Aleorn: Heir of Cinder pt 2

Aleorn stumbled, his strength fast waning. A flame he was, stoked far too brilliant, consuming with such avarice it would soon devour itself. To his knees he fell, fire rolling out like ripples fleeing the dropped stone, and trembling as if feverish, he raised neither hand nor head as the Presence descended upon him.

***

"No!" Or'do dug fingers of iron into the earth, trying in vain to reach Aleorn, pulling with all his strength and accomplishing nothing more than a flare of paralyzing pain. His vision, already grey at its fringe, deepened to a blinding pall. "Aleorn!" His voice was still nothing more than a raw wound convulsing in his torn throat. He reached for the Deep Cinder, yet found only void where it lay; one of the spears that bore him low had torn it from his chest alongside a long ribbon of his heart.

You knew this would happen. The Keeper spoke in tones as hollow as his chest, as dark as his ruined heart. You knew how this quest would end, and you charged in all the same.

"Then save him!" Or'do felt his life slipping away in spite of his desperate hold. "Please, don't let him perish."

This is your fight not mine. 

"Then make it yours!" Blind now he reached to a point above him, as if offering souls. "Give me the strength, Keeper. Give me the strength to save him."

You know I cannot. Cinder is neither mine to give nor yours to demand. Or'do crumpled, breath gone from his lungs. "Damn you." He rasped, breath grinding over his tongue like sand. "And damn me for I have once again brought despair on those for whom I care"

***

Aleorn felt its tendrils encircle him, closing over his arms like manacles of cold steel, the Flame turning dark beneath their touch. It lifted him, staring into his sightless eyes. 

Or'do weeping, holding his comrade's body as the life leaves him. White Flame blazed from Aleorn's body as screaming in fury, he wrenched his arms free, splitting the beast's tendrils like fraying thread, hurling it back as a tidal wave of heat and light surged over it, devouring its flesh with fiendish abandon. 

Or'do falling, arms outstretched, blood fanning out from a thousand wounds as the Champion looks on in triumph. Aleorn slashed a hand across the Presence's face, ripping a long, flaming gash from chin to brow and sending it reeling, hands clutching its smouldering wound.

Or'do's furious screams as he threw himself into the fray, laying about with heavy, seismic blows that left numerous gaps in his guard, that let pass the thousand wounds that now wept their dark tears. Aleorn roared, flaring the Cinder again, its glow bright as the morning Sun in spite of his blinding cloak, a fist sized orb of radiance caged within the finger-like shadows of his ribs. A tempest of luminous gold he descended upon the Moon Presence, alternating between broad slashes and staggering punches; crescent wounds rapidly cleaving its body, glowing with embers left in his brilliant passing. His fists hammered home with cataclysmic force, wringing cries of agony from it, and filling the air with battle's dark choir, their paths traced with vines of radiant amber entwined with serpents of ash. The Cinder flared, swelled, glowed with dangerous heat as he advanced, each stride melting the stone, carving a halo of glowing ember and dark soot around him; its power came at great cost however, for with each blow the incandescent cracks in his bones grew deeper, and his breath all the more labored became.

Or'do's horrible, hollow cry as he charged toward the Champion, heedless of his own peril. Aleorn stoked the Cinder again, its heat cracking his ribs until they were mere threads of black upon fields of blinding white light. Another pace, another, he drove the Presence back, seeing in its eyes a potent mingling of fear and rage. It lashed out, bending its immense frame to menace him with sickeningly stained teeth, slashing with mottled tendrils that blistered and charred against his ignited skin. Pivoting on his leading foot, Aleorn flared the Cinder, and as his fist turned white hot, smashed the monster across its scaled face, rocking it backward and nearly toppling it; one half of its face a caved ruin that leaked wisps of smoke and rivulets of dark ichor. Yet this, neither slowed it nor gave it briefest pause; a tendril smashed against the backs of his knees, throwing him forward into its cruel embrace, its oval maw latching onto his chest, turning the Flame dark and cold. Aleorn tilted back his head, lips parting in a scream that trembled with agony, his pale eyes wide and staring as it drank the Light from him.

***

"Please, do not kill yourself for my sake." Or'do stared on with eyes that saw no more. "It would bestow on my life a value it does not deserve."

He watched in horror, as its thirst slaked, the monster flung Aleorn to the stones where he lay limp and frail, his chest rising and falling in slow, shallow gasps, the Cinder pale in his chest, the Flame mere starlight wisps that danced along his bones. The Moon Presence advanced slowly, almost reverently, striding on hands and feet like the depraved beast it was, black fire swelling along its frame, withering the grass around it, cracking the earth as if each stride pulsed with the weight of the bloodied moon. Lightning the colour of starless nights swirled merrily between its clawed fingers as it lifted a hand overhead, braided cords of Light and Dark weaving and unraveling in time with some silent symphony, rippling over tendon and between jutting knuckles. An ominous charge crackled through the air, power mounting, hearkening to its clarion call.

Fear pulsed through Or'do's veins, slicing him from within like blades of ice. In spite of the dark pall that blinded him, the pain that paralyzed him, the sorrow that chained him, he forced a leg beneath his quaking body, and rose. He was too weak to shove the prone Aleorn aside, too feeble to capture the monster's attention, yet there was one thing he could do.

Noraan's accusing eyes as he fell, sorrow and betryal clear in those pale depths. Or'do stumbled forward another pace, pain rolling through his veins like wickedly edged caltrops. Ahead, the monster drew back, thick ropes of light and shadow swirling like paint upon canvas, eager to feast upon Aleorn's flesh.

Aleorn's laughter, his infectious smile widening as once more they stood triumphant. Or'do lunged, his body intercepting the blow as it descended, horrible pain crashing through him like a river of broken glass, slicing him from within as the monster's claws sundered him from without. Limp, he crashed into Aleorn's arms where he lay still, a smouldering hole all that remained of his chest, his life already fading, had now been extinguished. Aleorn blinked in surprise, then disbelief. The world narrowed until he saw only his dear friend, saw only how frail and slack he was when the life was gone from him. Sightless eyes blazed with rage, vision returning if only in slashes and wisps, burning the image of his fallen comrade into his mind.

Pain like nothing he had ever felt surged through his body, his blood ice, his heart shattering stone. Sorrow ripped him in two, its edge keener than any steel, its blade leaving nothing but void cold and hollow in its passing. Grief wrung tears of flame from him, and deep inside, something broke. Something less physical than bone yet no less vital. Hope burned to ash within him, leaving his chest aching and barren.

Tears streaming along his cheeks, he lifted his eyes to the heavens, and screamed in anguish.