For me, writing fiction has always been a great way to reflect what is interesting and unique about a game universe. As humans, we are drawn to storytelling, and a well-crafted tale can draw people into your world in ways that are difficult in any other medium.
Drawing upon the setting, game story, and characters developed in the initial phases of the project, I wrote The Awakening to serve as an introduction to both the world and the conflict of Diablo: Unholy Alliance. Here we meet Gavilan Blackheart as he leads the Reapers on a dangerous journey to find a mysterious location - but ancient relics aren’t the only thing they discover once they arrive. I purposely placed the story in a cold environment, as I felt it provided a unique and unconventional backdrop not normally associated with the Diablo Universe.
Ready to hear my tale? Stay awhile, and listen…
THE AWAKENING
The falling snow blanketed the forest in the cold stillness of an empty grave.
Blackheart’s Reapers had set out from Ivgorod at dawn. The leafless trees around them stood as a bleak testament to the weather’s ravages, like skeletal fingers scoured of their flesh. Icicles hanging from the trees’ few remaining boughs reflected the dying light to the west, and the wind, a shrieking gale for most of the day, had died down to a hollow, moaning lament. A thousand feet below, the ancient glacier of Zaim Valley boomed and cracked, echoing through the forest like the breaking of a giant’s bones.
The relic hunters had been well-fed and well-rested before leaving Ivgorod, but the penetrating cold and waist-deep snow made for a difficult journey. Thorgis Foe-Slayer walked at the front of the line, his massive legs cutting a wide trench through the snow. Behind him came the bullish figure of Brother Grim, hunched against the biting cold, and Khando the Blind, his long beard encrusted in ice. Mad Moristan Locke, as always, walked alone, muttering incoherently to himself, followed by Lady Dreya, her bow unslung and nocked with an arrow. At the rear of the line was their leader, Gavilan Blackheart, the one responsible for their trek up this godsforsaken mountain.
Not that anyone was complaining. Joining the Reapers had its rewards, but it meant that you followed the Blackheart without question. On its best days, relic hunting was an unforgiving profession. Most thought you no better than a parasite gorging itself on the bloated corpse of the old world, and would as soon put a knife in your back than do business. Gavilan Blackheart was known to be a hard man and secretive bastard, but he shot straight with his crew and had a fair hand when it came time to divvy up the spoils.
Most importantly, he had the book. The tomb of Horazon. The lost city of Travincal. The Eye of Mephisto. The Blackheart’s mysterious book had led him to each and every one of these wonders, and his crew had received more than ample coin along the way. A person could get rich hunting relics with the Reapers, and if one day the road led to the black gates of Hell itself most would consider it a fair bargain. Leave trust in the gods to priests, Brother Grim would say, and the trust of your purse to the Blackheart.
Half-truths could make certain kind of man feel better, but Blackheart wasn’t one of them. The Reapers hadn’t come here in search of some lost treasure mentioned in the book, and there’d be no fat purse at the end of the journey. This was a business of sorts, but it was an old business, and a bloody business, and none of his crew had signed up for it.
No, he was here to find answers. Plain and simple. If the end of the world was coming, then Gavilan Blackheart needed to know about it.
As the sun fell behind the mountain, the Reapers walked past the blackened ruins of an ancient Church, its crumbling spire tilted crookedly against the crimson clouds on the horizon. Empty windows stared out from the remains of a shattered facade. It was a grim reminder that these lands were unforgiving to the faithful.
* * *
The book had named it Va’en dos Throkh. The Place of the Awakening.
They had arrived just as night fell in earnest, with a jaundiced moon hung above Ytar’s Peak to the west. It was a clearing a little more than a stone’s throw wide. Five tall statues rose out of the snow, evenly spaced on the clearing’s periphery, and another larger loomed menacingly from its center. Encrusted in windblown ice and half-buried in snowdrift, they cast crooked, serrated shadows across the otherwise undisturbed snow of the clearing, like a colossal, twisted claw reaching out from the depths of the forest beyond. It was one of the old places. None had looked upon it for a thousand years or more.
Thorgis had lit a torch, and he and Gavilan stood together just inside the forest boundary. Despite the bitter cold, the huge barbarian wore little more than studded leathers and tattered furs that left most of his arms and legs bare. Upon his back was strapped the massive dreadwood oak hammer that had earned Thorgis his namesake, its well-worn wooden shaft as thick as man’s leg. The falling snow had thinned considerably, replaced with a frigid mist that glowed eerily in the moonlight. The sputtering torch threw the statues in the clearing into an ominous, flickering relief.
“I don’t like this place,” said the barbarian.
“Good. You shouldn’t,” said Blackheart. “Keep a sharp eye out. I’m going in to take a look.”
Thorgis grunted, and turned to tell the others.
Gavilan unslung his pack and brought out the heavy ironbound tome. Few were the relic hunters who had not heard of “Blackheart’s book”, and fewer still who wouldn’t kill to have it. The stories of its origins were as numerous as its pages, and each more outlandish than the next. The lost diary of Emperor Rakkis. The Archangel Tyrael’s history of Sanctuary. A cursed tome from the forbidden libraries of Viz-jun. Jack Blade, who ran the Scorpion crew out of Bramwell, once swore on the damned soul of his dead, one-eyed brother that the book had been penned in blood by the Lord of Terror himself. Gavilan smiled grimly. The real truth was no less unbelievable, yet considerably more dangerous. His hand unconsciously went to his chest. Yes, Gavilan Blackheart had his secrets. And it was best for all concerned that they remain his own.
The Place of the Awakening. He’d discovered the hastily scrawled note one night while searching the book for the Reapers’ next prize, an ominous message about a scroll that portended the end of the world. Intrigued, he had made the journey to Ivgorod – and although the visit had cost him a hefty sum, he eventually found the scroll in the deepest part the Patriarchs’ archives. Centuries old and written in demonblood, it had contained a veiled prophecy and a faded map that he’d transcribed into the book before leaving the archives. He opened it one more time to check the landmarks and constellations, but there was no doubt he had come to the right place.
“Have you found what you came here for, Blackheart?”
Lady Dreya appeared out of the mist, the burnished gold of her armor shining brightly in the moonlight. Deadly Dreya, thought Blackheart, slipping the book back into his pack. Quiet as death itself. The Reapers had saved her life in the battered ruins of the Rogue’s Monastery in Khanduras, where the Children of Light had captured her and sentenced her to death for heresy. What she had been doing there, she would not say – but she had sworn to serve the Blackheart until the balance of her debt was paid. By almost any measure, she had done so a thousand times over.
“I might have,” he said.
“It’s a treacherous road we travel,” she said. “I hope the day’s spoils will make it worth our while.” There was a steel in her voice that spoke volumes. Dreya was no fool. She recognized the different cut of this journey.
“Not sure I like your tone,” growled Blackheart, locking eyes with her. He was uncomfortably aware of the arrow knocked on her bowstring. “If you don’t like the road I choose, you’re free to leave and choose another. But this is my crew. I won’t suffer dissenters.”
Her eyes narrowed. He imagined her grip tightening on her bow. If she decided to put an arrow through his eye, he’d never see it coming.
Instead, she turned and walked away. “Trust is the most difficult prize to obtain, Blackheart,” she called back to him. “Once lost, even your precious book won’t bring it back.”
He felt a pang of regret as she disappeared into the forest. He valued Dreya more than he was willing to admit, but the years had taught him friendship was an ill-afforded commodity. Shouldering his pack, he started towards the center of the clearing. The snow-covered ground beneath his feet felt unstable, like walking on the stones and driftwood of a river long dead.
* * *
“I often hear the Blackheart perusing the pages of his infamous book,” said Khando, who had just helped himself to a generous pull from Brother Grim’s wine jug. The old monk appeared frail with his long white beard and tattered blindfold, but he was as strong as a gnarled tree and could drink like a Kingsport sailor. He hooked the end of his wooden staff through the jug’s handle, and passed it back. “What can you tell me of it, Brother Grim?”
“Not much, I’m afraid.” Thickset and burly, with a scarred and stubbled head, Brother Grim took another drink, chuckling heartily as he wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. Once a Zakarum Vindicator , he had been excommunicated from the Church due to a love of strong drink and a frightening penchant for slaughter. The handle of his iron battle-axe, which he lovingly referred to as ‘Grace’, was sticking up out of the snow beside him. “Calls it a ‘family heirloom’, the Blackheart does, and says little else of the matter.”
“Family heirloom? Quite an impressive family it must be, if measured by the wonders the book has led us to. The gods say to know a man is to know the roots of the tree from which he grows.”
“Not my business,” Brother Grim chuckled. “The Blackheart keeps my purse fattened. What else matters?”
“Usually, my answer to that question would be ‘very little’,” said Khando, smiling. “Although when it comes to the origins of Blackheart’s book, I feel as if it might matter quite a bit.”
“Speak plainly,” rumbled Thorgis.
“Ah, friend Thorgis. Never one to waste words.” Khando turned his head ever so slightly in the barbarian’s direction. “I shall say it as plainly as I can, then. I have heard that the book may be Horadric in nature.”
Brother Grim spat out his wine, hissed loudly, and hastily made the Sign of Light across his face and chest. The Church had spent more than a hundred years cleansing the world of Nephalem blood and Horadric influence, and, despite the wayward path he had chosen, the church’s dogma still ran deep in Brother Grim’s bones. The group fell momentarily silent, save for the unintelligible mutterings of Mad Moristan somewhere in the forest beyond.
“Those are dangerous words,” said Thorgis. He stood and took an ominous step toward where the old monk was seated. He had long been a loyal companion of the Blackheart, whose enemies often faced the stark judgment of the barbarian’s hammer.
Khando’s hands came up in a conciliatory gesture. “Peace, my friend. I mean no harm. But practitioners of the dark arts of Deckard Cain are sentenced to death – as are their associates. Should we not question such things, knowing the stakes are so high?”
The mention of Deckard Cain sent Brother Grim into another fit of apoplectic genuflections.
“You ask too many questions, monk,” said Dreya, appearing out of the mists at the edge of the torchlight. Her distrust of the old man was no secret. Khando had crossed paths with the Reapers just before their bloody battle with the Woodbaron of Westmarch. Without his formidable staff, they may not have won the day – but Dreya had always believed their chance encounter was suspiciously convenient.
“I find questions are the only gateway we have to true enlightenment,” said Khando pleasantly. “For example: what is an Askari warrior like yourself doing so far from her home in the Skovos Isles?”
“Tread carefully.” In the ghostly haze, Dreya’s golden eyes and ebony skin lent her an almost supernatural appearance. “Enlightenment is difficult to enjoy if you’re dead, blind man.”
“Mine are only two sightless eyes, sister Dreya,” said Khando, smiling mysteriously. He bowed his head ever so slightly to her. “Still, there is a certain wisdom in your words. I will remember them.”
“See that you do,” she said.
“Come now, my friends.” Brother Grim, apparently recovered from his religious histrionics, adopted a humorously pedantic tone. “The prophet tells us to turn away from such hatred and violence, and instead seek Light in such things that bring us joy. For example: the delicious vintage in this jug! Dreya! Will you drink with us?”
“Forgive me, Jonas,” said Dreya, her eyes still locked on Khando’s placid figure. “But this conversation has unsettled my stomach.”
* * *
The Blackheart approached the statue at the center of Va’en dos Throkh. It was larger than he expected, easily more than ten feet tall. He reached up and brushed away some snow and ice from its facade, revealing the pale visage of the stone figure beneath.
It depicted a woman, severely beautiful. She had full lips, high cheekbones, and heavily lidded eyes. The look on her face was one of…what? Cold indifference? Intense sorrow? Smoldering fury? In the dancing shadows of the torch’s flickering light, it was difficult to say. He suppressed a shiver. The cold played tricks with a man’s senses, but he could have sworn that it was warm to the touch.
Blackheart brushed away more snow. Above the statue’s head was a mass of cloudy ice obscured what appeared to be some kind of headdress. Beneath, its arms held a stone tablet engraved with a barbed, unfamiliar script. Gavilan looked back, making sure that he was completely alone, then placed his hand over the strange characters, closed his eyes, and whispered a spell of knowing. Within moments, there was an uncomfortable buzz in his ears as the spell began to do its work, and the edges of the tattoo on his chest soon felt hot and painful, like skin recently branded.
* * *
The shrill giggle of Moristan Locke shattered the murmured quiet of the clearing. The others turned to find him squatting atop a rock behind them, intently staring at the center of the clearing. Locke’s eyes, wide as saucers, reflected the cadaverous light of the moon, his bone-white shock of hair dripping with sweat and steaming. One hand nervously fingered the grisly trophies of his demontooth necklace, while the other grasped out at something unseen.
“What’s the matter, Locke?” Thorgis asked him. The demon hunter’s mind had been shattered after watching his family slaughtered by demons in the highlands above New Tristram long ago, but the Reapers had learned to pay close heed to his incoherent ramblings. They often contained hidden truths for those who knew how to hear them.
“Her eyes, she cries, everyone dies,” said Mad Moristan, his voice a hissing whisper. “She sees us. She sees us!”
The words sent a chill down the barbarian’s spine. He searched the darkness at the edges of the clearing, but could see nothing in the shadows of the forest beyond. “Who, Locke? Who are you talking about?”
“She speaks! Can’t you hear her?” Locke whirled, leaning close to Thorgis. His breath was fetid, his gray eyes wide and glassy. “The whispers, the whispers, the sweet, bloody whispers…”
Thorgis pulled the dreadwood hammer off his back.
“Blackheart,” he called out. “Something’s wrong.”
* * *
Gavilan heard Thorgis’s voice, but it was muffled and indistinct, like a scream through deep waters. The text on the statue was resisting his spell, forcing him to focus more of his power. His tattoo had become a searing ember, the buzz in his head now a raging windstorm. An unholy heat began to radiate outwards from his hand, and the etched characters started to glow through his outstretched fingers. Meltwater ran down from the top of the statue in thickening rivulets, hissing into steam when they reached the stone tablet below.
When the words finally came to him, they were a dissonant symphony of blood-soaked velvet, resonating painfully in the deepest parts of his mind.
When Mother’s love
Has been forsaken
And all her Children
Have been taken
Red runs the moon
O’er the martyr’s tomb
The Harbingers
They will awaken
Those words. The same prophecy he had found in the ancient scroll in the archives. The scroll written in blood.
He opened his eyes, found himself staring into those of the statue, blank and soulless. The heat was almost unbearable, blistering the skin on his outstretched palm. He tried desperately to pull his hand away from the statue, to tear his gaze away from those horrifying eyes, but his limbs had become immovable as stone.
* * *
Thorgis called out once more to Blackheart, and again received no answer. The night had gone quiet. Mad Moristan was holding his head in his hands, rocking back and forth like a frightened child.
“The whispers,” he said. “The whispers, the whispers…”
Khando put up a hand as if for silence, then snapped his head toward the forest behind them.
“By the thousand and one gods…” he hissed.
A muscled, snarling mass of claws and jagged teeth burst forth from beneath the snow at the edge of the clearing, landing directly in front of Brother Grim. Swearing, he swung the wine jug at the beast’s head, shattering it across the creature’s jaw and snapping its head back. As the beast shook its head to recover, Brother Grim hefted Grace from the snow and cleaved its skull in two.
“Hellspawn!” he screamed.
As if in response, a dozen more creatures exploded into the clearing.
Khando turned to meet them, his staff a whirling blur. Despite the deep snow, the old monk moved like flowing water, his weapon always finding its target, the wooden shaft shattering skull and bone. Two more demons jumped at him from behind. He spun fluidly, staff swinging behind him in one arm, the other extended with an open palm to meet them. The air shimmered and buckled as the demons met his strike, and they both flew backwards into the depths of the forest.
Howling in fury, their demonic brethren launched another furious attack, hoping to overcome the monk by the sheer force of their numbers. Khando turned, but stumbled in the deep snow. The quickest of the demons reached him first, sinking its teeth into the monk’s shoulder. Smelling blood, the rest of them rushed in for the kill.
Thorgis came roaring to his aid, swinging his mighty hammer in wide arcs that sent the hellspawn sprawling. A two-headed abomination lurched up from the snow beneath him. He lifted the weapon up over his head, then brought it down upon the beast with a sickening crunch. A half dozen more scrabbled at the barbarian through the snow, but the hammer was already swinging again, catching them broadside and reducing the entire group to a quivering pulp.
A hideous screech sounded from above. Dark shapes swooped down on leathery wings from the night sky, slathering jaws open wide as they fell upon the barbarian. Thorgis flailed about violently as the demons tore at the flesh of his arms and back. A bloodied Khando jumped from the ground to help him, staff spinning and striking, but was soon lost in a flurry of wings and claw.
Thunk. One of the winged demons fell to the ground, its body pierced with a feathered shaft. Thunk. Another fell, shot through the neck. Thunk. Thunk. Two more dead, in quick succession. The hideous flock shrieked and changed direction, heading toward the source of the attack - but Dreya’s hand was too quick, her aim too deadly. She fired the last of her arrows, then unslung a spear from her back and leapt with a fierce battle cry to meet those that remained.
Suddenly, Brother Grim was beside her, laughing maniacally, cutting down foes with his axe and leaving a bloody swath in his wake. “By Grace you shall be delivered!” he roared. “By Grace you shall be judged!” The axe swung again and again, splattering blood against the pristine snow as his blade sank deep into demonflesh. He was bleeding from a dozen wounds, his rage fueled by an unholy bloodlust. More hellspawn erupted from the snow around him, their hooked claws ripping and tearing, pulling him down to the ground.
Mad Moristan leapt down from his rock to Brother Grim’s aid, his eyes glowing with a fevered fury, throwing the traps and explosives of his trade. Demons screeched and burned as the ground exploded around them, gibbered as they were trapped and then skewered by the bolts from his crossbows. His armor on fire, skin blistered from the heat, the demon hunter screamed aloud in delight at each death, reveling in the slaughter as dark visions of his family’s deaths played out before his eyes.
And still the minions of hell came on. Blackheart’s Reapers were well versed in the butchery of demons, but it was only a matter of time before they were overrun.
* * *
Despite the searing pain, the Blackheart was still unable to move his hand from the statue. The sounds of battle reached his ears, but he could only watch in wide-eyed horror as the truth was finally revealed to him.
Slowly, sickeningly, the remaining snow and ice sloughed off the top of the statue, revealing a magnificent set of twisting horns erupting from the woman’s skull. By the gods, he now understood. Lilith. Creator of worlds. Mother to the nephalem. Slaughterer of angels and demons alike. She was beautiful. She was terrible. Her eyes bored a ragged wound into his soul, filling it with a delicious, inky blackness that made him want to vomit. Filling it with words that he felt like a shudder in his bones.
Yes. You know me. You cannot hide from me. I made this world for my children, and now my children are no more. Fear me, Blackheart, for I am coming.
Fear me, Gavilan Cain.
Calling on the last of his strength, he wrenched his hand free, losing his balance and falling backwards into the snow. Moments later, the statue of Lilith, along with the five others on the clearing’s periphery, exploded into pillars of flame that pierced the night’s sky.
He brought his hand up to protect his face as the inferno’s heat washed over him. Lilith’s statue was still visible in the roaring flames, somehow even larger and more terrifying than before, and he could just make out twisted figures in the other pillars of fire surrounding her, warped and distorted masses of claw, tooth and corded muscle. The Harbingers, they will awaken. He could sense their penetrating eyes, their palpable hatred. Beneath him, the snow was quickly melting in the pillar’s heat, revealing a vast expanse of human skulls and bones that stretched from one side of the clearing to the other.
The grisly, nauseating realization was like a strike to the face. Jumping up from the ground, he turned back towards the Reapers, unsheathed his sword, and screamed “Run!”
* * *
Hours later, exhausted, the Reapers made camp. Together they had fought their way from the clearing, slaughtering hellspawn as they rushed headlong back down the mountain. After a time, the demons had ceased their attack, called back to Va’en dos Throkh by some unknown sign, but the Reapers did not stop their retreat until they had reached Zaim’s Vally below. Despite the bone-deep exhaustion that threatened to topple him, Blackheart insisted on taking the first watch. The others, too tired to argue, wrapped themselves in furs and blankets and fell immediately into a deep, dreamless sleep.
Blackheart pulled a roll of bandages from his pack, then cleaned and wrapped his blistered hand. Later they would have questions, many that he was not yet prepared to answer. What would his companions say when they learned the truth about who he was? About the book that carried? He would need them in the days to come. Would they truly understand the nature of the threat that now faced them? More importantly, did he?
His hand went once again his chest, the skin still raw and tender around the Horadric symbol that was tattooed there. Secret Keeper. He had been running from his past for as long as he could remember, hoping to hide in the shadows of a world that no longer needed his kind. But that time was now past. There could be no more hiding. The demoness Lilith was returning to Sanctuary to avenge the extinction of the Nephalem – and few were those who could stand in her way. Tyrael was dead, the Prime Evils banished. It would fall to the Horadrim, sworn defenders of Sanctuary, to rise from the shadows and save the world once again.
His watch ended in a few hours. Fighting the urge to lie down and surrender to sleep’s release, he pulled the Book of Cain out of his pack. The truth, however uncomfortable, was something that needed to be faced and dealt with. But he still had time. The Awakening was not yet upon them.
Opening to his bookmark, the pages were suddenly awash in a reddish glow from the east. Dawn had finally come. He looked up, expecting to see the light of the new sun on the horizon.
Instead, he saw a swollen, blood red moon glaring down from the night sky.
Red runs the moon…
Time, it appeared, was no longer on his side.
