Malaroth, Memory, and Mist

[Malaroth]

Malaroth slowly readied his weapon, the blade scraping its way against the scabbard with a serpentine hiss. He fell onto one knee, and planted the opposing foot firmly against the ground, ready to lurch to his feet and lead the charge down the remnant of the slope and toward whatever secret, or warden, held the villagers’ children prisoner.

“Ready,â€

[Teron_Ashfiend]

**************************************************************

The Battle had begun.

The sword in Azeron's gauntleted hands cleaved back and forth; mowing down all who sought to bring their weapons to bear. His shield deflected a blow from a clawed hand which raked deep furrows into the metal, and shoving the beast back, the blood-stained sword dove in with a counter-attack.

'Valkadesh attacks with too few!' Penroll shouted joyously as he fought his way to Azeron's side; Deliverance clearing a path easily enough and moving to badly wound their current opponent in the side. 'Already they are being beaten back!'

But the older man's face was still grim as a quick strike took him in the side, the force deflected mostly by his armor but not fully. Wheezing, Azeron fended away a fatal follow-through and tore into the powerful sinews of the Demon's chest. Deliverance assisted in a sister attack, and the unholy beast went down. With the felling of their opponent, Whitecloak turned his eyes over the battlefield and saw that it did indeed seem to be true. Still, it was best not to take any chances.

The warriors of the Church had been to thinly pulled, and they were beginning to be cut off from one another. Knowing this to be deadly, Azeron sped towards the great Ivory Tower - also knowing that its holy power would aid in shielding them while the forces got reorganized.

'To me, to me!' Whitecloak bellowed, his strong voice carrying over the din of the battle with a righteous power. He raised his gleaming sword overhead and beckoned his men to fall back into a more defensible position. The Archers loosed their arrows, the soaring weapons flying over their warriors to strike the demonic ranks as the Knights drove to help relieve the pressed footmen.

With a mighty shove, the mounted warriors tore easily into the flanks of the Enemy, trapping a few between themselves and the swords and spears of the footmen, and they were quickly laid to rest. The forces pulled back as Penroll backpedaled to join them, and as his friends shouted in triumph over their soon to be victory against the demonic hordes, the young man's eyes opened wide.

Above the Ivory Tower was a great winged shape, two deadly, great axes in either clawed hand, whose frame blocked out the sun and rained darkness upon the paladin's fellows. With a gesture of his fists, and an arcane word, the tower trembled upon its foundation. As the ground itself shook, Azeron and his warriors turned as one to watch the great fissure making its way about the base of the Holy Tower.

Time seemed to slow to a crawl as Penroll's frightened, hoarse shout rang alone over the battlefield for but a moment, one that seemed an eternity. The long shadow of the Ivory Tower descended like death itself over the stunned warriors, and like some Titan bested in combat by a death blow, it tumbled and fell atop the holy soldiers.

In that instant, their death shrieks joined with Penroll's, and the world faded into blackness with his cry of rage. From the Demonic Hordes, as more arrived from the skies and from hiding of the nearby forest, erupted a cacophonous shout of triumph. Penroll's blood seethed with righteous fury, and his heart screamed for vengeance in a battle with his mind. For though he knew not to slay in the name was vengeance, he could not allow these fiends to go unpunished for the death of his fellow men-in-arms. As the army turned slowly to face him, Penroll swallowed his rage and turned, fleeing into the church.

As he tore open the doors and slammed them behind him, he realized he was breathing shallowly and quickly, and he felt lightheaded. As the world began to sway before him, he spared a glance down to his hands; covered with his own blood as they bit into his great sword. As the darkness swept like a plague over him, he uttered a silent vow; the screaming of his dearest comrades and beloved friends echoing in a beautiful symphony of pain within his mind; and he felt the walls of his consciousness tremble at the sheer power of this scream. Like a pestilence sweeping over the farm lands, though this horde of waste-layers had not entirely enveloped his consciousness, nor his heart.

As he ebbed away into darkness, he reswore his promise, and let it overcome him. Fervently hoping that this was nothing more than a horrible dream... that he might awaken back in the glade with the sun and Elysia.. His eyes turned up into the heavily-clouded skies; the sun's brilliance could not penetrate this disgust that the heavens vomited up at such destruction and rampant death. As he fell into darkness, he wondered if ever he would see the light of day again...

[Teron_Ashfiend]

Penroll stirred slowly, his head falling to one side and pressing against something oddly warm... his sense of touch told him it was some fluid... water, perhaps? A dull smile crossed his bitten lips, working them lazily as he realized it must have been a dream. A terrible dream, but he was back in the arms of his beloved with the sun beating down upon them, smiling itself as the warmth of the love from this couple surpassed even its own.

His lips pulled into a thoughtful frown as his nose told him something different than his sense of touch, which even now was changing its mind. The reek of death filled the air, and the warmth against his cheek was not water. The fluid was slightly sticky, and he felt it smeared across his face. Grumbling in protest, he cracked one eye; expecting to see his dazzling Elysia standing over him, giggling like a chorus of angels over some little joke she had just played.

'Elysia..' He mumbled, and glanced down to the floor.

With a start he sat up, faster than lightning roaring down from the heavens to wreak its fury upon the earth below.

Blood... his face had been in a pool of blood… his joints ached as he realized he lay within the altar room of his church. The dark crimson paint that was the life of many, many people had been sacrilegiously splattered upon the stones of this sacred temple. Clear, narrowed eyes darted left and right; back and forth over the scene before him. The scent of death indeed hung heavily in the air. His priests, their robes splattered with droplets of crimson or flooded with blood altogether, had not been spared either. The bodies of the dying and the dead were strewn haphazardly about; priests caring for all they could.

The reek of filth slapped him in his olfactory senses as he grumbled and rose to his knees with his hands upon the floor beneath him. His hair swirled forth from behind his armored shoulders. Everywhere... blood... death and the dying... his priests, who were said to truly walk with their God, seemed nothing more than ants; tarnished with the taint of mortality as well. Even the statue of Edrick, behind the altar, had been defiled with the blood of his own clerics. He looked down at the body next to him, the source of this pool he had been dozing in.

And he froze... he felt the darkness once more, as he had just moments before, again within his mind and coiling about his heart; tightly, as the organ labored, straining to keep him alive. Before him, her dress torn and her creamy, perfect flesh exposed... her hair strewn about the floor and surrounding her face in a perfect halo... was his beloved, Elysia. Her hair, too, was spattered with crimson; the invading darkness had not even spared her.

His hands fell to her shoulders... cold, so cold they were. Limp and lifeless; unresponsive as he tried to sit her up, and she fell back with a sickening, wet thump. His jaw clenched tight... tighter.. as he bit through his lips, the penetration warm and oddly pleasuring in a dark way. His blood streamed down his chin and fell onto her hands; crossed in a sardonically peaceful gesture over her chest as though she had gone willingly to her too soon end at the hands of the Demonic foe.

His hard eyes narrowed as through the windows, through the clouds overhead came a dazzling ray of sunshine which struck his armor and tore into his irises; which slunk back, afraid of this sudden blast of heat. His heart coiled tighter still as the sunlight fell over him like a blanket, but it offered no warmth. His hands tightened about her shoulders as the world seemed to come to a halt; their last moments but moments ago. Penroll, deep down in his struggling heart, felt himself fracturing down to the very core of his being. Oh how he desired to yet forgive his enemy... forgive and pray for their damned souls…

With a sharp cry his hands curled into fists and moved to clench at her own dead extremities, her name leaving his bloodied lips in a hot, fierce whisper; over and over. The sun beat down on him, hotter and hotter. Fingernails dug into her palms and a few trickles of blood fell along his callused hands, which trembled from the strength that he held her dead body with. Forgive them he must, he knew the alternative as he felt it approaching; the other choice he had.

To damn them... to damn them as they had his Elysia, his beloved. His heart seethed and labored still harder, tightening like a python to kill him, and it felt to burst. The soft callings of his brothers did not penetrate his internal struggle waging, so closely matched; both sides were. As he rose to his feet, his legs trembling violently, he turned and raced towards the double doors, throwing them open and scrambling outside as his great sword cleared its sheath.

The blade Deliverance shone brilliantly in the sunlight as Penroll left, his armor rattling with his long, quick strides and its highly polished surface reflecting the light as well, before it and the blade darkened. The paladin spared no thoughts for this, his mind intent upon one thing only. His hands were wet with perspiration, his hair hung in his face; and his body ached so that he wished to collapse and die, but he would not... could not do so.. not while Vraal still lived.

Far above, in the Heavens, the sun had vanished behind the clouds.

[Malaroth]

The woman before him, Carmelita, remained still on her knees. As the raging battle began to dim beyond them he waited for her to look up as she had actually done, to recognize the crest upon his shield, to remark that she had known him to be a hero amongst his people - and a hated enemy to the Sovelli. Yet none of that occured this time.

Carmelita slowly raised her eyes to him and as the sunlight streaked across her raised countenance it revealed trembling, weeping flesh underscored by livid, crimson veins. A weak smile erupted into a hungry grin anointed with serrated teeth.

Malaroth's heart ran cold and ice collected in his veins. Beyond Carmelita, who began to climb to her feet, a host of beshadowed figures were approaching the doorway. In the darkness he caught glimpses of wings and talons, teeth and horns; their bearers all regarding him with eyes illuminated by a perverse, inner fire. It was a fire that, he presumed, he would soon be fed to.

"No," he whispered as he began to slowly backpedal from Carmelita. "This.. this isn't what happened. We went into the temple, through the catacombs beneath it. We met Merremith, the Witch-King reborn...." His tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth as he glanced behind him over the ragged, sloped terrain. This new devilish host was unencumbered by armor such as his - he could not hope to outrun them.

As the beshadowed host began to emerge into the fading sunlight, and Malaroth planted his feet, he saw that the darkness came with them. It protected them from the sun as a great black banner that heralded their hungry and other unearthly appetites to the tune of his own heart as it began to thunder rapidly in his chest.

"This isn't what happened," he protested again through grit teeth. He swallowed his next words as the horde charged at him - flailing away with warped, distorted limbs that soon dissolved back into the shadowy nimbus that surrounded them. He felt their blows rain against his shield and shudder upon his armor while he lashed out, blindly, with his naked blade. One claw lashed over his unguarded side, and a broad, torn wing slammed against the side of his face.

Reeling, Malaroth staggered back while they began to swarm around him. A third blow brought him to his knees as he felt something in his own flesh rupture and crack. Every breath became highlighted in agony as he noted a single figure emerge from the others.

The figure loomed tall, easily over six feet, clad in ancient, burned and blackened armor decorated with a sword crossed at the hilt by two weeping, dying roses nearly obscured by countless gouges and scars. A long-bladed sword hung at the new arrival's side while a grey scarf coiled about the lower half of its countenance and a hood cast the whole of it into shadow. From those shadows, however, burned a pair of livid crimson eyes.

Malaroth's gaze darted over the scarf again. Slowly, he released his shield and as it crashed to the ground he trailed the empty fingertips over his belt and felt the scarf he felt compelled to carry at his side since the siege of Sidgar.

"This isn't how it happened..." he whispered in denial as the dark figure raised a gloved fist and banished Malaroth into a vista of dark mist.

[Malaroth]

***

Malaroth stirred in his slumber. He heard the wind. As the dream faded he breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that his memory had not changed nor sought to devour him. Carmelita had been real, as had Merrin and himself.

A sudden stiffness seized his joints. With every heartbeat, and every moment of dawning wakefulness, he felt the pain throbbing in his body. He struggled to stand or roll over but found his legs refused to move. His arms followed suit. Finally, with fear joining the thrumming pain that coursed throughout his frame, Malaroth opened his eyes.

He had been bound, head and foot, to a bare tree. It bore no leaves to clothe its prisoner and bore the deep crags and ragged scars of tremendous age. As he stared in disbelief, his heart struggled and railed in his chest, and the bark tore along the length of his back.

“What is this?â€