Completed As There Are Stars in the Sky

[Margot Triss]

Margot stood trembling, her body aching and exhausted. The light of her blade died as the cultists paused in their assault, their sightless eyes drawn away. They had won.

Margot looked to Dal as he shouted to her on his plans, her beaten mind barely registering his words. What sounded like a clap of thunder reverberated through the heavens as a red beacon of retreat cast it's jagged glow.

She made the effort to follow Dal, but her knees wobbled underneath her. No, perhaps she should go back to the main body, she was in no condition to continue the fight.

As she turned to leave the stilled cultists behind her, she felt a hand on her elbow, and then another on her arm. Margot tried to pull away, tried to swipe blindly with her weapon. It was to no avail. She was outnumbered, and she fell to the ground as more and more hands reached to trip her.

Sword fell to the earth, and where Margot had lain was only a smear of blood. She was no longer aware of the wretches that now claimed her as captive, there was none to come to her aid this time. And so, Margot was lost. Hopefully to be found before the wicked tools of the Everwatcher destroyed her forever.

 

[Faramund]

Their disguises blown, the knights ran out into the night at the head of a mass of angry cultists. Casting a look over his shoulder, Syr Faramund let out a silent curse as the Scion reared its ugly head his way. Untold malice swamped his senses, slowed his steps. They were in deep shit, and getting deeper by the second.

'Keep... running!' Breklinn cried breathlessly. The dusker had taken a nasty cut that had left half her face covered in blood. Blind on one side, she did not see Faramund begin to slow, stop. To buy her time, he told himself, or to die trying.

Balling the stolen robes in his freehand, the dawnling turned to throw them at the first cultist to reach him. Momentarily distracted, the cultist did not perceive the blade that took his life, even as it slid between his ribs to pierce the black heart caged within.

Dead, he dropped to ground. Another took his place. And another.

Faramund let instinct take over. He did not stop to think about what moves to make next; there was no time. Laying about, he took a cultist's arm off at the elbow, disembowelled another. They cursed him as they died, but that did not keep them from getting their licks in.

A club caught Faramund across the back of his head. Pain flared, blotting out the stars in the sky.

Twisting, he rearranged a face with his stolen blade. Blood carpeted the grass underfoot. Beyond the ring of bodies hemming him in, Fara saw Margot fall. His heart fell with her, and the big dawnling collapsed to one knee, driven there by blades and grief and bone-deep exhaustion.

'Well...' He growled through gritted teeth. 'Ain't this about a bitch!'

 

[Roki]

Roki watched, wide eyed as the blood pooled about the mess that once was a man's head. Red flare's glow wavered about the bright shiny mess spattered about. The flare cast the dark shadows of the trees down upon him in pulses and beats. Like long hands of darkness, come grab him across the burning.

His eyes trembled. His fingers gripped at the loose earth as his breath came ragged, tight, and in quick pants.

We are leaving.

Came the warning.

A hard, dry gulp. A hand clutched at shorn fabrics, ripped off a long strip from his robe. Quick, between winces and whimpers, he tied tight the material about his wound, and got up with the help of Syr Leinas. Slouched, he braced himself and stood up tall as he could as they made to escape the field.

---

​

How the Scion loomed before the altar of its creation.

How the blood that still spilled, still pooled, still ran, gathered and swirled about its lone eye. A vortex.

How it grinned. Static and long toothed as fool knights fell to the throng that gathered them up, and a false star, blazed high upon the night sky.

Drop, after glittering drop of blood, trailed into the unblinking eye. Even as the Scion willed itself forward. Its mantle trailed behind it, a flutter and a ripple with the slow churn of air about it. The streams of spilled life bent up to meet the Scion. Flowed up, like ribbons beneath the moons and the stars, and the red light of retreat.

The cultists, all the while, kept their heads bowed in veneration. Their shouts, their moans, turned to ecstasy as the Scion Pinkrose stood tall for all to see.

The flows of blood stilled. Stopped. Those globs and strings of gore that hung in the air, turned, pulsed, beat. The lone red eye glowed bright red.

A pulse. A thrum. A beat that shook the minds and schismed the hearts of all around, washed across the masses. Washed across the knights.

A red light. Like a great spider's silk, shot from the eye across the night sky. Sliced the flare in two. And in halves, the signal fall to the earth, and darkness ruled the night once more.

The cultists cried in joyful cheer.

The Scion Pinkrose, went on, drinking blood into its eye.

---

Oliver Dal Margot Triss Faramund

 

[Oliver]

To his credit, the squire was quick about his obedience and movement, once the order finally registered. A forgivable latency, considering the circumstances.

Suspended on one knee, Syr Leinas listened to the pitiful sounds as a wound was tied, the mask of judgement and irritation on his face unflickering. At the acceptance of an aiding arm, he rose at once, like a spring released from tension.

Fortunately, it appeared the lad could hold his footing without support, thereon relieving his company from the possibility that he’d need be carried or dragged along. Despite it, both for lack of trust and worry, Syr Leinas kept closely to his side as they begun away.

A red glow was at their backs, but not for much longer.

***​

He felt like a lone blade of grass in a felled field.

The many heads and postures around him had bowed with respect, compelled by a power that appeared cosmic in its reach and magnitude. The enraptured wails and moans were a cacophonic horror, drowning out all other sound. From the crushed throat, blood was streaming into the air in a river of droplets, meandering towards something Oliver had no hope to perceive.

And perhaps, just maybe, that was for the best. With his enemy having seized attack, he flipped up his visor and glanced at the ground in his vicinity, looking for a glimmer. He came up empty, concluding he knew not where his sword had gone. Cursing, if not audibly out of fright of alerting some cultist to his forgotten presence, he moved carefully out of the way of another floating stream of crimson.

The retreat having been called, he hadn’t but one objective. The way out appeared hellish in the skyborne glow, made sinister by the stillness of the throng. Amidst it was movement, possibly his kin, but he’d drifted much too far from them for recognition. He was beyond risking another second in this field, with naught but his dagger for defense.

As he planted his hand on its hilt, an overbearing sensation of terror and despair washed over him, skin beneath armour prickling with so many scorching needles. Somewhere behind his eyes was another burning, prying out a yell, and blackness descended in one great sweep.

Had it not been for the fact that he could still hear, his own racing heart and breath foremost, he would’ve assumed having died.

But he hadn’t. And so, there was a doing yet — to flee, in possibly the deepest darkness and greatest stumble of his life.

 

[Faramund]

The Doppler bowed its head with the masses. Blood spilled from the back of the Host's head to stain the grass red. Oh, how "Faramund's" skull ached. Just reward for his disobedience. A shame he still lived to draw breath; the doppler would have preferred a new host.

Not that it was done yet. There was still strife to sow, information to gather. It would not sacrifice the flesh-suit until it had outlived its purpose.

Until then, it would just have to keep on-

Going? Fighting through the pain, Faramund raised his eyes. Black-brown, they darted hitherto in search of a way out. Few were the options left to him, and none of them good. Breklinn's gone, he realised. Without his partner to watch his back, he was as good as dead.

The hilt of his borrowed sword lay not too far away. If he could just reach it...

Something latched onto him from behind, dragged him backwards. Dazed, he tried to claw at the thing's face. Shadow shrouded everything. The cultists. The dead. Only the Scion remained. Brilliantly dreadful, its gaze caught Faramund by the throat, squeezed. He felt his world turn black.

Breklinn slapped him.

'Wake up!' She growled, her voice a fierce whisper. Dreadfully brilliant, her lone eye was full of worry. She slapped him again. 'Snap out of it, will you? Those cult buggers won't be distracted for long.' Letting his chin drop to his chest, the big dawnling heaved himself up, out of the mire in his mind. 'Yeah,' he answered her, shrugging free of her grip to stand on his own two feet.

The ground beneath his feet revolved with every step. Twice, he nearly fell. But something kept him afoot. Some deep resolve, perhaps?

Brown-black eyes flashed as he turned to regard the Scion. See you soon, the Doppler promised, making one final bow before disappearing into the treeline after Breklinn.

Oliver Dal Margot Triss Roki

 

[Dal]

The best intentions of Dal's initiative felt good to begin with, prangs of such a noble pursuit coddling his fighting spirit into further deed as he made steady pace forward. The thought of assisting those who fled the field, firing upon the number. It suited his desire for recognition, to make a difference. Yet friendly force were scattered in the gloom and dark. Making what efforts availed them to leave the scene as best they might.

The painting within his mind did not match up the gulf of unknowns he faced. And the unknown grew massive and imposing with crimson hue to make his folly an ending endeavour.

Bayonet upon crossbow looked for marks as he made grim face. Doubt began to creep in from years in the field, from years of self preservation in mercenary life. And common bloody sense. Further steps would hazard much. Hard engrained lessons clashed against the situation, and indeed, against orders demanded of him from his impulse. He had no support. He had no insight as to where those who he wished to assist. For all he knew, they had already left the field or the mortal coil.

To make effort to earn title was vainglorious tonight, Dal's mind lashed out, and he made to tread back.

Decades of experience berated him in his walk.

Dal growled at himself for embarking in such impetuous action. This was not becoming of further years to his life. A chance of valour would have to be found another night, better to simply be than to be reprimanded for being captured. Or worse.

It would only come with later knowledge of Margot's absence in their cohort that shame would greet him. He would accept such a thing silently, with much brooding in his own fault, and utterly mocking in his intent to save his distant comrades instead of ones so local to his influence and mettle.