Many Miles Before I Sleep

[Cinnabar]

The dead move.

On the first night, when the Governor gave a speech in the town square and the citizenry stood united in anger and outrage, things looked hopeful. Myrken stood united, countryfolk and townspeople pulled together by the creature's reign of fear and bloodshed, as one in their desire to see the ghoul hunted and ended. But things have not gone as well as might be hoped.

The Ashfiend's first appearance that night saw the greater part of a search party in Myrkentown trapped in a flaming building, butchered and burned within, and half of that side of the street consumed by flames before the blaze was contained. A search party including the Governor and - it is rumoured - Duke Burel of Thessilane was set upon by more of the Fiend's minions, which moved and spoke in a chilling attempt to deceive the unwary. Later on that night, acting on a tip-off, a squad of Constables was seriously injured when they uncovered a lair of the ghoul's servants within the derelict building of Harold's Smithy, and word is that the blaze that followed was also the Fiend's doing. Following that encounter, perhaps prompted by the discovery of that lair, the dark places of Myrken Wood stirred.

Word has spread out across Myrken after that first eruption of corpses from cellars, sheds and barns two nights ago; the dead walk, roaming the fields and wilds of Myrken Wood, bringing unease by day and terror by night. Carefully-orchestrated bands of citizens still patrol Myrken's roads and lanes, though fewer than was the case previously; such work is tiring, taxing upon the body and the nerves, and not without risks, as those who've encountered the Fiend's servants can attest. They do what they can, coming to the aid of farms besieged by the lurching, hateful dead, though it inevitably costs them in blood.

As time goes on, a larger part of these patrols become made up of soldiers and Constables, properly armed and trained for such combat; the civilians worry more for their own homes and families, and so take to guarding what is their own, with prayer and stout timber and whatever weapons are to hand. A siege mentality takes hold, farmers nailing sturdy boards across their ground floor windows, townsfolk barricading their doors with heavy furniture before retiring to bed. There is fear, undoubtedly, and the streets of Myrkentown are almost abandoned throughout the long darkness of winter nights, save for the patrols. But there is also resolve. The Chapel of St Iona's daily services see a swelled attendance, as do the town's other places of worship. The Constabulary and the fledgling Myrken Army sees a surge in recruitment, fuelled by those who are determined to see their home protected. The territory lies besieged, and yet the words become a mantra: Myrken endures.

And now... the dead move.

First news of it comes from Constabulary outriders, mounted officers tasked with keeping lines of communication open between Myrkentown and the country patrols. Bands of walking corpses are seen on the move, shambling and lurching and prowling with the dogged determination of the undead, fixed on reaching some unknown goal. Sightings and directions are taken, hurriedly cross-checked, correlated. The dead move, and with a united purpose. A united goal. Charts are consulted, lines are drawn, routes extrapolated; before too long, a decision is reached and orders are given.

The dead move, and so do the living.

[Malaroth]

Malaroth hung low in the saddle. He crushed the reins beneath his mailed hand as the squire in the lead, unfettered by over encumbering plate, led them in a full circle at a breakneck place. The twenty or so knights behind him murmured prayers, fingered blades, and fought against their own worst fears.

They had tracked the movement of the slain-and-risen, tracked them in a circle. The Ashfiend's minions had ventured north with undue haste, making for some target, some victim, some poor soul to suffer the creature's focused wrath.

The tracks had led them back to the chapter house.

The surrounding darkness blanketed the approaching evil well. For men on walls, bearing crossbows, strain to pick out their targets. There are moving shadows, taunting hisses of supernatural and insatiable hunger, the echoing clack of wretched teeth in twisted jaws. There is also order, and discipline, as the knights and squires upon the outer wall crank their crossbows and heft the weapons, taking aim and loosing into the darkness as the cry goes out to fire at will.

The shadows are too many, too obscured, to bother with directing a unified attack. The air is filled with the staccato stinging of bolts through the air, the mechanical complaints of the weapons, the occasional cry of triumph as one of the man-things is felled; all to the Ashfiend's dread chorus that hangs heavy in the air.

"I will collapse you like weeds..."

Sepulchral promises send shivers down the spines of hardened knights and green squires alike. A general cry is raised for the civilians, the operations staff for the knighthood, to seek shelter amidst the hardier, reinforced buildings that squat within the wall. Steel and swords shriek as they are donned, clash, and jostle against warriors who make haste for their steeds or to defend the gates.

Among them is Osric Storth, pointing and beckoning, waving and gesturing, with one armored hand resting firmly upon the hilt of his sword. The veteran's eyes behold things in layers, past and present, each pointing to grim futures that whisper the words of his vow to never speak again - a vow that has endured seven years. For now the urge is dire, the need is great, and yet for a man who wastes neither words nor breath, there is little need to end his oath. For a gesture serves to command squires to carry a stout table to barricade the wall's gate, or to send blacksmiths and apprentices scurrying for cover.

Stout knights prepare their mounts for a charge once the enemy burst through the gates while squires and other knights hustle with crossbows and axes to man the walls and prevent the undead scourge from crawling over. Already some of their number use their claws to find hand holds in the wood, spurred on by their master's indomitable strength and relentless fury. Above them the sudden storm testifies to the specter's hunger for destruction, bending his will, and his ageless fury, upon the chapter house.

Storth ventured a gaze heavenward, steeling himself as the burning arm took shape, ending in a trembling fist. Gasps and cries of horror claimed the knighthood at once as weapons fell, crossbows failed, and helmets forsaken to peer upward, into the grasp that threatened to crush their hopes and, soon after, their lives.

Tearing his blade free, Storth threw his head back and called into the raging darkness.

"Courage! Honor! Wisdom!"

[Glenn]

Elliot Brown

The months since the first battle at Snowstill had been tremendously hard for the boy. He had been left without a knight, without many of his friends. He had been paired with a knight whom he respected, whom everyone respected, but whom Elliot found very hard to serve. A vow of silence was harsh barrier between a man who had seem so much and a boy who had lost a great deal.

As the weeks went on, the two found a suitable arrangement. When Foggy Bottom burned, Elliot served as Sir Storth's voice. When paired with the Brotherhood, it was Sir Silent who kept Elliot on the straight and narrow, not allowing him to fall prey to their unique lack of discipline. Now, with the the Chapter House under siege, it was Elliot who would refuse to leave his knight's side, who had prepared him for this, in short time they had, who had stood by him helping to relay his orders and carry them out.

Elliot had allowed fear to seep into his heart upon the sight of the hand, and allowed himself to fight past it a moment later. There was a gasp as he heard his erstwhile mentor speak, and then he heard his own shout, the first of many as knights, squires, and civilians found themselves roused by the valor of Sir Silent

If they were going to die today, then they would die with the code strong in their hearts. They would die fighting!

[Teron_Ashfiend]

Crossbows fired with irregular abandon from the summit of the stout wooden walls. Occasionally they found their mark, gouging already wounded flesh and occasionally dropping one it its tracks. Yet onward they came, knowing neither fear nor fatigue, nothing at all save the consuming, burning, hateful fire of their master’s will.

They had begun to find handholds, claw holds, and to bear themselves up the outer walls. Several knights merely began aiming their crossbows straight down, gouging potent bolts through skulls, shoulders and hands.

One squire in particular began to prove himself particularly adept at catching the undead in their wrists, severing enough flesh to make climbing impossible. Stirred on by the broken vow of silence, shattered in the wake of the knighthood’s mantra, a greater will steadied the men and youth even beneath the sorcerous fist that hovered overhead.

Teron raised his arms overhead and felt the wind that shrieked in the atmosphere passing empathically through arms entombed in ancient, charred steel. With both hands curled into trembling fists, he raised one overhead in hateful triumph. The great inferno in his gaze reflected the scrambling knights and squires, flickered in response to their calls of courage and alarm, and shone all the brighter in the evening shadows as if he plucked the light of the stars to fuel the vengeful furnace of his soul.

The air grew thick, churning with magical potency, as he lowered his hand. Overhead, the burning arm descended, the fist at its end the size of a small keep. The din of hope fell silent into a waiting, desperate and trembling, silenced when the fist slammed through buildings and bones and gouged a deep furrow into the earth. The countryside trembled as houses and stables within the wall trembled, some of their supports and cellars fracturing, supporting beams giving way with a suddenly tired, echoing groan. Amidst burning splinters and bent nails, as horses burst through the stables and fled from the burning hand of heaven, a handful of structures fell into immediate, burning ruin as the aftershock threatened to tear down nearly a dozen more.

The clouds began to roll away as the burning hand slipped faded as the worst of nightmares always do – leaving, however the wreckage behind. Satisfied, the Ashfiend moved from the shadows and began crossing towards the barricaded gate as a handful of his servants made it to the top of the wall. With a single, swift gesture he tore Arak’s Ruin free.

[Cinnabar]

As the tumult of battle grows, it seems that these noises and cries rebound from the hills and strengthen in so doing; rather than fading away this sound only grows clearer, rising and falling with a steady cadence, carried on the wind above the noise of the chapterhouse's desperate defence. Not scattered voices raised in alarm and desperation, but many voices, lifted together in song underscored by the stamp of booted feet, the clatter of weapons and jingle of armour.

To the east over the brow of a rise in the land comes a glow, ruddy and flickering, as if to mirror the blazing fist that reaches down from the sky. The sound of voices swells and grows as row upon row of flickering torches crests the hill, a battle hymn fit to firm resolve in one's allies and sow fear in one's enemies. Two full companies, two hundred men of the new-formed Myrken Army; veteran militiamen alongside unblooded recruits, halberdiers and crossbowmen and axemen marching shoulder to shoulder with torches held high and voices raised in song.

The pace of their march and strength of their song falters at the sight of that towering, flame-wreathed arm, and changes to cries of dismay as it strikes down upon the chapter-house; sorcery of the foulest kind, enough to place trepidation in all but the stoutest heart; their morale waves for a time at the sight of ruin that spreads before them, but at the goading of sergeants and captains they march on, awed but resolute. This must be ended, lest the ghoul strike next at Myrkentown itself.

On the slope above the besieged chapterhouse they finally call a halt, shouted instructions from sergeants forming them up in battle order; a half-company of bowmen lined up three deep, a company of halberdiers before them, a half-company of axemen split across the flanks. They've drilled for this, tiresome hours spend marching on the parade ground, wheeling in formation, facing, opening and closing ranks; even so there is a certain air of hasty corrections, of sergeants calling adjustments to the men who have become flustered by the difference between a parade ground and what is likely to become an actual battlefield.

At a shouted signal, torches are downed, dropped to sputter in the snow underfoot; the first rank of crossbowmen shoulder their weapons, the halberdiers level the hafts of their polearms into a forest of sharpened steel. A second command, and two of the bowmen from either end of the rank loose their bolts, the missiles arcing high into the sky ahead and to either side; these bolts glow faintly like embers as they fly, tracing a path far higher than required to aim at the Ashfiend's hordes clustered around the chapterhouse walls, too far to the sides to even hit the palisade walls.

Like twin sparks they soar, slowing in their course until at the apex of their flight they seem to hang in the air, defying the earth's pull; first as faint stars against the sky, and then with a crack that echoes from the hillsides they blaze, giving off a fierce golden light that bathes the field, the chapter-house, the Fiend's army and the embattled defenders below, stronger than the light of a full moon. In the brilliance of these false suns each man casts twin shadows, one for each bolt, though faint and washed-out by the light of the other; a great shout goes up from the throats of those men assembled, darkness cast back for a time, at least, and in the moment after the first rank of crossbowmen looses a hail of bolts at the walking dead who mass around the chapter-house walls.

The halberdiers and axemen begin a steady march towards the knights' stronghold; crossbowmen run forward one rank at a time, the front rank loosing off a volley of bolts over the heads of the halberdiers before pausing to reload, at which point the rank behind them overtake and let fly with their own hail of wood and iron. A rolling barrage of iron-tipped quarrels raining down upon the foe while the halberdiers and axemen advance, seeking to serve as a hammer to crush the Ashfiend's servants against the anvil of the Shepherd Knights' defence. Sergeants call time as the troops advance, a steady left-right-left-right tempo in time with the tramp of boots, a single word taken up throughout the host of men, a chant that firms their hands and steadies their step.

Myr-ken - Myr-ken - Myr-ken - Myr-ken...

[Dhugal]

The noise had caused Mathias’ party to follow the others towards the
Chapter House and so the monks were witness to the horrific attack
of the dead controlled by the Ashfiend.

Mathias was not a fighter and knew all he and the others could do was
to help the wounded and injured. But he had to do something else to
help! And so even though he wasn’t sure it would have any effect, he
gave two bottles of holy water to some crossbowmen with instructions
to pour some on the tips of their bolts before firing them. Perhaps it
would have no effect but he hoped it might free the souls of those
poor innocent people.

He rejoined the others and knelt in prayer as they waited.

[Kait]

Patience Mayfield

The Grand Master's squire had been saddling horses when that burning fist descended, sending the poor beasts clamoring for freedom, for cover. So suddenly she is reeling, pressed by the panic of large bodies and gentle dark eyes, but slight hands grab for a set of reins, and then another in the quest to bring some order to their retreat. Soon she is joined by the keep's resident smith, whose large hands and gruff voice help soothe the horses enough so that they may be led away from burning rubble and flying debris. The man's haggard face tells Patience more than enough of the damage that has been caused, and there is a lingering gaze between the pair for the unspoken understanding that this is only the beginning.

[Malaroth]

With burning wreckage sent hurtling into the air, hissing and snapping in the aftermath of the burning fist's assault, a sudden silence seizes the scrambling knights, squires and noncombatants. Eyes are drawn heavenward towards the smoldering ruins that spin across the clouded, star-strewn sky. That silence breaks sharply into oblivion as the wreckage crashes to the earth, landing atop the remaining buildings and tearing gaping holes into roofs, sundering windows, and penetrating stout walls.

Great, billowing black clouds of smoke mark the ruin seeded across the chapter house in the wake of the magical attack. As the clouds clear, with Storth's broken vow echoing in their hearts and the blatant destruction chiming in their ears, the knights muster what courage they can and turn eyes from the many already buried beneath the shattered smithies and stables.

Noting the reinforcements with a grim countenance, Malaroth tore his weapon free and struck his steed 's flank with the flat. Spurring the horse onward, he bent low against the thundering beast's back as the knights and squires behind him urged all haste from their respective mounts. Each shut their visage into a mask, preparing for the onslaught and bloodshed, of the enemy and themselves, as the burning chapter house called to the Grand Master with a hypnotic pyre dance.

"For wrath and ruin," he hissed through clenched teeth as his helmet's tassel bounded behind him, dark cloak flaring as his war banner, sword raised in promised judgment as the handful of warriors rode hell-bent for the armored center of the bitter storm, the Ashfiend himself. The knights bore down ferociously upon the scattered ranks of undead, laying low several and losing some of their own in the process. As the creature grew closer, looming before the chapter house's outer doors, Malaroth clenched his sword, his teeth, and his courage all the tighter.

Upon the walls, squires began to retreat, knocking their crossbows while their respective masters tore their swords and maces free to lay into the undead who had begun to crest the wall. Smoke and showering ashes alit upon their shoulders and bled ghastly scarlet light onto the ruin below. Sir Storth glanced aside to his squire, who had struggled with the burden of Snowstill, the frustration of a young man wanting better for the world and unable to bring it about - the bitter taste of reality - and favored him with a taut nod and taut scowl.

The chain mail rustled in quiet anticipation as he strode towards the barred doors that set a stalwart background for those who fled from the ravaged stables and smithies. Shrieking horses and random groans from structures that could withstand little more put an edge to his steady gaze and haste into his steps. With a sword raised overhead, he beckoned for all knights and squires on the ground to rally to him.

Sparing his squire a concerned gaze, he murmured briskly, "I do not ask you to join me in this fight. Stand or flee as you will. It has been an honor."

Then a pause as they arrived near the doors, perhaps some sixty feet away. After the span of a few heavy heartbeats they began to rock and creak repeatedly, beneath a measured, hammering hand. The very hand of doom demanded entrance.

It was the hand of the Ashfiend who would soon be upon them.

[Teron_Ashfiend]

The air echoed with the sound of unearthly, hungry shrieks; of talons scourging armor and blades skewering dead flesh. Buildings trembled and quaked beyond the outer wall in the aftermath of an attack beneath a fiery fist while, in the distance, a trembling bass intoned Myrken's wrath. The grim battlefield was lit by the thousand of glittering ashes that drifted to the earth below, bearing witness to a squire struggling hand-to-hand against one of his former fellow citizens, to the Grand Master and his entourage carving a path towards the Ashfiend, to the undead who yet stood after a volley of crossbow bolts and the knights' charge.

They also bore witness to the doors that trembled, groaning in complaint, before explosively yielding to a hammering fist. Setting his fingertips into the space between the doors he erupted through them in armored fury, eyes ablaze with vengeful flame, A small horde of the undead, racing hand-and-foot towards the knights in a heedless dash, crashed about their towering master who raised both hands overhead and, as his chilling voice echoed across the battlefield once more, clenched his fists with the finishing spark of sorcerous intent.

At once twin gouts of flame raced along the earth, carving through the knighthood's flanks and into the buildings beyond. A chorus of hungry, licking flames gouged through armor and flesh, drawing the pained voices of the dying into their hissing death song, before the orange arms reached into the sky at twice the height of a normal man.

Mindless, undead surged into the flames, some making it through to turn rampant upon scattered defenders and helpless noncombatants who fled from the approaching horde. Others hurled themselves towards the trembling, irregular ranks of knights and squires who had not turned to assist their burning companions by trying to douse their torment and drag them from the battle.

In a moment Arak's Ruin was free, held to the side in preparation for casual butchery. He offered neither word nor gesture, the livid stain entombed in scorched armor and viewing the world as it burned like his infernal gaze, but strode forward. A mailed fist batted aside the first weapon that challenged him before his sword descended in swift brutality. Not bothering to pause as his first challenger quickly fell and the others surged forward to meet him, he waded into the fray like a black, relentless storm cloud.

There would be no mercy.

[Kait]

Patience Mayfield

Horses sent with desperate hopes and civilian riders, those who thought to linger past the first signs of danger, to weather out the fight beside the knights are corraled toward smaller side gates in small groups. They are armed with what can be spared- practice weapons, pitchforks, even kitchen cutlery- and silent prayers that they will escape unharmed. Even the stalwart smith finds his way barred when he turns from one such gate to join the fray.

"Protect them, and praise the One if you don't lose any. No, I won't come with you, friend. You knew that already." There was more the young woman wouldn't say, words there weren't time for, and arguments that wouldn't change a blasted thing. The grim line of the man's lips is answered with an unflinching smile and a brief salute from the girl squire before they are on their separate ways.

Through the fire they come, countless undead fueled on by the rage of their master, and the Ashfiend himself, cutting down those men who challenged as he strode through the yard. In a moment her own, nameless blade was freed, without any foul utterance or grim battle cry. With a fierce determination flesh is rent from the first foul creature who would block the path between dark master and embittered squire, even as the jagged nails of another score her neck with crooked lines that are quick to bleed. She finds herself wading through them, a sea of biting, scratching, tearing things that seek to shred her to pieces before she might reach their terrible master and introduce this living nightmare to her blade.

[Cinnabar]

The knights race into the fray ahead, and for a time the crossbow sergeants call a halt to the barrage, for fear of skewering those who would be their allies; Malaroth and his riders pass by, from one flank across the course of the army's advance and into the mass of lurching, shrieking dead; all the while the soldiers march on, many of them moved only by the steady chant of their officers and their fellows, reluctance to be the first to turn and flee from such destruction, such horror.

The halberdiers maintain their formation, for the most part, a bristling forest of steel brandished against those of the Ashfiend's minions which notice their approach and turn upon them, prompting hurried and desperate flutters of activity along the line as they strive to hack down the walking dead before they find their way into arm's reach of the soldiers. Some fall, but the gaps in the line are hastily filled from the rear ranks, polearms brandished in white-knuckled grips.

The crossbowmen resume their barrage once the knights pass, rattling flurries of bolts against the chapterhouse's palisade wall in the hope of dislodging the animated corpses that strive to scramble over that barrier. The monks' offer is accepted with some incredulity, as if the crossbowmen have time for that kind of fussing around in between reloading as quickly as they can, but the bottles are passed down the line and splashed generously onto quivers of bolts, all the same. Well, can't hurt.

Finally, then, the formation wheels around to face the shattered gates, officers calling a halt before the walls of fire that tower across the yard within, cutting the knights off from those who would bring them relief; a choice must be made, for to order their men to march through such an inferno would clearly be madness; and yet the battle rages fiercest on the far side of the flames, while the soldiers stand impotent before the gates. Orders are shouted, then, and the first ranks of halberdiers kneel in a line facing the breach, weapons braced to receive a charge; the crossbowmen take up position behind them, firing over their heads into the backs of the undead, perhaps hoping to divide their attention, perhaps hoping to draw some of them away from their assault on the knights within. Axemen guard the wings, meanwhile, heavy blades employed to cut down the walking dead who approach from the flank.

The flaring bolts shine on overhead, meanwhile, drifting only slowly towards the ground; their radiance adds to the glare of the flames that light the sky, and serve to make clear how sorely besieged the defenders are, and how deeply the Ashfiend's forces stab into the chapter-house's heart.

[Malaroth]

Crossbows and reinforcements on one hand, the writhing horde of undead upon the other. Both left securely behind as he clutched madly to the back of his charger, snarling breaths in unison with the trustworthy steed. What remains of his knights, those who had not fallen to tooth, claw, or the reaching arms of their implacable foe, tighten their formation, bearing down upon the monster who, single-handedly, tears through the reinforced doors and into the ranks of their companions.

Reinforcements do their job well, drawing a robust amount of enemy attention and cleaving into them with bolts and blades. Burning bolts are screaming through the air, and then...

And then the chapter house is alight. Amber fire sets the night sky ablaze in the aftermath of the Ashfiend's terrible, hateful magic - and all to the symphony of the screams of the dying. Metal thunders beyond the twin walls of flames that all but separate those without from those within. Between them is fire, and in the midst of hungry flames towers the dark shadow of the creature himself.

His horse pulls up abruptly with a sharp cry and, cursing,t he Grand Master hurls himself to the ground. Stalking forward, tearing his blade free, he stares hard into the flickering walls before him and curses in maddening tones the bitter fate of hearing his men perish. Until a long shadow, of one of his mounted knights, draws his attention. It beckons with a sibilant hiss, hiding some serpent, some scaled secret, from his view in the mouth of its void. Through it he sees a longer shadow flickering wildly, beset by flame on all sides. He feels the familiar chill of the Ashfiend's presence as if the specter's hands clawed at his pale throat once more.

Raising fingertips to brush the remembered choke-lines, he steeled himself, not sure how it was possible. But bearing his blade boldly, he crossed the length of steps and into the long shadow. In a moment he knew silence and darkness abruptly broken by an intense wave of heat, buffeted by the potent Ashfiend's deathly chill.

Suddenly before the towering monster, standing in the Ashfiend's shadow, Malaroth took form at the head of his knights with blade raised to deflect the incoming blow that still brought him to his knees.

[Glenn]

Elliot Brown

The boy had dreamed of occasions such as this. When he ran away from home with a desire to help his family through a very hard summer by being one less mouth to feed and by channeling money, as much or as little as he could manage, back to them, the knighthood may have seemed an odd choice. It was certainly a romantic one.

This was everything that they stood for, the entire reason that he had become a squire, that he someday wanted to become a knight, to battle evil personified. What could be more evil than this creature that brought back the dead, that plagued upon innocent families, that breathed hatred itself! There was Sir Storth, having found more honor in the necessary rallying of the forces than in his nearly decade long vow of silence.

Yet, he was not beside Sir Storth now. He was not fighting bravely with honor and valor in his heart. Instead, he was moving, and quickly at that. They were surrounded by an ever increasing mass of bodies, his fellow squires, the knights he looked up to. They were screaming. They were dying! Some were already dead.

Elliot Brown had heard the accounts of Snowstill. He had seen certain things with his own two eyes. The most frightening, unnerving, horrific aspect of that day was seeing one's own friends and fellows rise up after death to become the Ashfiend's soldiers. They were fighting valiantly, holding things back. There was the sound of reinforcements. There was hope.

And it would all be meaningless if the dead rose right in the midst of them. They, the knighthood itself, and maybe, because of that, all of Myrken Wood, would be lost. No, there had been a murmur of apology to Sir Storth as the boy left his master's side. What good would he have been there, with his still developing frame and fledging fighting skills.

Instead, while biting back the tears, he darted from one prone, bleeding body to the next, checking once, checking twice for a pulse. He had to be sure. Yes, they were surrounded by the dying and the recent dead, but they were also surrounded by flames.

Elliot began to drag each dead body he found into those pillars of flame that were engulfing what had been his home, his hope, his future. It was the only way. The rest of the world seemed to be silent, frozen around him. There was only his task, the heavy burden he had bestowed upon himself in the midst of the fire and chaos.

[Teron_Ashfiend]

A third knight fell, as did a fourth, as the Ashfiend strode confidently through their ranks. Ariane had thought rightly when she considered him a powerful but distracted creature, given to diversions and tertiary goals and accomplishments to be meted out upon the world. Now, however, there was only one goal and a singularity of purpose that burned brighter than the amber haze that hovered over the burning chapter house. It was a cloud of wrath, the punctuation of his fury wrought upon some of Myrken's defenders, an angry fist for the stronghold at the land's geographic center.

The Grand Master emerges from shadows and darkness then, blade raised to take Teron's assault upon a beleaguered knight who stumbled back in surprise. Dead lips, concealed beneath the loose coils of a faded gray scarf, parted in a soft sound of alarm as the knight called upon the shadows to ferry him along as only he could. Awareness brightened his searing gaze, roaring stronger than the great burning walls around them, as he hammered Malaroth with devastating blow after blow.

It was to the Shepherd Knight's credit that he deflected as many as he did, along with the other knights - skilled swordsmen all. Yet for every inventive parry or decisive thrust they met an expectant enemy, a tireless enemy, an enemy who had swung blades for thousands of years. An enemy who, with his next blow, shattered the Grand Master's sword even as the undead began to waiver in strength between the stalwart knights, reinforcements, and the sorcerous walls of flame whose long reach had turned the entire keep into a blanket of heat and ash.

A mailed fist darted forward to snare Malaroth by the throat after the knight-commander called upon his remaining forces to flee. Armored fingers crushed any breath that remained in the man who struggled and clawed against the merciless, icicle grasp that hefted him easily from the earth and forced a searing gaze to encompass the entirety of his vision.

"I saw your soul turn cold," his voice carried out across the battlefield in a thunderous roar of a tide of rocks crashing against the shore. "And your hope run dry. Now you will burn," he snarled as his grasp tightened, metal fist groaning in complaint as the knight battered and raked it in futile frenzy. "For my hate will last until I destroy... all."

He twisted within his entombing armor, hurling the unarmed knight into the depths of a burning stable as he turned to face the fleeing handful of knights who occasionally hurled themselves through the burning walls only to find death in hope, and destruction in departure. In answer to their dwindling numbers he strode to the nearest shadow, stepping from it to the next, and to the next - announcing his arrival to the fleeing knights and squires with a sudden, explosive and paralyzing chill that shattered emboldened hearts - that were soon skewered with a hardened steel blade.

With every passing heartbeat Arak's Ruin blossomed from heart after heart. Those few who parried the first initial strike found their weapons shattered, their armor rent asunder, or their flesh seared from their bones - all the dying added their cries to the thunderous explosions and hot, gusting winds of ash that spread his tattered black cloak as a funerary banner.

[Malaroth]

Malaroth felt his arm tremble, ringing with the explosive force of his weapon's detonation beneath the Ashfiend's merciless onslaught. For all of his training, and nearly two decades wielding a blade, the monster's preternatural skill undid him quickly, effectively, and decidedly. The monster's grip was the very hand of oblivion that clouded his vision while the chill lanced through his flesh and along the contours of his armored body. Armored fingertips scraped against the Ashfiend's hand as his limbs and flesh, fighting the horror entombed in blackened plate.

In a moment, after the promise of destruction rung in his ears, he had been cast aside as a sack of foodstuffs into the burning debris of a slouching stable. He felt a sharp ringing against the crown of his head, saw the sparks and ashes rain down and hiss against his breastplate while singing the length of his black tabard. Smoke rolled around him in a choking embrace, stealing air from his lungs and gouging his eyes in a blanket of heat.

Osric Storth caught the breath in his throat as the Grand master collided with the building that slumped to consume him in wreckage - burying him almost to his waist in burning boards, shingles, and heaps of ash. He caught the general rout of his men eve as the Ashfiend tore through their ranks, moving from shadow to shadow, and muttered a thankful prayer that his squire scrambled far ahead of that murderous line.

A few hurried footsteps and a blade through a pair of the undead Myrkenfolk drew him to Patience's side. His stern gaze raked the girl through a coal-like glare, studious, careful, probing for the woman's character. A handful of the abominations writhed on the earth behind her, soon to be food for the flames.

He gestured with the length of his blade towards the fallen Malaroth and seized the girl by a slender shoulder. His mailed hand threatened to crush with a squeeze meant to secure her attention, meant to define urgency through mild pain and speak through whatever haze might have stolen her mind in the heat of ruin and battle.

"Get him out," he murmured in solemn command before he turned, striding from her as swiftly as his armored body would allow. Again his voice echoed across the burning ruin of the chapter house as he affixed his grasp upon his sword.

"Face me, Fiend! Face me!"

He did not need to stand long, he reminded himself as the infernal creature slowly turned to skewer him with that dread, searing gaze. "Just long enough," he whispered to his god, his departed family, the soldiers who fell beneath his command. "Courage," he breathed, and pressed forward to clash with the Ashfiend.