3.

The Return To Bastion's Keep

"Of all the run-down, unwanted ruined fortresses in Sanctuary, he had to pick this one," Lyndon grumbled as Vrom's wagon trundled down the icy road in the middle of a heavy snowstorm. Ahead, the outline of Bastion's Keep rose out up from the landscape. The fortress had definitely seen better days, and the wounds left by Azmodan's siege not that many moons ago were still visible on the crumbling walls.

Lyndon continued his whinging with something along the lines of "Oh by Akarat, not this bloody damned place again." Vrom, pulling his cloak close around him, heartily agreed in his mind, even as Kormac rebuked the scoundrel for complaining.

"I have every right to complain! So far the only reward that seems to be coming from being good and saving the world once is being asked to save it again. You'd think someone else could be bothered to take a turn or something. Especially with such foul weather!" The fat flakes of snow swirling down around them only added to the misery of the situation.

The templar was unsympathetic. "You could have gone on your way if it bothered you that much!" Kormac snapped at the scoundrel.

Lyndon followed up with some snarky reply, but Vrom wasn't listening. A cold chill had suddenly settled upon him, and one that had nothing to do with the tundric weather around them.

''Is everything all right?" Eirena, sensitive as ever, asked him with concern. But her voice seemed to be coming from far away as he focused, straining his ears to sift through the layers of sound, to ignore the sharp whistle of icy wind over snow, the squabbling of the two men behind him—

—and heard over all that sound, the cries of men, and chitters of creatures inhuman.

He was off and racing across the snow even before Kormac and Lyndon even realised he had thrown down the reins. Kormac only realised that he was gone because Eirena had jumped off the passenger side of the wagon and in pursuit of him.

"Vrom, you'll get lost in the snowstorm— Oh!"

He knew she'd heard the same sounds he had now. Even if she couldn't, she could certainly see the flashing green lights through the curtain of falling snowflakes ahead.

The snow crunched beneath his heels and just ahead, Vrom could see corpses lying in the snow. Most were human, clad in the regalia of the Iron Wolves of Caldeum, and were still smoking with green fire, but a couple of them were—

"Greys!" he hissed, as another hail of green fire raked the air. The attacker, a spindly little Fallen-like creature, whirled around on detecting his entrance.

It ceased casting the bolts of green fire, probably intending to switch targets, but before it could resume casting, a tall, swarthy man sprang forward from the rock he had been hiding behind. With savage fury he speared the creature with a single thrust of his weapon: a long halberd. But there was not a moment to rejoice in his victory, for Vrom noticed movement somewhere in the snow behind him and instinctively threw his dagger, neatly catching another Grey in the throat before it could summon its bolts of green fire.

He turned to see Eirena cast an arcane bolt at another hidden Grey. The pale skin of the Fallen-like creature blended well in the snow, but after its body had been charred by the energy of Eirena's magic, not so much.

Finally, there was silence.

"That appears to be the last of them. It is over," said the surviving Iron Wolf, panting as he did so. "I thank you for your aid, honoured Nephalem."

"What is an Iron Wolf doing so far away from Caldeum?" asked Vrom, looking rather uncomfortable at the soldier's deep bow and awed gaze.

"My name is Deltan, the second of that name. A group of my brethren travelled here from Caldeum at the behest of Commander Asheara and His Majesty Hakan. We came to aid Tyrael's Excommunication effort but we were waylaid before we could reach the fortress. Alas for my friends, they did not survive."

"I wish we had been here sooner," Eirena looked sad as she surveyed the fallen. "Oh, but you are injured!"

Deltan attempted to make light of the injury he had received during the fight, but Vrom was having none of it. "This is not the time for false valour, Deltan. The green fire burns will worsen once the rush of battle is gone. We have a templar with us. Kormac's healing abilities are limited, but he should be able to tend to your wounds."

On his instruction Eirena led Deltan back to where the wagon and the other two were waiting. When Vrom was sure that they were out of sight, he proceeded with the unpleasant task of taking care of the corpses. He started by removing what personal artifacts he could find on what was left of the slain Iron Wolves before setting the bodies aside. There would be no time to bury them, but a pyre would suffice.

As for the demons, they were of considerably more interest to him.

"More of the same Grey Fallen as the camp attacks," he murmured to himself.

When it came to Fallen, Vrom had slain countless numbers and varieties of the demons. But despite the superficial similarities, the grandmaster demon hunter wasn't even sure if the creatures they'd dubbed as 'Greys' were Fallen. Besides having grossly oversized eyes for Fallen, they lacked horns and tufted ears, and their colouring was an unusual pale grey. They still made annoying chittering sounds and were just as spindly and cowardly as the breed of demons he was used to, so he mentally classified them as Fallen anyway.

There was one rather notable thing about these new Fallen however. Unlike the traditional Fallen, none of them preferred melee combat and had all managed to arm themselves with odd-shaped wands that could cast bursts of green fire at their enemies. The destructive power of the green magic and the rate of fire had been quite impressive. Vrom would have put it at the level of what his comrade, the Xiansai mage Li Ming, had been capable of. And given that Li Ming was the only one out of their group of Nephalem whose magic could rival his explosives in sheer destructiveness, that was saying something.

He thought of the rows of graves back in the demon hunter camps in the Dreadlands and frowned. As foes, the Greys were a joke. They were weak, cowardly, and physically unimposing. Their weapons, on the other hand, were not, and there had been far too many casualties. Even with all the skill and training his fellow hunters had, their numbers were only in the hundreds and in the face of the sudden invasion, their ranks were dwindling.

The spectre of losing the war crossed his mind. He pushed it away and began gathering what fragments remained of the Greys' weapons. Perhaps with careful study, they would yield their secrets to him.

"So... Tyrael did say 'Bastion's Keep' right?"

Lyndon's complaint was for once, with merit. The ruined fortress looked deserted and utterly devoid of life.

Kormac looked up from where he had been tending to Deltan's wounds. "We can't all have heard it wrong. But odd... no one seems to be around."

"You truly think so?" It was then when the three men noticed Vrom had his hand on his weapons all this while. So had Eirena.

Eirena turned to Vrom. "They have been watching us for a while now. I sense no ill intent."

"I would hope not, for their sake," Vrom replied. The demon hunter then turned to the ruins and called out: "Well, aren't you all going to greet us?"

For a moment it seemed that Vrom was being his usual eccentric self, then several men who had been hiding in the shadows of the ruins stepped into the open. All were armed, but their weapons remained at their sides. The spear and crossbow were in Kormac and Lyndon's hands almost instantly.

"Peace. We are friendlies." The leader of the sentinels stepped forward and saluted. "I apologise for not coming forward earlier. We had to check to make sure you really were who we were expecting."

"So you are the men Tyrael sent to aid the cause?"

"Yes, and welcome back to Bastion's Keep, sir. It is an honour to meet one of the Nephalem." The man smiled and gestured at himself. "I am Sir Bradford of the Westmarch Central Guard. Captain Haile spoke very highly of you and of your valour during Azmodan's siege, and he sent me to aid you in your quest."

Vrom gave the man a once over. The man didn't look that much older than himself: fair complexion as typical of those from Westmarch, close-cropped brown hair, no helm. To protect against the cold he wore a green woolen coat over his chainmail, and a short sword hung by his side. Vrom had the impression the thing wasn't just for show, and that the man did know how to use it.

"Well met, Sir Bradford. Is Captain Haile here?"

"I'm afraid not, sir, but he sent us in his place. My men and I were the first to arrive, followed by the Xiansai contingent. We've been hard at work trying to get Bastion's Keep back into some semblance of order. It has not been an easy task, but it will have to be one we undertake."

"And you've actually started on the undertaking, right?" Lydon sniffed somewhat dubiously. "Because the damn place still looks like a ruin to me."

Indeed, Bastion's Keep looked every bit as ruined and abandoned as it had on the day Vrom had left it and the survivors had moved out.

"It does not look like much at the moment," Kormac admitted, grudgingly agreeing with his hated rival. "But I'm sure we can—"

Sir Bradford held up a hand to silence them. "What you're looking at isn't the New Bastions Keep. We had a change of plans— follow me." He led them into the heart of the ruins. Under normal circumstances Vrom would have been wary of a trap, especially as his instincts told him that despite the look of desolation, something was not quite right.

"This is an impressive illusion," Eirena spoke up. Her cheeks were flushed with the cold, but her blue eyes sparkled as she took in their surroundings. "It is very subtle, you would think nothing living had visited here if you were not sensitive to the traces of magic that still linger."

"Illusion?" asked Vrom, raising an eyebrow.

Sir Bradford smiled. "The Xiansai contingent had some impressive ideas about how to conceal our new base of operations. Don't worry about your wagon, sir, I'll see that it gets moved into the base. Please step this way. Yes, just here." They were now standing in what looked like the main courtyard of the keep. Then Sir Bradford took out his sword and tapped at one of the flagstones beneath his feet.

The floor gave way beneath them. To be accurate, the whole floor of the courtyard sunk into the earth, much to the astonishment of the gathered travelers.

"Our new base of operations is underground?" Vrom was mildly impressed. "And you built all this in such a short amount of time?"

"Yes, our enemies can't attack us if they don't know where we are."

Before long the sky was but a round disc of light far above them, and growing smaller and smaller every second as they descended into the bowels of the earth. The platform, which moved smoothly and noiselessly, didn't seem to be operated by ropes and pulleys. Vrom found its construction fascinating. "How does this thing work?"

"I'm not sure how it works, but it manages to provide a concealed entrance to our new base," Sir Bradford confided. "That mad genius Shen calls it an 'access shaft'."

"Shen? Covetous Shen is here?" Vrom remembered the eccentric jeweler well, but he last he had heard, the old man had gone back with Li Ming to Xiansai. Small world indeed.

"I'm not sure of the old man's first name actually. Everyone just calls him Shen," Bradford admitted. "That's odd, he's never mentioned meeting the Nephalem before."

The platform finally came to a stop and Vrom could see they were in a massive underground cavern, which had been converted into a keep, complete with everything that could be expected of such a place. Bradford pointed out the passages leading to the barracks, armory and infirmary, the last of which Deltan was promptly sent to.

The crown jewel of the base however, turned out to be something Vrom hadn't expected. "... that's where Shen plans to build the foundry and and this... this is the War Room." Sir Bradford had obviously been saving the best for last, and couldn't suppress the look of pride as he ushered them into a large, high-ceilinged chamber.

'The War Room', was an interesting deviation from what Vrom had been used to when Tyrael had been the one commanding the defense of Bastion's Keep. Back then it had been a makeshift thing, a room filled with frantic men, dispatches, and maps lining the wall. This room however, while similarly filled with bustling men, had clearly been made with the singular purpose of coordinating a war effort in mind.

"This is rather impressive..." Vrom admitted, looking up at a glowing blue illusion image of a globe in the center of the room. Careful inspection revealed that it was being projected from a miniature version of the globe in the space below it. The glowing crustal ball was projecting an entire model of the world, with the maps of the Sanctuary painstakingly integrated upon its surface. Here and there there were glowing red spots. Vrom noticed a particularly large one smack in the center of the Dreadlands, where the demon hunter camps were.

"I never knew the world of Sanctuary was round," Kormac uttered in awe behind him.

"The mages from Xiansai came up with this. This globe represents the state of Sanctuary, and the mages manipulate the globe to show the areas that have been suffering attacks from these invaders."

"So, what do you all do here, exactly?" Lyndon asked. "You know, besides making pretty models of the world and all?"

A flash of irritation passed Bradford's eyes, but anxious to impress the Nephalem, he concealed it. "The globe helps us coordinate our war efforts, and we send aid to where we can as we receive it.

"As for me, my duties here are twofold - I provide strategic support for our warriors in the battlefield, and I endeavor to keep our commander briefed on the latest news, enemy movements and other issues of import. It is my hope that my efforts will allow you to focus on the greater task at hand, Nephalem, sir," he added, turning to Vrom.

"Vrom is fine, Bradford. "

"Yes, Commander Vrom. Speaking of which, Shen of the Xiansai contingent mentioned he had some message of some import. He is awaiting you in the armory. I should let you attend to the matter."

Vrom was weary after his long journey, and there was nothing he would have liked as much as to find somewhere to slip into oblivion for a few hours, but the looks the people were shooting at him put an end to that thought. They were all looking up to him, as if he was some kind of legend, putting their hopes for salvation in his hands and expecting him to save them. He couldn't fail them now.

Just when had he become a saviour, anyway?

He reflected that when he had started on his path as a demon hunter, he'd been a grieving boy who had wanted vengeance for the death of his family. Grandmaster Josen had found him, trained him, turned him into a living weapon. And he'd been content to be a weapon, slaking his thirst for revenge with rivers of demon blood. His plans for the rest of his life had been simple: he'd kill every damn demon that crossed his path, and then one day he'd finally fall in battle and and die alone. A very uncomplicated fate he had accepted for himself.

But this project, this war effort that Tyrael had assigned him to lead, was anything but that. Being a leader of men did not come naturally to him.

Not for the first time Vrom wondered what he was doing there.

End of Chapter 3