"You're the expert. I'm just here to make sure you don't die alone," quipped the knight sarcastically. Morbid humor was a staple in their line of work. There was an inherent need to acknowledge the dangers of their undertakings. Had a way of keeping one grounded, focused. It could alleviate the burden of their responsibilities yet reaffirm the consequences all at the same time. Or it may just be that Castor was a salty, unpleasant bastard; difficult to say really.

They'd pressed deeper into the shadow of the mountain, avoiding any patrols for some time. Yet inevitably voices were heard and with it the knight's first true test. Their whole mission could unravel right here before it truly began. Castor readied himself for a glib response but words died in his throat. The cultist spoke in an unfamiliar tongue.

Fuck.

His mind raced like a runaway wagon as he desperately sought for a solution. Then he heard the strange language again, but not from the lips of cultists but rather Faramund. It took all of Castor's nearly four decades of poise to keep his expression neutral. And just like that, their crisis had been averted. Silence hung heavy between the two Sworn. The Dusker knew better than to ask just exactly what in the hells had just transpired.

Castor'd received a special briefing before setting off on this mission. There were a few pertinent details including the unusual 'disposition' of his fellow Sworn. Frankly, he hadn't the time to properly digest all that he was told. Castor simply figured he'd trust the man. Until he couldn't.

Minutes turned to hours as they carefully continued towards the Mount. It was as they closed in that Castor began to notice oddities in various ruins and stone outcroppings. These imperfections did not seem the result of time's ambivalence. He was slowly beginning to recognize patterns, markings...signs. So they followed until finally they stood before an innocuous stoneface on the mountainside. Castor normally would have thought nothing of it but something felt off. He studied the wall closely and noticed that everything seemed almost too smooth.

An illusion? Yet the dusker sensed no traces of magik.

Despite himself, Castor looked to Faramund expectantly.
 
Still in the dream of a dying mind, Bebin stood still in the waking world. Bent low to the fast-dead man. Finger pressed betwixt their brows where a third eye might open.

Breath calm. Rhythm steady. His own eyes closed to the waking world, though the light of Loch traced and shimmered cross the veins of lucent lids.

Moments within minutes.


There before the churn of surf, as phantom feet found purchase across rippled muck. Cold against the pads ands toes. Firm for but a breath before weight and push of bone's memories turned the ground to billowing curtains that trailed tall behind him. The Pursuant of Loch trekked across a land of mirrors, whose shattering grew nearer with each step taken.

Pools of times past, there in the wells of mud. Records of wakes long washed away. Each shimmered and and waved with winds unseen.

A life before it all. Green and golden. Warm as sunlight. Heavy as stone. Dry as dust. Until those eyes did open. Through their lids did see. Robes and ceremony. Knives and pithings. Pinkrose. Constructs.

The Mount.


From the cold dark distance beyond the Silent Sun, the sound of chatter. Common tongues. Common words. Filtered there through the shadow and thorns.

Closer the voices come, with each breath. Clearer their words sound with each pound of the heart.
 
It was a waiting, until it wasn’t. In the cooling mountain night voices traveled, from somewhere in the dark wherein he would peer, looking for movement. The fire made it hard to see anything beyond flicker of shadows, naught but harsh edges dancing on treetrunks and rockfaces, gently asway. But someone was approaching doubtlessly, with company, a casual chatter growing ever more clear against the silence of death about the guardsite.

His stare sought again his fellow Pursuant, more urgent now as his look bore into the figure hunched in the ground, yet deep in a solitary quest. Or so he had to assume.

A part of him wanted to reach out, shake the man back to the present and the pressing. But weren’t there a rule to not wake whom walked in their sleep, for should one do so, they’d risk having them come back wrong. To awaken, changed forever, fragmented as a piece was left behind to some void.

And weren’t there parallels betwixt the Loch and the Dream? The uncertainty was enough to stay his hand, though he made to quickly if carefully adjust the man’s mirrorsilk cloak in a feeble attempt to better camouflage him. All that did was leave the outreached arm and head exposed, the reflections on the silk so convincing the bodyparts appeared to be suspended from mid-air.

It was a rather ghastly sight, really, and that was without considering the eerie stillness and symbols drawn with blood. He shuddered giving a little parting salute, adjusting the grip on his hammer as he finally turned away. Words were distinguishable now, footsteps sharp with how close they were. He counted three.

Any moment now, Syr Theros, if you will.

Only the branches crackled as he went, swift in his step as he sought who yet dared approach. There was laughter and he picked out the figures no sooner than as light caught them, none of them ones he could recognize, as such—

” Hey— ” Spoke one, elbowing his companion in the ribs. There was wariness in the gesture and the standstill therein, but the other one went ahead regardless, overtly weary.

” What is this— a fucking sleepover? You drinking on guard again— ” A hand reached out to one of whom Oliver knew to be a corpse. But where was that third person, he could’ve sworn—

” Fuck— Look! ” The one having staid behind pointed at something. He didn’t have to guess what, bouncing out of his hiding in an impulse. The hammer swing missed as the man startled, turning and dropping his posture reflexively. So Oliver put his shoulder to it, pauldron colliding with the man’s sternum and sending him arse first into the dirt.
 
Faramund returned Castor's look, shrugged. 'It's not an illusion, that's for damned sure.' Staring up at the rockface, the dawnling sniffed, took a step closer. The ground leading up to it had been worn down beneath a hundred bootheels, and there were slight grooves where something heavier had been dragged through.

Definitely a door. But what's the key?

Reaching out, Faramund ran a gloved hand over the stone. It felt warm to the touch, almost as if it was a living, breathing entity. Blood, a voice interrupted his thoughts suddenly. Friend. Kindred. Blood. Sacrifice. The thing behind Faramund's eye squirmed in pleasure, and the big dawnling shivered as something coursed through him.

'I think-' He took a step back. 'I think the door requires blood to open. A sacrifice, if you will.' So very fitting. 'Don't s'pose you'd like to...?' Turning to Castor, the dawnling sighed.

Peeling off the glove on his left hand, Faramund drew his dagger, laid the blade to palm. There was a quick, sharp tug.

Blood pattered against his boot as he pressed his hand to the entrance. For a moment, nothing happened. Then...

'We're in!' Grinning, Faramund bandaged his hand as the "door" rumbled open, hidden mechanisms pulling it up into the roof of the tunnel beyond. A draft of hot air hit them both, sulphurous and foul-smelling. 'Like Hell's hungry maw,' he remarked, easing his sabre in its scabbard. He glanced at Castor, grinned.

'After you!'
 
"Bloody cultists," the Sworn swore. Always lacked imagination. There's a reason the knight had several vials of blood at his side even if most wasn't his own. He made to say something but Faramund already removed his glove. Better that he save his party tricks for later. Who knows what they would encounter within the bowels of the Mount. Something told Castor simple steel would not suffice.

"Ever the gentleman." A sardonic sigh followed before the Dusker delved into the dark of the mountain.

He tried his best to walk normally as his eyes adjusted to the limited light. Guards were not outside but who was to say the same was true within. A cry of alarm never came but the knight's vigilance remained staunch.

Paths were many and their knowledge was nil, yet Castor continued forth confidently. The pair smoothly slithering through corridors with preternatural knowledge. Experience and instinct played no part.

Voices. No, chanting? A low hum became a fervent echo with each encroaching step.

Castor turned to confer with Faramund but froze as another shadow flickered in the candlelight.

"Only Seen are allowed to witness."

Fuck.
 
In the mind, at the Mount. The edges blurred. Splintered and washed away, ever just, as each waning pulse, ebbed and ebbed with the last bolts of life that stormed there in the grey.

Ate away at the vision.

Halls of cold stone. Metal twisted about the paths. Wrought into hinges and locks that never opened. Always closed. What laid inside. Clicked and clacked. Like needles against glass. Gears turned the more as the glass at the vision's terminus cracked. Crumbled. Eaten away by waves come the more quick.

A wheel turned. Arms of iron shift and locked. Hinges cried with rust. There in the maw of opened gate. A prison.

From the vessel of the dying man's memory the Basilisk broke away. Flung free from that mirror's depths, the phantom of Bebin's mind landed back upon the falling shore. Coild and knelt upon the sands, so sucked away by death's desire. His eyes wide, his heart's memory fast as he looked unto that growing abyss. And all the worlds that fell into the black heart.

He rose again. And knew, he had no heart here. He had no flesh here. But those things waited for him again. At the end of his Sanity's Silk.


In that dreaded hall, beneath the Umbral Mount, the voices grew the louder.

"Only the Seen! Are allowed to gaze!"

Those voices cried out in ecstasy. "Chosen!"

"We are chosen!"

"His people!"

"Only the seen!" cried the voice of a Seer. "Are allowed to bare that light which passes!"

"His light!"

"The Star Eater!"

"The Everwatcher!" they cried and moaned. Their shadows long and dark against walls that glowed a ghostly blue ahead.

A blue so familiar. Painted across the night's sky. Painted in the mind's eye. Dreams. Hopes. So distant they begged to be reached out to.

"And yet they are out there, oh faithful, they are out there who would take that light ye have given so much for, oh Sightless!"


Lungs filled full of hard drawn breath, and eyes came open. Wide and full of fainting. Bebin's mind, so flooded with dreams.

"Oh fuck! Oh fuck!" a young man, hardly old enough to have hairs on his chin stuttered as he fumbled for his club. "It's them!"

Another gave a shout and rammed his weight forward. Desperate as he slammed against the sunless sentinel.

"Petri! Petri go and warn the others!" a malnourished looking dwarf said. A scythe that would do him hardly any good against full plate firm in his hand.

Petri stood stock still. Just a boy really. Pissing himself too.

"Petri, go!"

Bebin settled his heart. His bleary eyes focused on the dead man beneath him. He let his thumb come free of the crown, and picked up his bow. Set arrow against wood with a quiet knock. Though blood ran warm stream from his nose. Dripped down unto the earth.

How the soil drank it up.
 
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Them. Like some fabled Death.

A body collided against his, the metal mute at the impact that affected his balance not at all. The hammer swept retaliation, hungry for blood and flesh and all too hasty for it, falling mere inches clear off the mark. A suit of steel was a lot to face, so it befell him to be eyed and measured for opening, the long blade of a scythe having it in for the gaps in armour.

There were a select few. At the edge of firelight and slipping away from it, one had begun running for help. One with a name and a boy’s temperament.

A shame, really. He could probably yet catch him, if he just—

In a leap and a sidestep he closed the distance to whom was circling him — to buy time? — and swung the hammer again. The scythe blade clanged against shinguard, an agonized roar leaving one as blunt weapon cracked bone.
 
"Only Seen are allowed to witness.'

Turning slowly, Faramund held steady as the guard slid from the shadows to bar their way. Bald and broad-shouldered, the man had all the complexion of a corpse, and not a very handsome one at that. 'Only Seen are allowed to witness.' Again, he spoke, his voice like gravel, rough on the ears. Small, and yet oh so loud, the sound hid well the second guard as he stepped from the shadows at their backs, like a ghost.

A ghost bearing shimmering blades.

Drawing aside his cloak, hands drifting to the twin hilts hidden there, the first guard asked; 'Why are you here?' His eyes, dark as sin, bounced from Faramund to Castor and back again, as if casting judgement.

'We are here to see the Shaper.' Blinking, Faramund listened to himself speak, a prisoner in his own body. The guard stared back, his gaze narrowing ever so slightly. Something shifted in the knight's periphery. 'You bear the mark?' The guard asked. Faramund nodded. 'Show me!'

Unwinding the bandage around his hand, the dawnling showed the guard his wound.

Inky blackness fell across Faramund's vision. Blank, he stood there as the two cultists finished their inspection. 'All is in order,' the death-rattle voice said. 'Proceed.'

Replacing the bandage, the doppler stalked past his brother-in-arms. The gathered procession remained focused on the Seer as they skirted the wide room exposed to the stars above. 'The Workshops are this way,' said Faramund, sure as sure. When he turned, his eyes were brown... and black.

'Coming, brother?'
 
Two guards with twice the number of blades. If the knights drew steel here, that was the game. He sensed that glib excuses would likely just get them killed faster. These guards were different from the normal rabble and paranoia ever haunted the higher hierarchy. Castor mentally braced himself for the inevitable final stand, yet just as before, it never came.

He watched the conversation with feigned indifference. Questions arose and the Sworn shoved curiosity aside each time. Trust remained but Castor would be lying to say he wasn't uneasy. The terms that Faramund used were worryingly specific. Was he simply more familiar with the structure of the cult's organization or did the knowledge come from elsewhere. Castor wasn't sure he wanted to know at this point.

"With the greatest alacrity, brother," was his genuinely sincere reply.

Castor said nothing more for awhile, still unsure of who may be lurking in the shadows. Eventually he fell in step with the other Sworn and made sure to keep his voice low. "Quick work back there. Glad you seem to know where we're going, but, uh, what exactly are these Workshops?" At the cuff, it didn't exactly seem the type of place to hold a prisoner. Also whoever this Shaper was, they sounded like bad business. Castor had yet to encounter a Named of the Cult and from what the others told him, he was damned lucky.

Importantly though, his tone was not accusatory. He just wanted to know what in the hells they were about to walk into.
 


It was a dull sound that thumped the wind. A sharp whistle as arrow and shaft split the air.

A punch through cloth and leather hard enough to tear through flesh. One man fell.

The one with broken bones screamed. Cold horror mixed with the fire to fight as he stumbled away from the Sunless Sentinel. Soundless and silent as the horror was. Arm bent all wrong.

To live. Eyes so wide they were but whites. Hand so tight about his scythe, the knuckles yellowed in bloodless fury.

Along the curve of his scythe's blade, purple runes came to life. Line by line. The scripture, so engraved in the metal, fed on the fear. Fed on the mists of blood that bloomed from each arrowhead buried through each body.

Another dull thump. Another arrow plunked in to end a life.

"Petri!" The scythe holder cried out. Half a cry of sorrow. The rest all growl and hate as he threw himself at the Sunless Sentinel. Only one good arm, and a scythe full of purpled magicks that would be felt through any armor.


Beneath the stone. Within the halls of their enemy. The walls grew the stranger with the warped voices of the masses come bounce along the timeless rock.

Whispers and hisses. Streams and rivulets of sound, far from the mouths that spoke them into being. Far from the throats that pushed them out into the world.

Within the Workshops, a horrid glow, pale as twilight, painted the walls. Columns. Pillars. Of stone. Of metal. Of ice. Gleamed and misted about. Forms. Disfigured. Unnatural. Trapped within windows that glowed between bones of twisted architecture.

ilya-baydin-basicform (The Shaper) AV.webp"Incomplete," came a voice, low as smoke languid in its roll from on ahead. "Imperfect," a clatter of tools. Metal against metal. Like claws come against glass. Sounds small and sharp and all at once in flurries like the skitter of legs across a surface. "But maybe, maybe it will do,"

A robed figure, bent and hunched over an altar. Upon which rest the object of his works. His mutterings and miseries.

"It will do it will do," he laughed to himself as his shadow danced and stretched across the bend and span of that most strange workshop. Stillness gripped him. "Hm?" he sounded as his head bobbed up. His neck stretched up, unnaturally long, and he turned his red face toward the two knights. "Oh," he said softly as the red mask, draped by white wisps of ancient hair hung high above them. "Oh," he said with a joyful shake. "Oh!" he said as he turned whole body and stepped towards Faramund. "My son," he said as his head came low, and he reached out an old and shaky hand. His bony fingers out stretched. Long as crab legs. "My son has returned," he sounded to choke back tears.

The Shaper.
 
The force of the hit was in his entire arm, an ache lingering as the stricken went astumble, nigh dirtborne with his long blade. The air grew deadly then, sentencing two to finality and dealing it unseen, like the shadows themselves should’ve woken to pass judgement. Mere dull thuds betwixt the trees, one for each.

The dark, narrow sliver of the visor spied a shimmer, brilliant in the dim of an untended camp. Purple, something like fire kindled in metal that’d be sent his way — was being sent his way with new vigour. He fell back a step as it swung, vibrance flashing too close for comfort even as it missed, continuing overhead with momentum. It felt amiss, the brazen attacks that’d proven ineffective against plate until now, unless—

Unbidden, a sensation akin to fear crawled within his chest, recognition reaching for the fibers in his body like no blade could, enchanted or otherwise. And to the beat, the runes flared the brighter, like they should’ve known. Yeah, no.

Get.

Jaw clenched, he gripped the hammer tighter, wrist rolling experimentally as he let the scythe pass him again.

That glowing bullshit.

Swiftly, he stepped into the swing’s wake, blunt instrument delivering another strike for the injured half. Agony.

The fuck.

The scythe retaliated, haft striking him in the side, the unrattling plate. And yet, it was wholly felt as if he’d worn naught at all. A held breath escaped him, a mere huff within the helm.

Away from me.

The hammer continued its way despite all, knocking away the arm that held the scythe. That it shoud’ve still held on, mattered not. At great velocity, his gauntleted fist made contact with the man’s face. Ballistic.
 
Faramund didn't respond immediately. In truth, he wasn't sure he wanted to. 'It's where the Cult forges its weapons,' he explained, vaguely. 'It's where... where they take those they capture.' Castor was not a bad man. Faramund knew that. He was skilled and he was able, and when he fought, he did so bravely. But there were things you could share... and things you could not.

No matter how much you may have wanted to.

'Listen. Before we enter, I need you to know you can trust me.' Glancing sidelong at the dusker, Faramund tried to stop his hand from shaking. 'Whatever happens in there, whatever is said or inferred... I need you to know that you can trust-'

The wave struck with the force of a thousand fists, cutting off all conscious thought. Taken, driven under, the fear in Faramund's eyes faded, winked out. His hands stopped shaking, even as his legs carried him onwards. To the Workshop. To the Shaper.

Cold stone, blood and bone. Dead meat, dead meat, dead-

'My son.'

Starting awake, Faramund blinked as his senses returned to him in a crash of sound and blinding light. The memories -some his, some not- fled from his mind, like the fading of a bad dream. He did not realise he was waking up to a nightmare until the Shaper's fingers were at his throat.

The Shaper!

Fighting the urge to vomit, to void his bowls so that he might feel some form of relief, the dawnling forced himself to stillness as his creator examined him. Fear gripped him, held him captive. His hand brushed the hilt of his sabre, no longer shaking.

'Father.'

Red-faced, twisting its head this way and that, the Shaper reared back, as if struck. By force. By premonition. 'My son,' it repeated, tasting the word. Its snake-like neck coiled, uncoiled. 'My child, my boy... returned to me. At last.'

At last, the voice inside his skull echoed. At last, home!

Jinking left, right, the Shaper tottered and danced. The gauntlets covering its aged hands jingled and clinked. Looking closely, Faramund saw scalpels and needles and a pair of forceps. Bloodied. Wet with another's life-blood. Yours soon, the voice promised, louder now. The man who was never meant to be.

'We believed you lost to us.'

Blinking, his brow dappled with sweat, Faramund stared up at the face of his sire. The Shaper gazed back, one eye blank, ringed in gold markings, the other missing. 'Compromised, I was told. Defective.' The creature shook suddenly, spilled sideways to dislodge a tray of surgical tools soaked in fluid. 'No, no, no, I told them! Not defective! Not you, never you!'

Righting itself, the Shaper reached out. Faramund remained silent.

'And now here you are,' it whispered, taking his jaw gently but firmly and tilting his head back. 'Back where you belong. Safe, in my hands.' Faramund felt the shift in the air a moment before it happened, but by then it was too late.

'Why?!'

Seizing his scalp, the Shaper wrenched Faramund's head backwards, exposing his throat. A scalpel came up to kiss his skin. Feeling its bite, the dawnling forced himself to remain calm even as the blood began to flow.

'I was commanded here... by He Who Watches.' Holding up his injured palm, Faramund showed the Shaper the bandaged wound. 'The stone recognised me, recognised my intent.' Gasping, teeth gritted against the pain, the not-quite-doppler stared its sire in the eye, unafraid now.

Of death. Of dying here, now, in this moment, to the monster whom had created him... It.

'I am here to relieve you of a burden,' it continued, 'to take away the Child whose gifts you squandered. Who has gifts you failed to unlock.' The words came to him, unbidden and uncontrolled. Knowledge of things he had no right to possess flooded his mind as, slowly, his eyes turned black.

'The more your delvers dig, the further She withdraws.' The Doppler blinked. 'And He has grown tired of waiting.'
 
"Sounds bloody unpleasant," remarked the knight to himself. However, it was Faramund's next words that truly worried Castor. They were Knights Anathaeum. Trust was ever granted without given voice. Battles fought, wylds protected; all from the same root. Thus if his companion felt the need for reassurance, a truly troubling fate awaited them.

"Faramu-" began Castor, intending to tell the other man that this was unnecessary. Except the the Sworn suddenly stopped mid speech.

The other knight resumed walking without a word.

"Faramund," the dusker ventured once more.

Nothing.

So against all sense and reason, Castor followed his companion into the increasingly dense depths of the Mount.

A new room of death and depravity. There stood a singularly vile presence. Even without knowing, Castor knew. The Shaper.

"My son."

What the fu-

"Father."

What sort of thrice-damned family reunion had he stumbled upon? Castor never knew his father and was now counting himself lucky. Frozen by the sheer inexorability of this meeting, he could not prevent Faramund from ending up in the Shaper's, his father's, grasp. Every single instinct screamed at Castor to cut this Shaper down and Faramund with him.

Senara's Barb slipped into the palm of his hand, obscured only by the overlong sleeve of a corpse's robe.

And yet Castor did not move. Or would not. Faramund's earlier words of trust grated at the dusker's every thought. For a moment, he saw familiarity in the dawnling's eyes and that was enough to stay Castor's blade.

Castor said he would trust Faramund until he could not. It seemed that moment had yet to arrive.
 
A pain like a nail driven through the skull. Bebin pressed a thumb to the side of his nose. Huffed hard to spatter the blood born of his cranium about the floor. Wiped what mess away from bristling whiskers. Slung his bow over his shoulder as the scythe wielder twitched a mess upon the earth.

Words and breath garbled into incoherent tremble and choke.

"Report," Bebin barked low as he rose. Half cloaked in the shimmer of the mirror silk that spilled over his frame, and billowed with each step he took.

Boot thud against still muscle, broad fingers wrapped tight against arrow shaft. A wet squelch and suck as arrow came free of flesh. Stashed. Bebin bent low and made quick work through the robes. Moved onto the next dead and dying.

A tremble of hand. Twitch of muscle. The arrow snapped. Wasted in his hand. He grit his teeth. Steadied his breath. Moved to the lead of the trail.

Instinct and training burried deep any bud of regret that dared grow against his heart.

His eyes cut over his shoulder, heart loud as a drumb between his ears. Vision blurred, as his flesh struggled to remember it was not the dying man's. It had escaped the pull of that star's end. All the world seemed to bend at the corners as Bebin eyed the Black Armor.

No time but to breath.

​

What light that passed through the Shaper's Workshop was pale as moonlight. Silver as the distant stars. Bounced and beamed through pillars of ice. Tanks of glass. Bent around forms all too human, trapped in prisons all too cold. Too familiar.

Perversions of Loch and Life. Mockeries of Death.

1731458520996.jpegHands, so sharp with their delicate touch. Warm with blood that bead fat rubies about their silvered edge.


A titter of laughter from behind the Saper's red mask. A sound that shook through the long and wrinkled neck. "No no," he said, as deadly digits tapped and fluttered about throat's apple. "I told them, I told them, my son," he went on with his madness. Only stared all the deeper into those eyes as black as his. "My son is without fault," Loosed his grip and cupped his child's round skull in his old leathery hand, white and bloodless as knotted birch. "My son is my greatest work," A choked and happy sound, as the blades traced delicate trails across neck, held tenderly the side of Faramund's face. "He cannot betray us," A genuine pride rung in his ancient chords. "Loyal, my blood, always loyal," he laughed soft as distant whispers.

A gentle tap, with blade and prong and forcep come soft clatter and clack at once.

"Well," he said as simple as any father might, come the visit of their child. "Never you mind what He Who Watches commands, my boy," he said with a wild glee there behind his permenant smile. Let his hands fall from Faramund's face and head. Grasped his shoulders firm, and glad to feel the flesh there. The bone and warmth of his progeny. "He doesn't have a body," he broke into laugher. "He doesn't have arms!" he said sharper, and let go of his child.

A half turn away, and his long neck followed after. His red mask angled towards the altar. Towards his latest work.

A naked body, there upon the plinth. Dead eyes, without the light of life burning in them. Young and strong. Their face, too much like ones they both knew. Too much like them. The insides on display. Silver and grey. Snakes of strange ichor. Too much like the blight.

"And without me," he said with a slow nod as he shuffle stepped just the bit closer to the altar. "He'll never have one," he giggled with another laugh. A snort. "Not one that works anyway," he stood at his altar, and went back to work. "Would you care for some tea, my boy?" the sound of claws come clickity click. "Then you can tell me all about your days away from us," he said with cruel curiosity. "Away from home," he said more sweetly.
 
It was over. The man was over with.

The scythe yet burned, runes about the blade pulsing with light that’d begun growing dimmer. Like a day fading or life draining, inching away half unnoticed. The white-knuckled grip on the hammer loosened as he straightened, arm coming to rest at his side stiffly like it had a craving to swing again. At something.

Report.

It was a miracle he’d heard it really, the sound of his own blood and breath humming in his ears so loud, within the helm might’ve been its own separate realm entire. He peeled back the curtain, the visor going up as he turned on heel at the sound of steps that wouldn’t stop. And he looked, really looked at whom would rush on with urgency, reclaiming arrows as the trail onward ever beckoned.

The man wasn’t as pristine as he’d been a generous moment ago, before his unseen wander. There was an effort made to will it away, he knew, but it yet lingered in the little unsteadinesses, that one more blink like he’d struggled to see him eye to eye. For one usually so composed to the point of appearing statuesque, it was a jarring fit. His side ached where the haft had struck it, stole a bit of breadth from each inhale, but in comparison to the rest—

” Guards snook upon us — Three I counted. The rest you know, having come to at the most opportune moment. ” Picked them off like flies. Banishing the camp and the dead and their names from his mind, he settled to follow suit, close enough that their voices could be kept low. For a moment longer he let the cooling air douse the spirit, allowing himself the courtesy to settle down before speaking.

Report?

” Learn anything? ”
 
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