THE SLAYER & THE SLAIN

[Xarkly 17299]

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

“Your name.”

 

Grey cloaked the courtyard of Osmont. A grey sky shed grey rain upon grey stone, broken only by a small campfire. Around that campfire, there stood a Prince, a Priest, a Nephilim, and a Demon.

 

“What is it?”

 

⋅ ───────⊱༺༻⊰─────── ⋅

 

The light shimmered on the edge of Villorik’s glaive as it whistled through the air from atop his horse.

 

Deia, just feet away, let out a muted gasp as she leapt out of the way of the charging palfrey. The shriek of shredding steel filled the courtyard as its silvery edge bore down into Krodhā’s night-black carapace. Even as sickly ichor oozed through the wound, though, the Demon missed not a breath; as it leapt back, a hand was brandished, from which a jet of onyx Malflame spewed. 

 

Just as the torrent enveloped his horse, Villorik threw himself from the saddle, and crashed to the ground with a clunk of platemail. His hands scrambled to tighten on his glaive, but his fate was spelled when a black boot clamped down on the haft first. 

 

Villorik’s winged helmet trailed up, and watched as Krodhā raised its own blade. 

 

⋅ ───────⊱༺༻⊰─────── ⋅

 

“Krodhā,” came the Demon’s gravelly answer as it lay bound by the fireside, miasma curling around its shattered form. “What of it?”

 

“Not that name,” replied the Priest. “The name you were born with.”

 

“Villorik,” tutted the defeated aberration, “dead men have no names.”

 

⋅ ───────⊱༺༻⊰─────── ⋅

 

Krodhā’s killing blow never came.

 

With a flash of gold, a longsword skewered towards the Demon’s midsection, and a dulcet clang of metal rang as Krodhā arced his blade down to block just in time. As the sheer impact sent the Zarakal stagginger back, the interloper planted himself in front of Villorik, facing Krodhā. In the hands of Sigmar Lorik, the evening light paled in comparison to the deific blade he brandished.

 

For nothing compared to the Blade of Jophiael.

 

⋅ ───────⊱༺༻⊰─────── ⋅

 

“You are wrong.” Weak though the campfire was, its light splayed brilliantly on the Priest’s rain-slicked helmet. “I remember Caius. His deeds, his strength.” At the mere thought of the name, a thousand memories stirred within him - their triumph at Murkwater; the gloom-hazed spires of the Hexicanum; and a bloodstained cloak. “Just as I remember Amaya. Her heart, her soul.”

 

A distant boom of thunder peeled across the Petrine sky. With his hand clamped on his waiting blade, so too did names swim through the Prince’s head - from his patron ancestors Karl and Amadea, to Erika. On the other side of the firepit, as if repelled from the Demon, the Nephilim’s glare softened at the invocation of the names in her own mind - Sermi’s name echoed like a rock dropped in a chasm.

 

At the far end of the yard, Zara cautiously peeked out through a doorway. Young though she was, the Cursed Child was not bereft of her own names to invoke.

 

⋅ ───────⊱༺༻⊰─────── ⋅

 

Gold and black clashed as Sigmar charged.

 

Krodhā met the Prince blow for blow, but only on the defensive; with each sundering strike of Jophiael’s Mortal Blade, Krodhā was forced back across the tavern’s yard, droplets of thick blood dripping from his shattered mail.

 

In the reprieve, Villorik climbed to his feet, grappling with his glaive for support. He quashed the dull pain in his thigh from when he fell from the saddle, and scanned the village square beyond the tavern. He had not even heard the dying screams of his horse; it lay where Krodhā’s Malflame had scoured it, its flesh burnt away to nothing. He could see Deia, sheltered behind the tavern's aviary as the birds took panicked flight, and her own eyes watched in frozen terror as the battle unfolded.

 

But Villorik could spare it no thought; it did not take long for his visor to find a second foe, creeping in from behind - a cloaked witch, around whom the air misted with intensifying cold. Only a grin showed beneath her cowl.

 

Villorik bit off a curse as his gaze darted between the interloping Frost Witch, and Sigmar’s deadly dance with Krodhā.

 

⋅ ───────⊱༺༻⊰─────── ⋅

 

The rain diced tiny holes in the Demon’s shroud of miasma.

 

“Then they have not died,” it rasped. 

 

“ … True death,” the Priest muttered his agreement. “Some turn to the Shadow, for that same reason. Infamy is sometimes the only path to be remembered.” His helmet creaked from the fire, to the captive Demon. “Is that what drives you?”

 

⋅ ───────⊱༺༻⊰─────── ⋅

 

Villorik’s breath caught as Krodhā finally stopped one of Sigmar’s strikes in a clinch.

 

The Demon’s other hand shot forward, and, had Sigmar been a split-second slower, the ensuing burst of Malflame would have washed through his helmet instead of burning just above where the Prince ducked. Villorik’s instinct to rush to the Prince’s aid was halted when he felt the unnatural cold prick at his neck - behind him, the Frost Witch’s spell grew potent. Skies, he cursed as he shot a look back towards her, while Krodhā’s blade now forced Sigmar on the defensive. We can’t fight them both. We -

 

A white shape dashed past Villorik’s eyeline. He only caught a glimpse of ashen hair as a familiar woman barred the Witch’s path to Villorik and Sigmar, and their prey. The blanch locks of Nohr whipped around in the freezing wind stirring around the Frost Witch, but she answered with a power of her own.

 

The village’s streets were lit like the zenith sun as Nohr was silhouetted in embered smoke. When the haze cleared, it was not the woman who stood there, but a drake, as large as a wagon, and its wings outstretched with a cloak of residual smoke from the transformation.

 

⋅ ───────⊱༺༻⊰─────── ⋅

 

The Demon looked up, into the grey morning sky.

 

“They are already dead, Villorik.” Its carapace vibrated, and flakes peeled away from the gape carved by the Priest’s glaive in their battle. “ … Yet, I cannot deny your words.” The last of the night’s stars - faint and distant - just barely showed through the clouds. “Know you of her, Villorik? The one from the stars.”

 

The Priest’s eyes followed the Demon’s. “What of her?” 

 

⋅ ───────⊱༺༻⊰─────── ⋅

 

Smoke curled around the pale-scaled Dragonkin.

 

Her claws crunched against the frosted earth as it growled in warning to the Witch, threatening to melt its frost with flame. 

 

Thank you, Nohr, was Villorik’s silent thought as he gripped his glaive, and closed the distance between him and Krodhā. A thrust from the Demon’s wicked blade forced Sigmar back, and, in turn, Krodhā was able to raise his left arm at Villorik’s advance, and once again release his baleful flame. 

 

Villorik snatched the edge of his polar bearskin cloak, and quickly pulled it over himself as a shield against the onyx flame. Hellish cinders sprayed around him, but only one of them drifted under his visor, pocking a tiny hole in his flesh. 

 

As the Malflame subsided, he and Sigmar acted in unison. They pressed off their heels, and swung.

 

⋅ ───────⊱༺༻⊰─────── ⋅

 

“I wonder what she thinks,” the Demon muttered, “gazing down from above.”

 

The Priest could pick out the vaguest outline of the crescent moon, on the cusp of retreat from the dawn. “What is it you wish to show her? A mountain of corruption and corpses?”

 

“What do you expect to find? Remorse?” The defeated Demon’s laugh was like a snake slithering through dead leaves. “I am Krodhā. I am the Bondsmith. And I,” with the fading of the moon, the Demon looked back down as fresh plumes of miasma coalesced around it, “will never die.”

 

“For this,” the Demon intoned as its head twitched towards the nearby Prince, miasma baying, “is the way of Kings.”

 

⋅ ───────⊱༺༻⊰─────── ⋅

 

Nohr’s bestial roar echoed behind them.

 

Villorik’s glaive slammed down in a crushing arc of Argentum, and, even though Krodhā met it with his own blessed silver, the polearm’s weight drove the Zarakal into the tavern’s wall with a clang of metal on wood. “Sigmar!” he roared. “Finish it!” 

 

A blurring line of gold marked the Blade of Jophiael’s path as Sigmar sliced fluidly, tearing through the wound in Krodhā’s carapace and spilling a torrent of ash and ichor, and impaling the Demon into the tavern’s wall. 

 

⋅ ───────⊱༺༻⊰─────── ⋅

 

“... So you say.” The Priest rose to his feet.

 

Black blood still stained the curved Argentum head of his glaive as he lifted it onto his shoulder, and stared down at the knelt Demon. “But do you tire of eternity? All things, Krodhā, have an end.”

 

“For if they don’t,” a ray of pale sun fractured through the grey sky, “they lose all value.”

 

⋅ ───────⊱༺༻⊰─────── ⋅

 

Even impaled to the wall as he was, the sable fire flared to life in Krodhā’s hands.

 

It combusted with force into Sigmar as he pinned his sword through Krodhā, and sent him vaulting back in a burst of black embers. The Prince tried to find his footing, but his heel caught the skull of Villorik’s slain horse, and he fell atop the bones with a snap and clatter. 

 

Krodhā’s eyes beheld the tripped Sigmar like a rabbit in a snare. His sword sank to the dirt as he brought both hands as links of ebon Malflame formed like chains, lashing out through the air like a whip towards Sigmar.

 

⋅ ───────⊱༺༻⊰─────── ⋅

 

“Tʜᴇʀᴇ ɪꜱ ᴀɴ ᴇɴᴅ, Vɪʟʟᴏʀɪᴋ.” The Demon’s gaze shifted to the priest, low and rasping like distorted thunder. “Aɴᴅ ɪᴛ ɪꜱ ɪɴ ꜱɪɢʜᴛ.”

 

“Gᴏᴏᴅʙʏᴇ, ᴅᴇᴀʀ 'ꜰʀɪᴇɴᴅꜱ',” it spat. The morning rain made its ichor run, forming dark rivulets in the ground. “Iᴛ ᴄᴏᴍᴇꜱ ꜰᴏʀ ᴀʟʟ."

 

⋅ ───────⊱༺༻⊰─────── ⋅

 

The silver glaive cut down on the snaking Malflame, scattering its cinders through the yard.

 

Villorik drew on the last of his strength to riposte, and drove the glaive through Krodhā’s wrist with a bellow, and the polearm joined the Blade of Jophiael in staking the Zarakal to the tavern wall. As the Argentum rippled waves of pain through the Demon, it let out a guttural roar - inhuman, immortal.

 

Villorik staggered back, drawing ragged breaths, just as Sigmar was climbing to his feet.

 

As the Dragonkin’s roar sent the Frost Witch fleeing behind them, the two men regarded the restrained Demon warily.

 

⋅ ───────⊱༺༻⊰─────── ⋅

 

“ … So it is,” Villorik agreed softly.

 

For what he hoped would be the penultimate time, his glaive descended in a killing blow.

 

 

[Pallodium 3775]

Spoiler

 

 

Fury was not something misplaced within agony. O’er those endless flames of the sickening hells, o’er those gore-frosted fields and visceral laden battlements, a tattered soul reconstituted. It erupted out from the hells, tattered and searing form ripping ash, gore, and steel from its fallen ilk as the very objects to constitute its form anew- as it crashed into the material world. Resurrected, into a twisted vessel oncemore.

 

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•• ━━━ ••𒋝•• ━━━ ••

You must become king.

Of Everything.

•• ━━━ ••𒋝•• ━━━ ••

 

Endless, was that spiralling scourge’s exaltation. Endless, was that eternal brimming fury the torn emperor bore as it sundered itself unto the mortal worlds oncemore. Endless. Endless. Did all things truly have an end? Did all paths certainly come to a bitter, silent close? The effigy clutched at its hollowed chest as it reconstituted- shrouds of miasma furling around its vessel.   Endless. Such a fickle word. Yet it was a word the thing embraced. Accepted. It knew, that there was one thing about itself that would be paramount- endless- immortal.

 

It was Krodhā.

It was the Bondsmith.

And it shall never die.

 

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