Private Tales The Wolf and the Lion

[Dejan Damir]

"It appears we've finally found our quarry," stated Dejan as the horizon eventually gave way to the valley below. His words were laced with mild disgust and he continued to look on. Mostly due to the nature of their enemy but also the blatant disregard for security. It had apparently not occurred to them that they could be prey as well. A foolish foe suited him just fine but he bristled nonetheless.

Cultists. Half in love with themselves, half in love with their 'god', and altogether mad. The bodies left in their wake were hardly distinguishable from their original form. Dejan had been on this path for many years but the sight was not something one could fully ever ignore. He had once sought to understand what drove them to such hideous lengths but that time had long since passed. Reason could not be found.

Careless though these cultists may be, they were still far too dangerous. Dejan believed it was best to deal with their enemies on the road. The gods only knew what chaos they would unleash within a crowded settlement. Thus the two knights had bode their time and carefully followed until the opportune moment arose. Smoke coming from the camp below suggested that the cultists were ready to settle in for the evening.

"Our approach?" he inquired of the other Knight Pursuant.

 

[Bebin Theros]

Black whiskers bobbed up, as the Dusker smiled grimly to the Dawnling. "Quiet, thin there number," he nodded to the tents, and the iron bar cages they kept near the wagons. "Get in close for the knife work. Eliminate them, before they can use their corrupt magics," he nodded, satisfied with the plan of attack that played out in his mind's eye.

"You know how these lot are," he spat, took his bow and planted it in the earth. "Cowards who hide behind the innocent they take, and the innocent they bring into this world all the same," He hooked his bowstring onto the bow's curved arm, his whole body flexing against its draw strength so that he could bend it enough to secure the tie. He huffed, with the task done, and thought of Syr Ruststone, and the tendrils of ink she took care to hide. He thought of the many other youth too, the ones who had never made it to their oaths, their minds so far gone into the abyss of the forbidden arts. Thrown in by reckless masters. Men and women of small and meaningless ambitions. "They keep their thralls with them, till its time to sate their degeneracy," he took his bow up, and looked back to his brother. "No fires, Captains want us to bring in what intel we can," he closed his eyes and cant a prayer in his mother tongue.

The air before him rippled, as if the very surface of a lake pooled between them in phantasmal mirror. He let out a long breath, and pushed his hand out toward the Pursuant of the Wild, as if he moved something toward him. Energy, magic, flowed from the Pursuant of Loch an into Dejan. He would see his limbs fade, grow dark and shimmer, all the same. Bebin too, bent the light of dusk around him, and was harder to see. Like a body made from the shadows in a cloudy lake.

He opened his eyes, and nodded to his fellow Pursuant, and crouched as he was, snuck into the shrubs and cover around him.

There was a pair of cultists near the outer perimeter of the camp. Lazily, they looked out at the road beyond, and chatted about whatever piss splatter men like them chatted about. How much they loved the stew. How the Everwatcher spoke to them in a dream, how ecstatic they were for the night's ceremony. Bebin raised his bow, lined his shot, and fired his shaft with a dulled thrum.

Black shaft streaked through the ruddy colored sky, the last rays of gold falling beyond the horizon. And an arrow bloomed like a hateful flower from one of the cultist's eyes.

The other stood wide eyed and wordless.

 

[Dejan Damir]

"Simple is oft best," agreed Dejan with a grunt. It was very easy to overthink one's way into trouble. They say that no plan survives contact with the enemy and the knight had found this to be true. Therefore the less that could go wrong, the better. He would just have to hope that these cultists were as careless as they appeared. "I cannot fathom what intelligence can be gathered from the ramblings of mad prelates but gladly welcome the fact that the forest need not be singed."

The other knight had readied his bow but it seemed that was not to be the end of his preparations. Dejan experienced a cooling as the spell settled over his person. This was not the first time he had been exposed to such a spell but acknowledged the ease at which the other man cast.

"Well met," the knight said in thanks. It should not come as much of a surprise but stealth was not his strongest skill. He could move about quietly enough when the situation called for it but there were many in the Order far more talented. His peer's assistance would prove most useful this eve.

Dejan followed after Sir Theros into nearby cover, making sure to keep adequate distance between them. The older knight noted the pair of cultists on watch and could see his partner already aiming his bow. He pulled a dagger with his one remaining arm and sighted the man on the right. Dejan let his blade fly mere moments after the soft twang of Bebin's bow. The knight watched with mild satisfaction as the dagger readily embedded itself in the cultist's skull. Dejan waited silently to see if their actions had drawn attention but all remained quiet.

He nodded towards his companion before pushing into the perimeter of the camp.

 

[Bebin Theros]

A nod of acknowledgement came from Bebin, and the two men pressed forward. Steps muted, even the plate that Syr Dejan wore made muffled sounds, barely there to an ear so full of chatter and camp sounds. Many of the cultists seemed to gather about a fire at the center of the encampment. Some twenty souls, watching as one man in bright golden robes that rippled with many dark-ringed eyes, wide and ever open, ever watchful with their red irises.

"The day comes close, my children! The day that the Everwatcher returns! The Star Eater!"

The small mass about the man raised their voices in a unified ecstasy, mingled and tinged with pained sorrow. They writhed, some lifted their hands up to the heavens, while others still threw themselves onto the ground in a show for all to see just how moved they were.

"Yes," the man robed in gold and eyes went on, voice quivering with delight, "Yes! Rejoice, for our efforts bare fruit!"

As the man went on with his mad sermon, Bebin motioned to another guard ahead of them, a rusty spear rested against his shoulder as he watched with robed man speak. Bebin's fingers cut across the air, and pointed at another in the distance, he moved away from them as they crept inward, deeper into the nest.

Bebin left the closer man to Dejan, and prowled after the other man.

He would turn behind some tents, yawn, and find a sharp pain punch through the flesh of his back, feel a pop, then nothing bellow his shoulders. A hand struck across his mouth and yanked him down to the floor, then a man wreathed in shadow and dusk-light was there, holding him down, muffling his sounds. Then the light of life was gone.

Bebin sneered, but shut the man's eyes still, and turned as he rose his head up. No one around. He slipped into a nearby tent as the cultist's dark sermon carried on through the air.

 

[Dejan Damir]

The pair continued to quietly progress towards the center of the encampment. Dejan barely registered the prelate's mad sermon which had enraptured those listening. He was almost thankful that the cultist's words were so enthralling as no one was looking towards the perimeter. It made it much easier for the two knights to close in. Being spotted on the outer fringes of the camp would have made it extremely difficult to accomplish their mission. He could only hope that their luck would hold until the knights were ready to spring their trap.

Dejan slipped another dagger from his belt and he readied to silence one more guard. He approached carefully, thankful once more for the spell his brother had cast. It would have been impossible for him to maneuver with such stealth otherwise. The knight would need to be fast. He lacked the appendages to cover his foe's mouth and cut at the same time. A problem to which few could relate. Dejan did not rue his current conundrum, he had no desire to be better at taking the life of another.

Steel flashed across the guard's throat and then sheathed in one swift motion. His good hand then made to cover the dying man's mouth so as to stifle his dying gasps. He led the body gently to the ground and waited until the cultist breathed his last.

Suddenly the knight as struck by an overwhelming silence. The prelate had stopped preaching. His gaze had turned outward, frantically searching the trees. Realization hit the older knight like a gauntlet fist. There must have been some spell tying the two cultists together, or maybe the guard was a thrall of some kind. In any case, the prelate now knew that his fellow cultist had perished.

Chaos erupted.

 

[Bebin Theros]

Inside the tent there were not but bedrolls and personal items strewn about. Robes laid over a hard surface with some bulk. Bebin crept toward it. Sifted through the rags. Felt the weight of something in a pocket. Slipped his hand in and pulled from it a twisted stone fetish. He whispered beneath his breath, and his eyes shimmered with the silver ripple of Loch light.

Dark tendrils wrapped about the tiny statue, a thing shaped vaguely like a man. An impression, but hardly that. Still, as he looked at it, and all the darkness which curled and coiled about it, like tiny worms of purple and black, freshly, they wriggled out of a corpse. As if after a heavy rain. He closed his eyes, and held the small thing, and could not un-see its horrid impression, so seared into his mind it was.

Crude, as if a child had carved it. Gouged and gashed. As if made in a fit. Still. It was not the craftmanship that had it feel like a person, many eyes along its form. It was the magic. The corruption which drew the eye in. Bent the very light about it.

Bebin began to whisper another spell.

Outside. "Oh eyes of the Everwatcher, oh pupils of the Stareater! Turn ye rueful stares upon that, most wretched intruder!" And one by one, the cultists, weeping all the while, howling without cease, turned their gaze upon Dejan.

There, where there eyes should be, was not but the black-red pits of empty sockets. The skin about their missing eyes was flared red and swollen purple and yellow with infection. It was clear, however they had lost their peepers, little care was given to their suffering.

"Claim him, my little oculi! Claim him and take his eyes so that our great lord may see all that will be his to claim!" The man in the golden robes, resplendent with its seamless ruby gazes, cast a finger out toward Dejan, and the cultists swarmed toward the one armed Knight.

A bolt of black zipped through the sky, and thwacked into the skull of one cultist. A second punched into the flesh and bone above the heart and knocked him down.

You blew our cover already? Bebin's voice echoed in Dejan's mind. Break for cover, funnel them in to a kill zone. Another dark shaft hamstrung a mad runner. Another flew toward the prelate.

With a wave of his hand, a black tendril whipped from about the Prelate, purple and voidlike, it whipped the arrow away.

 

[Dejan Damir]

"I'll do just that," the old knight grumbled to himself, ignoring the other's chastisement. His immediate acceptance came less from the telepathic warning and more due to the cultists' lack of eyes. He saw madness in those empty sockets and had no desire to face it head on. Dejan wasted no time in choosing a direction which to run, having already grasped his surroundings earlier. The knight knew it would take the cultists' a little time to track down Bebin so he was not overly worried about the other man.

The older man spotted the pair of trees he had been looking for. A small path existed between the two but otherwise they were surrounded by thick brush, not easily traversed. Their greater numbers would not count for much, at least for a little while. Dejan ducked past the trees as a dagger slammed into the wood behind him. It seemed their lack of eyes had not affected their vision in the slightest.

Dejan drew his blade and whirled around upon hearing the rush of footsteps behind him. He saw one cultist charging him in a crazed rush, with only a small knife in his hand. The knight hesitated for but a brief moment before bringing his blade down swiftly. His foe's body fell to the ground in an unceremonious heap. Dejan shuddered slightly upon seeing a ghosted smile on the corpse.

He really was getting too old for this. Thoughts of retirement would have to wait until the battle was over. Two more cultists came into view and this time they brandished proper weapons. Dejan set to his unfortunate work once more.

 

[Bebin Theros]

With reckless abandon, the cultist chased after Syr Damir. Guided by some unseen will.

From his hiding place, Bebin studied the Prelate. Watched as the figure, cloaked in his robe of many eyes, gestured to the small throng that remained at his side, scattering them across the camp. Then, the Prelate turned his purple gaze upon the tent which was Bebin's cover.

"There, there he is, oh wandering watchers! There!" He stretched out his hand, and the dark wriggling mass that was his tentacle stretched out with it. As if a puppet attached to a string. He motioned toward the tent.

Bebin grinned, and the be-turbaned Knight wore the expression like a hungry snake. Quick, he knocked an arrow, aimed, and fired a shaft down range. It pinned itself into the flesh of a cultist's leg.

"Hurry, my pupils, hurry!" the Prelate whipped them with his lashing tone.

The Pursuant of Loch slung his bow over his shoulder, took bits and bobs from his belt and began to set a trap. Like gears in a dwarven machine, he stabbed a small stake into the soft earthen floor, pulled a wire across the entrance of the door, stabbed another metal take, this one with a loop through which the wire ran, and the string ended attached to a small clay pot, which he laid nestled in front of the entrance. A quick glance to check, and he slipped out the back.

Tension strung high pitched across the wire. A snap. A crack. And a slow and steady hiss. Bebin broke into the woods as cultists coughed and lungs struggled to draw new life giving breath.

He could barely hear the thuds they made as they hit the floor.

 

[Dejan Damir]

The Pursuant planted his boot square in the chest of the first attacker, sending the cultist sprawling to the forest floor. He could now focus his full attention on the remaining foe. The other cultist swung wildly but Dejan could sense an unnatural power behind the strikes. His suspicions were confirmed upon actually parrying the blade. They seemed an unruly mob but clearly there was measure of competence hidden beneath the madness. Even with one arm, the old knight was still more than a match for his opponent; he wasted little time in cutting the man down.

Dejan turned his attention to the other cultist who was now getting to his feet. He quickly closed the gap and made to strike immediately. The knight caught a flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye and ducked on instinct. A searing pain lanced up his arm as he turned to see an arcane spike settle in a tree not far away. The source of the spell had been another cultist who had managed to clamber through the thicket.

He dodged another spell, unperturbed by the presence of the caster. The cultist nearest him believed this to be the opportune time to strike. A misconception that was quickly rectified as Dejan drove his blade through the man's stomach, pinning him to the tree behind. The knight let go of the hilt and rolled away as another pair of spikes threatened to skewer him. As he came to his feet, there was already a green twinge to his dark-brown eyes. The cultist mage swiveled as the thicket she had so casually trampled on, came to life. Thorny branches lashed out and ensnared the cultist, dragging his foe into the unseen flora.

Unfortunately the mage had succeeded in buying time for her comrades as more cultists filtered in before him. Dejan calmly walked over to where the impaled cultist remained. Even as he yanked the blade free, wild energy swirled about the stump of his right arm. The ground below the knight began to shift and rumble. Roots, branches, and dirt sprang forth from the ground, coalescing around where his appendage used to be.

What was once lost had been returned by nature's grace.

Sword slid from scabbard.

 

[Bebin Theros]

Footfalls fell as quick as rain drops. Quiet against the earth that drank in their sound.

The scent of dark magics despoiled the air. Sulfur and ammonia. The stench pulled in with each hot breath of air Bebin drew into his lungs. Scents he knew all too well, after so many training sessions with the re-animators of the order. A flash of silver saw his tulwar drawn from its scabbard, its heavy head gleamed with a hungry light in the dim of the tree cover that clipped by the striding Pursuant.

A cultist's figure ahead. The robbed follower was still. Bobbing from one side to the other, as some intangible utterance poured from their lips. Bebin leapt forward, pulled his sword across with a hard twist of his hips and drop of his shoulder. A blow meant to cut through, to break bones and part flesh.

Whips of black snapped out, lashed around Bebin's wrist and pulled the Pursuant around with a hard yank that took all the speed and momentum out of his murderous dash.

Were he less experienced, his arm would like have popped from its socket at the shoulder. But steeled flesh held strong. Bebin's free hand, his left, dropped to his belt and took up a knife tucked there. A flick of the wrist saw the metal weapon flash out, only to be bat away by the cultist's black whips. Bebin grumbled.

A yank up lifted Bebin off the ground several feet, and a quick thrash saw the man slammed down upon the forest floor like a ragdoll. Again and again.

 

[Dejan Damir]

A moment of hesitation rested heavy upon all those in the small clearing. Dejan eyed the many cultists and they in turn looked to his makeshift arm, or so he assumed. He could feel the intensity of their otherworldly gazes, an unpleasant feeling to say the least. All it took was a slight shift in his stance for pandemonium to break loose.

A pair of dagger-wielding cultists charged at him recklessly. Dejan wasted little time in pressing forward as well. He could ill afford to let this battle draw out. His newly crafted arm was a constant draw on his mana and was not meant to be maintained for long periods. More importantly, he was eager to go and back up the other knight. Syr Theros was a more than capable fighter but the cult leader had a truly sinister air about him. Who knows what dark forces he was prepared to invoke to defend his mad cause.

Steel flashed and Dejan's first foe dropped in a crumpled heap. The second was quick enough to raise his blade to block, but it availed him not. His arm was strengthened by wild magic and easily broke through the other's guard. Even as one fell, another cultist seemed to take their place. Dejan made to block another dagger and suddenly felt pain lance up his left hand. He quickly disengaged and looked to see the cultist now wearing a feral grin.

Cursed weapons. Troublesome.

He could only hope his fellow knight was holding out better than he.

 

[Bebin Theros]

Pain, red fingered and many tendrilled, spread and clutched and raked across Bebin's body as he was flung about. He kept tucked, rolled, core tight, arms in, less one land wrong, bend and snap. He had let go of his sword after the first slam. Felt his vision darken after the second. The wind left his lungs.

"There for but the grace of the everwatcher do you stand, mere mortal," the eyeless cultist recited, "a vessel of his gift, sight granted to your eyes," she rambled on. Here raw red sockets, scarred and marred with pustules, stared their eyeless stare at the dangling Persuant. His blue turban coming undone as he blinked his own eyes in bleary defiance.

Concentration, focus. It was all that kept him from falling into the pitch. Into the stasis that was the unconscious mind.

A crunch, the dirt and leaves and pine needles beneath him. The sound of soil scrape against his ear. The tendril slowed. As if the greater creature that spawned it had grown tired from its show of force. As if it felt its prey defeated. Just enough time for Bebin to suck in a breath.

Quick, the blue jewel of his right bracer burned a pale blue. Starfire against the mirror black of a midnight lake. Loch light rippled out in a cadence of rings, swirled about his wrist as the cultist's tendril's jerked him up. The blue-white light formed into a long run of rippling sharpness.

Rain-water edge sliced through the mass of tendrilled corruption. "No!" the cultist shouted out with some pain in their voice. "No I shall not let your eyes go on baring the false light!" Weightlessness. Bebin hung in the air, tucked and rolled as he fell to the ground with a hard thud. Where one tendril recoiled, two more struck out.

The lock light blade that formed about his fist whirred. Two more masses of corruption were undone.

 

[Dejan Damir]

Screams rang out as steel continued to find flesh. Dejan was currently fighting a hard, desperate battle. It had been sometime since he had pushed himself to this extent. The never-ending swarm of cultists had supplemented their amateurism with curses and unnatural zeal. Each swing of his blade held potential for his own pain. He could also feel his arcana beginning to wane due to the strain of extended combat. The old knight knew that he was thinning their numbers but part of him could not help but feel somewhat anxious.

Dejan grunted as a dagger found a seam in his armor. He quickly stepped back to avoid letting the blade dig any deeper into his side. The knight was quick to respond with an strike of his own, cutting the cultist down. Where one fell, another there was there to his place.

This wouldn't do. Dejan suddenly let loose with a flurry of strikes, sending his closet opponents reeling backwards. Confident that he had bought himself the room required, he began to focus inwards. Dejan's thoughts turned to all that surrounded him; his very essence melding with the enveloping nature. He roared as he unleashed the spell that he had been preparing. The entire forest around him suddenly sprang to life and turned its ire to its unwelcome visitors.

The knight watched as vines pierced chests, thorns thrashed faces, and stones crushed bones. Chaos caused by the spell had lasted mere moments as a pained silence fell upon the area. There were a few groans here and there but the cultists present had either been killed or incapacitated.

A thud broke the silence as Dejan's other sword fell to the ground. His magic no longer able to maintain the form of his temporary arm. He left the blade there for the time being as he set off towards the original clearing, intent on aiding Syr Theros' battle against the prelate.

 

[Bebin Theros]

Each Knight felt the pull of magick different. To some, they felt the vibrations of music, stir in their bones. Others felt it as an intense heat. An energy that simmered in the very blood of their veins until all let out in a roil. A flash of fire. A strike of lightning. Bebin was attuned to the magic of the Loch. A deep and icy thing. A think that seeped and trickled as much as it crashed and flowed. It bounced. Rippled.

Maybe that is why he felt the shock of wyld growth before he heard the wolf's howl.

The tendrilled cultist, eyeless as any other, though their robes bore those same red eyes that the Prelate wore, gasped, frozen but for a moment as they felt the lives of their fellows trampled and undone.

"You dare..." the tendrilled cultist whimpered.

A flit. A red plumed dart struck out, like a hummingbird flitting toward a stab. The needle nosed tool punctured skin, just bellow the chin. In the soft spot beneath the neck.

"You," the cultist turned toward Bebin, eyeless sockets, red and inflamed, gazed their bottomless gaze at the be-turbaned knight. "You!"" the words choked in his throat, and he sent his tendrils after him in a surge as purpled veins spidered about the red plumed dart, the flesh their twisted, as if gripped tight by a clutching hand that squeezed and squeezed.

The tendrils spiked out. Stopped. Died away like roots without water, crumbling but inches from Bebin's own flesh. From his own well of blood and magick.

The cultist fell to the earth, hands clutching at his neck. "How... dare..." she rasped dryly.

Bebin's boots crunched softly against the forest floor and he stood above the choking cultist. His sword had found its way back into his hand, and the loch-light blade had dissipated. The long curve of patterned steel gleamed hungry in the low light of the forest.

"I curse you," the cultist coughed out.

"I welcome it," Bebin replied, and sunk the fang-tip of his tulwar into bone and flesh of cultist.

Now the prelate. his mind let out in a pulse, a ripple sent to find the grey matter of his ally.

 

[Dejan Damir]

Now the prelate.

The sentiment of his fellow knight arrived but a moment too late as Dejan's gaze had already found the cultist leader.

"So you are the one who has robbed the Infinitely-Eyed One of his most willing servants." Madness rang in the prelate's tone. There was no longer any doubt that this person could not be redeemed. Dejan knew when the taint of evil had taken root in a person's soul. Maybe it had always been present, it mattered not at this juncture. The older knight looked around to see if he could spot any remaining cultists that may be supporting their leader. "No need to be so wary. The Everwatcher has granted me a hundred blessings. One for each eye that adorns me! More than enough to deal with a deluded knight in his dotage."

Dejan merely grunted at the comment about his age. He had little make in rebuttal even if he cared to. In truth, he was currently feeling rather old. The large-scale spell he had used earlier was still taking its toll. Outwardly he showed no signs of fatigue but doubted he could maintain that facade for much longer.

He shifted slightly as he prepared to attack.

"I see all!" cried the prelate.

Sheer instinct sent wyld magic surging through Dejan's arm as he brought his blade up to his chest. He gasped as dark energy crashed into his blade with tremendous force, sending him sprawling backwards. The older man grunted as a tree so thoughtfully stopped his momentum. His blurred vision began to focus and with it, came realization. One of the eyes on the cultist's robe was now closed shut.

Dejan wasn't sure he could survive another two spells, let alone ninety-nine.

A timely entrance would not go unappreciated. The knight sent his thoughts into the ether, unsure if his companion would be able to hear them.

 

[Bebin Theros]

A sting at the back of Bebin's skull. Needle pricks, in and out. Danger. Hurt. Urgent. Each stab of the sensation had him turn tighter towards the message. As if the needle of a cursed compass. Each bob, each twitch toward the magnetic pull that told where true lied panged deeper into his nerves. Grew more red behind his eyes. If only between blinks.

A shout, a cry. A wind most dread and dark howled through the trees, sucked the life from the thousand fans and blades and needles, and it was all Bebin could do to spark his shield of blue and crouch low behind its ethereal guard. His muscles strained, felt heavy, but there was no time to gather strength. What he had would have to do.

He sheathed his blade, and ran forward, toward the direction of the dark wind. He would find the prelate, a pillar of pupils, red and ever watchful. Ten or twenty saw him, each attuned their iris to him, like so many mirrors gathering the rays of a voidling sun. Red turned to purple turned to searing jet.

"You cannot hide! Oh pretenders of Anatheaum!" The Prelate cracked from his throat. of six eyes, five webbed a ring of anti-light, the sixth, at the center of five, drew in the energy of the five and spit from its bottomless pupil a beam of negation. But a thread, no greater than yarn and fine as midnight silk, spanned toward Bebin as fast as any arrow.

Shield of Loch's Light raised, the beam struck the blue ethereal surface, which rippled as if a stone had crashed upon the surface of a still lake. Soundless at first, as the head broke the tension at the edge, the force behind the beam of void sucked into the round shield. A moment as all the bulwark rippled out. A suction. An implosion.

Bebin had thrown his weight away from the bracer, his arm already out of the silver band.

Energy crashed in where Loch had met the power of the Many Lidded Robe.

An explosion boomed out in spherical expansion. A cloud of pitch and dust and swirling blue. It engulfed Bebin Theros.

Six eyes shut.

 

[Dejan Damir]

The other knight's arrival had bought Dejan crucial moments to regain his senses. He doubted he would have been able to successfully withstand another immediate barrage of spells. Instead, it gave the Knight Pursuant a chance to prepare his own litany of spells. Dejan had not nearly recovered from his previous use of wyld magic but necessity dictated that he dig deep into his reserves. This prelate and more importantly, their robe, was not something that could be dealt with half measures.

He watched as Syr Theros attempted to fend off a powerful blast of magik and could only hope the other man was up to the task. Dejan tightened his grip and as he did so, vines and all manner of flora encapsulated his blade. The knight got to his feet, shook off any haziness, and charged towards the cult leader.

"One, two, or twenty. It makes no difference!" the prelate cried out. Dejan ignored his foe's taunts and continued forward even as he sensed a gathering of power around the all-seeing robe. A bolt of pure energy rocketed towards the knight and Dejan brought his blade to bear. He deflected the spell without hesitation. Where one eye closed, another answered; this time a fireball sought to incinerate. The knight Anatheaum remained undaunted as his blade carved him a path.

Any fool could tell that he would be dead before he closed the distance. One more spell raced towards his person and yet this time he did not make to stop it. Instead he reversed the grip on his blade and slammed it into the ground with an almighty grunt. The spell crashed into him but a moment later and yet this time Dejan remained where he stood. His pain was immense but the wyld had made him sturdy.

Suddenly the steel of his sword shone once more as nature greedily took back what was hers. The ground began to shake under the prelate as the earth sprang to life, seeking to take the cultist in its firm embrace. If all went according to plan, the robe's many lids would be obscured and buy the other knight an opportunity to end this.

"Syr Theros!"

 

[Bebin Theros]

How that magick most wyld did swell beneath the earth. And while his world was drowned in black, the Pursuant of the Loch felt the surge of green life grow through him. Smelled the scent of new flowers burst into bloom, their pollen wafted through the air as sweet trails for him to follow. Back to the light. Back to the waking world.

From the ground, Syr Theros stirred. His body twitched as bones popped and came unhinged. As the Prelate shouted mad and cast bolts that seared the air, and fire that careened across the field, eye after eye shut in payment for the power, the pursuant changed. Form bent and stretched as the wyld energies of the land which coursed to Dejan spread out from he, the mighty and immovable trunk, like deep roots that sturdied all around.

Where the Dawn gave, the Dusk drank.

"Wicked fools!" the Prelate shouted out as the very earth beneath him shattered and shook, shifted by the violent release of wyld force. "Ye but try and obscure the countless eyes of they who see all! They whose gaze is as numerous as the stars!" The ground beneath the prelate cracked and quaked and opened to swallow the Prelate whole. "But ye know not of his power! Ye know not of the many gifts he grants me!"

Eye after eye upon his robe closed to the light of the world around them. Dark arms of mangled energy sprang from each sealed pupil and struck down at the vanishing ground, like the many legs of a twisted spider. Webs of fleshy matter, conjured from depths unholy acted like tethers which caught the Prelate from his fall. They lifted him up.

"But worry not, oh misguided lambs, for our lord is merciful," he went on as he rose up, the mass of wriggling arms stretching upward, ever more, until the Prelate in his rob of many lids loomed over Dejan and his sword.

The dust from the quake settled below.

"He shall accept your soul, once I have taken those watchful eyes from your skulls!" he laughed. Loud and proud and indomitable.

Blue scales shimmered and flashed. Fangs struck into flesh. A broad flat head, the size of a horse head, worked its muscles to sink dagger sized fangs deeper as the Prelate screamed. His tendrils struggled to hold him up as a massive serpent hauled itself up and around the man and his robe.

"Everwatch-" his voice choked, as a long singular mass coiled around him and squeezed.

 

[Dejan Damir]

Dejan watched as death rose on darkened tendrils. The older knight had nearly spent himself with that last spell and was in no position to retaliate. He did not falter in the face of his doom. This could only be counted among the numerous times he had looked upon his end. Each time, his mind remained serene. There was no regret to be found in a life that was lived properly. Dejan desired to serve the Order longer but this was a simple reality of their existence. So many had been embraced by their gods much earlier than he. The knight could only consider himself fortunate that he was able to make until this point.

The ensuing surge of power surely meant his death was imminent but the knight quickly realized the magic held a familiar flavor. He could only watch with muted surprise as a great serpent coiled itself around the Prelate. Dejan reluctantly admitted that he momentarily reveled in the screams of the cultist as the snake's fangs dug deep. Most importantly, the other knight's shifted body had now covered the cursed robe.

He slowly got to his feet, using his earth-embedded blade to steady himself. Dejan did not waste any time as he gathered the last vestiges of his arcane reserves. The ground rumbled beside him until root and dirt formed into a makeshift arm. Moments later the simulacrum grabbed the hilt of the knight's sword, already relinquished. Once again, he could sense a growing magic and this time it was far more sinister. A last desperate attack that would leave little of the two Anathaeum left to be found.

Too late.

Steel and earth raced in unison and found their target moments later. Dejan's sword was now resting squarely in the skull of one of the Everwatcher's most faithful. He knew the deed had truly been done as the immense magical energy accumulating earlier had now dissipated. Dejan made to take a step forward but stumbled as he did so.

It had been a long day, and it seems that he would be fortunate enough to see another.

 

[Bebin Theros]

Fangs sank into flesh as coiling strength constricted about gangly limbs and corrupted power. The prelate, screamed in agony as his life's force struggled against a power far greater than any single mortal being. The power of nature itself. For where Dejan Damir, Knight Pursuant of Anathaeum was the roaring Wylds, Syr Bebin Theros was a Pursuant of the raging Loch. Water set to surge. To carve. To crush. To erode and to remove.

Energy, dark and mal-aligned swelled beneath the blue serpent's mass. A darkness that pulled. That swallowed and drowned and seeped in, just as did the loch, only with greater hunger. With less calm. With less cool. A bottomless need for more that exceeded any flame or any wolf. But the Loch poured into it. Sought to quench it. Sought to cool and temper and apply the pressure of increasing atmospheres. A crush that would contain. Keep hidden, in such depths that none could find what was left behind.

Still the serpent struggled. Still Bebin strictly constricted against the Prelate. Sought to crush bones. Squeeze breath from lung. Leave no life behind that could will the dark powers forward. And so focused was he that could not think of the energies that burned against his scales. Nor the shout of his sworn brother, charged by the magicks he willed with such fury.

But the schlick of steel and the crack of bone were the song that set him free. The Prelate went slack between his coiled figure and his whole figure fell to the earth which had given so much force to quell him. A hard thud, and wyld strength slipped free of the binds that did in the dark magus. And when Dejan fell, the blue serpant was there to catch him, head raising to support the man before his body could strike earth.

Muscles and shifted, bones re-aligned and limbs re-formed as the magic waned, Wyld maned, turban gone and free as the day he was born, Bebin held the knight of dawn up, his expression stern, though his left arm bore the burns of magick energy.

"Don't think you are skipping out on writing your part of report, Dejan," the Pursuant of Loch jibed. Voice tired, muscles full of ache. Still, he drew breath. And there was work to be done.

 

[Dejan Damir]

Dejan braced himself for the hard greeting of the earth but that was not to be. His graceful descent was thanks to Syr Theros and his consideration. The older knight took a moment to steady his breathing before he finally got to his feet. It had been quite some time since had truly been pushed to his wit's end. He could feel the fatigue deep in his bones but he was also empowered by a sense of accomplishment.

"Do I look so unreliable to you?" the knight responded with a small grin. The other knight had certainly hit on the truth, there was still a lot to do. They had dealt with a part of the cult but clearly there was more to it. Dejan could only surmise that this 'Everwatcher' was a demon of significant strength. He doubted that they were limited to this one cult. However, the potency of the Prelate's spells was cause for worry.

He slowly walked over to the crumpled corpse of the cultist leader and looked down upon the entity that nearly caused his death. Many of the eyes that once threatened the knights now were permanently shut, or so Dejan hoped. Still, he could sense lingering malice in what should have been nothing more than simple cloak.

"Is this not too dangerous to bring back to the Monastery? My heart tells me we should burn this here and now."

 

[Bebin Theros]

Bebin stepped toward the Dawnling, eyes set on the wicked cloth crumpled and twisted about its master's corpse. "If it is burned, than we can not learn from it, Syr Damir," he bent down, crouched, and looked at the shadow-bound cloth.

There was but a shallow reserve left in the deep well of his magick. To draw more in from the world around them, from the natural energies of the wylds about them and the lochs below, it would take time. And that was a resource they did not have. The pursuant steadied his breath, drawing air into his lungs as he closed his eyes for but a second. When he opened them anew, his irises pulsed a silver blue.

Small as the spell was. Basic in its function and miniscule in its tax, he felt the nerves of his eyes twitch and stutter. Never quite blinking, but letting him know they were tired. His whole being near its limit. Fatigue, is but an illusion. A reminder. But our purpose requires clarity. Our purpose requires a knowing that is accurate, and absolute. Know yourself, young Theros, and be keenly aware of your limits. Else, how would you know how much you have left to give? And how much more you are willing to pay. He recalled the words of an elder.

"It bares no curse to touch," Bebin announced as he took up the cloak, and as its iridescent span shimmered and gleamed, he examined it. "The eyes," he said, curt, as his lips curled in disgust and his nose scrunched. "They are collected from every manner of life," for he recognized the eyes of man, be they human, elf, orc, or any other. And he recognized the wolves, and bears, and so many more were slowly unveiled as he lifted up the cloak, let it unfold and display. "The eye of a dragon," he said as he stared at one pupil still open. Still looking at him, wide eyed and intelligent.

The Pursuant squinted his own gaze at the lone eye. Watched it shift its gaze up toward Dejan. No fear there in its ever wide watch. It slid its pupil back to him and he grunted. Bebin waved pointer finger, middle and thumb before the eye, and a blue drop seemed to ripple across its surface, until a feint veil cloaked its surface.

"I have stolen the light from it," he told his counterpart. "It will see nothing," he stood and handed it toward Dejan. "Least of all my ass," he said as he turned around, and went to rummage the corpse of a cultist that was about his size.

 

[Dejan Damir]

"An unfortunate truth," the old knight sighed but still nodded in agreement. He knew that their cause was greater than any discomfort he had with the garment. They knew now that there was a truly vile being that hid in the shadows of this cult. Fate had decided it would be upon the Knights Anathaeum to root out this evil. A heavy burden, but one to which they were not a stranger. Dejan stepped back slightly to allow his comrade space as he sensed Syr Theros preparing another spell.

"A dragon..." The knight's words echoed. He watched as the eye took casual note of him before its gaze returned. "A disconcerting revelation." There was little more that needed saying beyond that. It meant that the person who forged this robe was capable of killing a dragon or had possibly been created by a dragon themselves. Either option made for a significant source of worry. More than Dejan was willing to ponder in his current state. No doubt their report upon returning to the Monastery would elicit proper discussion.

"It seems some of us will not be so lucky," Dejan muttered as his companion went to search a nearby cultist's corpse.

The journey back to the Monastery was sure to be a long one.