Memento Mori.

[Nightshade]

The fields burned with Kerrak's fire; leaping flames crackled and spit and raked with claws of crimson and yellow. Choking smoke boiled towards the sky, flattening out and spreading over the priory like a pall; the fire beneath tinging it the color of iron freshly drawn from the forge. Columns of flame swirled upwards in currents of heat, grasping towards the sky and then collapsing back into the shifting mass of combustion.

Within the fire's incinerating embrace, something cold stirred.

A shape moved sharklike through flames like water, a negative space around which the fire curled and spun but seemed reluctant to invade. It was a shape that would have gone unnoticed amongst the gently swaying stalks in the field had the incandescent cataclysm not erupted around it; even now it was only just visible enough to make the eyes water as they strained to discern its nature. Vaguely manlike, limned by the lapping red-gold light, it shimmered and shifted as it drew towards the edge of the flaming fields. It grew clearer, more distinct, here the shape of a shoulder, the sweep of an arm, a hand curling with smoke and wreathed in fire. The indistinct vision took on solidity as if drawing the smoke within itself to regain its form; shading darker, darkest black. It stepped outside the perimeter of the burning field, eclipsing part of the roiling mass of flame behind it and casting a long, spindly shadow like a spear towards the priory.

Booted feet left behind charring footprints as Nightshade strode away from the fire's scorching embrace.

Kerrak's firey arrival had forced him to abandon his surveilance of the priory from the surrounding fields, but he'd all ready seen all he needed to. There were no guards, no other evidence of any life in the place besides whatever or whoever it was that had drawn him here. Even now he felt it; the pull of the festering sickness inside those stone walls that drew him close, whispering to him of the suffering it had inflicted on the innocents of this realm and promising still more suffering to come should no one intervene. Nightshade felt the other players in this game nearby; some of them even bore the faint trace of contact with his creator and former master. They were unimportant at the moment, no more a threat to him than he was to them. All that mattered was whatever was currently the source of the corruption he sensed was so close, the rot that needed to be cut from the flesh of this realm before it grew strong enough to spread. It was all he knew.

And after all these long years of wandering, the cold truth of his nature had finally become apparent: only in dark places such as these did he ever feel, for however brief a moment, as if he were alive.

[Altias_Bromn]

From the shadows beside the door steps the ruined thing that was once Altias Bromn. A shade of his former self, torn and damaged it would seem, beyond repair. Still he walked, no, he simply glided, toward Ariane, removing her beloved schiavona from her grasp with a strength unnatural to him.

"His blood is not for you."

The tone of his voice bore no argument, for it was as cold as the steel he now held with whitened knuckles.

"His death is mine."

Turning his back to his guard, he strode toward the pulpit with the calm of a saint, and the power of a monster. A few feet from the seated Dhrin he stopped, canting his head slightly as he observed the form of a man who had come to represent all that was stained and soiled in Myrken.

Thadius rose from the chair, the throne of a would be prince, arms outstretched, as a flurry of swans circled and floated with grace to the floor around him.

"This is how it will be then, Altias? You will steal my end from the woman you claim to love? You will take my death upon your shoulders? The shame of murder upon your soul?"

Thadius Dhrin, Brother Prime of the Order of the All, waited, arms outstretched, head bowed, waiting for the killing stroke.

"You are a fool. It does not end here. It will never end."

The short distance between them was closed in less than a heartbeat, the schiavona singing her bright steel song in the thick air of the chapel as Altias swung.

"Pathetic words from a man already dead."

The sound of the sword meeting flesh seemed unusually sharp as it struck bone, nearly cleaving through the graceful, swan-like, neck of Thadius. Sadly, one stroke was not quite enough, a second followed with equal speed and intention.

A moment of utter silence as silver tresses tumbled over and over, as the head of the creature called Dhrin was divorced from its body, landing with a sickening wet thump upon the stone floor. The whole scene bathed in the writhing flicker of fire light cast through leaded glass.

Even as the body slumped to the floor, weeping its life's blood onto the stone, Altias was turning from the scene. As he approached Ariane, the schiavona was thrown carelessly to the floor at her feet.

"It is finished."

Before the words had grown cold from his lips, the shadows near the door came alive. Flickers of silver robes appearing through the door, apparently streaming from their hiding places in the shrines outside the chapel. No doubt their numbers were already fewer with Jirai and Kerrack nearby, but they came. No less than a dozen, ready to defend their fallen leader.

Outside the chapel, beyond even the walls, a half dozen more silver robed men made toward the blazing fields, and the blackened figure which emerged from them.

[Nightshade]

Nightshade had traversed half the distance to the priory when the robed cultists charged at him, shrieking, heedless, as eager to attack one empty-handed man as they would be to throw themselves before mounted cavalry. Firelight gleamed wetly on the hooked and jagged blades in their hands, illuminated their pallid faces and wild, rolling eyes. The closest flung himself bodily at Nightshade, blade raised high over his head, arcing down even as he collided with the approaching black-clad form. His arm twisted around Nightshade's shoulders in a sick parody of friendly greeting, steel met leather, pierced it, sinking in to the hilt.

A frozen tableau; two figures pressed together, a hand wrapped about the stained grip of a knife plunged into a back. Bloodshot eyes staring into an amber gaze. Silver silk against black leather. The hand strains to pull the blade free and thrust it home again. Resistance. The blade remains where it is, as if set in stone. Two empty, gloved hands clench into fists. A sound; horrible, a wet, crunching thump. Where two figures stood, now only one, fists extended a few inches from his chest; black gloves dappled with crimson and surrounded by a haze of smoke.

The cultist lies on his back a few yards away, sightless eyes and voiceless mouth open to the sky; his body also as open, rent asunder by some terrible, unthinkable force. Ribs splay outwards like the legs of a crushed spider framing a morass of torn and crushed tissues and bone, vital organs pulverized. Unfazed, a second cultist rushes in as the other three falter, unable to avoid looking at their fallen comrade's mangled corpse. Nightshade steps forwards to meet him, silent, his left hand pulling back and then thrusting forwards, not a fist this time but a flat plane, a knife edge, fingertips driving into the windpipe of the second man. With nearly the same sound that signalled the end of the lead cultist's life, the column of the man's neck bursts apart, discorporating in a welter of blood, ragged flesh and bone fragments. His head drops to the ground with a heavy thud and lies there, face pressed to the earth, soon joined by his body. It twitches, muscles bunching for a moment as if still attempting to fight, then lies still, all fighting forever concluded.

Nightshade lowers the killing hand and regards the three remaining fanatics, now standing frozen by the horrific spectacle of their swiftly dismembered fellows. Motionless before the eyeless amber gaze, hoping perhaps with the surety of the insane that if they remain still, perhaps this terrible apparition will pass them by. One lets his knife fall from his almost nerveless grip; it sticks in the ground at an angle and sags slowly over to rest on the grass. "No.". A flat intonation from behind the expressionless black mask. "There is no surrender. You will, all of you, go on to perpetrate more horror in the name of your god should I leave you alive. You know this in your hearts, in your souls, and you cannot hide it from me. You all must die here..."

Before, he only moved with slow deliberation, now Nightshade blurs towards them before their human eyes can even register that he has moved. At his touch, flesh tears and bones shatter. Before their bodies have fallen, he is moving towards the priory once more. The knife still juts from his upper back, seemingly forgotten. A metallic snap, the rough-worn handle falls to the earth, a brief wink of steel reflecting firelight, and the torn leather knits back together as unmarked and perfectly black as before.

[Suede]

Well, a few slipped words and he'd heard about this little plot after the priory had been located. They'd all gone trapsizing off on a heroic effort to rescue their dear Governer... whom had once again become the victim of the machinations of the creatures hellbent to attack the Dagger. It was rather distressing in an amusing sort of way.

Fires were burning, he'd seen Qu`essan dart over a wall, Ariane march into the religious holdings... and even some odd, thing.. that he couldn't make out charging into the scene and several 'koltists.' Of course he wouldn't help, or dare get involved, but so long as no one noticed him it could be a fairly enlighting show from where he stradled a tree branch well away from the Priory proper and the blaze.

[Rattrap]

When the men came out of the woodwork, the doc was surprised. Naturally, he didn't have much information regarding this business, though he, of course, knew about these 'koltists'. Regardless, he knew it was time to go - especially for those who would soon be trapped inside a burning priory.

Alandial bolted, passing several of the white-clad fanatics as they rushed on toward David. He paid them little heed; there wasn't much he could do. Into the burning priory, he'd ride, twisting and seeking the path used by the others to find Thadius. Alandial was, fortunately, a stout creature; criollos always were.

Alandial reared up as one of the silver-robed individuals stepped from the flames, but David was quick to dislodge one of the vials from his belt and hurl it at the man, rewarded with the sharp crack as it connected with his forehead. The vial didn't contain anything malign; the koltist only stumbled back a bit in response, but it was all that was necessary for Alandial to brush past him into the throne room chapel.

Flames were dancing, outside and in the gaze of Doctor D'Rael. There was quite a crew in here; no wonder council members had been disappearing. "It's time to go," he'd remark, hinting that the dozen or so robed figures inside were the least of their problems.

[Carnath-Emory]

This is the extent of the damage done to Governor Bromn: that the guard who'd once reckoned to have learned every inch of his body does not immediately recognise him now. He is a battered thing, torn and tattered; he has been cruelly used. And in defiance of that use, he has tugged the blade from her hand with a strength she'd sooner expect from General Eriks. In defiance of his torturer, who rises with such delicacy from a hypocrite's throne, Good Governor Bromn has struck the head from his shoulders -- not once, but twice.

There is not so much as a flinch, from the unimpassioned thing which stands at Bromn's back. Not at this talk of murder and shame; not at the grind of steel upon bone; not at the flutter of paper swans -- and oh, they suffer beneath the crimson rain of their maker's death, failing and stuttering, and finally drooping with drenched wings to the stone floor. Death has robbed them of their grace, just as it has robbed Thadius of his.

She is human enough to blink, at least, as the severing of Dhrin's head sprays hot blood across her face. But still she licks a trace of it from her lips, and her senses are briefly filled with the stink, the taste, of copper and ozone.

If there is a Fate, it has finally come full circle.

But these are things that she will think upon much later, when there is time and room for such considerations. For now, her concern is for the man who's just tossed her sword so carelessly to the floorstones -- as if it didn't matter, as if it were no longer necessary, and perhaps this is actually so. Doesn't she stand in readiness here, after all? So there is an arm to catch him as he staggers, this tall and mutilated man, and a second to wind about his hollow chest as he sags against her, the strength in him flagging as if his blood had been drained.

As it had been, days and weeks ago.

Her want is to call for aid, for it would be better to lift the Governor than to drag him -- but there is no opportunity for that. Bodies stream like moonlight through the doors, blocking the path that would have been her exit. Arms tightening about his thin chest, she must drag the Governor onto one of the crude benches that line the walls. Here is a brass candlestick, thick with dried wax about its base, flung end over end to shatter one of nearest windows in preparation for their escape. Here is a second, long and heavy in her hand, to serve in the place of the dagger she should rightly have been carrying.

Another woman might have found it amusing that it's a symbol of Faith which crushes the first koltists skull.

And so this is how the battle must go: a good man sprawled dying upon a church bench; a heathen wielding a believer's tool alongside her own killing weapon. And each of them as silver-clad as the next, for while the Believers fly at her like wraiths in their shining robes, she herself battles them from within a writhing sea of steel, of old iron that weaves and trembles like glittering grass. It gathers about her as if it knew a love for her flesh, smoothes into plates and arcs of battered metal; describes cruel curves and carapaces about her shoulders. In time, the candlestick is discarded, for the gauntlet newly formed upon that hand bristles with a palmful of hooks and tiny scythes; they claim the life of a third koltist, and most of his face as well. A fourth soon lays with him at her feet, and only then does she cry:

"Kerrak! Clear a way!"

[Jirai]

The hooded woman, bloodied daggers in hand, would be the first to come to the aid of Ariane. A shot from a crossbow preceeded her - not the enchanted one, but her smaller one, armed with poison instead of magic. This would be her style, to fight as a shadow, from a distance, with poisoned bolts and thrown daggers to take the cultists from behind. It was a misfortune of timing that left her favored weapon slung across her back - she had care enough for the moment not to take a shot that would endanger Ariane. As the swordswoman slew the cultists, the assassin would claim her own share, scarred face contorted by a maniacal grin.

[Vanidor]

Kerrak had little need of carving a path. At least not within the building. For those dozen would be taken care of swiftly between Ariane, Jirai and the trio of men that had followed Ariane into the building. Suppressed, especially as the good Doctor came flying into the nave to join them. The soldiers strived to push the silver-robed cultists from the room, ignoring the woundings they would recieve from their sport. It was all to give them room to manouver and get everyone out, Thadius' head included. That was their job. What their Captain had tasked them for. As for the Captain?

He was outside, still astraddle his horse. Bleary eyes had seen D'Rael hurry past. Had seen the cultists that had split free and speed for the blot of motion coming out of his conflagration. He had also seen the few who had come towards him, perhaps recognizing the danger he posed to their leader. Kerrak sat his horse with calm. None of the men had a spear or any weapon with reach. At least not these who peeled off to deal with him. The man spun his sword in a slow arc... then rose his free hand. Fingers splayed as he reached forth towards the power. His face twisted underneath his mask, a rictus grin etched into his features... He laughed softly, eyes centred upon their target, his will focused to withstand what was coming for him...

Flames rose again, this time a spray of them from outstretched fingertips. They coiled 'round the cultist in the lead, melting flesh and muscle into a pile of ash and bone. The other two he would finish off with his sword, and then turn to clear the entrance to the priory and keep it clear here on the outside.

Kerrak rose his voice, aiming to cry at those inside. "Hurry! The flames draw nigh! The entrance is clear for now!" Yet one man could only do so much, even when gifted (or was it cursed?) with this abilty to cause flame. But here he would stand. Making it his last if that was the case. The horse reared again, its cry one of annoyance at the heat and smoke.

[Carnath-Emory]

'The entrance is clear!'. And the Governor yet lives. These two facts satisfy half of her concern; the summoning of D'Rael and Coran will soothe the rest. But that is for later. Now, there is a path cleared before them with more efficiency and calm than she'd dared to expect, and man in her arms whose life depends on the use of it. Flanked by the dying sighs of the Faithful, she tightens her arms about that man's chest, and begins their cautious trek towards the chapel doors.

Not the window she'd first intended. Not when his back is an open wound from shoulder to hip.

Theirs is a stumbling process, now and again; she must have care to hold him carefully, so that he won't catch what's left of his flesh against the vicious edges of her armour. But progress it is, to the tune of Kerrak's beckons and the crackle of distant flames. Over burning coals and broken glass and, at some point, a crumpled body, life enough in it that the weight of her boot draws a groan from its lungs. Such is the focus of the dispassionate woman that she spares no smile for the sound.

It is only when they are safely through those doors that she dares pause at all, and even then her backwards glance is brief. There lies the head of Thadius Dhrin, discorporate and inert beneath the eyes of marble saints. There arrive two of Kerrak's men, to collect the thing -- and far distant lays what must be his body, a hint of white silk crumpled beneath a fallen screen. White-winged angels are varnished onto its delicate wood, and she can imagine no kinder burial shroud for the monster than that. As for the rest of those men...

"Ride," she commands one who has passed too closely to her, and she must have care for Bromn's balance against her as she seizes the soldier's arm. Oh, what a sight she must be: sooty across the cheeks and bloodied there as well, crimson scrawled across her chest and hips where the Governor had rested sometimes against her. Or perhaps he marks only the emptiness of her eyes, but whatever the case there is attentiveness there, and a nod as she bades simply:

"Ride. Ride for the Broken Dagger, and fetch Coran D'zir to us. As if all your Hél were chasing, you ride."

Simply enough done, and another bade to fetch D'Rael -- but this one's task is the simpler, for she'd seen the Doctor within the chapel itself, only to lose him minutes later in the confusion of murder and shouts and silk-clad madness. It is done then, all that she can manage, being nothing in the end but mortal and a swordswoman, if one of peculiar blood. Through the walls of flame she half-carries, half-drags her ward, and only once well beyond it does she dare to bid him sit upon the earth -- not lie down; his back is raw meat -- and rest, as they await what will come.

[Jirai]

The dark elf would linger long enough to ensure that all of the cultists were truely dead - and to retrieve the knives that had been buried in a silver-clad back. That task accomplished, the woman would trail Ariane and her bloody burden, an arm up to shield her eyes from the flames as she passed them, and all the faster for the irritation they caused her.

She would remain near the swordswoman, once Ariane had reached her resting spot, a silent guard for the guard; for she did not trust that the fighting was done. Indeed, perhaps she hoped that it was not, bloodthirsty as the hooded woman was.

[Rattrap]

Doctor David D'Rael would not be one to tarry long in the flames and blood; once in, he and Alandial would be turning around to leave and join up with Kerrak and whoever else was outside. Which, surprisingly, was a fair number - it would seem people, not all koltists - were coming out of the woodwork, so to speak.

"Councilor..." Captain? David knew him best as the first, so he stuck with it."If anybody's seriously hurt, I suggest we move a ways and let me see them. I've only got what's on my back, though, so unless you've got supplies nearby, the rest will have to wait."

Amidst the flames, the indigo-blue doctor stood out in contrast, and against everything else, Alandial did. It would perhaps strike the doctor out more still against the others to be lacking the blood cover and a blade.

Short of koltists seriously threatening him that weren't dealt with by Kerrak, David would linger outside the entrance until all had exited.

It would be fortunate the good doctor had predicted such fireworks...

[Vanidor]

The first man to come out cried of Ariane's order. Kerrak swiftly dismounted and motioned for the soldier to take his horse and ride. "Like the very Wind, Aeryn! Go! Inform the Lord D'Zir where we are!". Words shouted amidst the crackle of flame and the breaking of bone. A quick salute, a fist against the chest, and the man was off at a breakneck speed. The Captain-Councilor spun, left with the doctor now for a few beats of a heart. "I hear and understand, Doctor. When out they come, we shall go to the camp my folk have. As long as it has not been overrun by these damned cultists."

Of cultists, there were a few splayed here and there. Most of them viciously sliced by the Captains sabre. He escewed the use of his gift, here, for he -did- recall the warning to not overuse it. Instead, he had relied upon his already ingrained training. He had two to keep alive now, that the Doctor was close by. He bled from several scrapes and cuts, his once fine leather dueling vest splattered with gore and a drizzle of vermillion liquid. A spin, and a quick decapitation. A head sent flying into the flames.

And now... Ariane. Altias. Jirai as well, and then the last of his trio. A quick survey, then a twist. "See to them as you can, Doctor! We will keep you safe until Coran arrives, or we must move." Councilor indeed. He adjusted the hold of his weapon, palm slick with sweat and his own blood. The man made a grin under his mask. "Hold yourself together Governor. I promised a stay in Almark to Ariane, and I cannot have you dying on us before we go there." A poor time to jest? Perhaps, for the fight was not yet done. But a soldier always takes time for merriment... for who knows what the next moment will bring.

[Altias_Bromn]

"You'd best mind your tongue there, Councilor, lest I take you seriously."

In any other time, the governor would have smiled, perhaps even winked at Kerrak, but it was a cold hard voice that came from him. With the same stregth he had possesed inside the priory, the governor was rising again, seemingly renewed.

The gaunt and whitened thing that was once Altias Bromn rose to his feet of his own accord. Seemingly unbothered by the soot and filth now clinging to the ribbons of flesh that passed for his back.

"What are we all standing around for? We are done with this place. Mount up, let us take our leave."

The governor looks for a horse for himself, but his darkened gaze wanders toward the edge of the blazing fields, seeing a figure there, wrapped in black, with bodies clad in silver littering the ground by his feet. They had an ally it would seem. This would bear looking into, at another time. For now, it was best to take their leave of this place and leave the memory of Thadius Dhrin to burn with the fields.

[Carnath-Emory]

That he speaks at all is a marvel; that he speaks coherently is the stuff of miracles. Were the circumstances different, a woman might well find cause to question her atheism -- but then, it is religion and gods, it is Belief, which has led them to this juncture.

Still... she'd have petitioned Dhrin's very God, if she'd known its name. Any deal necessary, she'd said, and meant it.

But this is no longer important. What matters is that Kerrak grins in the face of horror, as was always his wont -- oh, the smile he'd worn in Orvere! What matters is that Jirai stands over them, taking the role of guard that would ordinary be Ariane's own. But then, she's served Roschen in that capacity for some months, now, and is undoubtedly expert in the task. What matters is that the good Doctor has lingered, so that she may beckon him towards them even as Kerrak makes his summons; why, even Bromn himself rises to --

"We were six hours riding this far. You'll be bled dry before we -- "

No. One does not debate a dying man. Not even one who has somehow discovered the strength to speak, to walk, to stand at all. He behaves as if he has been drinking kat by goblet, and no good can come of that, or anything much resembling it. Hadn't she told him that, the one time she'd medicated him with the stuff? So it is D'Rael that she petitions instead, a gauntleted hand winding about the wasted flesh and muscle of the Governor's upper arm; after all, he is known for a certain ... recklessness.

"Doctor. Doctor, the worst of the wounds must at least be closed."

This is not the appeal of a desperate lover; this is certainly not hysteria. It takes only moments to glimpse the bone, where it peeks through the half-flayed muscle of Bromn's spine. That raw meat has already painted her bloody from shoulder to hip.

[The Baie]

The fire feasted on the grain like flaming locusts, devouring the crop and hiding the stars with thick clouds of smoke. The blaze traveled ever closer to the Priory, threatening to make the large leap across the cobblestone commons to the thatched roof of the dormitory. The building had yet to catch, but it would be an act of the One True Faith to keep it from falling under the fury of the fire.

Within the chapel, the fallen candelabras had lit some curtains, the flames growing, scorching the stone walls with blackened breath. The wooden benches, once beautifully varnished and oiled were now ashen and glowed with burning ember. The chapel would no doubt survive the fire, as it was more stone than anything else, but the seating area in the nave, between the main doors and the altar was a wall of fire large enough to give the impression that the chapel would be reduced to rubble.

However, within the church a body stirred. The headless corpse of Thadius Dhrin.

White silk now shredded and singed in spots, the body pushed away debris and rose to its feet. Then, the body began to deform and change. The torso thinned and its legs grew even more sinewy and spindled. The arms retracted into its body, like a turtle’s would into its shell. And from the gaping hollow betwixt his shoulders, a head began to sprout anew.

As the body changed, it began to run, its slender legs carrying it away from the main doors to the one opposite them, leading to one of the wedge-shaped courtyards. By the time the door latched behind the creature, a vulture-like head had formed where Thadius Dhrin’s once sat. Black feathered wings shot from his back, tearing through what remained of the white robes.

By the time the guard outside who held the decapitated head of Thadius Dhrin had notice that the disembodied skull was melting in his hands like a candle in a blazing hearth, the beast had leapt, its wings gripping the air, lifting it into the sky. It flew east, away from the party being tended by their doctor. It flew toward the rising sun, in the direction of its home, where the real Thadius Dhrin was held captive, imprisoned by the creature known as The Baie.