I am greatly troubled of late. The rage that once burned in the back of my mind, like an angry silithid drone buzzing about, has faded to background noise. It only comes to prominence when I go looking for it, or when it is intensified by something. There has been, these last few days, not even background noise.
In fact, there has a been a sort of peace as my friend lies here beside me, sleeping fitfully in a fever. The calm is strange, like a peaceful day after a week of rain. I welcome it.
As I write this, the blade that has been the source of my rage lies secluded in a dark corner not eight feet away. Were I to look at it now, I would think its wrappings merely a rolled-up rug or some such. This is not so, of course; I can still feel it. Through this medium, I feel the beat of another's heart. The tumult of her mind and emotions, and the calm of their serenity on far more rare a day are both as familiar things as those that come naturally to me.
I can scarcely remember a time when I lived without them.
- From the journal of Xynrael Frostbane.
* * *
Day One
Xynrael allowed his eyes to fall closed as he listened to the steady pounding of metal on metal, the quiet burning of the runeforges, and the telltale thumping of plated boots on stone floors. Somewhere in the distance, he heard a bubbling noise and the familiar gurgle of some ghoul being commanded to one end or another.
The sounds of Acherus, the Ebon Hold.
The Death Knight allowed himself to fall from his reverie after a moment, but that only took him so far. He forced focus out of the brief calm granted by the Ebon Hold's familiar sights and sounds, and began counting his materials.
Five titansteel bars. Check.
Twenty bars of Saronite. Check.
One shard of a shattered runeblade. Check.
A miniscule grin passed over his lips as two Disciples passed by, the slowing in motion given away by the clanking of their armor and the scrape of their boots on the floor. They halted entirely as he began stripping off his upper armor and took a runed hammer from beside the nearest anvil. As the shaft of the blacksmith's hammer touched his hand, the head caught fire.
From the stockpile, Xynrael grabbed a single bar of saronite and laid it against a moulding. His hammer fell. The Saronite yielded, and began to shape beneath the heat from the hammer itself.
It was forty-two hours before his arms came to rest again.
Day Three
The Death Knight stepped away from the anvil, his hammer already having come to rest atop it. He moved from the forgeworks to the teleporter that sat just beneath the balcony overlooking what was once Lordaeron. A tingling sensationg enveloped the Death Knight's body, then all was dark for but a moment.
When his vision returned, Xynrael was a floor below, in the halls where Disciples sat under instructors of greater power. In the midst of these three training halls was a single, lower platform, from which Highlord Darion Mograine kept a watchful eye on Acherus and the Ebon Blade. A quick salute was Xynrael's only acknowledgement to the Highlord as the lesser-ranked Death Knight passed Mograine by, in search of a book on blood magic.
The book was easily found amidst the small library kept in that part of Acherus, as was another on runeforging and the blades that Death Knights wielded.
The location of the brief passages Xynrael sought took several hours, but the reading mere moments. He shelved the books and returned to work.
As each layer was folded into the blade, he infused it with tiny, empty runes, storehouses to be used for very specific types of energy; to hold and discharge it at the caster's will. The hammer's strikes caused the runes to glow against the already hot saronite and titansteel. As each stroke landed, the glow brightened, then dimmed slightly, then brightened again, until the entire blade was afire with sparks and runic symbols.
Day Six
In his hands, Xynrael gingerly took the blade he had spent the last five days forging. The hilt was not yet finished. That would, by far, be the most difficult part. Various Death Knights had stopped to observe his work, but he told none of them what it was for; let them make their own assumptions.
The blade was alive with fire from the forging, but the runes absorbed the energy, leaving it cool to the touch. He ran his fingertips through a jagged hole intentionally left in the blade, the place where the last shard of the original Skyshatter would lock both blade and hilt together. Beneath the blade, unholy flames danced, their tongues licking up at the weapon, and curling around Xynrael's fingers.
The easier of two tasks done, he set about to the more delicate of the two peices: The hilt. As he set down the blade, he took from a pouch at his belt two crystals, each filled with blood. One of them glowed dimly against the dismal backdrop of the Ebon Hold; the other seemed camouflaged by it. He set the two together, and laid a cylinder made of sanctified Saronite upon the giant anvil before him.
With a flick of his wrists, the two crystals began draining blood into near-invisible grooves in the hilt. The blood flowed upwards, towards the still razor-sharp piece of longsword that remained of Skyshatter. It would be this that channeled the very essence of the wielder. It would be this that would make the runeblade what it was.
The blood drained towards a singular gem just below the piece of blade jutting from the hilt, where it collected, swirled, and stopped.
Satisfied, though with the faintest tingle in the back of his mind, Xynrael once more set to work. The unholy fire below the blade roared to life upon the anvil. As the hammer fell, the cleansing fire mixed with unholy flame, creating small eruptions across the blade. The point where blade and shard met crackled as they heated with opposing energies, then finally stilled. The blood poured from the crystal, leaving it looking dull, as if it were part of the rest of the sword. As it moved, the blood, too, mixed and darted from rune to rune along the sword, the power of the forger's blood magic infusing the weapon as the blood flowed.
The fires quieted.
Xynrael set his hammer upon the anvil, and lifted the sword. It felt familiar, as any blade formed in this manner should. The last of the energy fled the runeblade, which looked comparatively dull.
But, then, the blade had not been bound to him.
He took it up, and moved to the tremendous pit in the center of Acherus, testing the balance of the weapon on row after row of dummies. It felt awkward, the counterweight too high. Which was perfect, considering the person for whom it was designed.
* * *
Over the next few days, Xynrael sharpened the weapon and tested it against armor. It was heavy enough to dent Saronite, strong enough to withstand a blow from his mace, and, as he discovered with his ghouls, powerful enough to cut flesh and bone like butter. When he swung it, it sang. The noise was no sweet music, but the sound of a headman's axe falling upn its victim.
For a finishing touch, he drew out a long-unused litany inscribed on a long, heavy piece of parchment.
In greatest despair, still we must have Faith. Faith in ourselves, that we might be mighty. Faith in others, that we might never be alone. Faith in the Light, that it might guide our path. Faith in the Darkness, that it might shield us from that which we are not prepared to see. Faith in joy, that it might strengthen us. Faith in sadness, that it might teach us of our sin.
The parchment burned even through the leather of his gauntlets, and he was quick to wrap it around the hilt. Around that, he wrapped and tied a sufficient amount of leather to keep the blade from slipping out of its wielder's hands.
The last few hours were spent attaching final counterweights to the hilt, and then the blade was ready. He wrapped it in a long piece of cloth, and was off to Silvermoon.
It was at the forges he delivered it, into the hands of a young woman.
I give you the darkness, to protect you. And I give you the Light, to push back the darkness.
I give you Mael'fallah; the Duskbreaker.
He watched as she took hold, the runes engraved into Titansteel and Saronite suddenly sparking to life. They danced with energy, and turned dark. The blade turned with them, as did her countenance. He felt the power radiating from it, and from her, the darkness. She sheathed Mael'fallah, and wrapped it tightly in its cloth, taking it firmly in her arms.
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