into the rock.
Heavily armed priests streamed out onto the courtyard toward the fleeing hybrids. Gideon saw them and immediately spotted their first mistake. In the priests' attempt to keep the hybrids on the field under fire from their archers above, they had now mingled themselves with the targets. Just as he suspected, the hail of arrows ceased as the priests on the bottom level clashed with the first of the hybrids.
The demon possessed men with their greater strength had not been cut down in number nearly as much as was necessary for this company of priests to take them. The jutting arrows from their wounds only seemed to spur them on in fury. They hit the line of priests like a tidal wave and quickly smashed through their line. Now the priests were surrounded, mingled among the demons. With their otherworldly speed and strength they cut down many of the priests very quickly.
How many, Gideon wondered? How many of these warriors were still in training as apprentices. Their first battle, utilizing half learned techniques, would be their last. Gideon tried to stay out of the fighting with the priests, but several times he had to defend himself from sword attack. He never struck back at the priests trying to kill him, but they still didn't last long with so many demon hybrids on the field.
Gideon noticed that the archers, unable to continue the fight from the protection of the stone terraces, had come down to entangle themselves in the struggle raging on the courtyard. He saw some of the brutes from Grimwald's army falling, but not as many as he would have hoped. How he longed, right now, to join his fellow priests and strike down these abominable creatures, but the threat against his infant son remained foremost in his mind.
How long had the fighting been going on? To Gideon it already seemed like an eternity. So many men lay dead on the field now. In comparison, relatively few of Grimwald's hybrids had fallen. Already, the brutes were pushing upward along the stairs, out onto the terraces, where they encountered more priests trying to make meager defenses. They only managed to cut down one or two before being overcome by the horde.
Despair gripped Gideon's heart. He had lived in this place almost all of his life. So many happy memories stemmed from his time within these very walls. Now his betrayal was complete. He had led this army here and wrought the total destruction of his friends and fellows. But still his instinct to preserve the life of Sarah's child burned within him. What else could he do, but watch and wait for it to all be over?
Something caught his attention then, as the battle seemed to wane-the last resistance to the demon hybrids already near failure. A man was running with a torch-one of the priests-half of his robes covered in blood running down from cuts to his face and head. He passed some of the brutes who took up a lumbering pursuit.
Gideon realized what was about to happen. He glanced upward at the rock wall encircling them all, reaching nearly a thousand feet into the air. He tore away from the courtyard as fast as he could manage. Already, the man passed beneath one of the archways on the lowest level with a dozen hybrids on his heels.
Gideon raced toward the closest archway he could find-to the only cover that would be available in a moment. Behind him, where the chase had ended, an explosion rocked the entire complex. A billowing jut of flame erupted from the tunnel where, only moments before, the torchbearer had entered. Nearly every living creature in the complex turned to see what was happening-everyone but Gideon. He already knew.
For years now, a plan had been in place at the Temple of Shaddai here in the Thornhill Mountains. Should the Temple complex ever be breached, as unthinkable as it was, then the entire thing would be destroyed so completely that no one would dare attempt such a thing on a Temple again. In such an event, the complex would become a deathtrap for whatever invading army had managed to break inside.
Isaiah, the High Priest, had once shown Gideon a portion of the network of high explosives which could be lit by torch if needed. And only a select few priests had any knowledge of the bomb. Gideon had been amazed by the ingenuity of it all. Isaiah had told him about a network of secret tunnels winding throughout the Temple complex, tunnels which had long ago been packed with gunpowder-tons of it. The High Priest had told him, "If an army, we cannot repel, ever takes the Temple, our last act will bring down the entire mountain."
How prophetic those words had become as Gideon sprinted across the bloodstained grass, hoping to reach the archway just ahead, a passage that, if he remembered correctly, just might lead him out of this conflagration. Behind Gideon, fire and thunder traveled in the blink of an eye from the bottom of the chasm to the uttermost reaches still hidden within the clouds. The entire tubular face of the chasm fragmented as jagged red lines of fire cut through the rock, scattering it for gravity to wrench it down, down on top of the waiting army of demonic hybrids searching frantically below for some place to hide.
The entire mountain shook like the world coming to an end. Massive chunks of rock rained down, in place of the arrows the demons had only been annoyed with before, to dash them in pieces. Gideon strained to reach the tunnel ahead as fragments of rock peppered him from above. He winced against the smaller stones embedding beneath his skin, white hot. He screamed and channeled the pain into a last burst of energy that shot him down the tunnel as the entire chasm wall came down into the training grounds behind him. The light which had filtered through the arch into the tunnel, a moment ago, snuffed out into darkness.