One of the limbs lying closest to him was recognizable by the jagged, half-healed bite marks along the forearm: Farnham, the drunken father of three who had emerged from the catacombs a ruin of his former self.
Deckard Cain’s beloved home was gone forever.
The old man screamed, shaking the bars, his voice ragged. The horrible, crushing weight of his sins was too much. He could not live any longer with the knowledge that Aidan was lost, consumed by the spirit of the evil that he had fought against. This slaughter could have been avoided, if only Cain had been the man his mother had always wished him to be. Was this penance for his earlier transgressions? Had he brought this upon them all? He couldn’t bear the thought.
“Come back for me, you filthy, murdering cowards! Come do your dirty work! I am WAITING!”
As if in answer, something moved from the shadows behind the smoking rubble of the old pub.
A man lurched into sight, dragging his right leg. He stopped, cocked his head as if listening, then lurched forward again, directly toward the square where Cain had been hung inside his iron cage and left to die.
It was Griswold, the town blacksmith. But something was wrong with him. Cain’s faint hope and shout of recognition died on his lips; the man’s eyes were wild, barren, and soulless, his mouth twisted in a snarl, his bloody hands up and clutching at the air. His body was bloated and pale, the color of the dead.
Griswold came nearer. He stopped below the cage, staring up with hunger on his face, his mouth working like a man looking at his last meal. He moaned, a sound like a wind through an empty, echoing crypt.
“No, Griswold,” Cain whispered. He shrank back from the bars, shaking his head. “Not you, too . . .”
As the cursed creature reached out for the rope to shake the cage free, an arrow thudded into his left shoulder. Griswold howled and tore it away. Black blood bubbled up from the wound and oozed down his arm, and he shook like a wet dog, sending splatters in all directions.
Another arrow whistled through the air, narrowly missing his head. The creature looked around and then lumbered off, still screeching in pain and anger.
Cain returned to the bars. A tall, beautiful woman in full amazonian dress emerged from the cover of the scorched trees, glanced around her, and then approached the cage, slinging her bow back over her shoulder. She wore a golden helmet and armor.
She released the rope holding the cage aloft, then caught its end and lowered Cain gently to the ground. He tumbled into the blood-soaked mud, his fingers clutching the ground, his limbs trembling with release.
I am free, he thought, and I am saved. But for what?
When he looked up, several others had emerged from the trees: among them a necromancer, barbarian, sorceress, and paladin. They crossed the open space to stand next to the amazon, forming a half circle around him. He gathered himself and tried to regain his feet, but could not. The amazon took his arm and helped him up, where he stood with legs planted and shaking with effort.
“I . . . am Deckard Cain,” he said, with the last of his strength. “The only survivor of this cursed place. I am in your debt.”
“We have fought through hell itself to get here,” the paladin said. “Spared by the grace of the Light. We are ready to fight on. But we need your guidance.”
Cain’s knees buckled, but the amazon caught his arm. Emotions swirled like a storm within him: thoughts of all who had died here and all who would perish in the days to come. For surely, this scourge of Hell was not over but only just beginning, and now it would spread across the lands, infecting everything in its path.
Unless they could find a way to stop it.
“The Dark Wanderer,” Cain whispered, the cursed name springing to his lips almost unbidden: he could not use the man’s name, not anymore. The Aidan he knew was gone. “He has the demon inside him, and he is trying to release Mephisto and Baal from their imprisonment. We must find him before it is too late.”
A scream echoed across the valley, high and shrill, and as it faded away into silence, a deeper, more menacing sound like the thunder of many feet brought chills to Deckard Cain’s spine. It was not the sound of men, nor anything the others could hear.
It was the sound of death, coming to march upon them all.
Cain awoke to a hand shaking his shoulder. Mikulov stood over him in the early, gray light, his face filled with concern. “You were screaming,” the monk said quietly, glancing at Leah, who lay still nearby, her back to them.
They had walked for another full day, and made camp in the hills with Kurast just over the next rise. Mikulov had proven an able companion so far, scouting the road ahead for thieves and keeping them going with stories of his life in Ivgorod; Leah had grown more fascinated with him as they went along. Cain had meant to question the monk further after they had made camp and Leah had dropped into sleep, but exhaustion had taken him quickly once again, only to bring these terrible dreams of his own imprisonment and near death at the hands of the demons that had overrun his town.
Cain rolled over and took several gasping breaths, wiping the sweat from his brow. He looked up into the leaden sky as dawn broke above the mountains. The dreams were growing more vivid and more disturbing, thrusting him back into days and events he would rather forget. Even now, he smelled the filth, felt the iron floor of his cage beneath his bare feet, the heat of the fires washing over him.
The horror of the loss and the guilt over his role in the slaughter felt like a fresh wound. He remembered the pain and despair of it all—the beloved son of the king, forced to kill his younger brother. Tears overcame him.
“I dreamed of the Dark Wanderer,” he said, his breath catching in his chest. “And the end of Tristram.”
Mikulov squatted next to him, balanced on the balls of his feet. Cain’s sense of sadness and loss made it almost impossible to speak. He lay quietly for some time, staring into the sky.
“Aidan was burdened, haunted by something terrible. I should have seen the signs right before my eyes. I had been his teacher! But I thought it was a result of what he had been forced to do to his own brother. I thought it was despair over what he had witnessed. I never thought . . . that he would shove that cursed soulstone into his own head. That he had taken on the essence of evil, and Diablo still lived inside him. That he would become . . . the Dark Wanderer.”
“You pursued him across Sanctuary.”
“Along with a group of brave adventurers, yes. He snuck away in the dead of night, and shortly after that, a new demon plague descended upon what was left of Tristram. I . . . I was imprisoned in a cage hung upon a pole and left for dead. Forced to watch as . . .” Cain’s voice quavered and failed him, and he wiped his wet face with his sleeve. “As . . . unspeakable things happened below me. Finally I was freed, and the demon horde pushed back, but Aidan was already far away, consumed by evil and intent on releasing Diablo’s two brothers from their soulstones. Aidan, our hero, my friend, was hopelessly lost.
“My heroes went after him, and I followed shortly thereafter, but we were always one step behind. We defeated Andariel beneath the chambers of a cursed monastery and fought the Lesser Evil Duriel in the tomb of Tal Rasha. We chased the Dark Wanderer through Kurast after that city had fallen, and we vanquished Mephisto, his brother, in Travincal. Finally we pursued Diablo into the Burning Hells and defeated him. Aidan was . . . killed.”
“I am sorry,” Mikulov said. “Our Patriarchs teach that death is simply a chance to be reborn.”
“I would like to think such a thing exists,” Cain said. “But the horrors I have seen . . .” He trembled with emotion, tears wetting his cheeks. “The Prime Evils are gone. But even the Lesser Evils of the Burning Hells can destroy worlds, should they choose. Some would say they are even more dangerous. If Belial or Azmodan come to Sanctuary, may the archangels help us all.”