They broke like a wave crashing upon the shore, overwhelming bulwarks of sand and packed earth. The men who stood against them fought the breaking tide like toy soldiers trying to stand against the pull of the water. When all had receeded, Daeyn Skysong found himself with thirty men, where moments before he had had forty-two.
"Check for wounded and clear out the dead!" the Paladin called. He reached up to his chest, where moments before the glaive of an undead soldier had grazed his armor, producing a spark and a sickening noise like a scream. Without looking, he pressed his fingers straight through a rip in the tabard of the Silver Hand that adorned his chest. Nothing for it now- he was surprised the entire thing hadn't been shorn from his body.
Skysong was now a member of a largely Human order, whom had all but deserted their Quel'dorei members... And allies. As he drew his gauntlet away from the rip, he noted with some sense of irony that the glaive had shorn almost perfectly through the middle of the hammer's head at an arc that also cut off the shaft quite cleanly. It was appropriate- the lion's head of the armor he wore shone quite cleanly through the cut.
He ripped the center of the tabard off and threw it by the wayside of the road the Undead Scourge had already begun to cut through Eversong Wood. The call that came over his shoulder distracted him, but did not tear his eyes away as the remnants of the tabard fluttered in the breeze. After slinging his hammer over his back, Daeyn turned, instead drawing the long, runed family blade and shield from his back.
The blade was long and broad, with a single edge- one was all it needed. The sheer weight of it carried it past most armor and even the dull edge was dangerous,and the runes that allowed it to channel the Light in or out of someone's body empowered his magic for anything that COULD stand a blow from the weapon. The kite shield that accompanied it was well over the size of the Paladin's torso and boasted a border of gleaming gold, with blue metalworking of his family's crest- two hawks, facing eachother, one on the left holding a flute and olive wreath in its talons, the other on the right carrying the glaive favored by the Quel'dorei spellbreakers.
Daeyn Skysong was snapped out of his admiration for the shield's handiwork by the call of a junior sergeant in one of the House guards, a young man whom, he presumed, was now his most senior officer among this group of volunteers.
"Lord Skysong," the man bellowed, reminding Daeyn rather painfully of the fact that his father, the previous Lord Skysong, had not returned from attempting to evacuate one of the Blackened Woods' southernmost villages. None of his detachment had. The poor boy's next words were even more unwelcomed than his greeting had been. "House Amil's guard captain is dead. Our own guards now make up about half of the remainder, with three from House Springsun and another handful from House Amil."
The new Lord Skysong rolled his shoulders and stared heavenward. The Blackened Wood had earned its name, now also for the great swath of destruction that ran through it as much as for its distinct lack of light. He could see the sky and the trees all well enough, but no sunlight shone through, despite the fact that they sky was clear.
The guard sergeant droned on, and Daeyn caught only something about the last caravan of evacuees being prepared to leave. The Paladin motioned weakly in the direction of the Waystation he and his volunteers had set themselves to protecting. It was the last functioning one he was aware of; at least, the last functioning one this side of the Elrendar River. Skysong's mind was elsewhere, somewhere across the river, where his wife and two little sisters-in-law resided.
Or so he thought.
Before the head of the caravan began marching through the waystation, Daeyn heard the thunderous crescendo that announced first one, then two, and finally, after several more times, a fifth -incoming- teleport. The captain of the Farstrider squadron that had situated itself back near the hastily-erected palaside proclaimed, quite loudly, "Out of the way! Make way for Lady Kavei Springsun and her priestesses! MAKE WAY!"
Daeyn's brows shot up as he first heard the name of, and then recognized, his wife. She leaned over near one of the Farstriders, who added, again very boisterously, "Bring out your sick and wounded to be checked for the Plague of Undeath! Quickly!"
He wanted to rush to her, but refrained. She had a job to do, as did he. In silence, he watched, leather-covered palm crushing against his shield's handle, as his wife made the rounds about the caravan. Finally, she came to him, shifting uncomfortably in her robes. She seemed to be waiting for something.
With an embarassed chuckle, Daeyn lifted his sword and shield away from his body, opening his arms to her in a way that wouldn't keep her out of reach or impaled, unlike his previous posture would have. Kavei flung her arms around his waist and leaned up to kiss him. It was a brief, soft gesture, but as she pulled away, he felt refreshed and somewhat more secure in her presence. For a moment, he breathed easily.
But, only for a moment. Kavei introduced her priestesses, those who could be gathered with enough haste to lend aid to the mixed unit of House guards, deserted Farstriders, and civillian militia. Of all of them, Daeyn would later remember only one name, both because he had seen her before, and because that name would later become of great importance to him.
"...And this," Kavei said, as her husband offered a nod to the last priestess, "is Marilla Duskbane." The priestess offered a nod in reply, and Daeyn chuckled.
"Perhaps you'll bring us luck, my lady. Darkness is certainly what we're facing here. Even the light of the sun has deserted us." He muttered, waving his shield broadly in the direction of the sky.
The priestess Duskbane merely offered him a small, friendly grin. Kavei replanted her staff in the ground, and turned her eyes down the Scar that cut through the Blackened Wood. In her eyes, her husband saw a look he did not recognize- one he hadn't seen before, and would never see again.
Some years later, when he re-thought the gaze she cast the evacuees immediately after averting her eyes, he realized the look was resignation. She had known their fate before he had, but in that moment, h knew only that the Scourge must be fought back, and survivors of their onslaught protected.
Just as the last of the caravan passed through the gate, Daeyn's ears perked. The sound of more hissing, moaning, and pounding feet could be heard in the distance. To one of the Farstriders, who had perched himself high in the nearest tree, off to the left of the troop of volunteers, the Paladin called "Do you see anyone else coming?"
"No!" The reply came just as quickly as the man had finished scanning through the forest with his spyglass.
Daeyn set his eyes upong the Waygate, and thought for a moment about giving the order to retreat. But, if they did, the Scourge would gain still more ground, and a crossing point to the river that now impeded their path.
He turned back to his men, and called out "Form ranks! Two deep, Farstriders take the right flank, and keep your glaives ready, they'll close distance fast! Explosive shots on the first wave!" Lord Skysong flipped his sword vertically in his hand, and moved to stand in front of the rows of tower shields and glaives that were forming behind what palasides remained.
Through the darkness of the forest, he could just make out the first pair of glowing eyes break from the treeline. Behind a wall of fetid corpses and skeletons, a row of spiders reared up, already spewing venom into the air. The House guards raised their shields reflexively, and found themselves encircled by protective barriers of the Light. Daeyn spared Kavei a knowing smirk, then set his eyes upon their rapidly-advancing foe.
"My turn," he muttered under his breath.
Then, more loudly, "FIRE!"
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It was another seven years after that day before I saw my beloved Kavei again. What happened to her, I dare not put to pen. I miss her terribly.
The young sergeat-at-arms I encountered, and fought at least twice thereafter- I know not if it was the Scourge invasion, or the destruction of our city, but in my personal opinion, the cause is irrelevent. He was driven mad. May his name be a a curse upon the earth for the things he plotted and the evil he did.
Marilla Duskbane I never saw again, and it was to be nine years after the invasion that I fully understood the impact her life had on mine. She died on the Scar, and was buried between waves of Arthas' onslaught. We buried her and the other Priestesses beneath the tree on which that young man stood, and consecrated the ground there, that they might not be raised in the service of the Lich King.
That morning, I started out with fifty of Silvermoon's finest sons and daughters under my command. Only three survived to see the city burn.
For whomever reads this, understand.. the Light of the Sun did not forsake us that day. It gave strength to the young men and women who died to save the lives of their fellow Quel'dorei. Their faith remains unshaken, and death is their reward.
May it forever be so.
-From the journal of Xynrael Frostbane
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Monday, April 11, 2011
6. Bloodbath
((OOC Note: Because of the particular gruesomeness of this entry and the mental imagery it evoked in my own head, I feel the need to state that it was neither written with the intention of offending anyone nor giving small children nightmares, or, for that matter, any other sadistic or malicious intent. Some of the more disgusting details have been left out, which may cripple the flow of the story, but I believed the sheer violence of it to be excessive even for the imagination, thus, these have been left out.
Any similarity to any persons, living or dead, is unintentional but very, very unfortunate, because something this fucked up probably has happened somewhere in the world at one point.))
What I remember of becoming a Death Knight is little. The pain of a thousand years contained in but a moment, and then... Surrender. No reason to fight at all- simply giving in to the inevitable. I was going to be brought back in His service, and why not? After all, He was my patron, the one who resurrected me, who cared for me. It was only fitting. It was -proper- to repay my debt.
Becoming a Tundra Stalker was something else again. That was akin in rigor to being declared a Saint by the Church of the Holy Light.
And the members of the Church must first be baptized.
~From the journal of Xynrael the Frostbane
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He stood alone amid the new snow of the early winter months, heavy boots leaving deep prints in the settling drift behind him, which quickly disappeared. Before him, a flurry covered all but the view of lights and faint shadows cast by the buildings. The inhabitants of the settlement in the valley below had named it Dawnhaven, a name full of hope. The name would also prove to be the town's undoing.
I do not understand, he thought. Why do we not simply ravage the town and be done with it?
Because you must be properly initiated. Your kind are not an engine of pure, unthinking destruction. You must inspire fear. You must either convince your enemies that surrender is a far better fate than fighting, or make their fighting so weak-spirited that it does not matter.
Why these people?
They believe the Light will still guide them. Will still protect them. They have hope in life. You must shatter that hope. The Voice spat back, indignation lacing every syllable with an unearthly venom. But, above all, you must make them -fear.- Sow doubt and discord. They know who their enemies are. You must take away the power of their knowledge.
Xynrael grinned a savage grin beneath the darkness cast by his hood. He resumed his path down the hill, letting the snow gather on himself as he went. He wore no armor this time, but carried it in his pack. A large bedroll, his pack, and cloak were all that adorned him besides dark leathers and his mace.
The flurry turned to a blizzard, and followed him down the hillside.
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The door to the Death's End tavern burst open, letting in a small group of travelers and street-dwellers who had managed to get into town before the blizzard overtook it. From his position behind the bar, Marcus Kidrian saw immediately a small family who were not settled there, but certainly had been displaced by the coming of the Scourge. They were Human, probably from Lordaeron proper by their clothing, and looked dirty but no worse for wear. Marcus motioned to a barmaid to show them to a room, and was rewarded for his good judgment by a small sack of silver.
The innkeeper's bushy mustache lifted awkwardly as he grinned, tossing the sack away behind the bar. The second to part from the crowd gave him pause- this one was dark. Not to say his skin was, or that Marcus was racist. Far be it for him to judge based on someone's skin color. But, the visitor also had pointed ears slipping out from under his hood, and his leathers and cowl shrouded all but those completely.
"Somethin' I can get for you, stranger?" Marcus asked, casually swiping a rag over the bar and breaking eye contact the moment the Quel'dorei turned to meet his gaze. The voice that replied, however, jolted him back into looking at the leather-clad elf.
"No," he replied, his voice echoing over itself. "And my name is An'darion Iceblood."
"...Well, you'll pardon my asking, master Iceblood, but what's happened to your voice? You sound like a cavern's in your throat, son." Marcus replied, still frozen in place. His eyes searched under An'darion's cowl, but he was rewarded with nothing save an unblinking stare of piercing blue from the glowing eyes beneath.
"If you must know," the Elf growled back, as if someone were intruding greatly on his privacy "I was struck across the neck by a piece of my home when -your- Prince came rampaging through our lands. Paid off a highly inept young healer to fix my throat, but this was the result. I'm only seeking a place to stay the night, but as you can see by my clothing, I lost what little money I had on that boy's work. I have food and a few things to trade, if you know of someone who might be so inclined."
Marcus again averted his eyes and went back to mopping at the bar, the redness of his cheeks indicating his feeling of appropriate shame at having called attention to this stranger's- An'darion Iceblood's, he corrected himself- predicament, and especially in front of patrons. However, he also felt appropriately angry at the mention of Arthas Menethil's recent betrayal, and suddenly found himself eager to get this snippy point-ear out of his tavern.
"Follow me," the innkeeper said, grabbing his own cloak from a peg on the wall. Andarion did so, shutting the door behind him as they left.
It was a short trudge trough the snow to a two-story home overlooking Dawnhaven's town square. A knock on the door and the call of the innkeeper's voice provided An'darion's entry. The pair were greeted by a lumberjack, of all things, a mountain of a man by the name of John Leman, affectionately dubbed "Long" John by the inhabitants of Dawnhaven, or so An'darion was told.
"Millie," Long John called, having shaken both men's hands and run his own once through the great curly length of brown beard that adorned his chin, "We've guests! And one to stay!"
Immediately from the top of the stairs came the woman who was ostensibly Long John's wife, and at the hem of her nightgown, a small child. They descended carefully, finally coming to rest on the ground floor a moment later. Out of respect, An'darion removed his hood.
The child, now clearly a small girl of perhaps six years, screamed in terror at the flash of deathly pale skin that hid beneath the Elf's hood. Long John made a sort of reproachful grunting noise, but the child would not be deterred. She immediately bolted from the safety of her mother's side and ran for the greater safety of her bed and blanket, though she didn't make it up the stairs. The leg of her red pajamas caught on a small crack in the steps, and she tripped.
Before Millie could finish crying out, the Elf was halfway up the stairs, the back of her daughter's head resting against An'darion's chest. Daughter looked terribly confused and was breathing heavily, her eyes darting frantically around to find out why she had stopped. Mother, however, was caught somewhere between a cry of fear for her child and an open-mouthed gasp of relief, her hand hovering over her lips in a sort of combination of terror and astonishment.
"H...How did...you... You...Emma would have broken her neck!" Was all she could manage, and judging by the fact that 'Emma' had been on her way from a full head-over-heels tumble, it was probably true.
"M-m-m-mommyyy...he's cold..." Emily Leman choked, eyes finally rolling upwards to stare into her savior's face. She squeaked as he smiled down at her. To her fearful, childish mind, it looked more like the smirk a lion would give to its prey, and that settled that. She was up again and a moment later, the door to her room slammed shut.
Millie Leman immediately lifted her gown a bit, bowed to the stranger, and brushed past him up the stairs, muttering apologies for her daughter, along with the occasional statement of disbelief, leaving only Long John in the house's living room, scratching his head. Marcus had gone.
"Well, as fantastic as that was, mister Iceblood, sir, I think we'd best be barterin' your room and board tomorrow. Any man who'll go out of his way to help my daughter is welcome in my home... Even if he's the one who up and scared the daylights out of her in the first place. Come along, now." Long John took his guest by the arm, and thought briefly that his daughter was right- the man was cold as death. Then again, there was a blizzard out. Awfully quiet for a blizzard, though... "We'll get you to sleep and have a talk 'bout payment after breakfast."
The snow outside began to settle.
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Long John's eyes slammed open as if someone had just felled a tree right in front of him. He sat up slowly, rubbing at one eye, and was greeted by the sight of his daughter, who reached up and began tugging at his sleeve. "Daddy... I hurt. Can I sleep with you and mommy tonight?" She asked, lifting her arms up to him.
In spite of his frustration at having been woken up, the woodsman grinned sleepily, reached down, took his daughter in one enormous hand, and set her down in his lap. "Did you have a nightmare?" He asked, his other gigantic paw lifting to run over his daughter's curly tresses. She had his hair, he thought, as he looked down at her.
Presently, Millie began to stir beside the pair, and rose as well. Before she could ask, her husband explained, and she, too, grinned. "Oh, she probably just hurt herself fallin' down the stairs like hat, John. Put her back to bed."
John nodded and lifted his daughter up against him as he swung out of bed, causing a small whimpering sound and a protest of "But, Daddy, I'm hungry!"
"Now, honey, you can't just go making things up because you want to sleep with your mother and I. You're a big girl now, and-..." It was then, looking down into his daughter's eyes for the first time since she had entered the room, that Long John Leman's blood ran cold. Just as he noticed the faint yellow gleam in her deep hazel eyes, he woke enough to feel the sticky mess beneath the fingers curled lovingly around his little girl's back.
"No...No, please, Light, no..." He whispered. In shock, he nearly dropped his daughter to the floor. She hit, and the soared through the air like a flea, landing on her mother. Before Millie could scream, her daughter's freshly-clawed hands sunk into her throat, producing nothing but a very loud, impassioned gurgle and a spray of blood across the sheets. He hadn't noticed it at first, but Long John's hands were now soaked in blood, as were his sheets. By the time he could snap himself away from the sheer horror of the situation and lay hands on his woodcutting ax, John's bedsheets were stained with crimson spew and his wife's head hung by a few threads.
His grip, however, was too weak, whether it be on his ax or the reality of the situation. As his daughter leaped again, the lumberjack swung perhaps the weakest swing he ever had, connecting with his bedsheets and barely succeeding in shredding those. The cry in his throat was one of relief as well as anguish as sharp, lupine teeth sunk into his skull, and tears fell from his eyes, leading to a swimming miasma, and then the mercy of darkness.
From the shadows of the doorway, the Death Knight slowly applauded the work of his newest pet. She stood upright and walked to him, then curled at his feet like a kitten.
Xynrael reached for the little girl and lifted her into his arms, first carrying her downstairs.
Once she was properly tucked away in front of the fireplace, he returned for her parents.
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The screams carried through the town square, shattering the early-morning peace of Dawnhaven. These were no feminine screams of pain, nothing that could be mistaken for a domestic dispute; they were instead the cries of a man in tremendous pain. Captain Darius Montgomery arrived a few moments later, still tugging on his helmet. Guards had already surrounded the home of "Long" John Leman- the house where their mysterious guest was staying. Marcus, the innkeeper, had already reported the newcomers, and Captain Montgomery regretted not ordering the Elf checked.
"What's the situation inside?" He demanded of the duty sergeant, whose men were already setting up barricades on the streets.
"Our men at the windows report three bodies but nothing else. Looks like all that time in the woods finally turned Leman into a wild-man. They say his axe is buried in what's left of his wife's neck in the living room." The sergeant reported, shifting his rifle nervously.
"Aye," Darius commented, tapping the top of his helmet twice to secure it over the chainmail hood and leather cap underneath, "and my name is Mary-Sue. John's no madman. Breach front and side doors. No one in our out after that until our men have swept every inch of the house."
"Sir, his axe is in his wife's neck. There's a butcher knife with blood on it on the floor beside her, it's fairly obv-
"Did anyone SEE it?"
"What? No, but-"
"Breach, you sodding idiot, or I'll throw you in the window." The Captain growled, thumping his Sergeant on the shoulderplate with the corner of his shield.
"...Yes, Captain. Dawnhaven Guard! Stack up, side and front doors! Prepare to make entry!" The Sergeant barked in reply, turning to face his men. He moved to join the team at the front door, taking position behind the close-quarters group that held shortswords and shields. The Sergeant leaned his rifle against the last shieldbearer's shoulder, and inhaled deeply. It had been a long time since they had done this, and that was attempting to clear a farmhouse in the Lordaeron countryside...
"Breach and clear!"
At the call, the two foremost shieldmen on either side of the house slammed their shoulders against the heavy wooden doors, then kicked the weakened wood right off the hinges. The sound of heavy leather boots slamming on wooden floor was all that could be heard, along with men shouting "Clear!" as they trod through the house, overzealously body-slamming their way through unlocked doors in their hurry to deal with the imaginary threat that dwelt within. Finally, the Sergeant of the Guard called "House Clear!" And the Captain made his way inside.
What greeted him was a grisly sight indeed.
On the floor in the living room, near Millie Leman's body lay a butcher knife, stained with blood. Further off, facing away from her, one hand wrapped partially around a clean slice in his throat, was the corpse of the stranger An'darion Iceblood, his blue eyes still wide and glowing. John Leman's axe lay between them, closer to Millie's feet- her head hung off to one side, nearly severed clean off.
John himself was slumped in a corner, a tremendous chunk of his skull either missing, or caved in out of sight. A piece of the mantle had crumbled above him, making the cause of his death fairly obvious.
The Captain lifted his helmet off, sighing heavily. Another day, another thankless waste of human life, all too precious since the invasion of the Scourge and the utter decimation of Human lands north of Stormwind-
"Where is Emily Leman?" He asked, suddenly.
"Sir?"
"John's little girl. Where is she?" The Captain demanded of the nearest guard.
Said guard looked at him dumbly for a moment, before brightening up and replying, "She's not here, sir. She must be hiding somewhere we haven't checked. Do you want us to sweep the house again?"
The Captain was about to reply in the affirmative, before he looked at the fireplace. It had a layer of fresh soot coating it, but the log pile where John kept his firewood was full. The guard followed his commanding officer's eyes, reaching the same conclusion almost immediately. "You don't think someone..."
"I think someone." The Captain glumly responded, moving to the fireplace.
More soot fell from the chimney as he approached.
"What in th-" was all he got out before Emma fell from the chimney, the greyness of her skin evident despite the soot that coated her from the tip of her head to the feet of her bloodstained pajamas. She leaped into the air, as had been her wont since being reanimated, and howled line a tiny banshee, her claws and teeth finding purchase just above the neckline of the Captain's plated chestpiece.
"GET HER OFF. GET HER OFF!" Montomgery shouted, dropping his shield and pounding at the little girl with the pommel of his shortsword. Several men rushed to help, but the little girl began scurrying all over his body like a bug, clawed hands prying at his armor and ripping at the leather that held it in place. She dug in to his joints, causing him to drop to one knee, his left arm wrenching as she bit into it.
"AAAGH. GET THE LITTLE WHORE OFF ME! SHOOT HER, SHOOT HER YOU IDIOTS!" The guards moved to follow his command, but were soon busy with problems of their own. The flue of the fireplace suddenly shut, and the corpse of John Leman rolled over, tossing another log on the pile before rising uneasteadily to his feet.
John and Millie Leman each seized the nearest guard, yanking them to the floor by their ankles. John subsequently ripped his man's leg off, producing a satisfying spray of blood, whilst Millie's sharp nails dug into the other's eyes, then jerked backwards, removing both eye and retina in one solid movement. She fell upon the young man, fists pounding at his helmet, teeth shredding into his lips, ripping his gums, and dragging his own teeth from his mouth with violent, gnashing bites.
The young man's tongue followed, and when his jaw had been satisfactorily devoured, she set to work on eating out his skull from the roof of his mouth upwards. Bullets sunk into her flesh and shots rang out amidst the growing smoke, but did not deter her. John again rose to his feet, having literally disarmed his first man, and moved on. Rounded shot sunk into his chest and stomach, producing only a mild stagger as he dragged the Sergeant straight through the railing of the stairs.
In the confusion, the body of An'darion Iceblood rose from the floor, unseen. The room was now filled with smoke which seeped eagerly out the doors, and all according to plan. He grinned as he heard the ringing of the bells over the town hall, and the yelling outside. Already, men with buckets were attempting to brush their way past the barricade set up at the end of the street.
It wasn't a riot, but as far as chaos and confusion go, it would do.
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By the time he had flung himself out the door and into the street, the Death Knight could hear the thoughts of the fallen echoing in his mind. Each individual mind he plucked and twisted, like a master cello player tuning his instrument.
And his instrument they were. Their bodies now filled with plague and necrotic energies, every single former life in the house was his instrument. The guards, the little girl- Emma. Sweet Emma. She had looked at him with the fearful look one gives a shadow on the wall, long before growing old enough to realize it is not a monster. But, she had also looked upon him with the trust one looks upon an adult. She had given him that mixed look even as he sat down on the edge of her bed and run his fingers through the curly locks that adorned her head. He had told her everything would be just fine...
Then, with one, quick jerk, he had snapped her neck.
Now she ran screaming from her former home, shrieking as loud as her little lungs could manage. She was on fire. Another mirror in the illusion- and there was plenty of smoke already. He needed more, however.
Many of the men carrying buckets and jugs of water from the town well shrunk back in horror, and a few tried to douse her or lay hold of her to choke the fire out, but in the trickiness of her childhood, she evaded them, instead throwing herself through the open door of a house across the street. Still, none of the eyes were on the apparently unconscious An'darion. All according to plan thus far.
The Death Knight reached up and grasped at his throat, blood pouring from the wound as he gurgled for aid, grasping at the nearest passerby. The man immediately dropped his bucket and began yelling for aid. Such was the state of the town with the rapidly-circulating rumors, now two fires, and missing guard captain and sergeant, however, that none came immediately. The remainder of the guard was attempting to hold back the crowd of onlookers, which was now growing according to its own size. The more ran to the scene of the chaos, the more chaos ensued.
Suddenly, he reached up, having drawn a sharp dagger with many individual, disproportionate, and curved spikes jutting up from the hilt from his boot. He drove it into the man's temple and left it there, watching contently as the pallor drained from the human's face, sweet lifeblood seeping down his cheek. That was it. The tipping point.
Using the blood of the human as sacrificial reagant with which to heal his own throat, Xynrael rose, and took his mace from inside the door of the apparently smoldering house. Those who had run in to the other after Emma were already crying out in horror, each one falling with little real fight. Trained guards, they were not, and the structure of the city guard was already crippled from the first few minutes of the attack.
From the houses seeped thicker and thicker smoke, and now, a press of the dead. His instrument now tuned, the Death Knight formerly known as An'darion Iceblood let loose the first chord in a flawless symphony of violence, death, chaos, and confusion. The dead let loose a great and terrifying howl.
Those who heard it and recognized it for what it was, and those being very nearly all, panicked and began to run.
Most were met with a press of the second wave of guards, but these were neither local, nor were they living. These men bore older crests of Lordaeron, ones far more worn than the tabards and badges crafted for the protectors of Dawnhaven. As they ripped their helmets from their shoulders, the soft blues and yellows of Undeath could be seen shimmering beneath drooping lids. The press of the crowd stopped. Silence of voice, at least, overtook the crowd as the fallen marched up the street, forcing the crowd further and further back until they lay, half-encircled on one side by Undead guards, boxed in and pressed further together on the other by the backpedaling living.
The Death Knight's surprisingly warm, but somehow hollow and cavernous voice rose above the crowd. "Good morn, ladies and gentlemen of Dawnhaven! Survivors of he Lordaeron Massacre... Well, not for long. If that didn't, let me answer you the single question that is burning in your minds: Are you going to die? The answer is, of course, aye! You are going to die GLORIOUSLY, and in service to His Majesty the Lich King! How, you might ask? Well, by the sword, obviously, though some of you might be lucky enough to be trodden on in the press, and indeed, one or twelve of you will be DEVOURED! All of you. Bit by bit. Probably while you're still alive, it really depends where my pets happen to land their teeth and claws first." He announced, leaning his arm on his mace as the remainder of his new pets made their way out of the burning houses.
The fire spread quickly, overtaking and dominating the dawn light in terms of brightness as he spoke.
"Or maybe you meant," he went on, "'How am I going to serve the Lich King?' Quite simple. My name is Xynrael. I am a Tundra Stalker- the first. Shut UP, or I'll let them rend you all one at a time, starting with your digits!" Xynrael barked, lifting his mace and slamming it into the ground like a judge's gavel, for effect. The crowd had become restless- whiny even. "Now then... Tundra Stalkers are Death Knights, as you've gathered. But, the instruments of our trade are different. You will be killed in whatever brutal fashions I can imagine. You will be stabbed with the weapons meant to protect you. The freshly-severed heads of fathers will be used to club their children to death. You will be eviscerated. You will be raped. You're going to spread the word about this instrument, whether you mean to or not. Allow me to demonstrate."
Without so much as a twitch of the eye from their master, the Undead fell upon the crowd. Their moment of hypnotized silence shattered, the screaming resumed, and the crowd broke, running for any clear space they could see. The Undead who had been turned before, those in Lordaeronian armor whom had been foolishly allowed in by the gatekeeper at the town's paliside, blocked most of the view of freedom, but some did manage to escape. When questioned by his new lieutenant, the former Captain of the Guard, Xynrael merely grinned, his eyes surveying the carnage with contentedness and great affection for the work
"Look at them, Montgomery. We do not chase them. We do not even touch them, and still they run. This is the power fear holds over them- a guilty man may run when no man pursues, but a fearful man will weaken and die where no man strikes. Whither we go now, they will fear, and they will break before us. Whither we do not go, they will fear the stranger. They will fear the shadow. They will fear the howl of the wolf at night and think that he is our call. And they will think on their own cowardice, and they will despair. And their despair will pierce their hearts... And they shall suffer, and in their old age and young sickness they, too, untouched but by our fear, will die."
Xynrael extended his hand over the scene, sweeping it to include every road out of the town. In the panic, fathers deserted their wives and children to the mouths of the ravenous dead.
Sisters left their little brothers to be cracked and split open like walnuts by the Death Knight's crushing mace.
The young men among the guard dropped their weapons and fled to the countryside in undisciplined terror, leaving the old to cover their cowardly retreat, a living sacrifice to the fragile inner god of youth.
The sun rose from its bed in the mountains, and shone brightly over Xynrael and his minions as the Death Knight stripped himself of his clothes and armor, baptizing himself in the river of blood and flesh that ran down the High Street of Dawnhaven. He submerged a lone member of the Scourge, and emerged reborn by the blood of the innocent.
He emerged Xynrael the Dawnbreaker.
Beneath the golden rays of light and a cloudless sky, Dawnhaven burned.
Any similarity to any persons, living or dead, is unintentional but very, very unfortunate, because something this fucked up probably has happened somewhere in the world at one point.))
What I remember of becoming a Death Knight is little. The pain of a thousand years contained in but a moment, and then... Surrender. No reason to fight at all- simply giving in to the inevitable. I was going to be brought back in His service, and why not? After all, He was my patron, the one who resurrected me, who cared for me. It was only fitting. It was -proper- to repay my debt.
Becoming a Tundra Stalker was something else again. That was akin in rigor to being declared a Saint by the Church of the Holy Light.
And the members of the Church must first be baptized.
~From the journal of Xynrael the Frostbane
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He stood alone amid the new snow of the early winter months, heavy boots leaving deep prints in the settling drift behind him, which quickly disappeared. Before him, a flurry covered all but the view of lights and faint shadows cast by the buildings. The inhabitants of the settlement in the valley below had named it Dawnhaven, a name full of hope. The name would also prove to be the town's undoing.
I do not understand, he thought. Why do we not simply ravage the town and be done with it?
Because you must be properly initiated. Your kind are not an engine of pure, unthinking destruction. You must inspire fear. You must either convince your enemies that surrender is a far better fate than fighting, or make their fighting so weak-spirited that it does not matter.
Why these people?
They believe the Light will still guide them. Will still protect them. They have hope in life. You must shatter that hope. The Voice spat back, indignation lacing every syllable with an unearthly venom. But, above all, you must make them -fear.- Sow doubt and discord. They know who their enemies are. You must take away the power of their knowledge.
Xynrael grinned a savage grin beneath the darkness cast by his hood. He resumed his path down the hill, letting the snow gather on himself as he went. He wore no armor this time, but carried it in his pack. A large bedroll, his pack, and cloak were all that adorned him besides dark leathers and his mace.
The flurry turned to a blizzard, and followed him down the hillside.
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The door to the Death's End tavern burst open, letting in a small group of travelers and street-dwellers who had managed to get into town before the blizzard overtook it. From his position behind the bar, Marcus Kidrian saw immediately a small family who were not settled there, but certainly had been displaced by the coming of the Scourge. They were Human, probably from Lordaeron proper by their clothing, and looked dirty but no worse for wear. Marcus motioned to a barmaid to show them to a room, and was rewarded for his good judgment by a small sack of silver.
The innkeeper's bushy mustache lifted awkwardly as he grinned, tossing the sack away behind the bar. The second to part from the crowd gave him pause- this one was dark. Not to say his skin was, or that Marcus was racist. Far be it for him to judge based on someone's skin color. But, the visitor also had pointed ears slipping out from under his hood, and his leathers and cowl shrouded all but those completely.
"Somethin' I can get for you, stranger?" Marcus asked, casually swiping a rag over the bar and breaking eye contact the moment the Quel'dorei turned to meet his gaze. The voice that replied, however, jolted him back into looking at the leather-clad elf.
"No," he replied, his voice echoing over itself. "And my name is An'darion Iceblood."
"...Well, you'll pardon my asking, master Iceblood, but what's happened to your voice? You sound like a cavern's in your throat, son." Marcus replied, still frozen in place. His eyes searched under An'darion's cowl, but he was rewarded with nothing save an unblinking stare of piercing blue from the glowing eyes beneath.
"If you must know," the Elf growled back, as if someone were intruding greatly on his privacy "I was struck across the neck by a piece of my home when -your- Prince came rampaging through our lands. Paid off a highly inept young healer to fix my throat, but this was the result. I'm only seeking a place to stay the night, but as you can see by my clothing, I lost what little money I had on that boy's work. I have food and a few things to trade, if you know of someone who might be so inclined."
Marcus again averted his eyes and went back to mopping at the bar, the redness of his cheeks indicating his feeling of appropriate shame at having called attention to this stranger's- An'darion Iceblood's, he corrected himself- predicament, and especially in front of patrons. However, he also felt appropriately angry at the mention of Arthas Menethil's recent betrayal, and suddenly found himself eager to get this snippy point-ear out of his tavern.
"Follow me," the innkeeper said, grabbing his own cloak from a peg on the wall. Andarion did so, shutting the door behind him as they left.
It was a short trudge trough the snow to a two-story home overlooking Dawnhaven's town square. A knock on the door and the call of the innkeeper's voice provided An'darion's entry. The pair were greeted by a lumberjack, of all things, a mountain of a man by the name of John Leman, affectionately dubbed "Long" John by the inhabitants of Dawnhaven, or so An'darion was told.
"Millie," Long John called, having shaken both men's hands and run his own once through the great curly length of brown beard that adorned his chin, "We've guests! And one to stay!"
Immediately from the top of the stairs came the woman who was ostensibly Long John's wife, and at the hem of her nightgown, a small child. They descended carefully, finally coming to rest on the ground floor a moment later. Out of respect, An'darion removed his hood.
The child, now clearly a small girl of perhaps six years, screamed in terror at the flash of deathly pale skin that hid beneath the Elf's hood. Long John made a sort of reproachful grunting noise, but the child would not be deterred. She immediately bolted from the safety of her mother's side and ran for the greater safety of her bed and blanket, though she didn't make it up the stairs. The leg of her red pajamas caught on a small crack in the steps, and she tripped.
Before Millie could finish crying out, the Elf was halfway up the stairs, the back of her daughter's head resting against An'darion's chest. Daughter looked terribly confused and was breathing heavily, her eyes darting frantically around to find out why she had stopped. Mother, however, was caught somewhere between a cry of fear for her child and an open-mouthed gasp of relief, her hand hovering over her lips in a sort of combination of terror and astonishment.
"H...How did...you... You...Emma would have broken her neck!" Was all she could manage, and judging by the fact that 'Emma' had been on her way from a full head-over-heels tumble, it was probably true.
"M-m-m-mommyyy...he's cold..." Emily Leman choked, eyes finally rolling upwards to stare into her savior's face. She squeaked as he smiled down at her. To her fearful, childish mind, it looked more like the smirk a lion would give to its prey, and that settled that. She was up again and a moment later, the door to her room slammed shut.
Millie Leman immediately lifted her gown a bit, bowed to the stranger, and brushed past him up the stairs, muttering apologies for her daughter, along with the occasional statement of disbelief, leaving only Long John in the house's living room, scratching his head. Marcus had gone.
"Well, as fantastic as that was, mister Iceblood, sir, I think we'd best be barterin' your room and board tomorrow. Any man who'll go out of his way to help my daughter is welcome in my home... Even if he's the one who up and scared the daylights out of her in the first place. Come along, now." Long John took his guest by the arm, and thought briefly that his daughter was right- the man was cold as death. Then again, there was a blizzard out. Awfully quiet for a blizzard, though... "We'll get you to sleep and have a talk 'bout payment after breakfast."
The snow outside began to settle.
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Long John's eyes slammed open as if someone had just felled a tree right in front of him. He sat up slowly, rubbing at one eye, and was greeted by the sight of his daughter, who reached up and began tugging at his sleeve. "Daddy... I hurt. Can I sleep with you and mommy tonight?" She asked, lifting her arms up to him.
In spite of his frustration at having been woken up, the woodsman grinned sleepily, reached down, took his daughter in one enormous hand, and set her down in his lap. "Did you have a nightmare?" He asked, his other gigantic paw lifting to run over his daughter's curly tresses. She had his hair, he thought, as he looked down at her.
Presently, Millie began to stir beside the pair, and rose as well. Before she could ask, her husband explained, and she, too, grinned. "Oh, she probably just hurt herself fallin' down the stairs like hat, John. Put her back to bed."
John nodded and lifted his daughter up against him as he swung out of bed, causing a small whimpering sound and a protest of "But, Daddy, I'm hungry!"
"Now, honey, you can't just go making things up because you want to sleep with your mother and I. You're a big girl now, and-..." It was then, looking down into his daughter's eyes for the first time since she had entered the room, that Long John Leman's blood ran cold. Just as he noticed the faint yellow gleam in her deep hazel eyes, he woke enough to feel the sticky mess beneath the fingers curled lovingly around his little girl's back.
"No...No, please, Light, no..." He whispered. In shock, he nearly dropped his daughter to the floor. She hit, and the soared through the air like a flea, landing on her mother. Before Millie could scream, her daughter's freshly-clawed hands sunk into her throat, producing nothing but a very loud, impassioned gurgle and a spray of blood across the sheets. He hadn't noticed it at first, but Long John's hands were now soaked in blood, as were his sheets. By the time he could snap himself away from the sheer horror of the situation and lay hands on his woodcutting ax, John's bedsheets were stained with crimson spew and his wife's head hung by a few threads.
His grip, however, was too weak, whether it be on his ax or the reality of the situation. As his daughter leaped again, the lumberjack swung perhaps the weakest swing he ever had, connecting with his bedsheets and barely succeeding in shredding those. The cry in his throat was one of relief as well as anguish as sharp, lupine teeth sunk into his skull, and tears fell from his eyes, leading to a swimming miasma, and then the mercy of darkness.
From the shadows of the doorway, the Death Knight slowly applauded the work of his newest pet. She stood upright and walked to him, then curled at his feet like a kitten.
Xynrael reached for the little girl and lifted her into his arms, first carrying her downstairs.
Once she was properly tucked away in front of the fireplace, he returned for her parents.
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The screams carried through the town square, shattering the early-morning peace of Dawnhaven. These were no feminine screams of pain, nothing that could be mistaken for a domestic dispute; they were instead the cries of a man in tremendous pain. Captain Darius Montgomery arrived a few moments later, still tugging on his helmet. Guards had already surrounded the home of "Long" John Leman- the house where their mysterious guest was staying. Marcus, the innkeeper, had already reported the newcomers, and Captain Montgomery regretted not ordering the Elf checked.
"What's the situation inside?" He demanded of the duty sergeant, whose men were already setting up barricades on the streets.
"Our men at the windows report three bodies but nothing else. Looks like all that time in the woods finally turned Leman into a wild-man. They say his axe is buried in what's left of his wife's neck in the living room." The sergeant reported, shifting his rifle nervously.
"Aye," Darius commented, tapping the top of his helmet twice to secure it over the chainmail hood and leather cap underneath, "and my name is Mary-Sue. John's no madman. Breach front and side doors. No one in our out after that until our men have swept every inch of the house."
"Sir, his axe is in his wife's neck. There's a butcher knife with blood on it on the floor beside her, it's fairly obv-
"Did anyone SEE it?"
"What? No, but-"
"Breach, you sodding idiot, or I'll throw you in the window." The Captain growled, thumping his Sergeant on the shoulderplate with the corner of his shield.
"...Yes, Captain. Dawnhaven Guard! Stack up, side and front doors! Prepare to make entry!" The Sergeant barked in reply, turning to face his men. He moved to join the team at the front door, taking position behind the close-quarters group that held shortswords and shields. The Sergeant leaned his rifle against the last shieldbearer's shoulder, and inhaled deeply. It had been a long time since they had done this, and that was attempting to clear a farmhouse in the Lordaeron countryside...
"Breach and clear!"
At the call, the two foremost shieldmen on either side of the house slammed their shoulders against the heavy wooden doors, then kicked the weakened wood right off the hinges. The sound of heavy leather boots slamming on wooden floor was all that could be heard, along with men shouting "Clear!" as they trod through the house, overzealously body-slamming their way through unlocked doors in their hurry to deal with the imaginary threat that dwelt within. Finally, the Sergeant of the Guard called "House Clear!" And the Captain made his way inside.
What greeted him was a grisly sight indeed.
On the floor in the living room, near Millie Leman's body lay a butcher knife, stained with blood. Further off, facing away from her, one hand wrapped partially around a clean slice in his throat, was the corpse of the stranger An'darion Iceblood, his blue eyes still wide and glowing. John Leman's axe lay between them, closer to Millie's feet- her head hung off to one side, nearly severed clean off.
John himself was slumped in a corner, a tremendous chunk of his skull either missing, or caved in out of sight. A piece of the mantle had crumbled above him, making the cause of his death fairly obvious.
The Captain lifted his helmet off, sighing heavily. Another day, another thankless waste of human life, all too precious since the invasion of the Scourge and the utter decimation of Human lands north of Stormwind-
"Where is Emily Leman?" He asked, suddenly.
"Sir?"
"John's little girl. Where is she?" The Captain demanded of the nearest guard.
Said guard looked at him dumbly for a moment, before brightening up and replying, "She's not here, sir. She must be hiding somewhere we haven't checked. Do you want us to sweep the house again?"
The Captain was about to reply in the affirmative, before he looked at the fireplace. It had a layer of fresh soot coating it, but the log pile where John kept his firewood was full. The guard followed his commanding officer's eyes, reaching the same conclusion almost immediately. "You don't think someone..."
"I think someone." The Captain glumly responded, moving to the fireplace.
More soot fell from the chimney as he approached.
"What in th-" was all he got out before Emma fell from the chimney, the greyness of her skin evident despite the soot that coated her from the tip of her head to the feet of her bloodstained pajamas. She leaped into the air, as had been her wont since being reanimated, and howled line a tiny banshee, her claws and teeth finding purchase just above the neckline of the Captain's plated chestpiece.
"GET HER OFF. GET HER OFF!" Montomgery shouted, dropping his shield and pounding at the little girl with the pommel of his shortsword. Several men rushed to help, but the little girl began scurrying all over his body like a bug, clawed hands prying at his armor and ripping at the leather that held it in place. She dug in to his joints, causing him to drop to one knee, his left arm wrenching as she bit into it.
"AAAGH. GET THE LITTLE WHORE OFF ME! SHOOT HER, SHOOT HER YOU IDIOTS!" The guards moved to follow his command, but were soon busy with problems of their own. The flue of the fireplace suddenly shut, and the corpse of John Leman rolled over, tossing another log on the pile before rising uneasteadily to his feet.
John and Millie Leman each seized the nearest guard, yanking them to the floor by their ankles. John subsequently ripped his man's leg off, producing a satisfying spray of blood, whilst Millie's sharp nails dug into the other's eyes, then jerked backwards, removing both eye and retina in one solid movement. She fell upon the young man, fists pounding at his helmet, teeth shredding into his lips, ripping his gums, and dragging his own teeth from his mouth with violent, gnashing bites.
The young man's tongue followed, and when his jaw had been satisfactorily devoured, she set to work on eating out his skull from the roof of his mouth upwards. Bullets sunk into her flesh and shots rang out amidst the growing smoke, but did not deter her. John again rose to his feet, having literally disarmed his first man, and moved on. Rounded shot sunk into his chest and stomach, producing only a mild stagger as he dragged the Sergeant straight through the railing of the stairs.
In the confusion, the body of An'darion Iceblood rose from the floor, unseen. The room was now filled with smoke which seeped eagerly out the doors, and all according to plan. He grinned as he heard the ringing of the bells over the town hall, and the yelling outside. Already, men with buckets were attempting to brush their way past the barricade set up at the end of the street.
It wasn't a riot, but as far as chaos and confusion go, it would do.
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By the time he had flung himself out the door and into the street, the Death Knight could hear the thoughts of the fallen echoing in his mind. Each individual mind he plucked and twisted, like a master cello player tuning his instrument.
And his instrument they were. Their bodies now filled with plague and necrotic energies, every single former life in the house was his instrument. The guards, the little girl- Emma. Sweet Emma. She had looked at him with the fearful look one gives a shadow on the wall, long before growing old enough to realize it is not a monster. But, she had also looked upon him with the trust one looks upon an adult. She had given him that mixed look even as he sat down on the edge of her bed and run his fingers through the curly locks that adorned her head. He had told her everything would be just fine...
Then, with one, quick jerk, he had snapped her neck.
Now she ran screaming from her former home, shrieking as loud as her little lungs could manage. She was on fire. Another mirror in the illusion- and there was plenty of smoke already. He needed more, however.
Many of the men carrying buckets and jugs of water from the town well shrunk back in horror, and a few tried to douse her or lay hold of her to choke the fire out, but in the trickiness of her childhood, she evaded them, instead throwing herself through the open door of a house across the street. Still, none of the eyes were on the apparently unconscious An'darion. All according to plan thus far.
The Death Knight reached up and grasped at his throat, blood pouring from the wound as he gurgled for aid, grasping at the nearest passerby. The man immediately dropped his bucket and began yelling for aid. Such was the state of the town with the rapidly-circulating rumors, now two fires, and missing guard captain and sergeant, however, that none came immediately. The remainder of the guard was attempting to hold back the crowd of onlookers, which was now growing according to its own size. The more ran to the scene of the chaos, the more chaos ensued.
Suddenly, he reached up, having drawn a sharp dagger with many individual, disproportionate, and curved spikes jutting up from the hilt from his boot. He drove it into the man's temple and left it there, watching contently as the pallor drained from the human's face, sweet lifeblood seeping down his cheek. That was it. The tipping point.
Using the blood of the human as sacrificial reagant with which to heal his own throat, Xynrael rose, and took his mace from inside the door of the apparently smoldering house. Those who had run in to the other after Emma were already crying out in horror, each one falling with little real fight. Trained guards, they were not, and the structure of the city guard was already crippled from the first few minutes of the attack.
From the houses seeped thicker and thicker smoke, and now, a press of the dead. His instrument now tuned, the Death Knight formerly known as An'darion Iceblood let loose the first chord in a flawless symphony of violence, death, chaos, and confusion. The dead let loose a great and terrifying howl.
Those who heard it and recognized it for what it was, and those being very nearly all, panicked and began to run.
Most were met with a press of the second wave of guards, but these were neither local, nor were they living. These men bore older crests of Lordaeron, ones far more worn than the tabards and badges crafted for the protectors of Dawnhaven. As they ripped their helmets from their shoulders, the soft blues and yellows of Undeath could be seen shimmering beneath drooping lids. The press of the crowd stopped. Silence of voice, at least, overtook the crowd as the fallen marched up the street, forcing the crowd further and further back until they lay, half-encircled on one side by Undead guards, boxed in and pressed further together on the other by the backpedaling living.
The Death Knight's surprisingly warm, but somehow hollow and cavernous voice rose above the crowd. "Good morn, ladies and gentlemen of Dawnhaven! Survivors of he Lordaeron Massacre... Well, not for long. If that didn't, let me answer you the single question that is burning in your minds: Are you going to die? The answer is, of course, aye! You are going to die GLORIOUSLY, and in service to His Majesty the Lich King! How, you might ask? Well, by the sword, obviously, though some of you might be lucky enough to be trodden on in the press, and indeed, one or twelve of you will be DEVOURED! All of you. Bit by bit. Probably while you're still alive, it really depends where my pets happen to land their teeth and claws first." He announced, leaning his arm on his mace as the remainder of his new pets made their way out of the burning houses.
The fire spread quickly, overtaking and dominating the dawn light in terms of brightness as he spoke.
"Or maybe you meant," he went on, "'How am I going to serve the Lich King?' Quite simple. My name is Xynrael. I am a Tundra Stalker- the first. Shut UP, or I'll let them rend you all one at a time, starting with your digits!" Xynrael barked, lifting his mace and slamming it into the ground like a judge's gavel, for effect. The crowd had become restless- whiny even. "Now then... Tundra Stalkers are Death Knights, as you've gathered. But, the instruments of our trade are different. You will be killed in whatever brutal fashions I can imagine. You will be stabbed with the weapons meant to protect you. The freshly-severed heads of fathers will be used to club their children to death. You will be eviscerated. You will be raped. You're going to spread the word about this instrument, whether you mean to or not. Allow me to demonstrate."
Without so much as a twitch of the eye from their master, the Undead fell upon the crowd. Their moment of hypnotized silence shattered, the screaming resumed, and the crowd broke, running for any clear space they could see. The Undead who had been turned before, those in Lordaeronian armor whom had been foolishly allowed in by the gatekeeper at the town's paliside, blocked most of the view of freedom, but some did manage to escape. When questioned by his new lieutenant, the former Captain of the Guard, Xynrael merely grinned, his eyes surveying the carnage with contentedness and great affection for the work
"Look at them, Montgomery. We do not chase them. We do not even touch them, and still they run. This is the power fear holds over them- a guilty man may run when no man pursues, but a fearful man will weaken and die where no man strikes. Whither we go now, they will fear, and they will break before us. Whither we do not go, they will fear the stranger. They will fear the shadow. They will fear the howl of the wolf at night and think that he is our call. And they will think on their own cowardice, and they will despair. And their despair will pierce their hearts... And they shall suffer, and in their old age and young sickness they, too, untouched but by our fear, will die."
Xynrael extended his hand over the scene, sweeping it to include every road out of the town. In the panic, fathers deserted their wives and children to the mouths of the ravenous dead.
Sisters left their little brothers to be cracked and split open like walnuts by the Death Knight's crushing mace.
The young men among the guard dropped their weapons and fled to the countryside in undisciplined terror, leaving the old to cover their cowardly retreat, a living sacrifice to the fragile inner god of youth.
The sun rose from its bed in the mountains, and shone brightly over Xynrael and his minions as the Death Knight stripped himself of his clothes and armor, baptizing himself in the river of blood and flesh that ran down the High Street of Dawnhaven. He submerged a lone member of the Scourge, and emerged reborn by the blood of the innocent.
He emerged Xynrael the Dawnbreaker.
Beneath the golden rays of light and a cloudless sky, Dawnhaven burned.
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
5. Love Like Vengeance
Xynrael the Frostbane turned his head to face the woman who lay beside him, sleeping, he assumed, quite soundly. He took her arm from around his waist, gently lifted it away, and slowly peeled the sheets back. The Death Knight slid out of bed, dressed carefully in the dark, and ducked from the master bedroom of the Duskryder Estate, into the hallway where his armor and runemace had been discarded.
It took him ten minutes, with the help of ghoul attendants, to strap his armor on and sling the enormous mace onto his back. First came heavily plated boots, then legguards and gauntlets. Finally, his breastplate, tabard, and over these, his belt, were lifted into place, held as firmly as one could expect rotting hands to hold them. He tied the leather straps himself, and with a metallic shuffle and heavy thump of titansteel on marble floors preceeding him, headed off down the hallway.
The skyward-reaching arches and elegant domes of the Duskryder Estate were bathed in a sea of twisting shadow as Xynrael stalked from room to room, the combination of torches and the home's remaining lightspheres creating an almost eerie ambiance. He passed through the grand ballroom, which had seen a thousand parties in better times, and now collected dust, remaining as a tomb and tribute to memories of a more joyous an era. A number of guest rooms in various states of disrepair arose to greet him out of the next hallway, among them the room Daeryan Duskryder had claimed. From this, the Death Knight recalled that he was nearing the home's exit. A cold breeze greeted him as he thumped past; the breeze from the recently-destroyed outer wall, something he had yet to completely fix. As he exited the estate, Xynrael turned, his eyes taking the foreboding enormity of the building in.
It looked like a giant mausoleum, in the twilight darkness that always seized Eversong Wood this time of night. He deluded that he could hear the ghosts of generations past chatting on the lawn, the music from the ballroom in full swing. He could smell the food cooking from the tremendous kitchen, hear the idle back-and-forth of servants as they darted about, each one simultaneously at the whim of every man and woman in the place.
And he felt them turn to him, glare at him, each one making it clear he was unwelcome there. Their faces were no longer indistinct and forgettable, however- Xynrael recognized every single one of them.
The Death Knight called up his charger and fled down the Dawning Lane, disappearing into the darkness.
* * *
The shaman awoke with a start, his hand already curling around his staff. Zujibaba of the Darkspear reached out, flicking his wrist at the totem of fire that sat in the center of his cave. The shaman walked foreward along the path created by the piles of tools his trade demanded, and stood at the mouth of the mountain's hollow, eyes watching warily. There the shaman knelt, his eyes falling half closed as he raised his staff. A green aura surrounded the skulls and fetishes at the staff's head, guiding Zuji's spiritual eyes to places his physical could not see.
There, in the distance, amid the whirling snow, and lit only by the swirling dance of the sky-lights, was a single Death Knight. Zuji's eyes popped open, then widened slightly, and a smile crept up between his tusks. The Death Knight's face was shrouded, his armor already covered to the point of being unrecognizeable from the still-forming ice that hung heavily upon it, but from the purposefulness of his stride and the determination with which e plodded on, Zuji was sure he knew its name. Only a handful had ever seen past the wards that guarded Zujibaba's cave, and this one knew the illusion only because he knew every dip and curve of Icecrown Glacier like one knows an old lover.
The shaman retreated inside to make preparations.
* * *
Xynrael stopped as he approached a large hill near the mountains that surrounded Icecrown Glacier. In the hill, he knew, waited an old friend, upon whom there was no sneaking up. The Troll was simply waiting, watching to see what would happen next. From his right side rose the Death Knight's hand, fingers nearly frozen together from the ice and his own lack of body heat. After a brief invocation, runic energy shot out in a bubble around Xynrael's body and the immediate area, for several yards in every direction, destroying the illusion that covered Zujibaba's cave.
Deeper in, amongst the shadows cast by his totems, the shaman waited, grinning from tusk to tusk.
"Neva' moa' one for da' suddahlty, wer' ya mon? Ya be lucky da' Scourge no longah be bodderin' Zuji, oddahwise ah have ta make ya put up a new glamah fa' mah cave." The troll commented, shaking out his carefully slicked, spiked blue hair and letting it fluff out slightly, for warmth. He looked thoroughly nonplussed by the Death Knight's presence, but Xynrael could see better. In his left hand, Zujibaba held some sort of mystical reagant bag, the contents of which had been poured out in circles around the single, large, clear space at the back of the cave. Small sticks had been arrayed in strange patterns both inside and outside the circles, and still-swinging fetishes hung from bits of string and rope and staves that had been meticulously laid out.
"You were expecting me," The more ice-worn of the two observed, as he righted himself from having crouched to enter the cave. He walked the length of the path and sat down where Zuji's outstretched hand indicated he should sit. Little but a nod came from the troll by way of reaction, the two waiting in a sort of content silence, regarding eachother.
Just as the contentness of the silence would have descended into awkwardness, Zuji asked, "Ya rememba' wat a told ya da dey we met, mon? A tell ya dat d'eh be no angah wit'out lohv. Zuji be seein' intah dat cold, dead 'art a yahs. Lohv be makin' ya angreh, mon. Angreh at da people who not be deservin' ya wrat', an' makin' ya blind tah dose dat do. Da ones ya lohv can make ya weak an' foolish wit dey words." The troll explained, not-so-subtly dodging the pretense of small talk. Xynrael shifted as if a dip had suddenly formed in the ground beneath him- hearing all of this said out loud made him uneasy, but even as he opened his mouth to object, the troll went on.
"Dat love fah ya people also make ya strong, mon. By yahself, ya die. Yah have no purpose in dis world, mon. No-tin' tah do wit a, dis be all of us. We cannat exist wit'out dah oddahs. An lovh fah oddahs make ya strong, too. Ya can do fah dah oddahs ya lohv what ya cannat do fah yahself. But ya mind be distant, mon. Ya not be a 'ole mon. Ya not even be a 'ole ded mon."
The Sin'dorei listened on in silence as Zujibaba spoke, his mouth clamping shut after the second or third attempt at interrupting. Xynrael had already resigned himself to the fact that Zuji would get to the point when he was damn good and ready. Presently, the troll began to speak again, clearly delving deeper in his reading.
"Ya feel dat ya lohv two women, mon. Zuji be tinkin' ya cannat make dat work, but Zuji also be tinkin'... Dis show who ya ah. Ya cannat help ya lohv fah dese people. Ya most not let dat go, mon. Ya most not let it make ya bittah, an' angreh, no mattah what dey do. Dey not be deservin' ya angah- ya not belong in dis world, even doh ya heah. And dey love yah anyway." Zuji fell silent, leaving Xynrael to sit, frozen as if by the cold of the Glacier itself, in startled silence. He had not expected the shaman to read that far into him.
For a long, long time, nothing more was said between the two. Then, slowly, Zuji's visitor reached over his shoulder, taking from behind his back a sort of cloth that rolled like a sleeping bag, typically used by travelling merchants to carry weapons. Xynrael unrolled it on the floor, and from it took a number of runeblades. Each one was different, from axes to broadswords and polearms, but each one held, just above the hilt or at the tip of the shaft, a single, slightly discolored shard, clearly from a piece of metal unlike the rest of the weapon. He laid them out, blades and heads pointing towards the centerpoint of one of the circles the shaman had drawn on the ground. Then, he himself walked to another circle, and sat down in it. Zujibaba rose without comment and sat in a third.
Each circle formed the endpoint of a perfect triangle, the whole shape contained inside of a larger circle, at the direct center of which was a single, unlit totem.
As Xynrael settled into position, Zujibaba cautioned, "Dis be no simpal task, Fros'bane. Ya gunna face a trial wit'in. Zuji can guide ya, but ya most figh' da beast dat hold ya strengkt and ya cunning. Wat else ya face inside, ah do not know. But if yah fail... Ya be lost fahevah mon, and ya bodeh be empteh, and dah darkness take ya insted."
There was again a moment of silence as Xynrael lay down within the circle, his eyes locking on a point on the ceiling. A thousand things passed through his mind all at once. Last thoughts. Things he wished he'd said and done, and very few of them things he expected he'd care about. He thought of Iliae, of Eriene and Wyleth, of the Vanguard, of Jaen Peaceroot, of the hulking Gilomesh, and Melathanore, of the late mother of the Kierr sisters, and, to his surprise, of Nikkitah, Treue, and Tydris...And of Aerather. He thought of his comrades from the Eventide, people he hadn't seen in years, some he knew were gone forever.
Then, with finality: "Make me whole again, Zuji."
"Only ya can do dat, mon."
At first, Xynrael only heard the soft sound of Zujibaba's quiet chanting and the shaking of the troll's staff as he hopped back and forth. A tiny spark began to grow atop the totem, this particular flame an icy sort of blue. It grew, almost unnoticeably but quite steadily, for several moments, though nothing else happened. Then, just as the Death Knight was about to ask how much longer it was going to take, the weapons in the last circle started to quiver, metal rattling against metal as the points of blades and sharpened edges of axeheads clashed. In the center of all of them, he had laid his mace, which now lifted pommel-first into the air, the sharp, pointed tip of the shaft sticking deep into the ground.
Smoke rose from the flame on the totem, the smoke the same dark color as the clouds that seemed to endlessly block the sun just outside. Xyn noticed the flame on the totem growing more rapidly, and saw, as he turned his head to stare directly at it, that it was the same corrupted blue as his eyes.
Louder grew the shaman's chanting, and deeper came his voice and invications to the Loa. Xynrael reached up to grab his head, a sudden sensation of falling passing over him. Rather than feel the pressure directly where he thought it would be, however, the Death Knight's conciousness seemed to be coming from another part of his body. He still saw with his eyes, but it was as if he were thinking from his chest, rather than his head.
The center of his focus jerked again, then a second time, shortly after. By the eighth movement, he was feeling dizzy and clutching his stomach, his body wracked with coughs as if he were attempting to hold back vomit.
After the fourteenth (or was it fifteenth?) move, Xyn started losing count...and conciousness. Plagued blood and bile lay in a coagulated pool on the floor beside him, and he began feeling a sensation he had only felt once before. The Death Knight's eyes went wide, and Zujibaba's chanting seemed to come from everywhere, each word joined by a thousand different voices, all molded into one. The shadows on the walls cast by the flame of totem and torch melded into indistinct faces and forms, ghosts and demons that jeered and taunted him in the midst of his torment.
In a vague attempt to steady the rapidly dissolving world, Xynrael pushed himself up slightly. He was immediatly smashed back into the ground by a shear of wind, the pure force of the action causing him to vomit again, adding more to the pool that lay to his right. The world around him vanished into darkness, though he was aware that Zuji was still chanting.
"Ya not be movin', mon. We not close ya done yet." Was the last thing the Death Knight heard.
From the edge of the darkness that was his vision, Xynrael saw a bright light erupt and shoot towards him. He jerked backwards, held in the circle by another shear of wind as the source of the light passed through the totem, then out again and impacted him.
"Zuji, what...w.....AH. AHHHHHHH!" The Death Knight screamed at the top of his lungs as a burning sensation enveloped him. He writhed and screamed and thrashed against the shield that held him in place, hands slapping his body as if the very air against his skin was catching fire. "GET IT OUT! GET IT OUT! ZUJI, GET IT OUT, IT BURNS!" He begged, still screaming at the top of his lungs, the tiny sliver of rational thought remaining his brain attempting to reconcile the furious burning in the midst of Icecrown's unholy chill. Unbidden tears poured from Xynrael's eyes, streaming down his cheeks from the sheer pain of his entire body lighting aflame, inside and out, though ice still hung on him. Despite the weight his armor, he continued the mad pounding and thrashing against Zuji's elemental restraints .
"We can acommahdate ya soon enough, mon! Ya be holdin' on now!"
"AAAAAGGGHHHHH!!!! GET IT OUT!" Despite the cries, Zuji continued chanting, a feeling of sinking and swirling cutting through the pit of his friend's stomach, as if the firestorm pervading him had met with a dark whirlwind. Then, blessed numbness overtook him, and his last concious thought was the belief that death had finally taken him back, and the feeling of his mind being taken from his body to join his father in whatever way proceeded it.
* * *
Xynrael reached out to catch himself as he stumbled, only to realize that he was kneeling. The world around him was dark, but this dark was... Natural. His face was covered by his hood, his cloak spread out slightly behind him. One leather-covered hand was wrapped tightly around his runemace, which stood point-down in the thick permafrost beneath him. Looking up, he saw that he was kneeling before a set of stairs made from the same frost upon which he had found himself. And up the steps was a terrifying sight.
The Frozen Throne. Upon the Throne sat Arthas Menethil, the Lich King. Frostmourne was not in his hand, but the Lich King's hand hung in the air, outstretched towards a place behind Xynrael's shoulder. The Death Knight turned, and behind him, on the dias leading up to the throne, was gathered a small army. Some names he had forgotten, but every face he remembered. Many of them had been caved into or cleaved from their shoulders by the weight or scythes of Skyshatter, and each one's blood had, at one point, decorated the mighty runemace.
They charged.
By the tens and hundreds they swarmed around him, each one grabbing any hold their hands could find. Xynrael fought back weakly, but against this mad charge, there was no defense. One or two fell to Skyshatter before the weapon was torn from his hands. A spray of surrging blood magic struck down another fifteen or so, but eventually, the Death Knight was completely overwhelmed, his body dragged into the crushing press. As they clawed at his armor and flesh, he heard amid the madness a single, distinct voice.
This is your just reward, Xynrael the Dawnbreaker. You turned against your people, and you turned against the King you betrayed them for. This world has no place for traitors. You belong to me. You are -sworn- to me.
As he was dragged down, he began to feel the truth of it. The inevitability of it. Maybe, just maybe, if he gave in, joined the press that tore at him...
"Quiet be ya, ya damn fool! Ya not be givin' in, mon! Dese people ya killed, dat be true, but ya be doin' it undah HIS sway! Da dead and da livin' cannaht hold ya fa' his sins! Dey be HIS tah bea'. YA RELEASE DEM UN'TAH HEEM." Zuji's voice echoed like a thunderstorm amidst the chaos, seeming to come from all directions at once.
The Death Knight set his gaze upon his mace, which sat, unmoved by the crowd, not three feet away. He managed to wrench his right arm free and extend it, calling the weapon to him with tendrils of unholy power. The mace slid between the legs of several who held them, knocking over and unbalancing the legs that it did not rend off. Taking hold of the mace's shaft, Xynrael let loose a mighty swing, beating from his left side those who held him. Another torrent of blood flew outwards as he swung the weapon, sending the immediate mob as far back as it could go. With a sweep of his left hand, he took hold of the blood in the chests of those around him and sent it bubbling outwards, causing them to grasp their chests in agony as their hearts exploded. Many died instantly and disappeared, and Xynrael finally had some breathing room.
"BACK TO THE PIT WITH YOU." He roared, slamming his mace into the floor. A discharge of unholy power spread through the permafrost, rapidly bubbling outwards and consuming the flesh of many who were too close to him, and thus too far from the edge to escape before their flesh and bone were worn away to rot.
As he lifted his head, the hood of Xynrael's cloak fell away, revealing his face to the stinging cold, and finally allowing him to see the sky. The flurries of snow outside the dias of the Frozen Throne were too thick to see even a foot outside of the edge. A test, then. This was the test Zuji had spoken of. The Death Knight slid one leg back, ears twitching slightly, listening for any sound indicating that the mob was about to rush him again.
"Know ya well, mon... Dis be no alluzhon. If ya die hea', da last t'ing keepin' dese souls from ya body be gone. It be vacant wit'out da rule of ya mace an' ya mind." Zuji's voice cautioned. As if on cue, the remaining souls rushed at Xynrael, screaming incoherently.
The last of these he barely saw as he struck them down. He whirled in and out of their ranks, Skyshatter punching holes in the awkward circle they formed, and crushing even more holes and cavities into their flesh. Each time Skyshatter swung, five or six fell, caught in the mace's sweeping arc or the spray of freshly-plagued blood that followed each strike. Soon, they had all been dispatched, but the last thirty or so did not disappear as the rest did. Xynrael knelt among them as they reanimated, then rose again for battle as they turned to face him, though he knew strength was spent.
The faces he saw were not those he had expected.
Instead of the bodies of the fallen, the faces of those he considered (or had once considered) friends greeted him. Thaelis Kael'dorin and Eriene Riverwalker stood side-by-side, their Blood Knight uniforms looking freshly polished, the shield in Thaelis' hand gleaming so beautifully that Xynrael could swear the Phoenix upon it was about to take flight. From behind Eriene, Wyleth Riverwalker appeared. He stood in a sort of contented silence behind his wife, a smile on his face, arms hanging loosely at his sides. For a moment, Xynrael saw some of the stress Eriene had secured for herself as captain of the Academy's Red Brigade disappear, though she quickly grew stern again, her hands folding behind her back as her eyes turned from her husband.
Through the howling gale outside the dias came Ruscion Vas'nir and Hylaudius Dorennen, beside whom the Death Knight had fought in Northrend. Ruscion looked impassive, and Hylaudius was clearly unhappy to be there, though he seemed approving of the remaining carnage, even though some of the corpses continued to reanimate, bearing clothing and faces they hadn't borne a moment ago. Two figures slid in next to Ruscion and Hylaudius, both women Xynrael recognized from the Order of the Eventide, before it had dissolved. Xynrael's self-appointed bodyguard, the Death Knight Irelynn, a tall, lanky woman with flame-red hair and a temper to match settled herself in beside Ruscion and was herself flanked by Saori, their resident expert on temporal magic and representative to the Bronze Flight.
At his left, the Death Knight felt a familiar pair of hands wrap around the gauntlet covering his own. Iliae Duskryder smirked up at him as he turned, her former mate, Dinendal Amandil falling into step behind her. She moved away from Xynrael as a third figure appeared- his cousin, Jaericho, whose flesh Iliae had carved off, piece by peice, and let to bleed to death in the laboratory beneath the Duskryder Estate. Dinendal faded into the crowd, and as she fell in beside Iliae, Jaericho, too, disappeared.
From out of the snowstorm stumbled an enormous Undead. He held a flask in one hand, an axe in the other, and a look of general boredom pasted all over the rest of him. Melathanore Malarius grinned as he spotted Iliae, and rather violently shoved his way through the gathering to stand beside her. Adalvaldr Von Harmonn appeared beside Mel, his saronite jaw clenched tightly, both clawed hands folded over the head of his swagger cane, and behind him rose Riethe Kierr, flanked by her two daughters. The three Kierrs immediately moved left to join those Xynrael had met in the Academy, each one looking mildly uncomfortable at the sight of the Forsaken.
The sound of shuffling plate announced the rising of Treue Frostblade and his 'family,' such as Xynrael had known them; Nikkitah Blightheart stood behind his 'father' and adopted a look of irritation. He seemed about to say something, but cut it off, instead moving with Treue and Tydris Dawnfury to stand off to one side. The three were followed immediately by some of the most misguided men Xynrael Frostbane had ever met. Aerather Sunrender, Annexious Bloodfury, and Surion Draxus pushed themselves to their feet and, in unison, brushed past Xyn to stand beside Treue's family. For several moments, Xynrael allowed himself to wonder if Aerather, Annexious, and Surion were all so alike... And how far beyond redemption they had really been when he turned on each of them.
Jaen Peaceroot appeared and scampered quickly out of sight, behind those from the Vanguard. He was dragged back into veiw by Calthos Sunkeeper, the Ebonhawk Vanguard's artificer, at one shoulder. On his other shoulder, gripping just as tightly, was Lyzander Bloodthorne, whom Xyn now knew to be a master spy and tactician. The two men were grinning slightly down at the Vanguard's newest recruit- they'd make something of him, yet. Lyzander's companion Taleal slipped from the shadows at his side, lifting one arm onto his shoulder and leaning on him as if he were a fencepost. Lieutenant Vladimaer Lightsworn appeared from behind the Ebonhawks' ranks, grinning like a drunken fool.
The appearance of the Springsun Sisters, Kavei, Maexin, and Tyaene, completed the picture- these were perhaps the only three Xynrael had truly known before becoming a member of the Scourge. Kavei was the oldest of the three, and had died with Xynrael on the grounds of his family's estate during the Invasion. Even in this dreamlike state, the Death Knight fought back tears at seeing her whole, unmarred, and alive again. But the dreams of her living form had stopped years ago, and he forced thoughts of her from his mind even as she turned to smile at him. Maexin and Tyaene were twins and much younger than Kavei. The two women stood side-by-side, staring up at him as they had when he had first been introduced to them nearly a hundred years before.
Xynrael forced himself to stop breathing in order to keep from sobbing as Kavei and Maexin disappeared like ghosts carried in a mist, the last traces of their existance wiped clean by the whirling snow outside the Throne. Tyaene gave him a small, understanding smile, and turned away to join all of the others.
There were many more, but the last to arrive was a single, black-and-red clad Rogue that Xyn knew only as Sunsworn. Her face was masked and hooded even more heavily than his own had been. As he looked her over, the Death Knight noticed with some curiosity that she held in the fingers of her left hand an ornate, black rook from the human game of chess. Rather than ending in the usual battlements, however, the head of a wolf extended from the playing piece's top, its eyes following Xynrael even as she drew it out of his sight, shooting him a rather exaggerated glare.
Others came in by the dozens. Eventually, he lost track of how many people there were, and gave up. They stood at a sort of grim attention where they had gathered, like gladiators about to die for his entertainment.
The irony was not lost on him. Once, he had done the same. Once...
Why do you bother?
The voices came from among the crowd, and all in unison. He recognized them- all of the people who had caused him to question his motives, speaking in unison. They sounded as the Scourge once sounded, encompassed by the vast conciousness of the Lich King. Orderly. Assured.
The sound was too familiar.
You cannot protect them all.
Xynrael moved in and out of the crowd, his hand on his mace's pommel, corrupted blue eyes darting from face to face. Those who were now voicing his doubts were gone. Jaericho, Nikkitah, Aerather, had all disappeared. Though all the crowd were facing foreward, he heard another pair of boots thumping steadily on the ice as he moved, the deep sound accompanied by a light swish.
You cannot even protect them from yourself.
The meaning of the words was clear. Perhaps not to anyone else, should they have heard, but Xynrael understood them. If his bloodlust ever flared because of the Light...
His throught were interrupted. The Death Knight looked heavenward as a howl of wind brought into sharp relief the rapid shift of the falling snow. Rather than fall outside the dias upon which the Frozen Throne rested, the flurry of white was now beginning to swirl over it. Though he felt the wind sting his face, the feeling of the snow was unexpected. Rather than simply come to rest or turn to water, it shattered into dust.
It is fitting. You are a broken man, protecting a world already so broken that it cannot be saved.
The 'snow' felt thin and silty on his skin, and as Xyn dusted some of it off with his left gauntlet, he saw it was dark and dirty looking.
Ash.
For a brief moment, he could see through the blizzard, outside of the Throne's dias. All he could glimpse before the curtain closed again was mountains of bodies, piled a thousand high, their flesh searing away in great pillars of flame that seemed to burn hot enough to ignite the air around them.
Who is fit to replace you as protector, Xynrael the Frostbane? Who can keep these people safe? You have the trust of death itself. Neither time nor will of nature can remove you from his grasp. But you are one man. How many of them can you protect? The voice of doubt had echoed in Xynrael's mind for nearly a year, but never had he heard it so clearly as he did now, the image of friends and strangers alike still burning in his mind.
Thaelis Kael'dorin is a good man. A strong man. He can replace you. But what if death claims him first?
The Death Knight's eyes narrowed to slits as he turned, attempting to push his way through a crowd that was suddenly too thick to move past.
"Kael'dorin, RUN!" He forced his way through with a broad swing of the arm, throwing others out of his way by shoving with the shaft of his mace and by slamming into them with a lowered shoulderplate. Kael'dorin turned just fast enough to see the hooded face of his attacker. Two long, serrated, rune-covered blades protruded from Thaelis' lower and upper back.
"THAELIS!"
Xynrael arrived just in time to catch his friend in his arms as the Blood Knight fell, already dead. The rest of those gathered looked around stupidly- the whole thing had taken not more than a few seconds, and the attacker was gone. Eriene was screaming something, but Xyn's ears were deafened by a voice that seemed to whisper from everywhere at once. Zujibaba was either gone, or unable to communicate with him.
What of Hylaudius Dorennen? He is a fine soldier, but he cares only for the larger picture. What must be done to save the people as a whole, which sacrifices are acceptable...
He arrived too late to find out how Hylaudius had died.
As he turned to head back into the crowd, Xynrael saw a pair of silvery-blue flashes out of the corner of his eye. Skyshatter's shaft was brought up just in time to deflect the blows, which were aimed downwards for the shoulder joints of his armor. The necessity of deflecting the strike obscured his vision, and the attacker was gone not a moment later, disappearing amidst the confusion that had been the crowd of the Death Knight's friends.
Xynrael followed the phantom by sprays of blood and the gleam of silver and blue that struck out at him when he neared too close to its next target, but somehow, he was always a step behind the man who was slowly, poetically killing everyone gathered, staining the ice of the Throne's dias with their blood.
He finally saw the attacker as it went for Sunsworn, one of the last few still alive. It came from the blizzard surrounding the dias, like a monster from a child's nightmares gliding from the shadows. Sunsworn reacted faster than any of the others- she had been ready. She had been -waiting.- For the wrong thing.
Her blades came up, impaling the ghoul as it flew through the storm, and was herself impaled in turn, from the direction she had just been facing. What rent her flesh apart was a Death Knight by his blades, and judging by the warm, sound-muffling robe he wore under his armor, one of Xynrael's own Tundra Stalkers. As it spoke, a chill ran down his spine.
Spend too much time watching your back... It mocked in those same voices. It drew the two, serrated runeblades out of the woman's shoulders, letting its arms hang loosely at its sides. The crowd was cleared now. Only Eriene Riverwalker and Iliae Duskryder remained- one the most difficult but fulfilling friend Xynrael had ever had, the other the first woman he had truly -loved- since Kavei's death.
Iliae wasted no time. She raised her bow and aimed the notched arrow between the eyes of the Death Knight who stood across the dias from her, her head cocking slightly as she drew bowstring back.
She hesitated as he pulled down his hood. The gaunt cheeks, raven-black hair, and slightly arrogant smirk were unmistakable. Iliae looked behind her, as if to make certain. That instant's hesitation sealed her fate.
With a twist of his arm, Xynrael the Dawnbreaker yanked Iliae towards him, one slash of his blades laying her open in the same fashion his free counterpart had found her two years ago. She had enough in her to roll over and stare at the first Xynrael, her eyes screaming betrayal at him.
In the moment it had taken Iliae to be cleaved open by the doppleganger, Eriene Riverwalker had lifted her sword and thrown herself at him. Three or four blows landed solidly, but the Tundra Stalker's blood magic overcame her control of the Light. As she lowered her blade to land a fiery final swing, the Death Knight dropped his blades, grabbing her by the wrist, and she clutched her chest in pain, her own sword falling to the ground.
The Blood Knight panted and gasped for air as if her lungs were collapsing. Xynrael's doppleganger swung her around in one arm to face the original, his other hand holding her chin, as if he were about to snap her neck.
You see, now? You can never strike first. They cannot protect themselves from what is to come. YOU cannot protect them. You love them all too much to protect them. From eachother, from themselves... Most importantly, from you. Your love is your greatest weakness, a weakness I do not share.
In that moment, Xynrael came to understand what was happening, and what his trial was. He was literally wrestling with his own soul- a battle he could not win. A battle neither side of him could win, because each one needed the other to survive.
"Ya can do fah da ones ya lohv, wat ya cannat do fah yaself, mon." Zuji's words echoed.
Xynrael Frostbane looked at Iliae, bleeding to death on the dias of the Throne, and at Eriene, who stared at him with wide eyes, her mouth held firmly shut by the doppleganger.
Frostbane drew his runemace back, and slammed it into the nearest crack in the ice. Tendrils of runic energy shot through the ice just beneath the surface as he began to run towards his counterpart. The Dawnbreaker stared down at the rapidly advancing cracks in the Throne's structure, then to the blood that he had spilled not moments before, which had seeped down through the cracks in the ice and was now speeding towards him. The blood was being drawn along by the runic energy like metal to a magnet, forcing the cracks wider as it coagulated. With a turn of his head, he realized what was happening.
He held Eriene on the edge of the Throne's dias.
The section of the dias upon which the Dawnbreaker stood began to fall away, and his grip loosened. In that moment, Xynrael closed distance and yanked Eriene out of the doppleganger's arms, throwing her back onto the dias. The Dawnbreaker reached out, his hand charged with unholy energy, but Xynrael grabbed the other by the wrist, throwing his weight foreward, propelling them both over the edge of the throne and through the veil of ash.
Congratulations. You have protected the image of a friend, an idea, from death, by sacrificing yourself. Your love has been your undoing.
As Xynrael raised his mace over his head, he could feel the heat from the pyres of corpses below beginning to rise. They were falling fast, and as they fell it grew still hotter within his armor, enough that even the primordial Saronite couldn't cast off the heat. They would likely incinerate before ever hitting the ground.
"My love," he explained, as he brought his mace down, one of the scythes cleaving into his doppleganger's skull, "is my vengeance for all you've ever made me do. Now burn in hell where you belong." He growled, pushing himself off from the other's body, its blood turning to a misty gas as it fell to the fires below.
Xynrael the Dawnbreaker knew no more.
* * *
His eyes opened slowly, the light from the real world burning his eyes. Well, this world, anyway. As he opened his eyes fully, Xynrael realized that world had been just as real, and just as deadly as this. Zujibaba loomed over him, a grin spreading from tusk to tusk, causing the shaman's eyes to squint slightly, and his lips to draw bak even beyond the tusks. He looked almost... Silly.
"Ya did it, mon. De'h be a problem, tho'. One ah dah shads ah Skayshattah be missin'...When yah ovahcame him, ah couldn't restore ya soul completely. Ya always gannah be a bit... What ya Elfies say in yah fancy words... 'Ahgressahve' towards da Light. But nevahmind dat, mon... Ya be whole again, near as Zuji can tell... An' someone be hea' tah see ya."
As Xynrael followed the direction indicated by the troll's elongaed finger, a devilish smirk passed over his features.
It took him ten minutes, with the help of ghoul attendants, to strap his armor on and sling the enormous mace onto his back. First came heavily plated boots, then legguards and gauntlets. Finally, his breastplate, tabard, and over these, his belt, were lifted into place, held as firmly as one could expect rotting hands to hold them. He tied the leather straps himself, and with a metallic shuffle and heavy thump of titansteel on marble floors preceeding him, headed off down the hallway.
The skyward-reaching arches and elegant domes of the Duskryder Estate were bathed in a sea of twisting shadow as Xynrael stalked from room to room, the combination of torches and the home's remaining lightspheres creating an almost eerie ambiance. He passed through the grand ballroom, which had seen a thousand parties in better times, and now collected dust, remaining as a tomb and tribute to memories of a more joyous an era. A number of guest rooms in various states of disrepair arose to greet him out of the next hallway, among them the room Daeryan Duskryder had claimed. From this, the Death Knight recalled that he was nearing the home's exit. A cold breeze greeted him as he thumped past; the breeze from the recently-destroyed outer wall, something he had yet to completely fix. As he exited the estate, Xynrael turned, his eyes taking the foreboding enormity of the building in.
It looked like a giant mausoleum, in the twilight darkness that always seized Eversong Wood this time of night. He deluded that he could hear the ghosts of generations past chatting on the lawn, the music from the ballroom in full swing. He could smell the food cooking from the tremendous kitchen, hear the idle back-and-forth of servants as they darted about, each one simultaneously at the whim of every man and woman in the place.
And he felt them turn to him, glare at him, each one making it clear he was unwelcome there. Their faces were no longer indistinct and forgettable, however- Xynrael recognized every single one of them.
The Death Knight called up his charger and fled down the Dawning Lane, disappearing into the darkness.
* * *
The shaman awoke with a start, his hand already curling around his staff. Zujibaba of the Darkspear reached out, flicking his wrist at the totem of fire that sat in the center of his cave. The shaman walked foreward along the path created by the piles of tools his trade demanded, and stood at the mouth of the mountain's hollow, eyes watching warily. There the shaman knelt, his eyes falling half closed as he raised his staff. A green aura surrounded the skulls and fetishes at the staff's head, guiding Zuji's spiritual eyes to places his physical could not see.
There, in the distance, amid the whirling snow, and lit only by the swirling dance of the sky-lights, was a single Death Knight. Zuji's eyes popped open, then widened slightly, and a smile crept up between his tusks. The Death Knight's face was shrouded, his armor already covered to the point of being unrecognizeable from the still-forming ice that hung heavily upon it, but from the purposefulness of his stride and the determination with which e plodded on, Zuji was sure he knew its name. Only a handful had ever seen past the wards that guarded Zujibaba's cave, and this one knew the illusion only because he knew every dip and curve of Icecrown Glacier like one knows an old lover.
The shaman retreated inside to make preparations.
* * *
Xynrael stopped as he approached a large hill near the mountains that surrounded Icecrown Glacier. In the hill, he knew, waited an old friend, upon whom there was no sneaking up. The Troll was simply waiting, watching to see what would happen next. From his right side rose the Death Knight's hand, fingers nearly frozen together from the ice and his own lack of body heat. After a brief invocation, runic energy shot out in a bubble around Xynrael's body and the immediate area, for several yards in every direction, destroying the illusion that covered Zujibaba's cave.
Deeper in, amongst the shadows cast by his totems, the shaman waited, grinning from tusk to tusk.
"Neva' moa' one for da' suddahlty, wer' ya mon? Ya be lucky da' Scourge no longah be bodderin' Zuji, oddahwise ah have ta make ya put up a new glamah fa' mah cave." The troll commented, shaking out his carefully slicked, spiked blue hair and letting it fluff out slightly, for warmth. He looked thoroughly nonplussed by the Death Knight's presence, but Xynrael could see better. In his left hand, Zujibaba held some sort of mystical reagant bag, the contents of which had been poured out in circles around the single, large, clear space at the back of the cave. Small sticks had been arrayed in strange patterns both inside and outside the circles, and still-swinging fetishes hung from bits of string and rope and staves that had been meticulously laid out.
"You were expecting me," The more ice-worn of the two observed, as he righted himself from having crouched to enter the cave. He walked the length of the path and sat down where Zuji's outstretched hand indicated he should sit. Little but a nod came from the troll by way of reaction, the two waiting in a sort of content silence, regarding eachother.
Just as the contentness of the silence would have descended into awkwardness, Zuji asked, "Ya rememba' wat a told ya da dey we met, mon? A tell ya dat d'eh be no angah wit'out lohv. Zuji be seein' intah dat cold, dead 'art a yahs. Lohv be makin' ya angreh, mon. Angreh at da people who not be deservin' ya wrat', an' makin' ya blind tah dose dat do. Da ones ya lohv can make ya weak an' foolish wit dey words." The troll explained, not-so-subtly dodging the pretense of small talk. Xynrael shifted as if a dip had suddenly formed in the ground beneath him- hearing all of this said out loud made him uneasy, but even as he opened his mouth to object, the troll went on.
"Dat love fah ya people also make ya strong, mon. By yahself, ya die. Yah have no purpose in dis world, mon. No-tin' tah do wit a, dis be all of us. We cannat exist wit'out dah oddahs. An lovh fah oddahs make ya strong, too. Ya can do fah dah oddahs ya lohv what ya cannat do fah yahself. But ya mind be distant, mon. Ya not be a 'ole mon. Ya not even be a 'ole ded mon."
The Sin'dorei listened on in silence as Zujibaba spoke, his mouth clamping shut after the second or third attempt at interrupting. Xynrael had already resigned himself to the fact that Zuji would get to the point when he was damn good and ready. Presently, the troll began to speak again, clearly delving deeper in his reading.
"Ya feel dat ya lohv two women, mon. Zuji be tinkin' ya cannat make dat work, but Zuji also be tinkin'... Dis show who ya ah. Ya cannat help ya lohv fah dese people. Ya most not let dat go, mon. Ya most not let it make ya bittah, an' angreh, no mattah what dey do. Dey not be deservin' ya angah- ya not belong in dis world, even doh ya heah. And dey love yah anyway." Zuji fell silent, leaving Xynrael to sit, frozen as if by the cold of the Glacier itself, in startled silence. He had not expected the shaman to read that far into him.
For a long, long time, nothing more was said between the two. Then, slowly, Zuji's visitor reached over his shoulder, taking from behind his back a sort of cloth that rolled like a sleeping bag, typically used by travelling merchants to carry weapons. Xynrael unrolled it on the floor, and from it took a number of runeblades. Each one was different, from axes to broadswords and polearms, but each one held, just above the hilt or at the tip of the shaft, a single, slightly discolored shard, clearly from a piece of metal unlike the rest of the weapon. He laid them out, blades and heads pointing towards the centerpoint of one of the circles the shaman had drawn on the ground. Then, he himself walked to another circle, and sat down in it. Zujibaba rose without comment and sat in a third.
Each circle formed the endpoint of a perfect triangle, the whole shape contained inside of a larger circle, at the direct center of which was a single, unlit totem.
As Xynrael settled into position, Zujibaba cautioned, "Dis be no simpal task, Fros'bane. Ya gunna face a trial wit'in. Zuji can guide ya, but ya most figh' da beast dat hold ya strengkt and ya cunning. Wat else ya face inside, ah do not know. But if yah fail... Ya be lost fahevah mon, and ya bodeh be empteh, and dah darkness take ya insted."
There was again a moment of silence as Xynrael lay down within the circle, his eyes locking on a point on the ceiling. A thousand things passed through his mind all at once. Last thoughts. Things he wished he'd said and done, and very few of them things he expected he'd care about. He thought of Iliae, of Eriene and Wyleth, of the Vanguard, of Jaen Peaceroot, of the hulking Gilomesh, and Melathanore, of the late mother of the Kierr sisters, and, to his surprise, of Nikkitah, Treue, and Tydris...And of Aerather. He thought of his comrades from the Eventide, people he hadn't seen in years, some he knew were gone forever.
Then, with finality: "Make me whole again, Zuji."
"Only ya can do dat, mon."
At first, Xynrael only heard the soft sound of Zujibaba's quiet chanting and the shaking of the troll's staff as he hopped back and forth. A tiny spark began to grow atop the totem, this particular flame an icy sort of blue. It grew, almost unnoticeably but quite steadily, for several moments, though nothing else happened. Then, just as the Death Knight was about to ask how much longer it was going to take, the weapons in the last circle started to quiver, metal rattling against metal as the points of blades and sharpened edges of axeheads clashed. In the center of all of them, he had laid his mace, which now lifted pommel-first into the air, the sharp, pointed tip of the shaft sticking deep into the ground.
Smoke rose from the flame on the totem, the smoke the same dark color as the clouds that seemed to endlessly block the sun just outside. Xyn noticed the flame on the totem growing more rapidly, and saw, as he turned his head to stare directly at it, that it was the same corrupted blue as his eyes.
Louder grew the shaman's chanting, and deeper came his voice and invications to the Loa. Xynrael reached up to grab his head, a sudden sensation of falling passing over him. Rather than feel the pressure directly where he thought it would be, however, the Death Knight's conciousness seemed to be coming from another part of his body. He still saw with his eyes, but it was as if he were thinking from his chest, rather than his head.
The center of his focus jerked again, then a second time, shortly after. By the eighth movement, he was feeling dizzy and clutching his stomach, his body wracked with coughs as if he were attempting to hold back vomit.
After the fourteenth (or was it fifteenth?) move, Xyn started losing count...and conciousness. Plagued blood and bile lay in a coagulated pool on the floor beside him, and he began feeling a sensation he had only felt once before. The Death Knight's eyes went wide, and Zujibaba's chanting seemed to come from everywhere, each word joined by a thousand different voices, all molded into one. The shadows on the walls cast by the flame of totem and torch melded into indistinct faces and forms, ghosts and demons that jeered and taunted him in the midst of his torment.
In a vague attempt to steady the rapidly dissolving world, Xynrael pushed himself up slightly. He was immediatly smashed back into the ground by a shear of wind, the pure force of the action causing him to vomit again, adding more to the pool that lay to his right. The world around him vanished into darkness, though he was aware that Zuji was still chanting.
"Ya not be movin', mon. We not close ya done yet." Was the last thing the Death Knight heard.
From the edge of the darkness that was his vision, Xynrael saw a bright light erupt and shoot towards him. He jerked backwards, held in the circle by another shear of wind as the source of the light passed through the totem, then out again and impacted him.
"Zuji, what...w.....AH. AHHHHHHH!" The Death Knight screamed at the top of his lungs as a burning sensation enveloped him. He writhed and screamed and thrashed against the shield that held him in place, hands slapping his body as if the very air against his skin was catching fire. "GET IT OUT! GET IT OUT! ZUJI, GET IT OUT, IT BURNS!" He begged, still screaming at the top of his lungs, the tiny sliver of rational thought remaining his brain attempting to reconcile the furious burning in the midst of Icecrown's unholy chill. Unbidden tears poured from Xynrael's eyes, streaming down his cheeks from the sheer pain of his entire body lighting aflame, inside and out, though ice still hung on him. Despite the weight his armor, he continued the mad pounding and thrashing against Zuji's elemental restraints .
"We can acommahdate ya soon enough, mon! Ya be holdin' on now!"
"AAAAAGGGHHHHH!!!! GET IT OUT!" Despite the cries, Zuji continued chanting, a feeling of sinking and swirling cutting through the pit of his friend's stomach, as if the firestorm pervading him had met with a dark whirlwind. Then, blessed numbness overtook him, and his last concious thought was the belief that death had finally taken him back, and the feeling of his mind being taken from his body to join his father in whatever way proceeded it.
* * *
Xynrael reached out to catch himself as he stumbled, only to realize that he was kneeling. The world around him was dark, but this dark was... Natural. His face was covered by his hood, his cloak spread out slightly behind him. One leather-covered hand was wrapped tightly around his runemace, which stood point-down in the thick permafrost beneath him. Looking up, he saw that he was kneeling before a set of stairs made from the same frost upon which he had found himself. And up the steps was a terrifying sight.
The Frozen Throne. Upon the Throne sat Arthas Menethil, the Lich King. Frostmourne was not in his hand, but the Lich King's hand hung in the air, outstretched towards a place behind Xynrael's shoulder. The Death Knight turned, and behind him, on the dias leading up to the throne, was gathered a small army. Some names he had forgotten, but every face he remembered. Many of them had been caved into or cleaved from their shoulders by the weight or scythes of Skyshatter, and each one's blood had, at one point, decorated the mighty runemace.
They charged.
By the tens and hundreds they swarmed around him, each one grabbing any hold their hands could find. Xynrael fought back weakly, but against this mad charge, there was no defense. One or two fell to Skyshatter before the weapon was torn from his hands. A spray of surrging blood magic struck down another fifteen or so, but eventually, the Death Knight was completely overwhelmed, his body dragged into the crushing press. As they clawed at his armor and flesh, he heard amid the madness a single, distinct voice.
This is your just reward, Xynrael the Dawnbreaker. You turned against your people, and you turned against the King you betrayed them for. This world has no place for traitors. You belong to me. You are -sworn- to me.
As he was dragged down, he began to feel the truth of it. The inevitability of it. Maybe, just maybe, if he gave in, joined the press that tore at him...
"Quiet be ya, ya damn fool! Ya not be givin' in, mon! Dese people ya killed, dat be true, but ya be doin' it undah HIS sway! Da dead and da livin' cannaht hold ya fa' his sins! Dey be HIS tah bea'. YA RELEASE DEM UN'TAH HEEM." Zuji's voice echoed like a thunderstorm amidst the chaos, seeming to come from all directions at once.
The Death Knight set his gaze upon his mace, which sat, unmoved by the crowd, not three feet away. He managed to wrench his right arm free and extend it, calling the weapon to him with tendrils of unholy power. The mace slid between the legs of several who held them, knocking over and unbalancing the legs that it did not rend off. Taking hold of the mace's shaft, Xynrael let loose a mighty swing, beating from his left side those who held him. Another torrent of blood flew outwards as he swung the weapon, sending the immediate mob as far back as it could go. With a sweep of his left hand, he took hold of the blood in the chests of those around him and sent it bubbling outwards, causing them to grasp their chests in agony as their hearts exploded. Many died instantly and disappeared, and Xynrael finally had some breathing room.
"BACK TO THE PIT WITH YOU." He roared, slamming his mace into the floor. A discharge of unholy power spread through the permafrost, rapidly bubbling outwards and consuming the flesh of many who were too close to him, and thus too far from the edge to escape before their flesh and bone were worn away to rot.
As he lifted his head, the hood of Xynrael's cloak fell away, revealing his face to the stinging cold, and finally allowing him to see the sky. The flurries of snow outside the dias of the Frozen Throne were too thick to see even a foot outside of the edge. A test, then. This was the test Zuji had spoken of. The Death Knight slid one leg back, ears twitching slightly, listening for any sound indicating that the mob was about to rush him again.
"Know ya well, mon... Dis be no alluzhon. If ya die hea', da last t'ing keepin' dese souls from ya body be gone. It be vacant wit'out da rule of ya mace an' ya mind." Zuji's voice cautioned. As if on cue, the remaining souls rushed at Xynrael, screaming incoherently.
The last of these he barely saw as he struck them down. He whirled in and out of their ranks, Skyshatter punching holes in the awkward circle they formed, and crushing even more holes and cavities into their flesh. Each time Skyshatter swung, five or six fell, caught in the mace's sweeping arc or the spray of freshly-plagued blood that followed each strike. Soon, they had all been dispatched, but the last thirty or so did not disappear as the rest did. Xynrael knelt among them as they reanimated, then rose again for battle as they turned to face him, though he knew strength was spent.
The faces he saw were not those he had expected.
Instead of the bodies of the fallen, the faces of those he considered (or had once considered) friends greeted him. Thaelis Kael'dorin and Eriene Riverwalker stood side-by-side, their Blood Knight uniforms looking freshly polished, the shield in Thaelis' hand gleaming so beautifully that Xynrael could swear the Phoenix upon it was about to take flight. From behind Eriene, Wyleth Riverwalker appeared. He stood in a sort of contented silence behind his wife, a smile on his face, arms hanging loosely at his sides. For a moment, Xynrael saw some of the stress Eriene had secured for herself as captain of the Academy's Red Brigade disappear, though she quickly grew stern again, her hands folding behind her back as her eyes turned from her husband.
Through the howling gale outside the dias came Ruscion Vas'nir and Hylaudius Dorennen, beside whom the Death Knight had fought in Northrend. Ruscion looked impassive, and Hylaudius was clearly unhappy to be there, though he seemed approving of the remaining carnage, even though some of the corpses continued to reanimate, bearing clothing and faces they hadn't borne a moment ago. Two figures slid in next to Ruscion and Hylaudius, both women Xynrael recognized from the Order of the Eventide, before it had dissolved. Xynrael's self-appointed bodyguard, the Death Knight Irelynn, a tall, lanky woman with flame-red hair and a temper to match settled herself in beside Ruscion and was herself flanked by Saori, their resident expert on temporal magic and representative to the Bronze Flight.
At his left, the Death Knight felt a familiar pair of hands wrap around the gauntlet covering his own. Iliae Duskryder smirked up at him as he turned, her former mate, Dinendal Amandil falling into step behind her. She moved away from Xynrael as a third figure appeared- his cousin, Jaericho, whose flesh Iliae had carved off, piece by peice, and let to bleed to death in the laboratory beneath the Duskryder Estate. Dinendal faded into the crowd, and as she fell in beside Iliae, Jaericho, too, disappeared.
From out of the snowstorm stumbled an enormous Undead. He held a flask in one hand, an axe in the other, and a look of general boredom pasted all over the rest of him. Melathanore Malarius grinned as he spotted Iliae, and rather violently shoved his way through the gathering to stand beside her. Adalvaldr Von Harmonn appeared beside Mel, his saronite jaw clenched tightly, both clawed hands folded over the head of his swagger cane, and behind him rose Riethe Kierr, flanked by her two daughters. The three Kierrs immediately moved left to join those Xynrael had met in the Academy, each one looking mildly uncomfortable at the sight of the Forsaken.
The sound of shuffling plate announced the rising of Treue Frostblade and his 'family,' such as Xynrael had known them; Nikkitah Blightheart stood behind his 'father' and adopted a look of irritation. He seemed about to say something, but cut it off, instead moving with Treue and Tydris Dawnfury to stand off to one side. The three were followed immediately by some of the most misguided men Xynrael Frostbane had ever met. Aerather Sunrender, Annexious Bloodfury, and Surion Draxus pushed themselves to their feet and, in unison, brushed past Xyn to stand beside Treue's family. For several moments, Xynrael allowed himself to wonder if Aerather, Annexious, and Surion were all so alike... And how far beyond redemption they had really been when he turned on each of them.
Jaen Peaceroot appeared and scampered quickly out of sight, behind those from the Vanguard. He was dragged back into veiw by Calthos Sunkeeper, the Ebonhawk Vanguard's artificer, at one shoulder. On his other shoulder, gripping just as tightly, was Lyzander Bloodthorne, whom Xyn now knew to be a master spy and tactician. The two men were grinning slightly down at the Vanguard's newest recruit- they'd make something of him, yet. Lyzander's companion Taleal slipped from the shadows at his side, lifting one arm onto his shoulder and leaning on him as if he were a fencepost. Lieutenant Vladimaer Lightsworn appeared from behind the Ebonhawks' ranks, grinning like a drunken fool.
The appearance of the Springsun Sisters, Kavei, Maexin, and Tyaene, completed the picture- these were perhaps the only three Xynrael had truly known before becoming a member of the Scourge. Kavei was the oldest of the three, and had died with Xynrael on the grounds of his family's estate during the Invasion. Even in this dreamlike state, the Death Knight fought back tears at seeing her whole, unmarred, and alive again. But the dreams of her living form had stopped years ago, and he forced thoughts of her from his mind even as she turned to smile at him. Maexin and Tyaene were twins and much younger than Kavei. The two women stood side-by-side, staring up at him as they had when he had first been introduced to them nearly a hundred years before.
Xynrael forced himself to stop breathing in order to keep from sobbing as Kavei and Maexin disappeared like ghosts carried in a mist, the last traces of their existance wiped clean by the whirling snow outside the Throne. Tyaene gave him a small, understanding smile, and turned away to join all of the others.
There were many more, but the last to arrive was a single, black-and-red clad Rogue that Xyn knew only as Sunsworn. Her face was masked and hooded even more heavily than his own had been. As he looked her over, the Death Knight noticed with some curiosity that she held in the fingers of her left hand an ornate, black rook from the human game of chess. Rather than ending in the usual battlements, however, the head of a wolf extended from the playing piece's top, its eyes following Xynrael even as she drew it out of his sight, shooting him a rather exaggerated glare.
Others came in by the dozens. Eventually, he lost track of how many people there were, and gave up. They stood at a sort of grim attention where they had gathered, like gladiators about to die for his entertainment.
The irony was not lost on him. Once, he had done the same. Once...
Why do you bother?
The voices came from among the crowd, and all in unison. He recognized them- all of the people who had caused him to question his motives, speaking in unison. They sounded as the Scourge once sounded, encompassed by the vast conciousness of the Lich King. Orderly. Assured.
The sound was too familiar.
You cannot protect them all.
Xynrael moved in and out of the crowd, his hand on his mace's pommel, corrupted blue eyes darting from face to face. Those who were now voicing his doubts were gone. Jaericho, Nikkitah, Aerather, had all disappeared. Though all the crowd were facing foreward, he heard another pair of boots thumping steadily on the ice as he moved, the deep sound accompanied by a light swish.
You cannot even protect them from yourself.
The meaning of the words was clear. Perhaps not to anyone else, should they have heard, but Xynrael understood them. If his bloodlust ever flared because of the Light...
His throught were interrupted. The Death Knight looked heavenward as a howl of wind brought into sharp relief the rapid shift of the falling snow. Rather than fall outside the dias upon which the Frozen Throne rested, the flurry of white was now beginning to swirl over it. Though he felt the wind sting his face, the feeling of the snow was unexpected. Rather than simply come to rest or turn to water, it shattered into dust.
It is fitting. You are a broken man, protecting a world already so broken that it cannot be saved.
The 'snow' felt thin and silty on his skin, and as Xyn dusted some of it off with his left gauntlet, he saw it was dark and dirty looking.
Ash.
For a brief moment, he could see through the blizzard, outside of the Throne's dias. All he could glimpse before the curtain closed again was mountains of bodies, piled a thousand high, their flesh searing away in great pillars of flame that seemed to burn hot enough to ignite the air around them.
Who is fit to replace you as protector, Xynrael the Frostbane? Who can keep these people safe? You have the trust of death itself. Neither time nor will of nature can remove you from his grasp. But you are one man. How many of them can you protect? The voice of doubt had echoed in Xynrael's mind for nearly a year, but never had he heard it so clearly as he did now, the image of friends and strangers alike still burning in his mind.
Thaelis Kael'dorin is a good man. A strong man. He can replace you. But what if death claims him first?
The Death Knight's eyes narrowed to slits as he turned, attempting to push his way through a crowd that was suddenly too thick to move past.
"Kael'dorin, RUN!" He forced his way through with a broad swing of the arm, throwing others out of his way by shoving with the shaft of his mace and by slamming into them with a lowered shoulderplate. Kael'dorin turned just fast enough to see the hooded face of his attacker. Two long, serrated, rune-covered blades protruded from Thaelis' lower and upper back.
"THAELIS!"
Xynrael arrived just in time to catch his friend in his arms as the Blood Knight fell, already dead. The rest of those gathered looked around stupidly- the whole thing had taken not more than a few seconds, and the attacker was gone. Eriene was screaming something, but Xyn's ears were deafened by a voice that seemed to whisper from everywhere at once. Zujibaba was either gone, or unable to communicate with him.
What of Hylaudius Dorennen? He is a fine soldier, but he cares only for the larger picture. What must be done to save the people as a whole, which sacrifices are acceptable...
He arrived too late to find out how Hylaudius had died.
As he turned to head back into the crowd, Xynrael saw a pair of silvery-blue flashes out of the corner of his eye. Skyshatter's shaft was brought up just in time to deflect the blows, which were aimed downwards for the shoulder joints of his armor. The necessity of deflecting the strike obscured his vision, and the attacker was gone not a moment later, disappearing amidst the confusion that had been the crowd of the Death Knight's friends.
Xynrael followed the phantom by sprays of blood and the gleam of silver and blue that struck out at him when he neared too close to its next target, but somehow, he was always a step behind the man who was slowly, poetically killing everyone gathered, staining the ice of the Throne's dias with their blood.
He finally saw the attacker as it went for Sunsworn, one of the last few still alive. It came from the blizzard surrounding the dias, like a monster from a child's nightmares gliding from the shadows. Sunsworn reacted faster than any of the others- she had been ready. She had been -waiting.- For the wrong thing.
Her blades came up, impaling the ghoul as it flew through the storm, and was herself impaled in turn, from the direction she had just been facing. What rent her flesh apart was a Death Knight by his blades, and judging by the warm, sound-muffling robe he wore under his armor, one of Xynrael's own Tundra Stalkers. As it spoke, a chill ran down his spine.
Spend too much time watching your back... It mocked in those same voices. It drew the two, serrated runeblades out of the woman's shoulders, letting its arms hang loosely at its sides. The crowd was cleared now. Only Eriene Riverwalker and Iliae Duskryder remained- one the most difficult but fulfilling friend Xynrael had ever had, the other the first woman he had truly -loved- since Kavei's death.
Iliae wasted no time. She raised her bow and aimed the notched arrow between the eyes of the Death Knight who stood across the dias from her, her head cocking slightly as she drew bowstring back.
She hesitated as he pulled down his hood. The gaunt cheeks, raven-black hair, and slightly arrogant smirk were unmistakable. Iliae looked behind her, as if to make certain. That instant's hesitation sealed her fate.
With a twist of his arm, Xynrael the Dawnbreaker yanked Iliae towards him, one slash of his blades laying her open in the same fashion his free counterpart had found her two years ago. She had enough in her to roll over and stare at the first Xynrael, her eyes screaming betrayal at him.
In the moment it had taken Iliae to be cleaved open by the doppleganger, Eriene Riverwalker had lifted her sword and thrown herself at him. Three or four blows landed solidly, but the Tundra Stalker's blood magic overcame her control of the Light. As she lowered her blade to land a fiery final swing, the Death Knight dropped his blades, grabbing her by the wrist, and she clutched her chest in pain, her own sword falling to the ground.
The Blood Knight panted and gasped for air as if her lungs were collapsing. Xynrael's doppleganger swung her around in one arm to face the original, his other hand holding her chin, as if he were about to snap her neck.
You see, now? You can never strike first. They cannot protect themselves from what is to come. YOU cannot protect them. You love them all too much to protect them. From eachother, from themselves... Most importantly, from you. Your love is your greatest weakness, a weakness I do not share.
In that moment, Xynrael came to understand what was happening, and what his trial was. He was literally wrestling with his own soul- a battle he could not win. A battle neither side of him could win, because each one needed the other to survive.
"Ya can do fah da ones ya lohv, wat ya cannat do fah yaself, mon." Zuji's words echoed.
Xynrael Frostbane looked at Iliae, bleeding to death on the dias of the Throne, and at Eriene, who stared at him with wide eyes, her mouth held firmly shut by the doppleganger.
Frostbane drew his runemace back, and slammed it into the nearest crack in the ice. Tendrils of runic energy shot through the ice just beneath the surface as he began to run towards his counterpart. The Dawnbreaker stared down at the rapidly advancing cracks in the Throne's structure, then to the blood that he had spilled not moments before, which had seeped down through the cracks in the ice and was now speeding towards him. The blood was being drawn along by the runic energy like metal to a magnet, forcing the cracks wider as it coagulated. With a turn of his head, he realized what was happening.
He held Eriene on the edge of the Throne's dias.
The section of the dias upon which the Dawnbreaker stood began to fall away, and his grip loosened. In that moment, Xynrael closed distance and yanked Eriene out of the doppleganger's arms, throwing her back onto the dias. The Dawnbreaker reached out, his hand charged with unholy energy, but Xynrael grabbed the other by the wrist, throwing his weight foreward, propelling them both over the edge of the throne and through the veil of ash.
Congratulations. You have protected the image of a friend, an idea, from death, by sacrificing yourself. Your love has been your undoing.
As Xynrael raised his mace over his head, he could feel the heat from the pyres of corpses below beginning to rise. They were falling fast, and as they fell it grew still hotter within his armor, enough that even the primordial Saronite couldn't cast off the heat. They would likely incinerate before ever hitting the ground.
"My love," he explained, as he brought his mace down, one of the scythes cleaving into his doppleganger's skull, "is my vengeance for all you've ever made me do. Now burn in hell where you belong." He growled, pushing himself off from the other's body, its blood turning to a misty gas as it fell to the fires below.
Xynrael the Dawnbreaker knew no more.
* * *
His eyes opened slowly, the light from the real world burning his eyes. Well, this world, anyway. As he opened his eyes fully, Xynrael realized that world had been just as real, and just as deadly as this. Zujibaba loomed over him, a grin spreading from tusk to tusk, causing the shaman's eyes to squint slightly, and his lips to draw bak even beyond the tusks. He looked almost... Silly.
"Ya did it, mon. De'h be a problem, tho'. One ah dah shads ah Skayshattah be missin'...When yah ovahcame him, ah couldn't restore ya soul completely. Ya always gannah be a bit... What ya Elfies say in yah fancy words... 'Ahgressahve' towards da Light. But nevahmind dat, mon... Ya be whole again, near as Zuji can tell... An' someone be hea' tah see ya."
As Xynrael followed the direction indicated by the troll's elongaed finger, a devilish smirk passed over his features.
4. Mirror, Mirror: Weakness
"If anyone were to ask me, I'd say it was you."
The words echoed, unspoken, in the mind of Daeyn Skysong. The world around him was silent- silent as death. He lay on his back, rather peacefully, staring up at the bleakness of the sunny, blue sky, and began to ponder very strange things. Trees were falling in the forest- rather rapidly, in fact, was the Wood itself falling. But, if a tree falls in the forest, and no one around it cares (or survives), does it make a sound?
More important: Does it matter?
Probably. To someone. Amazing how much of life one wastes on the things that don't matter. Amazing how much of life one wastes on things that will -never- matter, and all without being able to focus on the things that do. Or say them, he lamented, privately. He remembered once, a very long time ago now (probably about a full half an hour) when his beloved had held his face in her hands and asked him the most important question she had ever asked him. A thousand things in one sentence... And he had answered with the right answer, but not in the right way.
He had failed her. And now she had been ripped asunder, her flesh torn by hungry ghouls. He had watched it, helplessly, with his own two eyes, as his soul was sucked from his body and his beloved's own odds and ends relocated to locales more dismal and decaying. Digestive. Dissassemble, devour, destroy. Dead, dead, all of it dead! Make it all dead so it dances again. Had he been able to, he may have shook his head (or possibly shorn it right off) to free his mind from the insanity that he felt gripping it. But, as it was, the former Paladin had no control over his motor functions, or the runaway despair ("there's those D-words again," he thought. "Devious, dastardly little things!") that was now seizing it.
He wanted desperately to feel sorry for himself. He wanted to feel angry. He wanted to cry. He wanted to kill something. Everything. But, he felt nothing, other than his own mind slipping away, floating above his body like a puppetmaster watching in horror as the strings controlling his puppet snap one by one, leaving a useless ragdoll on the floor. Except, he couldn't even reach down and retreive it. It was simply... Gone.
Something in him told him he was dead. Even if his flesh was still alive, his heart pumping blood, his mind hard at work, pondering the trees and the howling and the sounds of marching, shuffling, trodding feet and slavering ghouls and the vicious spikes and almost careless metal and woodwork of the meat wagon in which he lay... He was dead. Even were his soul still in his body, the death of his beloved meant his own.
He only hoped whatever power his soul now served would be merciful enough to let that dead feeling remain.
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One, two, step. One two, step.
They danced rapidly around his bedroom, an intricate quick-step of flashing light and rushing blood that only soldiers and young gentlemen of slighted honor know how to perform well.
Even then, he had only learned among the humans. But she could dance it as well as any of them, and dance she did. Perfectly. Parry, counter, side-step. Each strike was different from the last, based on his own choice of parry and counter-attack, her blade seeking out his weaknesses and meeting only the swift, sharp report of whistling steel coming suddenly to a halt.
"Where is your weakness?" She asked. That maddening question was what drove him on. Drove him mad. Made him swing so furiously, stab so viciously, parry with enough resistance to stop an avalanche, then loosen and strike again. She had been asking for hours, it seemed, and received no reply.
After another round of strike-parry-counter-step, he finally said "I have none! I'm already dead! All things are concious, nothing decays! It's why the living fear us still! It's what you hate me for!" He roared, taking another swing.
This time, she simplyy stepped back, out of range of the Death Knight's blade, and lowered her own a little. "Why are you here?" She asked, fel-tainted eyes looking him over, as if he were suddenly a curiosity. She had been tormenting his dreams for a little over a week, and it had alternately brought him no end of joy and torment. But, always, she was the same figure. Small, blonde, slightly scarred... Perfect. And her perfection was made more obvious as she stepped into the moonlight, eyes still fixed on him as the silver gleam illuminated the paleness of her bare flesh.
"Because I'm asleep. Because this is a dream. Because you're here to torture me in ways you couldn't in the waking world," he replied, standing off with respect to her sudden lack of aggressive posture, though he felt his own aggressiveness rising to the forefront of his mind, clouding his thoughts, making him tense and angry. He shook it off, then lowered his weapon.
"Why are you here?" She asked again, tilting her head.
He opened his mouth to reply, simultaneously rising his blade to strike again. It fell to his side, however, and his jaw fell closed as he remembered the words of a wiser man. "Anger..." He quoted, looking up at her, fixing the blue corruption that his own eyes bore upon her, "is only a placeholder. It is a defense. For you to be angry, there must be something to be angry about."
"Why are you here?"
"I'm a protector. No, that's not quite right... I'm a fighter. Wherever something happens that threatens those I care about, I'm there, fighting it, struggling with it... Because Undeath allows me to. Tirelessly."
She simply looked at him, mercifully leaving the question unasked as she slipped forewards, her sword-arm lowering fully to her waist. "You look like you haven't slept in years." She said, reaching up to lay her hand against his cheek. Almost in reflex, he leaned his head into her touch, though in their proximity, the blades crossed beside them, scraping slightly together, reminding him of the impending clash.
"Why?" She asked, her fingers falling, tracing the scars that decorated his chest and stomach, her forehead falling foreward against his shoulder.
"Because I love them," he started, reluctantly stepping back from her touch and lifting his blade in challenge. It had to be resolved. It just... Had to. "Because, I can't help it. Because someone has to. If I can't protect them, what good am I? Why did I have this all handed back to me, much a mess as it is?"
She lifted her sword and slipped forewards again, breezing past his defenses- indeed, he had none. He was able to react only by striking forewards just as she did, a simple jab for an outwardly simple task. Both swords collided with their targets. Peirced. Drew blood. Even with deadened nerves, he expected to feel something. Pain, perhaps, or even his heart exploding from pressure as it was run through. But he only felt relief, relief that the conflict was finally over. She looked up at him, smiling broadly.
And then he understood.
"My weakness isn't my own. It's-" As he spoke, she stood up on the tips of her toes, and pressed her forehead against his, and said, "Shut up, Frostbane." She leaned still further upwards, her lips brushing against his own, silencing him.
He woke up, and couldn't help but laugh.
The words echoed, unspoken, in the mind of Daeyn Skysong. The world around him was silent- silent as death. He lay on his back, rather peacefully, staring up at the bleakness of the sunny, blue sky, and began to ponder very strange things. Trees were falling in the forest- rather rapidly, in fact, was the Wood itself falling. But, if a tree falls in the forest, and no one around it cares (or survives), does it make a sound?
More important: Does it matter?
Probably. To someone. Amazing how much of life one wastes on the things that don't matter. Amazing how much of life one wastes on things that will -never- matter, and all without being able to focus on the things that do. Or say them, he lamented, privately. He remembered once, a very long time ago now (probably about a full half an hour) when his beloved had held his face in her hands and asked him the most important question she had ever asked him. A thousand things in one sentence... And he had answered with the right answer, but not in the right way.
He had failed her. And now she had been ripped asunder, her flesh torn by hungry ghouls. He had watched it, helplessly, with his own two eyes, as his soul was sucked from his body and his beloved's own odds and ends relocated to locales more dismal and decaying. Digestive. Dissassemble, devour, destroy. Dead, dead, all of it dead! Make it all dead so it dances again. Had he been able to, he may have shook his head (or possibly shorn it right off) to free his mind from the insanity that he felt gripping it. But, as it was, the former Paladin had no control over his motor functions, or the runaway despair ("there's those D-words again," he thought. "Devious, dastardly little things!") that was now seizing it.
He wanted desperately to feel sorry for himself. He wanted to feel angry. He wanted to cry. He wanted to kill something. Everything. But, he felt nothing, other than his own mind slipping away, floating above his body like a puppetmaster watching in horror as the strings controlling his puppet snap one by one, leaving a useless ragdoll on the floor. Except, he couldn't even reach down and retreive it. It was simply... Gone.
Something in him told him he was dead. Even if his flesh was still alive, his heart pumping blood, his mind hard at work, pondering the trees and the howling and the sounds of marching, shuffling, trodding feet and slavering ghouls and the vicious spikes and almost careless metal and woodwork of the meat wagon in which he lay... He was dead. Even were his soul still in his body, the death of his beloved meant his own.
He only hoped whatever power his soul now served would be merciful enough to let that dead feeling remain.
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One, two, step. One two, step.
They danced rapidly around his bedroom, an intricate quick-step of flashing light and rushing blood that only soldiers and young gentlemen of slighted honor know how to perform well.
Even then, he had only learned among the humans. But she could dance it as well as any of them, and dance she did. Perfectly. Parry, counter, side-step. Each strike was different from the last, based on his own choice of parry and counter-attack, her blade seeking out his weaknesses and meeting only the swift, sharp report of whistling steel coming suddenly to a halt.
"Where is your weakness?" She asked. That maddening question was what drove him on. Drove him mad. Made him swing so furiously, stab so viciously, parry with enough resistance to stop an avalanche, then loosen and strike again. She had been asking for hours, it seemed, and received no reply.
After another round of strike-parry-counter-step, he finally said "I have none! I'm already dead! All things are concious, nothing decays! It's why the living fear us still! It's what you hate me for!" He roared, taking another swing.
This time, she simplyy stepped back, out of range of the Death Knight's blade, and lowered her own a little. "Why are you here?" She asked, fel-tainted eyes looking him over, as if he were suddenly a curiosity. She had been tormenting his dreams for a little over a week, and it had alternately brought him no end of joy and torment. But, always, she was the same figure. Small, blonde, slightly scarred... Perfect. And her perfection was made more obvious as she stepped into the moonlight, eyes still fixed on him as the silver gleam illuminated the paleness of her bare flesh.
"Because I'm asleep. Because this is a dream. Because you're here to torture me in ways you couldn't in the waking world," he replied, standing off with respect to her sudden lack of aggressive posture, though he felt his own aggressiveness rising to the forefront of his mind, clouding his thoughts, making him tense and angry. He shook it off, then lowered his weapon.
"Why are you here?" She asked again, tilting her head.
He opened his mouth to reply, simultaneously rising his blade to strike again. It fell to his side, however, and his jaw fell closed as he remembered the words of a wiser man. "Anger..." He quoted, looking up at her, fixing the blue corruption that his own eyes bore upon her, "is only a placeholder. It is a defense. For you to be angry, there must be something to be angry about."
"Why are you here?"
"I'm a protector. No, that's not quite right... I'm a fighter. Wherever something happens that threatens those I care about, I'm there, fighting it, struggling with it... Because Undeath allows me to. Tirelessly."
She simply looked at him, mercifully leaving the question unasked as she slipped forewards, her sword-arm lowering fully to her waist. "You look like you haven't slept in years." She said, reaching up to lay her hand against his cheek. Almost in reflex, he leaned his head into her touch, though in their proximity, the blades crossed beside them, scraping slightly together, reminding him of the impending clash.
"Why?" She asked, her fingers falling, tracing the scars that decorated his chest and stomach, her forehead falling foreward against his shoulder.
"Because I love them," he started, reluctantly stepping back from her touch and lifting his blade in challenge. It had to be resolved. It just... Had to. "Because, I can't help it. Because someone has to. If I can't protect them, what good am I? Why did I have this all handed back to me, much a mess as it is?"
She lifted her sword and slipped forewards again, breezing past his defenses- indeed, he had none. He was able to react only by striking forewards just as she did, a simple jab for an outwardly simple task. Both swords collided with their targets. Peirced. Drew blood. Even with deadened nerves, he expected to feel something. Pain, perhaps, or even his heart exploding from pressure as it was run through. But he only felt relief, relief that the conflict was finally over. She looked up at him, smiling broadly.
And then he understood.
"My weakness isn't my own. It's-" As he spoke, she stood up on the tips of her toes, and pressed her forehead against his, and said, "Shut up, Frostbane." She leaned still further upwards, her lips brushing against his own, silencing him.
He woke up, and couldn't help but laugh.
3. Mirror, Mirror: Bindings
Xyn's eyes snapped open as if someone had flicked a switch in his head. In the corner of the room, a small globe cast a very dim, aqua light to every reach of the vast quarterings; bright enough to assure him there was was no one else in it, but too dim to truly illuminate anything. He swung both legs from his bed and took the shortsword from beside his nightstand, scanning the room as he rose.
There. The door to the balcony lay open, the night sky obscured only by a thin curtain. A silhouette danced lasciviously back and forth in the light of the moon, and Xynrael became acutely aware of a voice, singing in Thalassian, an all-too-familiar tune so beautiful and stomach-wrencing it made him want to cut his own ears off on the spot.
"...is coming, Children of the Sun..." She sang, as he broke through the curtain. Her form twirled slowly past him now, as if she were in no paticular hurry to get where she was going. She paused, turning and leaning both palms back on the balcony's rail, and smiled up with him.
But there was something wrong with the smile. The brightness and joy was gone from it. In fact, everything was. It was as if it had been frozen on a statue, the emotion forgotten by the sculptor. The fel-touch faded from her eyes, replaced by a similar nothing. It was an emptiness he knew all too well. She turned, looking down at the Dawning Lane.
It was littered with half-devoured corpses.
She looked back up at him, the sickeningly empty smile still there- he had been half-hoping it would be gone.
"What have you done to them?" She demanded, her voice sickeningly sweet as it wafted towards him on the night air.
Xynrael's sword fell point-first from his hands into the street below, and shattered like glass.
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They laid his body out on the altar, his pallid skin adhering to the freezing stone almost the moment it touched. Around him they sprinkled shards of metal; a blade that had been broken. They folded the fingers of each hand around identical weapon-hilts, then crossed his arms over his chest. The three men retreated back into the shadows of the icy cavern, long, gnarled fingers stroking at the pages of flesh-bound books, urging them open. From the single archway leading out came a tremendous creature, clothed in rich purples, chains... And an unholy chill.
The lich stood at the side of the altar, looking almost contemplative as he twirled in a circle, pointing one bony finger at the necromancer who stood behind him. "You are sure this is the one the Master seeks?" He demanded, his voice a chilled breath of wind and little more, though it echoed to the farthest reaches of the cavern.
"Yes," the necromancer replied, giving a look over at the Quel'dorei who lay upon the altar, just to be sure. "This is the one. The Paladin who stood against us in Eversong Wood, lord."
"You have his blades?" Again the chill, though the lich's arm retruned to his side, his robes fluttering this way and that, independent from the wind that rushed through the mouth of the cavern.
The necromancer uncurled his fingers, indicating the shards of metal that had been set out on and around the altar. "All that we could find, my lord."
With a nod of satisfaction, the lich made for the entrance, waving his hand dismissively. "Begin."
The three necromancers stood at angles from eachother, forming a perfect triangle around the altar. Each man stood upon a large rune, and all manner of these adorned the table's surface. They took hold of their staves, and, as if on cue, simultaneously raised them towards the ceiling, wailing in demonic tongues. In response, the room began to glow, the runes beneath each necromancer's feet lighting and steadily growing brighter. Slowly, the boby on the altar began to lift into the air, carried lovingly aloft by unholy arms that reached out from the stone horns at each corner. The shards of metal rose as well, surrounding the body and swirling about it like a horde of insects descending upon a plagued carcass.
Then, from somewhere deep inside itself, the 'body' began to scream. Blood sprayed over the necromancers' heads as each of the hundreds of shards drew a small sliver of lifeforce. The blood flew freely into the air and spilled onto the altar, bathing the entire cavern in a hellish red glow. As the glow from the runes reached the man suspended in mid-air, the shards shot out their own tendrils, seizing upon the man and undulating as if attempting to tug him, each in its own direction. He screamed all the louder, then descended into the silent cry of someone whose pain cannot be borne, even by the formless air.
He fell to the altar, his skin mended, eyes open, still screaming the silent scream. The red, green, and blue glows from the runes were gone, and as his pain subsided, the man whispered one word into the darkness.
"Where...?"
The only necromancer to speak thus far stepped foreward, laying his hand on the now-blue glow that was the Death Knight's eyes. "You are in the service of our master, now. Where does not matter. Only who matters. Whom do you serve?"
The Death Knight sat up slowly his legs bent at the knee, drenched in a puddle of his own blood. Beside him lay a single weapon where two had been, a tremendous mace gilded with runic patterns, bearing eight blades on the head of it, four larger atop, and four smaller immediately below that. He reached instinctively for the weapon, his hand wrapping around the shaft.
Kill them.
One long, pale arm lashed out, weilding the tremendous weapon as if it weighed little more than a child's rattle. It crashed down upon the skull of the first necromancer, shattering the ceremonial ram's-head that covered him, breaking his neck, and caving the pasted remnants of his head into his chest cavity. The other two looked on in horror; dull, dreary eyes suddenly wide with shock as they reached for their chests. The Death Knight grinned the grin of a man with a great deal of sarcasm and hatred in his heart, a smile that looked cruel enough to kill.
"You expected to live... In the service of death? You are unfit to serve Him." He admonished, as the blood of each necromancer began to bubble past their skin, crimson rivers already hemorrhaging from their eyes, ears, noses, and mouths. One of them gurgled from the throat, as if attempting to speak. He hit the floor first, chest swelling with the distinct "pop" of his heart expoding.
"Shut UP. I can't even UNDERSTAND you and your prattle is unbearable!" The other necromancer clawed desperately at his own face even as his former compatriot was being admonished... Then fell limp, and crumpled to the floor. The Death Knight's grin softened a little (not much at all), and he looked briefly pleased by his work. With a raise of the newly-formed mace, the three necromancers reached from their various states of macabre repose with a sort of grim determination, and began clawing away at their own skin, bony fingers quickly descending into sharp claws, spines distorting into hunched curves as they started struggling to their feet (and out of their now-shredded skin).
The Death Knight lifted himself back onto the altar and crossed his legs, sitting naked in the freezing remains of his own blood. The ghouls looked at him expectantly, their heads tilted. Well, two of them, anyway.
"You there! Gah. Imbicile, get over here!" Their new master barked at the ghoul who conspicuously lacked a head of any kind. It shambled over at him... backwards, and fell over, flopping like a wet fish. With a roll of the eyes and a swing of the arm he dispatched it, sending the other two off.
This is no time for games. There is much to be done. They will return with your armor. In life, you were Daeyn Skysong, Paladin of the Silver Hand. In death, you are Xynrael the Dawnbreaker, first of My Tundra Stalkers. You will slaughter your brothers and sisters in My name, and you will crush any who attempt to rise up from under My will. You will go where I tell you, and do as I tell you, without question. Above all, you will protect My subjects from those who wish to do them harm. There is a valley south of here where those you once protected are withdrawing, fleeing My wrath. You will need many to command if you are to serve My will. They will do.
Xynrael dropped from the altar, extending his arms and spreading his legs slightly. For dead, mindless servants, the ghouls were adept at strapping on the gunmetal blue armor that had been made for him. As he listened to the voice, the Death Knight nodded his understanding, first slowly, then faster and faster as it carried on, finally replying aloud "Very well."
Hefting his mace over his shoulder, he departed the cavern, his left hand tugging the hood of his dark gray cloak up over his face.
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The touch of her fingers against his skin shook Xynrael loose from his nightmare, though he knew already he was trading a nightmare of his past for a nightmare of another kind. As he looked down at her face, relief passed over his own; her features had been restored. The smile was gone, replaced with a look of concern.
Briefly, he glanced over at the Dawning Lane. The corpses were gone, but he knew where he had seen them all before. He recognized each one.
"What did you do to them?" She asked, her fingers falling to his shoulder, as if trying to hold him there with her.
He looked away, understanding suddenly passing over him. But he had to be sure. "Are you asking because you want to know, or because you're hoping it isn't what you imagine?"
Now it was her turn to look away. At least, from his head. Her eyes followed his face, catching his own. "I'm hoping it isn't worse than what I imagine," she replied.
As Xyn's eyes left her face again, he noticed that her outfit had changed. She wore an aqua robe, and her hair was done differently. She looked brighter now, and almost hopeful. Much less like the world-worn young woman he had seen a moment before. The innocence in her eyes gave him pause.
"That was you..."
She nodded once. The small hint of innocence in her voice from the question before had made him see, and he was beginning to understand. As he saw her for what she was, the more she became just that. And suddenly he remembered her, not from Undeath, but from life.
"It defines you." She said, meditatively, laying her head on his bare chest as she had the night before, her fingers seeking his. "You can't forgive yourself for their bodies."
"Neither can you."
"It hurts less when I hate you." She responded, her voice soft like that of a child admitting some private fear to a parent.
"What does?"
"I can't tell you." She choked on the words, looking back up at him, as if some part of her was about to break under the strain of the simple question.
"I didn't mean to hurt you..." He whispered, leaning his head down to press his lips against her forehead.
"You don't understand!" She shouted. Suddenly she lifted away from him, tears streaming down her cheeks. She punched him heavily- it bore more force than he remembered. Much more. As he doubled over, she struck him again, this time with the flat of her palm against his face.
"Why..." He started to demand, gathering back his wind. "Why are you doing this?"
"I can't help it," she cried, her voice reduced to a whimper. She looked angry, like a child throwing a tantrum, and raised her hand to strike him again. He looked up into her face, and saw something else in her eyes. Hatred. Not of him, but of herself. And suddenly it was she who was struck with the force of the blow, falling onto her hip, legs curled to one side of her, as if someone had backhanded her to the ground. She hung her head and looked away from him, face obscured by her hair.
On reflex, he reached for her, fingers drawing her hair aside and stroking the tears from her eyes. Both of her hands clung desperately to his fingers, as if she were clinging to some sort of life-line. His other arm slid about her waist, and he sat on the floor, drawing her into his lap.
For a moment, she simply rested there, her face buried in his neck, tears staining his flesh. Her fists beat weakly against his chest for a moment before he took hold of both of them, taking a small leather strap from inside his nightstand, and wrapping it around her wrists, tying them together in front of her.
The tears slowly halted, and she looked up at him, her eyes again slightly widened but trusting, as if she was certain whatever he was doing was to help her.
"Why am I doing this?" He asked, continuing with the motion. He himself wasn't sure- it was automatic.
She leaned foreward a little, nuzzling into his neck like a cat, her lips brushing against his skin with each syllable as she spoke. "You've always protected me, even when it was just from myself," she whispered, her tone quietly grateful. As he finished binding her, she pulled her hands in close, the fingers of one hand resting in the palm of the other as she lay against his chest, legs curled into his lap, body resting against the left side of his abomden. He reached up with his free hand, fingers brushing through her hair until it fell in its normal place, his hands slowly undoing the ties that held the robe over her shoulders. As he rose, slipping one arm beneath her knees and the other around her shoulders, her robe fell to the floor.
"I like it better like this," she said, though she looked nervous as he lifted her into bed, laying her to rest atop him. She looked over her shoulder and the side of the bed at her robe, then back into his eyes. "...If I promose not to hide again, will you keep me safe?" She asked, asi f the question itsef made her want to disappear, her bound hands splayed slightly on his chest.
"No matter what."
"Promise me, Frostbane." She demanded, shifting so that she was a little above him, staring down into his eye.
"I promise, I'll keep you safe." he replied immediately, reaching to trace his fingers along her cheek.
"You keep your promises," she said, again sounding meditative as she leaned down, her lips parting slightly, brushing against his with just the slightest tickle of a touch, still parted enough breath to pass between them. She held ther for a moment before drawing back, her head falling over his shoulder, lips resting against his ear.
He felt something rustle behind him as her hands moved over his head, finally coming to rest again against the palm of his opposite hand, fingers working slightly at something. It was a small length of rope, tied, he saw, to the strip of leather that bound her wrists. As she pulled her hands away, she revealed a small bow tied with the other end of the rope, the length of it pressed into his palm.
"Sweet dreams," she purred, just barely loud enough for him to hear, even with her lips against his flesh.
"They are," he replied, sadly.
He awoke and looked to his side, unhappiness clouding his face for a moment before he lay down again, losing himself in the momentary peace between dreams.
There. The door to the balcony lay open, the night sky obscured only by a thin curtain. A silhouette danced lasciviously back and forth in the light of the moon, and Xynrael became acutely aware of a voice, singing in Thalassian, an all-too-familiar tune so beautiful and stomach-wrencing it made him want to cut his own ears off on the spot.
"...is coming, Children of the Sun..." She sang, as he broke through the curtain. Her form twirled slowly past him now, as if she were in no paticular hurry to get where she was going. She paused, turning and leaning both palms back on the balcony's rail, and smiled up with him.
But there was something wrong with the smile. The brightness and joy was gone from it. In fact, everything was. It was as if it had been frozen on a statue, the emotion forgotten by the sculptor. The fel-touch faded from her eyes, replaced by a similar nothing. It was an emptiness he knew all too well. She turned, looking down at the Dawning Lane.
It was littered with half-devoured corpses.
She looked back up at him, the sickeningly empty smile still there- he had been half-hoping it would be gone.
"What have you done to them?" She demanded, her voice sickeningly sweet as it wafted towards him on the night air.
Xynrael's sword fell point-first from his hands into the street below, and shattered like glass.
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They laid his body out on the altar, his pallid skin adhering to the freezing stone almost the moment it touched. Around him they sprinkled shards of metal; a blade that had been broken. They folded the fingers of each hand around identical weapon-hilts, then crossed his arms over his chest. The three men retreated back into the shadows of the icy cavern, long, gnarled fingers stroking at the pages of flesh-bound books, urging them open. From the single archway leading out came a tremendous creature, clothed in rich purples, chains... And an unholy chill.
The lich stood at the side of the altar, looking almost contemplative as he twirled in a circle, pointing one bony finger at the necromancer who stood behind him. "You are sure this is the one the Master seeks?" He demanded, his voice a chilled breath of wind and little more, though it echoed to the farthest reaches of the cavern.
"Yes," the necromancer replied, giving a look over at the Quel'dorei who lay upon the altar, just to be sure. "This is the one. The Paladin who stood against us in Eversong Wood, lord."
"You have his blades?" Again the chill, though the lich's arm retruned to his side, his robes fluttering this way and that, independent from the wind that rushed through the mouth of the cavern.
The necromancer uncurled his fingers, indicating the shards of metal that had been set out on and around the altar. "All that we could find, my lord."
With a nod of satisfaction, the lich made for the entrance, waving his hand dismissively. "Begin."
The three necromancers stood at angles from eachother, forming a perfect triangle around the altar. Each man stood upon a large rune, and all manner of these adorned the table's surface. They took hold of their staves, and, as if on cue, simultaneously raised them towards the ceiling, wailing in demonic tongues. In response, the room began to glow, the runes beneath each necromancer's feet lighting and steadily growing brighter. Slowly, the boby on the altar began to lift into the air, carried lovingly aloft by unholy arms that reached out from the stone horns at each corner. The shards of metal rose as well, surrounding the body and swirling about it like a horde of insects descending upon a plagued carcass.
Then, from somewhere deep inside itself, the 'body' began to scream. Blood sprayed over the necromancers' heads as each of the hundreds of shards drew a small sliver of lifeforce. The blood flew freely into the air and spilled onto the altar, bathing the entire cavern in a hellish red glow. As the glow from the runes reached the man suspended in mid-air, the shards shot out their own tendrils, seizing upon the man and undulating as if attempting to tug him, each in its own direction. He screamed all the louder, then descended into the silent cry of someone whose pain cannot be borne, even by the formless air.
He fell to the altar, his skin mended, eyes open, still screaming the silent scream. The red, green, and blue glows from the runes were gone, and as his pain subsided, the man whispered one word into the darkness.
"Where...?"
The only necromancer to speak thus far stepped foreward, laying his hand on the now-blue glow that was the Death Knight's eyes. "You are in the service of our master, now. Where does not matter. Only who matters. Whom do you serve?"
The Death Knight sat up slowly his legs bent at the knee, drenched in a puddle of his own blood. Beside him lay a single weapon where two had been, a tremendous mace gilded with runic patterns, bearing eight blades on the head of it, four larger atop, and four smaller immediately below that. He reached instinctively for the weapon, his hand wrapping around the shaft.
Kill them.
One long, pale arm lashed out, weilding the tremendous weapon as if it weighed little more than a child's rattle. It crashed down upon the skull of the first necromancer, shattering the ceremonial ram's-head that covered him, breaking his neck, and caving the pasted remnants of his head into his chest cavity. The other two looked on in horror; dull, dreary eyes suddenly wide with shock as they reached for their chests. The Death Knight grinned the grin of a man with a great deal of sarcasm and hatred in his heart, a smile that looked cruel enough to kill.
"You expected to live... In the service of death? You are unfit to serve Him." He admonished, as the blood of each necromancer began to bubble past their skin, crimson rivers already hemorrhaging from their eyes, ears, noses, and mouths. One of them gurgled from the throat, as if attempting to speak. He hit the floor first, chest swelling with the distinct "pop" of his heart expoding.
"Shut UP. I can't even UNDERSTAND you and your prattle is unbearable!" The other necromancer clawed desperately at his own face even as his former compatriot was being admonished... Then fell limp, and crumpled to the floor. The Death Knight's grin softened a little (not much at all), and he looked briefly pleased by his work. With a raise of the newly-formed mace, the three necromancers reached from their various states of macabre repose with a sort of grim determination, and began clawing away at their own skin, bony fingers quickly descending into sharp claws, spines distorting into hunched curves as they started struggling to their feet (and out of their now-shredded skin).
The Death Knight lifted himself back onto the altar and crossed his legs, sitting naked in the freezing remains of his own blood. The ghouls looked at him expectantly, their heads tilted. Well, two of them, anyway.
"You there! Gah. Imbicile, get over here!" Their new master barked at the ghoul who conspicuously lacked a head of any kind. It shambled over at him... backwards, and fell over, flopping like a wet fish. With a roll of the eyes and a swing of the arm he dispatched it, sending the other two off.
This is no time for games. There is much to be done. They will return with your armor. In life, you were Daeyn Skysong, Paladin of the Silver Hand. In death, you are Xynrael the Dawnbreaker, first of My Tundra Stalkers. You will slaughter your brothers and sisters in My name, and you will crush any who attempt to rise up from under My will. You will go where I tell you, and do as I tell you, without question. Above all, you will protect My subjects from those who wish to do them harm. There is a valley south of here where those you once protected are withdrawing, fleeing My wrath. You will need many to command if you are to serve My will. They will do.
Xynrael dropped from the altar, extending his arms and spreading his legs slightly. For dead, mindless servants, the ghouls were adept at strapping on the gunmetal blue armor that had been made for him. As he listened to the voice, the Death Knight nodded his understanding, first slowly, then faster and faster as it carried on, finally replying aloud "Very well."
Hefting his mace over his shoulder, he departed the cavern, his left hand tugging the hood of his dark gray cloak up over his face.
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The touch of her fingers against his skin shook Xynrael loose from his nightmare, though he knew already he was trading a nightmare of his past for a nightmare of another kind. As he looked down at her face, relief passed over his own; her features had been restored. The smile was gone, replaced with a look of concern.
Briefly, he glanced over at the Dawning Lane. The corpses were gone, but he knew where he had seen them all before. He recognized each one.
"What did you do to them?" She asked, her fingers falling to his shoulder, as if trying to hold him there with her.
He looked away, understanding suddenly passing over him. But he had to be sure. "Are you asking because you want to know, or because you're hoping it isn't what you imagine?"
Now it was her turn to look away. At least, from his head. Her eyes followed his face, catching his own. "I'm hoping it isn't worse than what I imagine," she replied.
As Xyn's eyes left her face again, he noticed that her outfit had changed. She wore an aqua robe, and her hair was done differently. She looked brighter now, and almost hopeful. Much less like the world-worn young woman he had seen a moment before. The innocence in her eyes gave him pause.
"That was you..."
She nodded once. The small hint of innocence in her voice from the question before had made him see, and he was beginning to understand. As he saw her for what she was, the more she became just that. And suddenly he remembered her, not from Undeath, but from life.
"It defines you." She said, meditatively, laying her head on his bare chest as she had the night before, her fingers seeking his. "You can't forgive yourself for their bodies."
"Neither can you."
"It hurts less when I hate you." She responded, her voice soft like that of a child admitting some private fear to a parent.
"What does?"
"I can't tell you." She choked on the words, looking back up at him, as if some part of her was about to break under the strain of the simple question.
"I didn't mean to hurt you..." He whispered, leaning his head down to press his lips against her forehead.
"You don't understand!" She shouted. Suddenly she lifted away from him, tears streaming down her cheeks. She punched him heavily- it bore more force than he remembered. Much more. As he doubled over, she struck him again, this time with the flat of her palm against his face.
"Why..." He started to demand, gathering back his wind. "Why are you doing this?"
"I can't help it," she cried, her voice reduced to a whimper. She looked angry, like a child throwing a tantrum, and raised her hand to strike him again. He looked up into her face, and saw something else in her eyes. Hatred. Not of him, but of herself. And suddenly it was she who was struck with the force of the blow, falling onto her hip, legs curled to one side of her, as if someone had backhanded her to the ground. She hung her head and looked away from him, face obscured by her hair.
On reflex, he reached for her, fingers drawing her hair aside and stroking the tears from her eyes. Both of her hands clung desperately to his fingers, as if she were clinging to some sort of life-line. His other arm slid about her waist, and he sat on the floor, drawing her into his lap.
For a moment, she simply rested there, her face buried in his neck, tears staining his flesh. Her fists beat weakly against his chest for a moment before he took hold of both of them, taking a small leather strap from inside his nightstand, and wrapping it around her wrists, tying them together in front of her.
The tears slowly halted, and she looked up at him, her eyes again slightly widened but trusting, as if she was certain whatever he was doing was to help her.
"Why am I doing this?" He asked, continuing with the motion. He himself wasn't sure- it was automatic.
She leaned foreward a little, nuzzling into his neck like a cat, her lips brushing against his skin with each syllable as she spoke. "You've always protected me, even when it was just from myself," she whispered, her tone quietly grateful. As he finished binding her, she pulled her hands in close, the fingers of one hand resting in the palm of the other as she lay against his chest, legs curled into his lap, body resting against the left side of his abomden. He reached up with his free hand, fingers brushing through her hair until it fell in its normal place, his hands slowly undoing the ties that held the robe over her shoulders. As he rose, slipping one arm beneath her knees and the other around her shoulders, her robe fell to the floor.
"I like it better like this," she said, though she looked nervous as he lifted her into bed, laying her to rest atop him. She looked over her shoulder and the side of the bed at her robe, then back into his eyes. "...If I promose not to hide again, will you keep me safe?" She asked, asi f the question itsef made her want to disappear, her bound hands splayed slightly on his chest.
"No matter what."
"Promise me, Frostbane." She demanded, shifting so that she was a little above him, staring down into his eye.
"I promise, I'll keep you safe." he replied immediately, reaching to trace his fingers along her cheek.
"You keep your promises," she said, again sounding meditative as she leaned down, her lips parting slightly, brushing against his with just the slightest tickle of a touch, still parted enough breath to pass between them. She held ther for a moment before drawing back, her head falling over his shoulder, lips resting against his ear.
He felt something rustle behind him as her hands moved over his head, finally coming to rest again against the palm of his opposite hand, fingers working slightly at something. It was a small length of rope, tied, he saw, to the strip of leather that bound her wrists. As she pulled her hands away, she revealed a small bow tied with the other end of the rope, the length of it pressed into his palm.
"Sweet dreams," she purred, just barely loud enough for him to hear, even with her lips against his flesh.
"They are," he replied, sadly.
He awoke and looked to his side, unhappiness clouding his face for a moment before he lay down again, losing himself in the momentary peace between dreams.
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