Cold bones tore at Durgil’s helm, half-ripping it from his head as his arms were pinned once more – digits scraped at his beard, his nose – his jaw went slack and his stomach convulsed as the skeletons forced their fingers inside his mouth, too afraid even to bite down, fight back in the simplest of ways –
The stench of it all. The taste. Durgil was familiar with all of Mund’s most-debaucherous districts and the alleys of filth that ran behind them. But never – never had he experienced anything like this.
He almost gave up, feeling the tears beginning to well from his eyes at the terror of it all. Even death – even that was no escape. The Judge couldn’t save them from the putrescent dragon’s necromancy – Lord Ghelliot was proof of that…
Sir Timeron’s sword backlit the morass of corpses as it was wielded, just to Durgil’s left, the arc of its passage releasing a nova of pure sunlight.
It wasn’t just an internal struggle. He did understand the pack. He was part of something greater.
It was acceptable to fail. So long as he didn’t let failure kill him. So long as he played his part.
Timeron for chapter-master!
Durgil couldn’t swing his arm, trapped as he was, still choking, descending into the ocean of skeletal warriors – but they hadn’t yet been capable of prising Glaimborn or Dwimmerfoe from his grasp. He couldn’t see his sword and shield, but he knew they were still there, hadn’t been torn from him; perhaps the eldritches were deliberately avoiding the blessed implements?
He rotated his wrist – that much, at least, was left to him – and that was all it took.
A single touch of faith, to ignite evil.
The dwarf felt the wave of satisfaction as the sword sang in response, slicing effortlessly through an unseen swathe of enemies.
You didn’t avoid that.
He experienced little more than a series of brittle snapping sensations reverberating down the length of the blade, as though he were hewing through dry branches.
These foes – they were puny. To be defeated by them would be for shame.
It could not be borne.
Two more flicks of his wrist and he’d slashed through several of the key appendages that belonged to the abominations gripping at his bicep. He swung Glaimborn fully for the first time, and destroyed the things whose fingers were still trying to get acquainted with the inside of his skull. Burning steel passed through their spines, snicking away the spells binding bone to bone in place of ligament, of tendon.
He retched the remnants of their fingers from his throat and, brimming with righteous fury, set about his work.
A timeless void of struggle claimed him. Only to one such as Durgil, tempered in the fire of dozens of Infernal Incursions, could this descent into the lake, this unliving sea of skeletons, resemble something akin to combat. Yet it did. His mind sharpened as the doubts and fears melted, replaced by singular purpose:
Survival.
In the moments that followed, pulling himself to the surface and gulping the dusty air, he couldn’t reconcile his experience with what his eyes told him. To his mind, the battle had been a thing of seconds – perhaps a minute or two at most. But he was now waist-deep in a pit of twitching body-parts, and as he cast about he saw that all had changed.
The necromantic city – gone. The ghastly domes, the eerie houses, the looming walls… everything had melted. The blueworm was farther away, its radiance muted. The cliff up on his right – that would have been where they’d entered the dragon’s lair. The city’s foundation had plummeted at least twenty yards, sending them down into the depths of a shallow basin.
In the aftermath it was the glowing forms of his surviving companions which afforded him scale, perspective. He could see them out there, turning their own eyes upwards in surprise, or, for those still putting down the last of their assailants, thrashing about.
They were spread across the squirming undead lake, and some of them had been carried very far indeed, almost to the back wall of the cavern where the biggest towers had loomed. But golden light bathed every form.
Kultemeren’s blessing could no longer be denied. Those who had survived – sixteen, all told, by Durgil’s count – were chosen.
“Fewer than half of you endure the first trial.” The unseen dragon’s voice was an electric rasp, the echo of his words rattling every morsel of the dead matter in which the paladins swam; the very rocks of the chamber seemed to hum, vibrating in the aftermath of the sound’s passage. “Let us tally the number after the second.”
The deathknights gave no battle-cry, silent in death as they had been in life. He saw them emerging from the darkness, striding effortlessly across the shallow skeletal lake towards his brethren. He cast about, seeing nothing, no one coming for him –
Trust in the Father.
As the sounds of renewed violence spread across the quivering sea, Durgil left his allies to their duels, closing his eyes.
Almighty, Eternal Onlooker, cleanse me of my impurity. Cleanse me that your light might shine the clearer through me. Cleanse me that my brethren might be healed by my prayer. I will not reflect; I will not refract; I will not will. Allow my purification, and I…
I…
Only a clanking sound beneath Durgil’s feet gave him warning, casting a shadow of peril across all his thoughts. The noise, faint at first, grew louder across the course of seconds until the dwarf was filled with an urge to scramble across the quiescent bones, to get away, get safe and secure –
There was no such purchase, no safe sanctuary from which to regenerate the wounds sustained by his brothers, or even to counter the attack of the deathknight which had been assigned to him.
He had to meet his enemy on its terms.
It was coming up at him, from beneath his boots. He knew it.
He had to dive.
The very moment he ceased resistance, letting the god’s certitude flow through his veins, everything changed.
I…
I…
I will break the enemies of Truth, as the rock breaks the wave!
The light pouring from him became a blazing white beacon. He thrust Dwimmerfoe down into the detritus beneath him and suddenly the lake was reanimated once more, arms and whips and other, cruder implements forming from the ivory pebbles.
It was as if the place knew its time had come, and fought him now as the prey contended with the predator, lashing out desperately.
Fragile twigs of bone snagged at him.
You’re cornered. Snivel at your final purification if you will.
He smiled the hawk’s smile beneath his beard, and dusted it all with the shield’s heavenly glow, ton upon ton of undead substance wholly obliterated in every heartbeat that passed. He swung Glaimborn, and the sword was a living, beating sun in his hand, the metal burning and blinding, but not to him – the wind trailing in the wake of its glorious arcs was cool, the white fire causing his eyes no pain but rather letting him see –
His deathknight was there, surging up towards him at a diagonal angle, traversing the weird landscape beneath the bony surface like a fish might water. The broken runes along its blade and upon its armour were glistening like molten lead.
That was Durgil’s last glimpse of Lord Ghelliot.
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Then his deathknight was gone, erased from Materium by a single flood of Celestium’s power. The blackened hauberk, the charred helm, the pallid twin nimbuses of the former chapter-master’s eyes – they winked away, not just torn apart but altogether removed from existence.
We are stronger, in every way, he thought as he forced his way down. Truth will out. The way becomes clearer with every breath we take.
His boots found the stone, and Durgil grinned the hawk’s grin once more.
This is purchase.
He strode and wheeled about, fearless, watching in bliss as, through him, the God of Truth undid all the necromancer’s work. The light didn’t bathe the dwarf – it was emitted by his mortal flesh, augmented by his unblemished armaments, until he was a sun at the base of the buried hollow, withering away the necrotic rain even as it showered down upon him. Glaimborn’s sunfire was a beam, a ray of pure destruction, and he raked it back and forth, watching as other forms, glowing of their own accord, came hurtling through.
Knight after knight, one by one, his brothers found their way to his side – and each that joined him on the solid ground only added to the incandescence. He nodded to them in turn, and only a few of them retained the detachment to return the casual gesture; most simply stared at him in obvious wonder.
Marvel at the glory of the Lord, my brothers. Marvel… and grieve…
Twelve, he counted grimly, as it became obvious no others would arrive. So many young men, so many initiates whose lives have been lost.
But not in vain.
With a fitful clatter, the last remains of the dracolich’s host evaporated. The radiance reached up the jagged walls of the wide bowl in which they were gathered, snagging a final pair of deathknights in its swell as they attempted to leap back into the safety of the higher caves.
There was no escape, fingers of light reaching out for them, bursting them into motes of pallor against the stone, like white dapples from an artist’s brush.
The blueworm was almost another ten yards farther away, shimmering at a great remove, now that they’d sunk into the bottom of the chasm. Kultmeremen’s light stretched far, but fell short of illuminating those highest reaches, where shadowy curtains still rippled, hiding their enemy.
“Good,” came the dragon’s voice, its steel texture filling Durgil’s mouth, making his teeth ache. “You waste your greatest ammunition on the cattle, and its like will never be seen again on this earth.” Even as the dragon spoke, the divine radiance wavered, as though Durgil’s body were an eye that suddenly blinked, a candle guttering in a cold breeze. “But no, Durgil, son of Vondana. Arithmetic was never your strong suit. Twelve others, yes; but you make the thirteenth. A favourable omen, to my eye.”
The downward rush of its descent set the air itself screaming, wind whistling through the painful-looking tears in its wings.
We slew thousands of your minions, Durgil said to it silently, staring as its horrendous plummet suddenly became a graceful drop, the wings drawn in, talons poised to settle its great weight gently to the stone. Tens of thousands. You tally the losses. You won’t be getting those back from the shadowland any time soon.
He tightened his grip about Dwimmerfoe’s strap, feeling the flesh of his fingers pressing through the leather of his gauntlets, biting into the metal.
Then the immense, rotten dracolich was there, squatting before them in the basin, its scaly hindquarters and tail coiled about the rim of the depression.
Aside from the ceaseless scintillating of its yawning eyeballs, like purple wells spiralling into an infinite abyss, the creature had stilled to the likeness of a marble carving. Its serpentine lips were closed, its head cocked somewhat, akin to a cat pausing for a moment in curious examination –
Before pouncing upon the paralysed family of mice that had been the object of its attention.
We exist upon just a thread. Yet we shall dance upon its length regardless, back and forth, dangling over the killing-ground – and take this foul beast with us when we fall.
Glaimborn propelled itself, forward and back; and with the reverse lunge, the sword’s pommel smashed into the face of Dwimmerfoe.
Cloooooooooooooooong!
The eruption of sound and light was like the birth of the universe.
The dracolich shrieked, and Durgil knew – he knew – that this was the truth. This was their enemy, not an illusion.
And here their enemy would perish.
* * *
The first assault went well.
Durgil strode forward, and each stride ate away treble the normal distance; he felt himself propelled once more by Kultemeren’s will, thrust out in defence of all mortalkind as he now thrust out Dwimmerfoe before him. Several of his cohort gathered behind him, close on his heels – he didn’t need to look back to ascertain their presence, didn’t need to hear them to know they were there. Lord Shebril and some of the others fanned out, forming a rough semi-circle so as to reduce the risk of a single attack eradicating them all at once; they effortlessly took on the role of healers as they had been trained, already silently praying to Kultemeren for success and salvation. Even as he sped towards the monstrosity, Durgil felt the soothing balm of their unheard words, clearer than the clarion call of any trumpet.
His knee had never felt stronger as he leapt.
The undead dragon’s howl of pain had become a snarl, the rolls of its vast lips drawn back in a kind of wince, exposing an army of filthy teeth. Its pulsing eyes were fixed on the dwarf as this time he hurtled not towards an illusion but straight into its true, all-too-vulnerable face.
He cast his judgement into the maw of the beast, a lash of pure golden energy which blinded even him, his weapon seemingly quadrupled or more in length. The dracolich recoiled, bringing up a claw to savagely swipe him out of the air.
Dwimmerfoe broke the dragon’s talons as it reached for him, huge chunks of bone shearing away, edged in golden light. But the sheer strength of the creature, the ferocity of its attack, left little to be desired. Durgil was cast aside, sent flying off amidst the shards of claw, cartwheeling as he fell.
He collided full-force with the stony floor, hip and elbow striking the rock, sending a sickening crunch reverberating through his body – but even then the holy vigour filled him, healing him on the inside. It was as though nothing had happened to him. Durgil sprang back to his feet, watching two of his brothers take the lead, slashing at their enemy with their own radiant weapons. The dwarf nodded in gratitude towards the nearby Lord Shebril, whose eyes and prayers were on him, then leapt to rejoin the fray.
Their foe was sparring the knights, clumsily batting them away, and Durgil could see the way the gigantic swirling eyes appeared unfocussed, rolling now and then in the folds of their vast, putrefied sockets.
Cloooooooooooooooong!
He clanged Glaimborn’s pommel against the face of Dwimmerfoe once more, even as he barrelled back into range of the titanic paws of the monster. The dragon screamed again, twisting, bringing its tail down at Durgil’s head in a fluid motion that would crush him beneath tens of tons of undead flesh.
No.
He braced, clenching his jaw and buttocks along with every long-trained muscle in his arms and chest, his legs, his back… He raised Dwimmerfoe over his head with his shield-hand, then reinforced it with the fist clutching Glaimborn, preparing to meet the overbearing attack.
The instant the dragon’s translucent scales touched the shield’s surface, they smoked, and sloughed away.
The effect was similar to pressing a stick of ice down on a red-hot coin. The dracolich’s tail simply separated, the twenty-yard tip released from its long service, tumbling down the incline near the edge of the bowl and coming to a stop near two of the healers, like the dead half of a giant worm.
If it had been screaming before, now it entered the lamentatious wailing of one who has sustained a mortal injury – and knows it. There wasn’t just pain in the monster’s shrieks. There was fear.
More talons rained down on Durgil’s head, and he bore the blows, aware that his brothers were moving in on the creature’s flanks, wounding it yet further even as it sought to kill itself, smashing its own limbs to tenebrous webs of rot on the holy shield. After a few seconds the awful pummelling on his shield started to slow, and he dared to move his sword-arm, pointing Glaimborn along the rim of Dwimmerfoe, adding the blade’s sting to the various factors which would contribute to the dracolich’s demise.
How much longer the battle lasted, he would not afterwards have the wherewithal to calculate. At last the dracolich tried to flee, shaking its wings as though it had palsy, and Sir Lyret was crushed beyond all healing, beyond recognition, as he fought to slow it, further damage its already-tattered appendages. Sir Fosterweyn was too hesitant to dart aside at one point, and was eaten; Durgil saw the knight’s arms and armour searing away at the monster’s gums, even as it noisily crunched through the steel with its jagged, rune-scrawled teeth, spattering the man’s blood and innards across the roof of its mouth.
Again and again, the dwarf champion drew its attention back to him using Glaimborn and Dwimmerfoe. Again and again, Lord Shebril’s faith knitted his wounds together. By the grace of the Judge, Durgil was able to block the worst of the blows that avalanched down upon him.
And, bit by painstaking bit, the dracolich came undone.
Finally it lay there, sprawled in their midst and smouldering from hundreds of sword-blows. Durgil stood near to its head, leaning on Glaimborn and breathing heavily, assessing its condition. By the sounds coming from the other side, some of his fellows were still laying into it, the hissing thunks of blessed blades unmissable in the silence. Yet the dracolich no longer stirred, no longer reacted to their attacks. The eyes were closed, ruined by sharp metal as much as divine fire, each of them popped and gushing a vile-smelling purple mucus. Its various layers still quivered from time to time, but overall it looked somehow to be deflating, the scant remaining musculature seeming to turn into the same noxious mist which had greeted them upon their arrival, outside the cave.
Outside the cave. Before this ordeal began. It came back to him, heavier than a dragon’s tail – the gravity of just what had happened here. The magnitude of the change these last hours would make. They would rebuild the chapter with fresh recruits if they had to, but there would likely be a flood of volunteers from the other chapters, willing to transfer over, bolster their numbers and share in the glory, once the victory of the Whisper’s Predicate was known. The bards would sing of it. The Chroniclers of Chraunator would enshrine the knights’ names in everlasting ink upon the pages of their eternal tomes. Lord Durgil’s acts of heroism would outlast the bones of his brother’s grandchildren.
No matter how much he lost, before he died, he would always remember this.
He knew what he had to do.
Smiling grimly, he rebalanced himself, hefted Glaimborn, and approached the dracolich’s long, glistening neck.
Kultemeren power my strike, he prayed. Let me lay it low at a single blow.
He felt the eyes of his brethren on him as he stepped up to do the grisly work required of him. Under their gaze, he brought Glaimborn back over his shoulder – the sword sang, a metallic keening to fill his soul with glory –
He took the final step, and as he brought his boot down in the puddle of slime surrounding the monster’s throat, he hewed at its neck with every ounce of the amplified strength thrumming through him.
* * *