Completed Strange Fruit

[Hector]

The Valen Wilds, Winter


Syr Etivya stared wide eyed at what she saw hanging from the tree before them. Her jaw set into a grim line, as her hand ripped free her longsword from its sheath. "Squires, on guard!" she ordered and shut the visor of her helm, as her off hand grabbed tight her shield.

Hector wanted to wretch. "Syr that's,"

"On guard, Hector!" the Sworn knight of Dawn demanded. "I know who that is," she growled through her teeth, her breath steaming out with each push of her lungs. "It is a trap,"

Hector averted his gaze from the eyeless corpse of Syr Torgan, but he could not pull them free of the red stain that pooled beneath him in the white snow.

Laughter came from the woods. Like drops falling from the snow that melted upon the branches. The forest was gripped by a blanket of white. Remnant of winters first true storm.

"Stay tight, let them break upon us, and we shall punch through their lines to make our retreat," Etivya's voice was like a still chord pulled tight. "Hector, save your sorcery as a last resort,"

The laughter came nearer. Carried across the field of powdered ice, it bounced and was hard to trace.

"Steady now, Squires, steady now,"

"He thought he could hide from us, you know," came a voice like a wicked whisper on the wind. "Veiled in loch's light," the mass of laughter came louder. "Nothing hides from us," silence.

"Up, in the trees!" Etivya called out and raised her shield. An arrow thunked into the wood and black wings took flight from the trees.

"Nothing!" came the voice, and from the piles of snow piled thick upon the boughs of old growths, emerged the cultists. Eyeless and mad.

 

[Keston]

Fear found Keston, capturing the squire all too easily. He was no stranger to death or the vagaries that accompanied the battlefield. This was different. The hanging body served as grotesque pendulum, mocking all who stood before it. Keston did not personally know the other but they were clearly of the Order. One whom the squire now counted among his kin.

Syr Etivya's voice tore him from the icy terror which sought to ensnare the squire.

Shield up, sword at the ready. It was all he could do to keep the surrounding laughter at bay, madness dripping in every echo. The Sworn's warning saved Keston from being skewered. He wondered for a brief moment if he would have been better off letting it find his mark. His gaze traced back to the hanging body.

No, now was not the time for despair.

Insanity was given form as cultists sprang forth into vision, intentions all too clear.

No, now was the time for blood.


Hector

 

[Hector]

In times like these, Hector found his mind drowned out most things. His eyes wide as a cat's, the hairs at the back of his neck on end.

He felt the weight of his shield, the heft of his spear. How the bottom of his boots wanted to slip on the snow slick ground, but were so burried there in the white that they could do little more than stay in place.

His spear's point lowered down, long ahead of him, and he was the point of their three man formation.

Not that it mattered much. Their enemy was a swarm. Fanned wide like a net that aimed to encircle them. Even the path behind them was cut off.

Laughter. He felt it more than he could hear it. For his heart was so loud in his ears. It beat so hard against his chest.

He shout, loud behind the visor of his helm, arm flexed as he thrust his spearhead forward, its sharp point punched through cloth and flesh easily enough and caused the first cultist to stumble into the snow. He swung the shaft toward the right, his body behind it, and thwacked a second, only enough to have him veer off course.

There was no fear in their opponent.

Even as Syr Etivya hacked down her first foe, and then the second with violent upswing, caught a third with a quick back-cut to the head, they charged on, daggers and clubs and crude blades in hand, a spell spilled from the Sworn knight's lips as her shield bashed back a foe with shoulder's thrust.

Oh spirit of stone, oh spirit of earth,

hear this humble worms' plea

rise now -

An arrow punched through the armor of her pauldron's plate, the force of which near knocked her down. Syr Etivya groaned in agony as her stance buckled, cultist's hands grabbed at her as clubs wailed down on her, only just caught by her shield's edge.

"You will not use that mockery of magicks here, foul remnant of the old world!" The voice came from beyond the din of the fray.

Hector grit his teeth, and shifted his stance to cover the angle of the arrow's flight. "Keston! Archer, in the treeline!" he shout, and jammed his spear into the chest of one man, left it there as the man fell back and pulled free his short-sword.

Keston

 

[Keston]

Club crashed against shield, but Keston held firm. A second attack followed and the squire was quick to follow with another block. The squire's blade sprang forth, ensuring there would not be a third strike. His foe crumpled before him but another already stood ready. He couldn't properly describe the unnerving sensation of not being able to an opponent's eyes. The best fighters could feint with their gaze alone while the worst could ensure their own death. With these cultists, there was only a void of madness.

Sword lashed out once more, catching the cultist in the side. Keston raised his guard just in time, arm shaking under the power of the unholy blow. This time his blade found the enemy's collarbone and dug deep. He wrenched the steel out just in time to hear the telltale dull thump of an arrow finding its mark.

"On it!" he barked in response. His words had been stalwart but the deed was far easier said than done. The distance to his target was not insignificant and he had no bow to assist.

Only one option, close the gap.

Keston sprang forward, wasting little time in cutting down the first cultist who attempted to intercept him. His next foe was not so reckless, clearly understanding the squire's purpose. The knight-prospective, however, would not be deterred. He traded a shallow cut in his side for the center of his opponent's chest.

Only a few more paces now. The squire rammed his blade into the next cultist and left it there. Instead he reached for the dagger at his side. Keston allowed himself a moment's aim and let the small blade fly.

He grunted as a cultist crashed into him from behind. The squire, as he fell, could only pray that he had thrown true.

Hector

 

[Hector]

One Eye, large and allseeing, opened in the dark of the woods. It lurked high in the branches, and it watched as the pittance of valor burned low before it. But light that passed through its unveiled depths.

"Ye shall not best me, paltry Seed of the Eld," came the voice from neath the shadows wreathed around its single blood red eye. The oculus like a moon that hung betwixt the branches, observing. It set its site on Keston, as he run forward, fearless in the face of His thralls. The One Eye raised his bow, and outstretched his twisted arm. A thing that looked to be made of metal, just as much of flesh. Flared wide in spots like armor, twisted wild like bramble and root just above. They pointed a single finger at the squire, who ran so bold and true, as the other hand reached back to nothing.

In the air about his hand, strands of his own hair twisted and twined and turned to tight spine. An arrow. Most unnatural. Most corrupt. An arrow the gleamed and glistened like slick oil, yet was hard as steel. Said maleficent missile knocked with harsh pang against the malignant metal bow. The string, like glass so sharp, yet steel so strong, pulled back.

A twinkle, defiant as small and insignificant things were often want to be, struck forward. Cut against his still flesh cheek just as the arrow was loosed.

The wicked weapon spat out its salvo. It flew as fast as a star fell. Crashed into the snow with a plume of ice and mist come erupt in its wake.

A smile crept across the One Eye's mouth, his single red oculus ever watching.

"Petulant vermin..." he said, and drew forth his second arrow.

Hector kicked off one man from the run of his blade, as another pair of hands wrapped around his neck and wrenched at him. Pulled him off balance.

A mass of steel crashed into that mad cultist. Bulled their bulk off the squire. "To Keston, Squire! Double time!" Syr Etivya let out in ragged-steamfilled breath. Her sword flashed, and cut down another deranged soul who fell to the snow with hard crunch.

Hector nod, and ran forward, desperate and determined.

Keston

 

[Keston]

The ground greedily greeted the squire's face with an unwelcome mix of muck and snow. Keston grunted as the air left his lungs, vision blurring for a brief moment. Keston regained his senses just in time to see the cultist ready their blade above him. At that exact moment, however, something crashed next to them. The ensuing debris gave the squire window he needed. Keston kicked hard out at his foe's leg and was rewarded with a satisfying crack. He was already moving to get to his feet as the cultist began to fall. Roles reversed, the young-but-hardened warrior did not make the same mistake.

It was only after wrenching his blade free did he notice the wicked arrow lodged but a foot from his side. The taunting words from earlier now echoed in his mind, senses telling him this archer was far from normal. Keston could only assume that this cursed bowman had not been so easily defeated.

Before he could consider further, another maddened cultist was upon him. Two quick parries and a following slash was enough to dispatch this one. A critical sense of danger suddenly struck the squire. He had no empirical proof that the archer was about to fire but still he knew it. Keston could only describe the feeling as being 'hunted'; the intangible dread of being watched with extreme malice.

Remembering one of the few cantrips he knew, the squire poured what little magik he could muster into his shield arm.

A cackle resounded followed by an otherworldly twang.

Shield raised, the squire braced himself.

Keston only heard the sound of his bracer cracking before darkness took him.

Hector

 

[Hector]

One after the other, Syr Etivya's sword cut down the Devoted Eyes. How they ran without fear. Into the arc of her glittering blade. Blood stained and enchanted, her sword whirred on with a snikker snakt of skin and bone and a gush and steam of ichorous humors that melted through the snow. Damn them.

Damn them and their madness.

Oh spirit of stone, oh spirit of earth,

hear this humble worms' plea

rise now...

The Sworn Knights lips did spill the cant.

In defense of those that serve you,

The earth beneath her feat rumbled in answer. Shook the ground upon which they all did stand.

Rupture mantle and shatter bone,

Show all who governs here!

She shout!

The arrow, weaved of wicked winds and steely strands, knocked against the malicious bow. "Pass now, ye dreg of distant memory, and let the crushing depths claim you," the bowstring hummed and crackled, sharp as ice come winter's wind.

A dull thrum. The arrow shot forth with whistle and fury.

The air before Keston shimmered with the gold light of life. Radiant shield formed there between him and the screaming missile.

The earth rumbled. Roared. Cracked with wyld might. Stone spike split forth from the snow covered soil. Dulled the missile's bite before it shattered with the force of shot. The shield of life's light shimmered as the arrow bared down. Held true as soul's strength poured forth. Cracked, as missile too broke in twain and spun away.

One Eye stayed wide and open. Lips below the single red oculus spread wide with want and humor. "Struggle on, struggle on, it only makes the end the sweeter," he whispered as one squire fell back into the snow with hard crunch.

Come the ring of steel. Come the burn of fire. A sword, forged in magicked flame made manifest, sizzled and sparked to life in the air before the One Eye. Sparks and embers poured from the dawn light's flame, as Hector ran forward, shield raised and sword drawn to stand before his downed fellow.

"Keston!" he barked behind mettle helm. "On your feet, kin!" he begged with hot breath.

The sword of flame flashed forward in golden streak, and the One Eye lept back from his perch with wide grin on his face.

Keston

 

[Keston]

Pain made for a sharp, rude awakening. Muffled shouts echoed in his ears but clarity did not find him. Feeling slowly crept back into his extremities accompanied by further discomfort. Clouded vision and even hazier thoughts threatened to send him back into unconsciousness. Then there was warmth, the fire of familiarity. He let himself be brought to stupor by the sanctity of the emberic embrace.

The day's light suddenly presented itself in the utmost fidelity. Agony still wracked his body but it no longer robbed him blind. No, it gave him the necessary insight into what had transpired.

Keston was alive, painfully and desperately alive. The answer to his salvation came in the form of the two stalwart figures at his side. The squire looked to his shattered bracer and flung it from his forearm. Not two feet from him, his blade. He grunted as he reached for the weapon, unsure hands finding hilt. Keston found his feet despite all that had transpired.

A numbness had taken his left arm, but not his spirit.

"Staying on the ground may have been the better choice," chided the squire as he saw the forces arrayed before them. "I'm here." A simple statement to affirm that Keston would see this through to whatever end.

Hector

 

[Hector]

A shield. Useless against a thing that spat such sinful salvos, but Hector held it out before him all the same, his eyes gleamed through the slit of his visor, ever on that one red eye that seemed to burn with hate.

"Good," the half-elven squire replied to his fellow. "Can't have me carrying you back to the monastery now, can we?" he forced a grim grin as their ragged foe stumbled and shuffled around them, even as the golden sword of red licking flames burned bright before them. Blind to its light as they were, the cultists still radiated around it.

As if its emanating heat was warning enough.

"Woe is you, feeble hearts, to be bound to this wretched land, to still cling to what meager light your lacking eyes doth see," the wrathful voice did rumble through the air.

Hector held fast to his sword and shield. His eyes on the rabble before them. He noticed the frostbite on their arms. The ragged condition of their clothes. He felt his heart drop, felt his hand waver. Were they not just innocents? Men and women, taken from whatever walk of life they had lead?

The bright blade of Flame's pursuit flickered on. Its up-pointed blade dripped with smoldering warning as tongues of fire licked at the cold air and hissed with steam, just as Hector's own breath let out cloud and cloud of such swirls.

"Run, squires! Break free!" Syr Etivya called out, her sword run through a man before she ripped it free and tore down another. "Your way is clear!" she cried out as more assailed her. She stomped, and the earth trembled. A wall of bramble and dirt blast out from the frigid mantle of the earth, knocked down those manic minds about her. "I shall hold them here!"

The third bolt blew through the wall of wyld. Near ran Syr Etivya through the middle, but the twist of root and earth sent the arrow off course. Still, it sparked across her armored plate with a horrid yowl of sound as the metal was rent by magicked head.

Syr Etivya near fell, but stayed on her feet, and in the distance, a sound like cracking ice upon frozen lake droned and popped and menaced.

The cultists before the squires broke forward, and Hector grimaced as he brought low the searing blade of flame.

Keston

 

[Keston]

"If you possess that manner of strength, Hec, what is a few more cultists?" replied the squire with his own grim grin. Foul words resounded once more and Keston steeled himself. He had come to understand that evil was ever loquacious. They spoke through their depraved deeds but also through forked tongue. He would not be shaken by their false proclamations. No, what remained were the stalwarts at his side.

Keston braced himself for the coming onslaught but instead was met with Syr Etivya's plea. She so selflessly suggested that the two squires extricate themselves. A panic gripped the squire, the very basest desire to see to his own survival. The very same instinct saw him abandoned on the battlefield near three years ago. His mind screamed at him to embrace reason and flee.

Run? To where? Where could he possibly go that absolve him of this most egregious sin?

He looked towards Syr Etivya's battered frame.

The numbness that plagued his left arm was gone, replaced instead with the fire of belief. Keston was not sworn but he'd be damned if he watched one die right before his eyes.

Blade raised, he charged against destiny.

Hector

 

[Hector]

The sword of fire came down against one body. A flash of flame that ate at the flesh and lit their roughspun cloth in hungry gouts that gulped them up. Hector grit his teeth and swiped his hand, left to right in a wide flat arc, and the sword of fire followed.

"To Syr Etivya, Kes!" He cried as a golden line slashed across the deranged cultists.

Blind as they were to the flash of burning blaze, their skin seared all the same. And they smelled wretched for it. And those that fed the greedy flames with their pound of flesh cried out in agony as those waving tongues of fire did try and sate their day's desire.

Blind as they were, to the sight of their fellows burning, the heat of it, the smell of it, the sound of it, stilled them. If only just.

Two or three still charged, and Hector screamed mad as he ran his sword through the chest of one man. Felt bone crack as short blade punched through ribs and flesh and manic strength struggled on. He growled, as feet found strength against the ground and legs pumped forward to shove the dying man off. Only to have another bull toward him. Knock him back. Hector shift his feet before he feel, arms waving round to catch his balance.

A sharp pain caught against Hector's side. An axe hammered there against the side of his cuirass, dented to have the metal jam against his flesh.

The squire grit his teeth, cocked back his fist and smashed gauntleted hand against the unarmored foe's skull. He felt it crack. Felt the man slump some, his muscle spasms held him up, and Hector bashed him again with sword's pommel. The cultist fell limp and twitched on the ground.

Syr Etivya groaned as she righted her posture, slew two more lunatics as easy as breathing, but her footing showed weakness. "Damn it squires!" she called out as she saw Keston come into view. "I said run!" She dove for Keston, bulled him over and onto the ground as a fourth shot struck the snow like a lance sent from the heavens.

The plume of snow spray and dirt debris settled, and Syr Etivya huffed as she willed herself back up. "Move," she said tiredly. "Gods damn it, move!" she bellowed, and got one unsteady foot under her as she shakily tried to stand.


"Move, Move," came the voice from afar. "Move, like worms in the mud, with not to do but wriggle on in the darkness, ignorant to the Truth."

Keston

 

[Keston]

Fire whipped and provided opportunity. Keston charged forward moments after his peer, intent on making it to the Sworn's side. His shield was shattered but stolid steel remained. The squire raised his blade and brought it down with surprising force. His foe's guard was easily broken and metal found purchase. He tightened his grip and wrenched the blade downward. Only when it had found the center did he yank it from the cultist's chest.

Where one fell, another stood ready to die. The squire pressed the attack, undaunted by the odds. Each swing of his sword brought him a step closer to Syr Etivya. Keston knew not what would happen once the distance was closed, it mattered little. His blade bit into the side of a cultist but it was not deep enough. The squire winced as a blade cut across his chest. Fortunately he had managed to avoid the brunt of the blow. Keston reached for the remaining dagger at his belt and drove it under the chin of his foe.

He cut down another cultist just as Syr Etivya came into view, unfortunately missing the Sworn's admonishment. Dispatching his foe, Keston made ready to move but instead grunted as another body crashed into his own. Instincts caused him to scramble, trying to fight back. It was only until Syr Etivya yelled that the squire comprehended what had transpired.

"My thanks, Syr," Keston managed to say as he stood. The squire noticed that his comrade struggled to find her feet. He leaned to the side, offering his shoulder as support.

Once again the sinister voice goaded them. A multitude of questions echoed through his mind; paramount among them, what would they do from here?


Hector

 

[Hector]

Syr Etivya growled upon hearing Keston. "You can thank me if we make it out of this," and with his help, she managed to limp alongside him in retreat.

Hector still faced the dwindling throngs, his arms heavier with the exertion of combat, and his mind strained as he held the image of the flaming sword within that furnace of thought. The magick weapon, brought into being by his will. His connection to the Flame itself. He held to it. Sure as the own sword in his hand.

"Hector you idiot, run!" Syr Etivya cried out as her and Keston kept moving further away. "Bloody, fucking squires, what does it matter if I live if you die?!" She hollared.

The squire blinked, gulped down what saliva had collected in his mouth, and broke into a hasty retreat.

Through the frozen woods came a cruel laughter. "Fly, little insect, fly,"

But Hector could hear that most strange sound that the Archer did create. The sound that came before each shot. A sound like cold ice snapping and breaking over frozen lake. The sound of metal, too brittle, come to break. He heard it, even through the crackling of his own magick's fire.

He heard it, and knew that the shot would come next.

He had not the breath to utter his spell. For each pull of his lungs fed his aching legs that did pedal his feet to flee. Yet his mind. His mind burned with a vivid intensity. A white hot fire, from which the sigils and runes strung together as the horrid metal of the Archer's bow groaned and its arms pulled back, and the ramblings and utterings of the gaggle of eyeless foes did chase.

Flash, oh Sovereign who burns so True,

Flash now, amidst the frozen Yew!

The sword, that did trail behind the squire, ceased its path, stood tall before their foes. Glowed like celestial fire.

It burst. With the blinding intensity of a star's light. A sphere of white.

Keston

 

[Keston]

"It appears Syr Etivya has quite a temper," the squire noted of his superior. He considered it promising that the other knight still possessed that much fire. Keston was just as exhausted as the others. What he hadn't spent in mana was used in every swing of his sword. They were fighting merely for a chance at survival. A small hope that would see them removed from this terrible situation. The players may have been different but the battlefield was ever the same.

A copse of ferns was within reach, their only hope for momentary salvation. Being in an open clearing against a talented archer was tantamount to forfeiting one's life. Hector had bought them precious time with his flames, maybe just enough to see them to safety. Keston heard the grating sound of their foe readying his next shot.

He dared not look back. Instincts apparently served him well as a burst of light engulfed the area behind. Another terrible twang resounded, but Keston only felt the rush of foul air as the arrow missed its mark. Emboldened by this, the squire summoned what energy he had left to push even faster towards the grouping of trees. Would it be that good intentions were enough to see one through the grasp of evil.

Fell words began to echo through the air, drawing Keston's attention to the projectile that had nearly taken his head. The arrow had lodged itself deeply into one of trees ahead and now glowed with a sinister purple hue. Moments later it burst into pieces, the splinters of metallic wood melting until they emitted an unholy miasma. This cloud of dark energy was as an anathema to life around him.

Keston could only watch in horror as their haven rotted away, along with what remained of the squire's hope.

Hector

 

[Hector]

Hector crashed into Keston's side, breath hot and panting, he groaned as he lift up the other side of Syr Etivya.

"We are not dying here!" Hector shout with sword still in hand.

His muscles ached, his whole body burned and his eyes were wide with the maddening want to go on. To live. To see blue eyes and hold warm Lorinna again.

Syr Etivya laughed, only just able to limp along with the pull of the two squires who trudged so slowly through the snow.

"He won't miss the next one," the wounded knight muttered as the two brave souls beside her burned so bright. "You two are idiots," she said as the miasmic clouds circled around them. "But I am proud to have served alongside such promise," she closed her eyes, drew in a deep breath, and with her exhalation, a white wind gusted forth, blew away the deathly miasma that had swirled about the forest's winter starved life and brought it to ruin.

Hector tried to pull Syr Etivya forward, but she did not budge. His eyes went wide with horror. "Syr-"

"Shut up squire!" she snarled, and her eyes glowed with a most furious green light. At her feet, roots tangled and snaked up her legs, twisting and coiling like a second flesh over the strong trunks of her legs. "Go! Report what found us in these woods!" She grabbed both young men up with a bears strength, and threw them forward in the snow, her muscles bulging to the point of bursting and her flesh running with the bristly hairs of a beast. "RUN!" she roared.

Hector crashed against the ice, looked to Keston wide eyes as hot breath puffed about hips.

The crackle of ice was heard in the distance. Roots wreathed Syr Etivya like a second body, her face turning beastial as the rampant strength of the Wylds itself turned to living armor. The cold twang of bowstring let loose. The vorpal sound of missile sucking through the air it so eagerly ripped across.

Hector saw it. The arrow coming for him. When branch and vine lashed out with wicked grasp and snatched the hellish arrow out of the air.

"Syr Etivya!" Hector cryed out, getting to his feet.

The tree sentinel stood tall as an ent. Its beating heart the twisted and changed flesh of Syr Etivya Damir. Bristling hairs sprouting from twisted vine and surging boughs. Fell words filled the air once more. Like a deathly wind. She threw the malignant weapon back and it shattered in the air. Fragments and shrapnel sprayed out and sank into the changed form of the Wyld knight of Dawn.

Changed as she was. Syr Etivya howled out in multichord voice. Wolf, and bear, and stag. No trace of her humanity left there in the beating heart of the Sentinel.

Hector couldn't move he was so struck by horror.

Keston

 

[Solon Raye]

Woe to those that dwell in the abyss.
They know not the power of light.
How the nature of a spark might invite
The Inferno.
​

The cold winds were biting against his face, a feeling he knew all too well. A part of becoming a knight was learning how to brave the elements as much as one braved battle. A part of becoming a sorcerer meant learning how to brave the elements so that one might become the master of them. The freezing winter was something akin to death and death moved through it. It had a smell. A feeling that crept into one's very bones. Solon held on to the feeling. He needed it for what was to come.

A wise sorcerer was much like an alchemist. Just as one might turn a base metal into precious gold, so could suffering be made into the most brilliant spectacles. There was no such thing as receiving something without giving anything at all. He had to hold on to the feeling. The feeling that he might fail and how his heart might break if his comrades were to die that night. The thought of being unworthy of his talent and rank. They were hard and cold feelings that took root deep within him. Strong and unbending. It was what he needed to propel him forward. Solon breathed as he was taught so very long ago. Every thought and feeling of folly began to illuminate within him and fade into nothingness. He shined through those frozen trees like a second sun atop his horse. A light so bright that it appeared the beast galloped on a bridge of fire.

The Killing Light held Cursebreaker out at his right side and it's runes shone a bright blue. And in his left, the knight held hell itself. Bolts of light preceded him. Mortals were turned to dust and charred corpses as the sun's children, born from ebon palms, came to life.

"For the DAWN!"

His light pulsed.​

 

[One Eye]

Upon frost bitten bough did the archer prowl. His malignant metal bow, twisted and turned, like a thing made of oil slicked horn, frozen over and held in his strong hand, as the other gathered spiral strands of silver streaked hair that flowed from his crown.

A smile curled up the corner of his lips, as the horde of Sightless turned to smoldering ash and cinders.

"Come the phoenix, for the worms," his wicked voice carried through the wind. "Bright flame of day," the single red eye, wide and open as it stared into the swirling inferno, as if entranced. As if there in its technicolor splendor, flames of white and gold and green and blue and purple and orang bled red, he found something he had looked for since first the great eye at the center of his brow had came open. His single red eye came shut.

Salvation.

The throngs of the Sightless cared not that their zealous number served as little more than tinder for the hellish charge. Each soul taken only burning the flames brighter and hotter. As if the sun of summer itself had come to this place on this winter's day.

The Tree Sentinel , what was Etivya, what could still be, roared with proud challenge and charged forward too.

Until the fell words of corruption whispered through the wind once more.

Where the shards of his arrow had struck, the Sentinel's bark did turn, as the miasma of death ate away at the arm. Cahnged it.

Black oozing tendrils sprout from the bark of Etivya's bark-skin armor. Like wriggling worms of ichor and oil they transformed the Wyld limb into something else. Something other and of its own will. That changed arm struck the side of Etivya's hulking frame, gnashed at it with claw and fang and strangeness.

The Sentinal howled in agony.

The Archer's laughter came cruel on the cold wind that swirled about the blazing heat.

Slowly. The corruption ate away at Etivya's transformed arm. Into her core as that same arm tried to tear her apart. The Sentinel fell to the snow covered floor with hard thundering crash.

"Fly, Phoenix, fly," the mocking tone came from the distant trees. And a single red star shined there in the dark of the twisted canopy. All seeing. "Towards death, behind, or towards death before," again the cold icey crack of the bow's arms pulling back.

 

[Osuin]

A malicious threat stained the land that required response, and he duly answered the call to meet it. Solon was a dot upon the horizon well ahead of Osuin who rode at speed behind his companion, his hands on the reins of his steed with a tight grip as it galloped onward. Frigid winds blew past, at times so loud he could not even hear the pounding of his horse's hooves against the frozen earth. Osuin rode onward, slowly catching up to Solon as the two rode forth to face whatever wickedness lay waiting ahead. As they would whenever evil reared head, or corruption twisted the land. Only through the Knights of Anathaeum could such malevolence take hold, and they remained resolute in shared will to ensure it would be the most daunting of tasks.

Further and further he travelled, until the signs of battle finally became visible in the distance. Solon was the first to arrive upon it – the figures grew in size as his steed sprinted closer to the calamity ahead. The sight that awaited him was truly grim. An arrow loosed and a tree burst with a most unnatural fog, and an unknown beast restrained by roots. Hector looked at it with unmistakable horror.

Osuin could not know it was Syr Etivya.

 

[Keston]

The sudden finality in Syr Etivya's words caught the squire off-guard. Much like his peer, Keston attempted to urge the Sworn forward but she would not budge. He knew that Hector's horrified expression was reflected on his own. Keston made to protest once more but was thrown bodily forward. Keston hit the snow hard but was already turning his attention back to Syr Etivya, or rather, what she was becoming.

Fear threatened to grip him once more. Not fear of the monstrous form that the Sworn had taken, but the knowing she was sacrificing herself for them. Instinct immediately told him that there was no reverting from such a transformation. Keston knew it was duty to flee as ordered but his legs had yet to find strength. Even as one foul arrow was blocked, their remaining foes continued to close in.

A frustrating fate threatened to snuff out the two flickering flames.

"For the DAWN!"

Cultists were incinerated in droves, and from their ashes was Keston's hope born anew. "We are not dying here!" the squire yelled, echoing his peers words from moments before. Keston got to his feet and wrenched Hector to his as well. He made to move when he heard Syr Eti-the guardian cry out, assailed by seemingly their own arm. He fought every urge to run back there but slowly pried his gaze away.

"We need to move."

Guilt wracked him like no pain ever had.

Hector Solon Raye Osuin

 

[Hector]

It was the look in his brother's eye that brought him back to the moment at hand. The shock of all around them, like waves come to swallow him whole.

We need to move.

Keston had said. Hector gave a sure nod. Fingers tight around the handle of his shortsword, blade run red with dark blood, and he broke for the fallen Sentinel. For what was, and what still had to be, Syr Etivya. "Keston!" he cried out as hot breath pant from his helm, burning muscles aching as they charged through the snow. Toward the thing with tendrils of dark corruption swirling and gnashing and devouring the living wood and bestial flesh of the Sworn knight.

Hector drew in breath. His heart a raging fire, his body a kiln. He could feel himself burn from the insides. But he would not stop. He would not relent. He would not die here, and he would not let any more die here while he still drew breath.

The blade of his sword caught flame, and the squire of Anathaeum hacked at the corrupted flesh. Wild and frantic to see the foulness undone.

A pained howl-mixed-roar bayed from the Sentinel's throat. But Hector went on. Tears running down his face. For he knew if he had ran, he could not bare to look at those clear blue eyes again.

Keston Solon Raye Osuin

 

[Osuin]

He remained ready to face off against a threat he'd yet to learn much of. There simply hadn't been time to, and the scene he arrived to was proof that speed was of the essence. The situation was dire, and would have been likely been fatal had they made even a moment's delay. Osuin dared not hesitate to press onward, but remained aware that he held no inkling of how to battle the foe they faced. He'd not immediately attack it, nor was that the present priority. The squires were in grave danger – ensuring their safety was paramount.

Keston and Hector were on their feet, caught in the fray with the twisted horror behind them. Osuin dismounted from his steed, shield and sword at the ready as he sprinted towards the two.

“SQUIRES!” He bellowed out, his tone fearful rather than admonishing. Yet Hector darted away, towards the terror that threatened them.

“Get back – get behind me.” Osuin commanded, his sentence punctuated by his panting for breath. He’d only slowed down once he’d reached Keston, pausing for break and invoking a quick spell. A spoken word and soft clap summoned an azure fog, quelling his lack of breath on inhalation. Once he had, he continued forward in pursuit of Hector and the horror he’d made headway towards.

“Hector!” Osuin called out, moving with haste.

Hector Solon Raye Keston

 

[Solon Raye]

"Come the phoenix, for the worms."

"Nay. For tomorrow."
​

As the inferno blazed about them all, the entity unleashed yet another arrow, one created from a blackness and evil that he could scarcely describe or fathom. Was it pride that made him stand before the Everwatcher's follower with such defiance? Would that be the end of the Killing Light? Of the knights and their squires that had taken oaths to defend the world itself from foul voices and intentions? The Knight-Pursuant could feel the corruption on the air as that arrow did sail. Time seemed to slow down as he rode toward the danger, a shining shield before his companion, Osuin and the squires who's lives they had come to protect. About him, the Children of the Sun danced and immolated his enemies, the writing mass of cultists who cared not how they died, only who they died for. The last words on some of their breaths were of praise to the all-seeing demon. May they and their god burn for eternity.

All death is a certainty, boy. If you remember nothing else I've taught you, you will remember that much.
Let no fool dictate to you the hour of your death. Small shouldered men with dry cocks presume to do this.
Kill them.
We come from the sands and the sands are where we will return someday.
But not until the sands call.

Do you hear me, boy?
Not until they call.
​

Solon pointed his blade straight ahead. The Cursebreaker shined so brightly that it made sound. As the black arrow said through the air, Solon raised his blade to meet it. The arrow exploded as it had before. The runes along the blade of Cursebreaker flickered, it's magic being put to the test. The shrapnel that found it's way into Syr Etivya's flesh moments ago found their way into Solon's as well. He would not falter... That's what he told himself. Corruption spread and yet the light within him fought back. Every fiber of his being moved to fight the menace. And even as it crept it's way through his body and began to turn his veins black as tar, he pressed on. His firestorm following with him toward the eye that took aim at him.

"Fire again, Archer! Toward death! Did you have it in your limited mind that you would come here to kill children and instead, you met your END?! DID YOU NOT EXPECT TO FACE THE KILLING LIGHT?!"

The pain and the alien thoughts that flowed through him threatened to slow him down. Threatened to make him drop his blade. A lesser man might have fallen from his horse, and yet still he charged to what would be a bloody end. Either his or that Lord of the Sightless.​

​

​

​

 

[One Eye]

A smile crept across One Eye's visage. Their large red eye, so proudly fixed above their brow, wide and open as it watched the dancing flames whirl and twist, rise and fall, in vicious and virulent display. Teeth long and straight, and hungry.

The bow, twisted and malignant as it was, snapped and broke as it folded in on itself. The phoenix flew, fast and true. Even as the vile touch of the blighsteel bow coursed through searing veins, even as the One Eye's magick spread through all the living flesh of both knights.

It fed their hate, and grew fat in turn.

"Nay," came the wicked voice of the archer, who but watched as the great rider and his beast stormed across the field. A laugh, for all the horde of Sightless who gave themselves to the fire. Like moths to the flame. Weak. Unworthy. A bound saw the One Eye spring away. "You are the one we wanted, Syr Solon Raye," he laughed once more. "You and the wielder of a weapon most foul," further into the twists and brambles of the woods, did the archer flee, the terrain inhospitable to charging cavalry.

The singular red eye opened wide once more, from a new perch. The sound of snapping ice. The whine of pulled string. A dark star drank in the light from on high of a dead fir's branch. It pointed down from its peak, and fell with a crushing weight behind it. The world around it seemed to bend and pull into its wake.

---

The Sentinal's arm thrashed and writhed. What was once Syr Etivya howled mad as a purple burst drank in the light upon the horizon some distance away, high above the field in flames. As if a thing with its own will, the blighted arm whipped around. The whirl of motion knocked Hector back into the snow, strange worms of pitch and oily ichor writhed and wriggled about the snow. Screeching and squealing as they flailed.

Hector was dazed, but he heard Osuin coming. The squire rose, his sword still in hand, he got to a knee and hacked at one of the worms with his blade. Then another.

As the black star pulsed from the fallen archer's bow, the arm ripped itself off of Etivya's form. Long fingers gnashing against the bark armor of the Sentinal. Her other hand tried to fight back.

"We must save her, Syr Osuin!" Hector cried out frantic. Ran forward again and hacked at the thing that writhed with such violent hate.

A black scar ripped across the sky in distance. Black star falling to meet the Killing Light.

Solon Raye Osuin Keston

 

[Keston]

So surprised was Keston, that for a brief moment he even forgot his grief. All the courage he had mustered to turn the other way was so quickly demolished. The squire was not resentful of his brother, quite the opposite. It was as if he had been released from a great burden. He heard Syr Osuin yelling to them but Keston's legs had already begun to propel him towards a dangerous fate.

The squire's delayed action did however allow the Pursuant to catch up to him. Keston, while desperate to reach his peer, had not the energy to ignore Syr Osuin even if he wished. The knight-in-training did not sense anything as an azure fog suddenly surrounded him. Keston suddenly felt strength rising in his weary muscles and not a moment too soon. He could not help but admire Hector for making it all the way to Syr Etivya's side.

Keston wasted no time in following after the senior knight but as he arrived was once again met with despair. Seeing the twisted guardian up close brought their desperation into sharp relief. Even moreso, Keston was now acutely aware that he had not the proper skills to combat this type of vile magik. His helpless gaze hardened as Hector cried out for assistance. If Keston could not aide them in the arcane, then he'd do so with the only thing he had left...

Steel.

Remnants of the cult, those not yet aflame, no longer wanted anything to do with the Killing Light. They preferred to try their chances at the guardian and the other remaining members of the Order. Keston tightened the grip on his sword's hilt. He tossed a glance towards Syr Osuin, in lieu of any orders the squire would charge forward with the intent on buying the other two the time they needed.


Hector Osuin Solon Raye

 

[Solon Raye]

His quarry fled into place that Solon's own horse could not follow. Zephyr's head and hooves reeled back and the knight was forced to bring his steed back under control. His heart was beating out of his chest. More than it ever had before. That poison made it's way into his veins and began to take an effect on his mind, he knew. A true knight was in touch with his body as well as his emotions. All of his thoughts. They were all to be wielded together like all of the parts that made a sword. The blade alone did not make the weapon dangerous. One needed their hands guarded and the weapon guided, the heart and mind respectively. His hands grew so weak that he felt as though he would drop Cursebreaker to the dirt. Doubt beset him. They would all die there because The Killing Light could not fell a lieutenant of their great enemy.

Breathe... Breathe, Syr Raye. You have much too much to live for...

Why did his own thoughts seem so distant when the magick of the Everwatcher loomed above him. He could feel the pressure from it's dark magic. That black force that was unleashed from Dreamer's eye had come upon him and threatned to crush him into pieces and consume him. Strength began to return to his limbs because it had to. Solon remembered the light within him because he had to. They would all die there if he did not. The Light could not fail when the hour was darkest. His life was a small thing to him. It was why he was there fighting as hard and as recklessly as he did. But the lives of those two boys? The lives of the two knights who shared his peril?

They were everything.

Everything.

Solon stared up into the void and defiance crept in just like the black tendrils of the archer's magic crept into his very soul. He knew he had to be rid of it. All of it. With ground teeth, Solon muttered his incantations. What began as a little light at the tip of his right finger began to envolope his body. Every fiber of his being began to turn to light. One so vibrant that no darkness would pass through it. A light so bright that the shadows it might have created even fled from his magnificence. It couldn't be contained, he knew. Only directed. The children of the sun came to join their father, their creator as he shined like a second star on the surface of Arethil. His eyes, which had disappeared behind the blinding mass were fixed on the orb above him. He pushed up and forward. Zephyr fled as his master propelled himself upward with his sword pointed at the orb like the point of a great comet.

"Observe the might of we who do not fear you, Everwatcher!
The Killing Light fears you not!
The Knights of Anathaeum fear you not!

See how your vile works are laid to ruin!"
​

The black orb cracked once he made impact. The lightshow that took place was brilliant. The light met the void in ways that would make the stars themselves envious. The ground beneath them all shook as that great black orb was shattered. Solon's skin burned and his mind carried off to the void as he fell back to the ground through stardust and flame. The landing was hard. The Killing Light was a heavy mess of golden runed armor and unconscious flesh. His breathing was faint... but he still lived. For now...​

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