Some minutes later, southwest of the city centre…238Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpSLli3KMhx
Five soldiers gathered around the side door leading into the church and made ready their rifles. The lieutenant slowly unsheathed his sword and held it beside his face as he leaned his ear against the door, but he heard no noise come from within. Just as his translator had said before, the church had been undergoing renovations ever since the beginning of the war, and the people would never come pray lest they sow suspicion. Arminius leaned away and held the tip of his sword against the door, reaching out his hand to shake its handle. It was locked. His breath steadied, thinking that he was worrying too much about nothing, and he told himself not to hesitate any longer. He kicked open the door into the sanctuary, where he and his soldiers rushed in like water. On high alert, they spread themselves out in the vast hall, covering every corner and cover that they could see and find, checking their flanks and rushing into every room there was, searching for even the slightest signs of the enemy. As his squadron performed the search, Arminius marched deeper into the church, hoping to find some clues in the main hall, but as he looked around, he could not help but admire the dedication that the artists and architects had put into designing the interior of this holy ground.
Classical architecture imitated millennium-old styles, shone upon by the light of a setting sun illuminating parts of the roof painted with an interpretation of an ancient story. As if the gods were watching over him, perhaps in image alone, his soul felt serene being there, warmed by the colours of stained glass panes which were still being fitted, but its scaffolds had long been abandoned, and some poles had collapsed. For years, this church had stayed this way: unfinished, incomplete, and empty. There was not an idol nor a candlestick. However, in the time it has been abandoned, the fiends of hell may have already called that place home.
Moving closer to the altar, his allies’ and his own footsteps resonated on the whitish stone that imitated marble. Holy as the sound may have echoed, there was an ominous truth waiting for them. The recruits reappeared from their search, shaking their heads, having found nothing, and were recalled to the lieutenant’s side. They ascended the few steps towards the altar, which had a door behind it, but knowing where it led, they prepared for combat as if they were holding in their last breath. Arminius approached it courageously, and from cover, he opened the door, his squad’s rifles aiming at the entrance. When it swung aside, nothing came out to scare them, except a stairwell leading up into the heavens. Arminius gestured for one of his volunteers to take the lead, and although he was easily frightened by the darkness of the stairwell, he advanced on behalf of his comrades with the lieutenant following closely behind him.
Cautiously, they snaked up the tower, listening for any movement above them. The light from the slits in the walls brightened their journey the higher they went until they were dozens of paces high in the air, from where the rooftops of the city could be seen. The hike was winding, but before long, having endured the silent and tiresome ascent, the squad approached the summit, where another door stood in their path as if it was a sign from the gods. But this one had been half-opened. The last man to arrive patted his comrade’s shoulder, and his signal was conveyed to the scout in the vanguard. With a gulp and a hurried heart, he advanced by pushing the door wide open and taking a step forward. Together, they charged onto the floor where the tower’s watch was supposed to be, and as feared, their remains were all that was left.
Their throats had been slit and their backs had been stabbed, with some whose hearts had been pierced from their flanks. One was slumped by the door, and another was on the floor, his face buried. A third lay facing the door, having attempted to flee, whose eyes were wide with shock. Whoever dealt these killing blows was a clean killer whose victims appeared as if they had been gently put to sleep. There were no blood stains on the floor nor on the walls, except for the patch that had seeped out of their wounds. This was the work of an assassin, but they were more than that.
Crouching beside one of the corpses, an unafraid volunteer analysed their wounds and faces. “Das reskængen wil arbæded sdundne inged. (Looks like they’ve been dead for hours.)” The recruit assessed the situation by poking their sunken skin.
Skin blue, their bodies cold, the blood on them had partially frozen. Disgusted by how he was able to get so close to the dead, his comrade reeled back, his hand placed over his mouth as he gagged, disturbed, unlike the youngest recruit, whose first time seeing a corpse or three hardly reacted. He was perfectly still, trying to endure his thoughts, when he noticed how the lieutenant’s expression went unchanged. If only he had seen the sights Arminius had witnessed, which were a thousandfold worse, he would not have questioned his reaction.
Scanning the scene around him, Arminius attempted to recreate the scenario of what might have happened in his mind, and he arrived at a conclusion that the dead had been surprised by the attack even when the assassin was already in their midst. Their rifles were still slung on their backs, and only one’s knife had been unsheathed. Oddly, nothing had been looted from their bodies, not even their ammunition, but just as when he deemed that there was nothing that appeared particularly suspicious, he caught sight of a glint of a metal piece on the floor. Arminius moved closer to it and knelt down, discovering that it was a single brass casing. He curiously picked it up and found that it was still warm, but the round the assassin used was unlike any he had seen before.
Turning to his translator, he held up the irregularly large shell. “Have any of you ever seen this kind of round before?” Arminius asked them.
Having snapped out of his stupor, the recruit repeated the question for his comrades, and they gathered around the lieutenant, taking the casing from his hands. It was passed around the squad, but even the ones better-versed in weaponry shook their heads.
The last soldier to see it returned the casing to the lieutenant. “Nej, dad jeg kannej erinner rænneren. (No, not that I can remember.)” Rubbing the back of his head, the recruit said. “Aben jeg denken et musses en Konfœd’isk. (But I reckon it must be a Confederate’s.)” The recruit concluded what they should have already known.
They muttered among themselves in Danner, wondering how a soldier of the Confederacy could have been deployed in the heart of their kingdom without having spread rumours. But they understood that the matter must be kept quiet. For a city as heavily guarded and for an enemy to have performed an assassination in the royal capital, word would spread like wildfire and harm the army’s morale. However, even if they wished to hunt down this marksman, they found no clues or trace. It was like the work of a ghost that disappeared into the wind.
As Arminius stared at the casing, thinking what other sources of evidence the killer might have forgotten to erase, he was disturbed by the sharp crackling sound that had haunted him since that afternoon. A second gunshot had rung out, echoing through the skies. Everyone was startled. He stood up, baffled, as the recruits rushed to the tower’s edge, looking out in the direction of where the gunfire had come from. Although the sound seemed distant, it was still within walking distance. What troubled him most was that the rifle which fired that shot sounded exactly like the one that had killed the mayor, and he feared it might have claimed another life.238Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡc4iz5AwiOC
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