As I slowly limped and staggered my way into the priory undercroft I found my path lit by the still burning remnants of the bowl sconces built into the walls. Somehow the remnants of the energies that our presences had unleashed when we entered had been infused into the ethereal flames, and while they were noticeably dimmer it would be some time before they faded again.

  Each step was agony and I struggled to pick a side to limp on as the sewn gash at my hip, and my sliced open calf muscle were on opposite sides and played havoc on my attempts to walk. Viconia was busy preparing our horses and while she was suitable distracted I had chosen to enter the place that had almost killed me.

  Another three days had passed, and for the majority of that time I had lain in the bedroll, only moving under Viconia's careful gaze to bathe in collected rainwater and begin the long, arduous process of healing my leg. Viconia had been correct in that I was slowly healing even something as permanently crippling as severed tendons and muscles but it had been two days after I had awoken before she had even allowed me to consider mounting Trygve again. So, now that the opportunity for travel had presented itself with how slowly I was getting better, we had decided to leave and I had decided to speak to the Knights of the Nine.

  Viconia hadn't forbidden me doing so, but she hadn't exactly been impressed when I told her that I didn't feel right leaving without speaking to Sir Amiel and the others. So while she was distracted I had hobbled my way down, assisted by the crude crutch that she had made for me and leaning against the walls after each dozen or so paces.

  The tiny layer of dust across the floors was still almost entirely undisturbed from the centuries since the last living beings before us had entered, and other than the collection of boot prints, scuffmarks, and dried blood there was nothing to show for the fact that I had fought the ghostly Knights. It was obvious though that there was no trace of any of the ghosts at all, either where they had been standing or where they had moved about as they fought me. indeed, the only other boot marks within the entire crypt was Viconia's where she had rushed to my side, doing her best to stabilise me before dragging me out. The thin, long streak of blood clearly showed where she had dragged my bleeding, unconscious body.

  As for the ghosts, while they didn't leave a physical presence in the world they were still present, each of them watching from the shadowed alcoves near their coffins in their faint, translucent qualities. They were all bare headed now, coifs and helms nowhere to be seen and it was hard not to feel the weight of their gazes as they watched me enter.

  "You still live."

  "I do." I replied, looking over to the alcove where the Cuirass sat in all of its glory and the glimmering shape of Sir Amiel awaited.

  The ancient spectre gave a smile as grim as the grave and stepped forward slightly as I shuffled over to where the Helm still lay. As I had been defeated, Viconia had simply discarded the priceless relic without thought and in the week since she had not touched it. Carefully, and using a small clean bandage that I had carried with me, I reached down and picked it up from where it lay in the dust.

  "You're tougher than you look, even for a vampire."

  "It does have its advantages." Carefully, and now hindered by the fact that I only had one arm to stabilise myself and my crutch I made my way over to the Cuirass, feeling the eyes of the other Knights with every painful step.

  From afar the Cuirass was beautiful to behold, but proximity only seemed to enhance its incredible properties. For two hundred years it had lain under the priory and it had experienced hundreds if not thousands of battles without the slightest mark or blemish to show for it. For a relic over three thousand years old it was perfect in every sense or meaning of the word.

  It also wasn't technically a single relic as such. Unlike its name it was not simply just a breastplate but instead it contained each and every piece of armour a Knight or armoured soldier could or needed to wear. Each piece, from the forged breastplate and armoured back piece, to the flowing silken tabard as white as fresh snow with the blood red diamond of the Nine in the centre were peerless and free from the tiniest hints of dust and grime. Underneath there were hints of the white-silver chainmail that made mithril appear tarnished and if I didn't know better I would have sworn that someone had only just finished buffing and polishing each and every piece until the leather belts gleamed and the metal surfaces shone like mirrors.

  The chainmail links were so tiny I doubted anything larger than a sewing needle could have entered the gaps, and they hung down to mid-thigh under the faulds and lower protective plates. While the two pointed pauldrons protected the upper arms and were obviously designed to act as rerebraces to protect the entirety of the upper arms as well as the shoulders, it was painfully obvious that this relic was incomplete without the greaves and the gauntlets.

  "I am glad that my death served to lead you here." Amiel's voice was deep and echoed from beside me as I lifted the helm and slotted it on top of the armour stand. "You completed the quest that I could not, and for the first time in centuries we all have hope."

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  He gazed upon the armour with a mixture of sorrow and regret, not looking at me as he gazed upon the cuirass that he recovered and claimed as his own.

  "The Order of the Nine," He said, after we stood there in silence for some time, his voice echoing with a strange wooden quality from his ethereal nature. "was founded with the intention of safekeeping the Crusader's Relics. In life, we failed at this task. In death, we seek to preserve what little we accomplished while we wait for one to come and finish what we began. In you and Viconia we see hope; a rare commodity that we have waited for an age to have once more. We all know that it is a long and difficult road ahead of you."

  "Viconia and I plan to restore the Order." There was no mistaking the current that ran through Amiel and all of the other knights as they heard my words.

  I could see that Amiel was momentarily lost for words, as were his long dead brother's in arms but he finally managed to find his voice once again. "Where do you plan to find Knights?"

  "There are dozens, maybe even hundreds of Knights, warriors and pilgrims on the trail of the Relics who have answered the church's call to arms. There will be more than enough suitable to join us and assist us in recovering the Relics. Who knows, perhaps the other pieces have already been recovered?"

  "Even the most faithful will question you, both in your actions and your motives. There will be some who despite their faith in the Nine and the sanctity of their quest will outright refuse to follow yourselves because they will believe you liars and fraudsters."

  "We know. That's why we intend on first retrieving the Boots. It should be public enough that our deeds will not be questioned and I don't think it would take much for others to join our cause."

  "The path is dangerous Sir Desin." Said one of the other knights and I turned away from the Cuirass and Helm to look at the ghostly form of Sir Juncan. "I fell in the attempt to retrieve the boots and there isn't a single one of us who doesn't understand or appreciate what you are attempting to do."

  "Tell him the full truth Nirtke." Rumbled the enormous, plate armoured form of Sir Henrik. "You took a bandit's arrow to the eye a day's journey from Kynareth's shrine."

  All of the ghosts chuckled, including Sir Juncan. "That still counts as an attempt..." He muttered good humouredly.

  Each of the Knights were wearing less of their armour when they had first appeared and fought me, and now they were all bareheaded and much more relaxed. I did find it somewhat disconcerting that the injuries that had ultimately killed them were visible in places, and Sir Juncan's bloodied eye socket seemed to stare in all directions at once. The others for the most part had their injuries hidden under their now seamless armour but there were hints of blood on their leather, chainmail and steel. Sir Henrik had a deep gash into the side of his throat that made his bearded smile even more unsettling.

  "In life we were the greatest warriors to walk the earth." Henrik continued as the collection of ghosts moved closer to me and away from their final resting places. "But in the end, many of us found our fates at the hands of foes we could not slay in battle. Our greed, our hubris and pride were ultimately our undoing and is why we failed in our holy duties so resoundingly."

  "You did retrieve five of the eight relics in the space of two decades though." I replied to them all and saw the pride and sorrow begin warring among them all.

  "Yes, but look what happened afterwards." This time it was the dark skinned Sir Casimir who spoke up, dressed in his ancient armour that spoke volumes of his Redguard heritage. "All those relics we claimed as our own are gone, lost or stripped from us. My entire lineage to this day still suffers the curse Stendarr bestowed on me. In my arrogance and after the darkness of the War I killed a beggar within the Chorrol cathedral; the cathedral of the God of Mercy Himself!"

  Sir Amiel moved closer as the dark mood of the spirits surrounding me seemed to grow and he nodded to me and them at the same time. "You and Viconia are not us, and in that you may even be better than what we ever were."

  My laugh rang through the confines of the crypt and I looked at them all, making a point of fixing Sir Amiel with an incredulous gaze. "I doubt it. You all have faith and you all achieved so much."

  "And you have not?" Sir Ralvas rasped in his thick Dunmeri accent. "Taking a stand against the hordes of Oblivion? Saving entire counties from Vampires and werewolves and hunting the greatest beasts with the bounds of Cyrodiil? Those are worthy deeds."

  "I see that Viconia has been talking to you about more than just where we can find the Relics..."

  "More importantly it is your lack of faith and lack of purity which puts you above us." A raised hand cut off my snort of amusement and Sir Amiel continued. "It really is. We aspired to the be the greatest and to honour the gods with our every waking moment. We strived for perfection and fell utterly short. Our arrogance and hubris brought us low and we had a long way to fall. It was our arrogance that made us claim the relics for our personal possession, when in fact they were never intended for mortals such as ourselves. It was our greed that made us proclaim ourselves as the greatest beings in history and it was our pride that made us all fail."

  "You however." He continued, pointing directly to me. "You and Viconia are not seeking the relics out for yourselves whether it be corrupting them or claiming them. You and Viconia are not pure or blessed by the Gods but I doubt that will ever give you pause in your actions. You are corrupt and consumed by darkness and as a result you cannot fall to temptation or greed or desire the relics for yourselves because you know that it is impossible for you to do so. Unlike us, we know that you can and you will retrieve the relics, protect and safeguard them and only gift them to those who truly deserve them."

  "Never thought that being damned would be a good thing."

  They all laughed at my sarcasm and Sir Amiel nodded with a smile on his face. "Think of it this way. Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely, but if you are already corrupted then you have nowhere else to fall. The only way left for you is up..."

  Looking over them all in turn I tried to give them all the best, confident smile I had but I was feeling uneasy and anxious at the task ahead. "Will you keep the Helm and Cuirass safe until we return?"

  "We have protected the Cuirass for the past centuries, and we shall continue to do so until the breaking of the world."

  "Then let us hope that will be many centuries hence." I replied, glancing back to the cuirass and to each and every one of the ghostly knights. "We shall return."