Roberticus Thorne's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Roberticus Thorne pushed open the heavy doors of the abandoned cathedral and stepped inside. Dust spun in the colored light. He had chosen this place to rebuild the Pale Order, but he had nothing to teach from. The vows, the forms, the old books — all of it had burned with his brothers. He could not raise knights on memory alone. He walked the long aisle and stopped at the empty altar. A pack of goblins had been nesting there, and their bones still littered the floor from his work the night before. He had cleared the hall. He had not cleared his doubt. Then he saw it, half-hidden behind a fallen beam — a pale stone statue of the first knight, sword pointed down, hands folded in oath. Roberticus knelt before it. The words came back to him, not as text, but as the shape of a man keeping watch. That was enough. That was the vow. He worked through the day. He dragged the statue to the center of the hall. Outside the great doors he drove a pole into the cracked stone and raised a white banner marked with a twelve-pointed star. Let anyone watching see it. Let the cultists see it too. The Order had no book. It had a stone knight, a banner, and a man who would not sleep. Roberticus stood at the threshold and waited for the first recruit to come.