Above, Or'do fell limp and frail as an autumn leaf caught in melancholy wind; dark blood fanning out in his wake, writhing like serpents of ruby from his countless wounds. Aleorn's sightless eyes still found their way to that figure, and wrung a scream of anguish from him. Dust sprayed from his trailing foot as he leaped skyward, wings lashing with thunderous abandon. An arrow of gold fletched in amber, he struck Or'do midair, clasping him to his chest with the desperation a distraught mother would cradle her lifeless child. His wings folded, dropping him to the stones where he fell to his knees, resting his bowed head against Or'do's, blind eyes closed, tears glimmering like shards of marble along his glowing cheek.
Aleorn knelt before the Fire Keeper, his eyes downcast, his hand raised with light glowing like a blossom of glass in its center.
"I know now why the Lords refused." He rasped. "They knew their place was as spokes in an ever turning wheel, their purpose negligible. They felt as I do, felt this hopelessness." Looking up, he caught her eyes, or rather the hollows where they would once have rested, peering through the ornate sash concealing their absence, staring into her soul with his desperate, plaintive gaze.
"Through the plains, through the ages, some have upheld their duty, yet others have seen as I do. They realized the futility of their lives, and it drove them mad."
"Why am I denied hope?" Aleorn clutched at her wrist, with the desperation of a drowning man grasping at the air. "Why must I live in vain? Why must I slog through countless worlds with naught but pain as my reward?"
"It is the price of your avarice. You strove to bind the Flame, yet became bound to it instead. You were raised as an Ashen to protect these realms, and that is your purpose. How can you feel without cause when one so noble already rests upon your shoulders?"
Aleorn tore his gaze from her. "Because it is a goal without end, a mountain that grows with each step I ascend. There is not triumph that lingers, no battle that echos through the planes. Merely the single knell of one Flame lost in the chorus of so many. What purpose is there in living? Why have I been granted eternal life if only to wish that it would end?"
Aleorn laid his comrade gently upon the stones, his heart blazing with anger. He rose and turned in the same fluid motion, launching himself toward the looming beast, its shadow consuming him as once despair had.
"Our purpose is what we make it, Aleorn." Or'do grinned, clapping Aleorn on the shoulder. "Don't look so dour, Aleorn! The Flame enslaves us, but it takes only one thing to break its shackles."
"And what might that be?" Aleorn hunched in the Fire's halo, his eyes fixed on the flickering Bonfire.
"Hope."
Aleorn felt another cry of anguish drag its razor claws along his throat, felt the earth quake and shatter beneath his trailing foot as he lunged, wings folded against his back, Lacrimosa held before him, dark edge glimmering with baleful delight.
The Champion peered down upon him as if amused, one massive hand sweeping down to crush the furious Ashen like a bothersome insect.
Aleorn smiled, the first time in his long life and longer servitude. Or'do's words resonated within him as brandishing his Sunlight straightsword, he approached the Soul of Cinder. His life had purpose at last, nothing sickeningly noble, nothing gloriously heroic. His purpose, was conquest at Or'do's side, was to fight with flame in his heart and light in his eyes,was to fight at last without the leash of Servitude dragging him to the earth.
"I know now what my purpose is." Aleorn stalked onward, his steps melting the earth, the monsters hand thundering down toward him. "Friendship, kinship, you are my reason. My purpose." He closed sightless eyes, and drew a long breath. Then he lunged, arms slashing the air, feet lost in a cloud of dust and shattered rock. Ash and scraps of flesh trailed from him like a writhing cloak of mottled grey and black.
Breath streamed from his maw, veiling his features in wisps of mist, his every step flung him onward with impossible speed and power. His flesh burned away, leaving his bones bare and glinting like pillars of obsidian within the coils of molten muscle; each shot through with glowing cracks that pulsed with a heartbeat all their own, deepening as his ironclad soles struck the earth, as his arms rose and fell, as his ignited lungs weakly swelled and shriveled.
The monster's palm smashed against the earth at his back, showering him in a tidal wave of dust that surged into his lungs, writhed around his flaming form, masking its light. Then he burst from the nebulous brume, a phoenix rising from cinder grave. His blind eyes were almonds of marble upon features of ebony and fire, his riven bones a stark contrast to the radiant mantle draped around him. Every step knelled his death, every breath wheezed with Death's solemn hymn, yet he would not relent.
Across the way, Or'do raised his head weakly, the smouldering hole in his chest where the Cinder had once lay pulsing weakly. "Stop, Aleorn." His voice was hoarse, muted by agony, fire in his throat, silence on his lips. "Please." Or'do grimaced, clenching his fist, life slipping away, draining onto the earth around him in a silken pool. "If I am your reason, you are mine. Don't leave me alone in this world." A single tear carved a slender path through the grime clinging to his features. "Please, Aleorn. You give me hope, and hope is all I have left."
Aleorn roared, Or'do's words lost to him, as he was lost to the world. He thrust his hand toward the beast, filaments of incandescent gold rippling from his palm, biting into the monster's shoulder, pinning it to the stone wall beyond with a sharp crack! Aleorn whipped his hand to the left, severing the monster's arm, hurling the immense limb aside as if it weighed no more than a child's plaything. Like brittle sticks its bones broke, like frayed threads its muscle tore, and as the arm came free, a horrible scream was wrung from it, yet Aleorn was already moving, advancing, gritting his teeth against the hateful inferno kindled in his breast.
"You will not take him from me!" He slashed his hand through the air, a crescent of pale light curling out, cleaving the monster in two from waist to shoulder, stone's grinding wail and bone's shrill cry adding their voices to battle's dark choir. Aleorn surged on, slowing not when it turned to gaze upon him with those hateful eyes, pausing not when a thousand thousand barbed spears leaped from its flesh, for they shattered against his blazing cloak, and fell in splintered ruin to the earth where they turned to ash beneath his feet.
"You cannot take him from me!" Aleorn dropped into a crouch, one leg tucked under his body, the other thrust out before him, flame fanning out beneath. He leaped skyward, a concussive explosion ringing out below, hurling him through the air toward his fallen foe. The Heir of Cinder drew back his hand, fingers clawed like talons.
"You will not leave me desolate, not now, not ever again!" His hand sank into its furrowed brow with a moist hiss, flesh bubbling and contorting around his blazing forearm.
"IGNESCENCE!" Fire swelled from within, great pulsing vines of light weaving across its gnarled body, burning with the hellish hate that devoured Aleorn's heart. Beneath him it turned to ash, charring from within, collapsing like quicksand around him, its shocked expression frozen in glowing cinder.
The world jerked and convulsed, then thrust itself into clarity once more. He stood again before Gehrman, in that field of wilting blossom and parched, ailing grass. The Old Hunter stared upon him with shock, with surprise clear on his face as Aleorn took a single step, crossing the distance in a blur of light, his hand suddenly plunged through Gehrman's chest, jutting from his back with Deep Cinder clutched tight, smouldering like a black fire kindled in his palm. Gehrman shattered, drifting away as motes of ash, yet the fight was far from over.
Above, silouetted upon the bloodred moon lurked the final Champion, the summit of Deep's power. The Moon Presence stared on in surprise then wrath, descending slowly toward the beaten field where Aleorn stood defiant, and Or'do lay lifeless amid weeping bloom and bowed grass.
No comments:
Post a Comment