Completed Strange Fruit

[Hector]

Hector hacked at the creature with blind fury. He would not lose another. They would not lose one more. Hack after hack, till all his breath was pulled away by a force far beyond him. The wriggling worms of hate all but evaporated, turned to motes of ash that were pulled into the swirling dark vortex that gathered about the great archer's arrow. That whipped and clashed with the rays of burning light. The dancing children of the sun. The Killing Light.

The beast of corruption that was once the Sentinels arm all but dried up and turned to shriveled husk.

But Hector's eyes were on but the clash. The battle. The war between Life giving Light and a most Unnatural Dark.

Resplendent in its horror. Hector had to shut his eyes to it, even as Syr Osuin's replenishing mists enwreathed and protected him. His hand came up to cover his eyes as all shook and cracked and trembled beneath a star's brilliant ascension. A rumbling wake left in its tail.

Trees around them sprout to flame. Cultists immolated, too close to the epicenter of it all.

Hector screamed as he fell to the snow. His eyes so full of the screech and tear of the magick's crescendo.

Whence the dust settled, he was but a curled form upon his knees. Steel left upon the floor as the world, just some meters before them, but a hard ride forward, a charge, a gallop, fell back to into its smoldering place.

Osuin Keston Solon Raye

 

[One Eye]

But One Eye stood still. With one arm less, but a smile still spread across his half burnt visage. His metalic skin turned to bubbling black along the edges. His bow, gone.

A laugh, cruel and low and full of dark joy. He stepped toward the fallen star with the soft crunch of earth underfoot. Smoke swirled out from beneath each step, as vile, black, ichor trickled down from where his changed flesh had not been cauterized by the inferno.

"How the Phoenix hath fallen, as the worms doth crawl, amidst the ashes of it all," he stopped before the downed form of the knight pursuant. His gilded armor ablaze, the lines of runework and sigils burned a golden white. A child of the light still bound and danced around, but soon it too turned to not.

The twisted archer bent low, and with one arm, grabbed up the knight by the shape of his skull. His strange musculature shift and flexed with wicked power, as he strained to hold the Pursuant up. Heavy with Life's gift.

"You will do, Solon Raye,"

He tossed him onto his shoulder, and with a bound of powerful legs, was away in a spray of smoke and glassed pebbles of dirt.

Osuin Keston Solon Raye

 

[Osuin]

The woven spell had reinvigorated both Osuin and Keston, enabling their continued pursuit. Osuin kept his shield held forward, running at full speed towards Hector. The young squire was frantically slashing at the tentacles of the creature, soon joined by Osuin’s sword. His blade came crashing down upon one of the numerous appendages of the beast, while his shield remained ready to protect them both from any further aggression.

"We must save her, Syr Osuin!" Hector cried out.

“Who!? Where?!” Shouted Osuin in response, knowing not the identity of what he was in battle against. Scanning his surroundings for any sign of a knight in danger, he made further strikes against the monster, cleaving the edge of his blade into his flesh throughout. Though focused on finding whom Hector had warned him, Osuin saw no sign. Not until motion from above caught his attention. He glanced up just in time to see Solon in a burst of light, and with eyes unwittingly directly upon it, the blinding burst momentarily robbed his vision.

Around him, cultists burned that he could not see beneath the blaze of the Killing Light that bore down upon them. Yet, the shift was clear when the sounds of combat were notably absent. The clash of steel and shouts surrounded him no longer. He had no idea where Hector was, but knew he could not be far.

Osuin searched for the squire by touch, grasping his ankle with relief that he still stirred with the motion of life. With that, he prepared the same magic as he had before, and the azure fog materialized once again to undo what had ailed them. Exertion waned and sight slowly returned as the healing aura restored them both to health.

As his vision began to clear, the blurry form of One Eye was clearly seen standing over the unconscious body of Solon.

"You will do, Solon Raye," He uttered, picking up the fallen knight and tossing him over his shoulder. Osuin immediately rolled onto his feet and took off after them as fast as he could in a rapid pursuit of Solon and the monster that had taken him.

 

[Keston]

Keston swung his sword like a man possessed, frighteningly similar to the cultists he so despised. Desperation drove him to dig deep into the well of all he had. Syr Osuin's spell had brought him vigor but the squire was near-spent once again. The torrid toll of all that transpired overwhelmed even powerful magicks. He had little left to give and yet he gave it still.

Floundering, his consciousness could barely sense the massive spell of Syr Raye. Keston barely heard the death-throes of his opponent as the squire fell to the ground. He struggled to steady his vision among the searing pain. The squire couldn't say he was reinvigorated but instead gained some clarity of purpose. Keston crawled over to Syr Etivya's withered form. Whatever malignant corruption infected her seemed wholly gone but she was not the same. Her body was neither sentinel nor human; it was as if her transformation had reverted only halfway.

It was only when, with teary eyes, he placed a shaky hand on her shoulder did he sense the slightest warmth. The smallest sliver of hope.

Then came the shuffle of footsteps and Keston turned to see Syr Osuin beginning to set off after Syr Raye. "Syr!" the squire called out, voice hoarse. "You must save her!" he pleaded. Bandages and salves would not save Syr Etivya. So distraught was Keston, the squire did not recognize he was condemning Syr Raye to his fate.

Hector Osuin Solon Raye

 

[Hector]

Try as Osuin might, he would not keep pace. The figure of the Archer would turn smaller with each bound of motion. Further and further it went.

Hector felt through the shock of his flesh. As all the world tilt and turned. Head white with the crackle of noise. Sharp ring through his skull.

He looked about. Saw Keston there by the changed form of Etivya. Twisted wrong. A leg like roots. A bear's humped back. Half her face still her own. The other a visage of fur, tooth, and bark. A snarled grin split across her face with the strain of holding on. Roots. Red and thick. Spidered across the plane of her chest. A woven crown above the cage of her heart.

Gnarled and curled. The red roots pulsed with each pang of her mortal beat.

"Eyes here, Keston. Eyes here damn it," she spit. "Focus. Car-" the pulse of the roots flared arrhythmic. "Carve the runes,"

 

[Keston]

'Carve the runes.'

Keston barely reacted upon initially hearing the words; too great was his anxiety. Carve the runes. This time the plea resounded in his head. The squire stopped. He looked at Syr Etivya, truly and fully took in her entire expression. "What ru-" he began to ask but the rest died in his throat. Comprehension hit him like an overladen wagon. Keston remained motionless, paralyzed by fear. Yet what scared him the most was that he could not muster the will to deny her request. Just a glance into the Sworn's eyes and he knew that would not change.

With staccato breath, he reached for the dagger at his waist. He drew the blade as slowly as possible in the hopes that some alternate solution would suddenly present itself.

It never came.

Each ancient rune that was carved into the knight's body was stained with the squire's tears. Syr Etivya had said nothing during the entire process, only giving Keston a pained but reassuring look. Then it was done. He placed a gentle hand on his completed inscription and channeled what little mana he had left. The squire could only suspect that the Sworn provided the rest.

A glow of the runes followed by a singular pulse. The knight's supernatural transformation ceased but so too did the rhythmic pulses of the roots. Slowing and slowing until they finally came to their final rest. Syr Etivya said nothing in her final moments, nor did it seem she wished to. A small mercy as Keston did not think he would've been able to bear it.

Oh Gods, how was he to return to the Monastery...

Hector Osuin Solon Raye

 

[Osuin]

The spell had provided him with some restoration of energy, but it had not provided any answer as to what to do about the catastrophic situation before them. That came from the lips of Syr Etivya herself, whom had half-reverted from her monstrous form.

"You must save her!" Keston announced, and only now did Osuin realize he had been battling against one of his own Order. Though he remained speechless, he was in full agreement with the squire's plea. Osuin rushed towards her, dropping to his knees before the half-transformed body of his fallen ally. While he had the will, yet he hadn't any answer. It was clear his magic could do little against the foul magic that had corrupted her.

“Etivya!!” Osuin cried out, though he knew not what words to follow with, nor what action to take. Perhaps she could be saved, but he knew not how. She was beyond the means of restoration his Lock magic could provide. Whatever efforts could be made for her betterment remained unknown, until she spoke up herself to state the answer clear.

"Carve the runes," She called out to Keston, and Osuin could only watch as he searched himself for some alternate answer to her grim solution. He sensed the squire's desperation for an alternative solution and yet, he held none no offer. He dropped to his knees some distance away. Too far to assist, yet close enough for his words to be heard.

“Keston....It must be so.” He uttered in resignation. Keston did what needed to be done, and Osuin reluctantly held onto magic that might bind her, if he needed to weave it. There was but one way free of the corruption that had taken her. None like it, but none held alternative.

How he wished it did not have to end this way. But it did. Were the roles reversed, Osuin would ask the same, as would most any.

May such a request not need to be heeded again.

Keston Hector Solon Raye

 

[Hector]

Hector stood behind Keston and Osuin once Syr Etivya had drawn her last breath. His eyes wide with horror, his hands trembling at his side as his ears were still so filled with that horrid ring.

Syr Etivya dead. Syr Torgan. Dead. Syr Raye. Taken by their enemy.

None of it stuck to his mind. So full of noise already. A horrid scratch that stayed a steady roar. Laughter came through, there between the lulls in the horrid sound. Cackles. Gleeful and taunting.

His eyes were full of Etivya's mangled form. The Sentinel spell. The strength of the Wylds turned to flesh. While the roots and fur and fangs were gone, her limbs remained bent. Broken and twisted from all they had endured.

Had they retreated, would the outcome have changed?

Would Syr Raye and Syr Osuin have been able to save her?

Hector stared on. Felt as if he could do no more than stare with eyes wide open.

For behind closed lids, there was only the darkness of his thoughts, and there in that darkness did the horrors realized here live. All that had come to pass upon the snow white field just beyond their Monastery, within their Wylds, stained with blood, dotted by rubble and darkened by ash.