“Run, Ratoul!” Tarnil cried.

With his single blade raised to replace the four lost, he leaped into the fray. Threshing his blade in a frenzied blur, his body spun and wove with celerity and power the other Storm Dancers could not match.

Tarnil's peerless skill was not his only advantage, for his blade was forged from the Blood of the Sands - an exceedingly rare, priceless metal that snaked in scarlet veins within jet-black stone. The Palians believed it owed its origin to the fury of ancient volcanoes. Once erupted from the heart of the world, it slumbered until awoken by Palian smiths. By furnace and hammer its rage was renewed. It augmented the blades of a handful of prized swords, ready to unleash upon Palian foes the remembered violence of its birth.

A shimmer of crimson hues swam along Tarnil's blade with the relentless hail of his strikes. Burning sparks and flecks of black burst from the hide of the creature, wherever his sword struck.

Following his lead, the remaining Storm Dancers redoubled their efforts. With flesh riven by Tarnil's sword guiding their blows, they sliced with precision, deepening the breaches. Their adversary raised its limbs to ward off the barrage. Black ichor dripped from its wounds. It staggered backward. Elated, the men swarmed forward. Its back slammed against the wall. The Storm Dancers closed in from all sides.

The trap was sprung.

The monster raised its face and arms toward the ceiling, and unleashed a noiseless scream. Vile pulses assailed the men. The sinister power wrenched and twisted the stomachs of the Palians. It choked their throats, crushed their lungs, and drained vigor from their limbs.

Defense became attack. The creature returned to the fight. Before, its motion was frenzied.

Now it was explosive.

The air shredded with the force of the creature's charge as it catapulted through the Palians. Another four of the remaining Storm Dancers were annihilated by an avalanche of blows. Torsos spun across the room. Severed limbs rained to the floor. The sweet, metallic stench of death pervaded the air. Warm blood drenched clothes, skin, and walls. It sprayed their faces, and ran in rivulets down stone and flesh, to pool in slick lakes at their feet.

Tarnil hurled himself at the creature to save his remaining men. He twisted away from a pair of swiping arms, ramming his sword firmly into the creature’s torso. The second pair of arms glanced across his shoulder. The might of the creature was unimaginable, lifting him from his feet. Off-balance, he contorted his body in the air, but failed to right himself, landing heavily on his hip. His head cracked against the floor. The room swam, and turned. Blood snaked from his temple. Somehow, he still clutched his sword, his only means of defiance - one he would never relinquish. He tried to shout a warning, but his words lacked power. Only rasping breath hissed from his mouth. He licked his lips. His mouth had become dry. A second attempt brought nothing more than a pitiful gasp.

“Run, Ratoul. Escape to the desert ... ”

With his whispered plea likely unheard, and all but the final vestiges of his energy spent, he surrendered, eyes closed - waiting for oblivion.

It never arrived. A blade arced above him, slicing clean through the creature’s outstretched limbs. A harsh shriek of pain, like the shearing of metal, enveloped Tarnil. He opened his eyes to see the severed sword-arms of his foe falling, twisting in the air, and unraveling into threads of scattering shadow as they fell - disintegrating before they touched the ground.

Tarnil had expected death. Ratoul now stood over him. Tarnil’s jaw locked when he saw the sword clutched in the Sultan's hands, for Ratoul brandished the blade never to be drawn.

By three names it was known - Fate-bringer - The Falchion of the Lost - Cursed Sword of the Palian Sands.

The doom of the Palian royal bloodline, for a thousand years.

The power afforded by the blade was tremendous, but all who tapped it fell to the falchion's cancerous will - the price of the sword’s aid unimaginable.

The creature loomed above Tarnil, but now focused on his master. The severed limbs spouted darkness, like veins gushing blood. Ratoul stepped forward once more. The falchion clenched in his hands leaked a subdued luminescence - a mutable glow trapped within its blade. The radiance did not brighten the metal, instead spiraling in yellowish-green cords, like an infection. The light pulsated, sometimes flaring relatively bright, but otherwise dull, and languid.

Ratoul's wild swings rent both the air and the monster facing him, the Sultan’s zeal a danger to both friend and foe. The four remaining Storm Dancers dropped back, one man barely ducking under Ratoul’s blade. Whenever the Sultan's blows landed, the creature wailed, or snarled. Hunks of flesh fell away, hacked from its body. Vapor exuded from the wounds. The sword danced in Ratoul's darting hands, the blade's deadly pattern hypnotic. He drove their opponent back, away from the fallen Tarnil.

Tarnil struggled to his feet ... then stopped. He stood motionless, wracked with indecision - unwilling to become an unwitting part of his master’s curse.

His lingering hesitation crumbled with the continued example of his men. Around him, the last of the Storm Dancers resumed their suicidal assault, as Ratoul’s momentum ebbed. Even against an enemy well beyond their measure, they fought and died, to win nothing more than a distraction for their master.

Tarnil paled when the last of the Storm Dancers fell, lives sacrificed in an act of bravery he had not shared. As for Ratoul, he still swung his sword in wide circles, beating the creature back, forcing it into a corner where its unearthly speed no longer served an advantage.

Their adversary retreated, subdued, but not beaten, mustering its own glancing blows in retaliation. The Sultan bled from many cuts, his robes stained red. Still he held firm, when all others would have failed.

His wounds were not the only contributors to Ratoul's fading might. A line of blood ran from his nose, dripped from his ears, and wept at the corners of his eyes. Tarnil wanted to turn away, unable to face his friend and master. Wasted time flowed away with his sultan's life. Anger and hopelessness consumed him, engulfing all other emotions.

He made his choice.

In a final charge, Tarnil offered his life - the last of his failing strength - in the desperate hope of saving what little of his lord's remained. His teeth ground together in his clenched jaw. His knuckles blanched white, with his sword crushed in his fists. He swung his blade with both hands, all technique abandoned in favor of sheer fury. His hatred flourished, fueled by a chorus of the creature's cries. Tarnil marked each step forward with a vicious swipe. His scimitar sundered flesh with every merciless blow. He was irresistible, a force of nature defying an opponent impossible to overcome. He barely heard Ratoul's frantic words.

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“Tarnil, no. You must live!”

Tarnil no longer felt his limbs. He could no longer smell the sweetness of blood in the air, nor taste the salt of the sweat dripping across his lips. Although they passed his ears, Ratoul's words never found purchase. All that existed were his sword, and the demon to be destroyed. Tarnil reaved grievous wounds, the number countless - gashes across its chest, chunks cleaved from its shoulder and side, and lacerations raked across its featureless face.

Still it withstood his blows.

Tarnil ventured too close. He found a dozen openings, seeking to exploit every one. His enemy halted its retreat. Tarnil did not heed the warning. The sword of the mightiest Storm Dancer rose high. It burned brighter, coruscating with flaring shades of red. Man and blade both hungered for the monster's destruction.

Tarnil did not read his foe's intent, both of its remaining limbs poised below his stomach. The blade-arms drew back, then drove forward with sufficient speed and force, to tear him in two.

Again, he closed his eyes against a death that never came.

Movement rushed from the edge of his vision. Ratoul warded Tarnil with his life, intervening between him and the blades. Tarnil should have died upon those merciless weapons; instead, they impaled his master.

“Brother!”

On Tarnil's cry, the Sultan raised his cursed falchion high. He thrust the blade forward, driving it through the creature’s face.

A raking scream flooded the chamber. Tarnil finally relinquished his sword to cover his ears, pressing his palms hard into the sides of his head, his skull pounding to the point of rupture. He slumped to his knees screaming with the creature, though his fruitless howling could not diminish the swelling sensation in his mind. He shook his head from side to side, gnashing his teeth against the agony, his hoarse cries tearing his own throat.

Ratoul bore the pain stoically. His face did not contort, nor did his brow furrow. He slumped forward, using the weight of his body to finish what his arms no longer could, forcing his falchion fully through the demon's skull - until the hilt met the creature's flesh.

The shrieking died into a ringing silence.

In the relief of sudden quiet, the pounding in Tarnil’s ears slowly faded. He drew back his hands expecting blood to coat them. To his surprise, only oily lines of sweat stained his skin.

Shadows and blackness began to die around the monster with the Sultan's fatal blow, its formidable presence diminishing with the ebbing of its darkness. The dark nimbus of void that clung to the demon dimmed, like the radiance fading from a dying fire. Joined by the falchion locked in Ratoul's hands, the Sultan and monster fell. They settled in a twisted embrace, the creature already dead - Ratoul's life now measured in brief moments, rather than the long years he so richly deserved.

“No, My Sultan. What have you done? Why did you stay?”

Tarnil's tears fell upon the floor, watering Ratoul's blood. For now, only a supreme act of will kept his master alive. Ratoul prised his sword from the creature’s skull, soundlessly freeing the blade. His other hand stretched back over his shoulder, fingers probing for the scabbard lying against his back. Tarnil determined his intent, offering his hands where his master's struggled to reach. He unclasped the straps which fastened the sheath of Ratoul's falchion, handing it to his lord. With shaking arms, Ratoul slid the falchion home, dropping the sheathed weapon into Tarnil's trembling hands.

“The sword ... Tarnil, take it ... to my son.”

“What have you done, Ratoul? What is Palia without you?”

Tarnil hated that sword with all of his flesh, every drop of his blood, and the very light of his soul. His insides churned and twisted with bitterness. The sultans who had unleashed the weapon had all understood the consequences of their actions, but were incapable of resisting the lure - the blade whispering temptation in moments of silence, promising, and deceiving.

Tarnil shook his head, but Ratoul pressed the hilt harder into his palms. The Sultan's voice had lost its power. Once it had been a voice to sway the hearts and minds of their nomadic kingdom. Now, no longer would his words be heard by the people of Palia, who so dearly loved him.

“You must, my friend. The curse ... our people ... take it to him ... I know you won't fail, I ...”

Ratoul's wounds were terrible - mortal. His once great fortitude could no longer sustain him. In Tarnil's arms he sighed his last breath, the magnitude of his loss afforded silent remorse by the falling tears of his friend and guardian. The sword responsible for his death lay in Tarnil's hands. Though it was forged from hardened steel, he cradled it gingerly. Tarnil feared both holding the falchion, and letting it fall. The curse of the blade tormented him in the new silence, whispers not meant for his ears, a calling with no power over his flesh.

The blade held no madness for him, for he was not born to the line of sultans.

Tarnil gazed around the room at the glowing runes, as though seeing them for the first time. He rubbed his blurred eyes to wipe them clear, to better discern the puzzle. Still it eluded his mind's grasp. He contemplated the shapes, scoured his memories, and tried to fathom their purpose. He yearned to know their pattern and meaning. No language studied by Tarnil of the Palians could unlock the code written on the walls. The blood of a dozen Palians had washed its floor, but still the chamber denied Tarnil its secrets. The price of a sultan's life had been paid, but there was no restitution.

The sound of hissing snapped Tarnil’s eyes back to Ratoul, but the noise came from the demon. The creature began to dissolve, unwinding like a frayed cloth pulled firmly at the edges. Ribbons of black unfurled from its body, dispersing like they were being sucked through a vortex, then draining from the world.

What was it? Why had it been here, and for how long? Whose purpose had it served?

Tarnil slowly rose to his feet, the pain of his friend's death crippling his legs, his joints cracking and aching with echoes of his remorse. Tarnil sheathed his sword - the weapon that had failed him, and his master. Never again would he draw his scimitar. Instead, it would be broken and reforged, its precious metal too valuable to discard. Only rebirthed and made stronger, would it be a weapon capable of safeguarding the Sultan’s son.

He slid his hands under Ratoul as he stood, his grief doubling the Sultan's weight. Tarnil trembled, weakened by a burden equal parts emotional and physical. Ratoul's sword bled the strength from his arms, as though the blade were cast from lead.

Tarnil would honor the promise Ratoul could no longer keep. He would be a father - advise the Sultan's son, and guide him until he came of age. In another fifteen summers the lands would belong to Ratoul’s son. He would become the owner of a vast expanse of empty, thirsty, desert sand. He was yet so young, and Tarnil bore him a terrible burden. No sultan had been withered by old age, while that accursed sword had formed a part of their lives. They had fallen to murder, battle, tragedy, and now this - slain by a demonic force, one conjured from beyond the most horrific Palian nightmares.

Alone, he lacked the strength to return Ratoul to his people. His lord would be denied the rightful ceremony of a royal burial. Instead of a glorious shrine, his master was destined to lie at the place he had fallen. Still, he would not let this vile tomb claim the body of Palia's lord. The Sultan of Palia would lie with the men, who had given their lives in a vain attempt to save his. Tarnil would bury them in the desert above, with shattered Palian swords as their headstones.

His spittle lashed the floor of the chamber - the venom of his blasphemous curse. His anger offered hollow comfort from his sense of overwhelming loss. As he hefted Ratoul's body over his shoulder, he prayed for the walls to fall in on this place. He begged the unforgiving sun to one day consume this chamber - to scour its sins with incinerating fire.

When Tarnil eventually returned to his people, he knew his survival would be an unanswered question. He expected to be named a murderer, and endure petitions for his death. Only the honesty in his eyes might stand between Tarnil and punishment for his perceived crime. Once the sword borne by Ratoul was safely in the hands of the new heir of Palia, they could claim his life - if they still desired it. He would have to decide whether to inform others of the tomb. He faced a difficult choice, for he did not know what portents the chamber and its mysterious runes held.

He wished the cursed sands of their desert had never revealed what was once lost.