The effort to remove the creature that had risen up from the abyssal realms from the deep chamber where it had been slain, to cleanse the place of it touch, was long and laborious, hindered by the battering they had taken. With much cursing and grinding exertion they dragged it, pushed it and forced it through chambers were the dead now no longer twitched or moved. The stairs proved hardest of all, and they were soon drenched in sweat from the effort, the touch of it upon their wounds a stinging reminder of what they had been through.

They all but collapsed when at last they rolled its battered remains out from the shrine of Az-Ashar, into the open, their hands coated in the filth of the foetid slime that had dripped from it.

They sat a while there, to recover, every sinew and fibre in their body on fire from the effort.

“We must burn it,” Aedmorn announced after a time.

“We couldn’t do it below?” Ivkarha asked.

“Not safely, no. The stench of its burning would have filled the caverns, the ashes trapped within, and with it the risk it might renew itself, to once more infect the dead. Here, the desert winds would scatter it so that never more would it trouble us.”

“If you say,” Ivkarha responded and once more stood, though her rise was slow. “We have wood, at least, for the task. It pains me to remove any of the trees that once grew here, though long dead they might be, for always we have tried to preserve this place, to leave it as we once found it. Needs must though.”

From the dried out skeletons of trees that lined the ways through the mesa complex, they broke branches, dragging them back to where they had left the body of the beast. Around it they built a pyre, layering branch upon branch until they had built it up high. Small twigs an branches were fed in between the large ones, before Ivkarha took oil stored in the shrine that ha been put aside for lamps and poured it all over they pyre.

With tinder and steel she struck sparks onto the pyre. At first wisps of smoke could be seen coming from it and then the first flames, licking at the oil soaked wood. They grew in strength and intensity, fanned by the winds that blew hot across the top of the mesa, coming from the deserts. High the flames leapt until the pyre was engulfed in them, and thick clouds of black smoke rose into the sky, caught by the win and blown away, scattered across the deserts.

The stench that arose from the flames was terrible beyond compare, causing their eyes to water from the acrid touch of it. They backed away, coughing and covering their noses and mouths, trying to avoid breathing it in, yet so powerful was the reek of it that even at a distance it still reached them, coating all in its terrible miasma.

Long the fires burned, and fierce, as the day drew on and the sun began its descent, casting dark shadows before it that crept across the top of the mesa. They consumed and devoured, and ever was the pungent smoke riding thick and dark into the air as the corpse burned.

As evening approached, the fires burned low, the intensity of their blaze burnt out, leaving behind just glowing coals and ashes. Of the corpse of the beast that had come up from the abyssal realms, naught was left to be seen, for it had been reduced to a scattering of ashes.

They had stayed, watching, the whole time that the fires had burned, unable to leave the place, not until they were certain of the fate of the beast. They had, while they watched, partaken of some water and tend to their wounds, cleansing them and anointing them with balm and honey and fresh bandages, ut at all times did they keep an eye on the pyre engulfed by flames.

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“Thus it has ended,” Aedmorn pronounced when at last the fires had burned low.

Ivkarha shook her head at his words. “No. At least, not for I. You have done my people a favour that I can never repay, but I yet have more to do. This place needs to be purified, all remnants and memories of it purged from the stones. Only then can my people truly have the rest they deserve.”

“You will stay here then?” Aedmorn asked of her.

“I have no choice. Last and Alone am I; there is none other to do what needs doing.”

“Then I will stay a while with you, to aid you in your tasks.”

“There is no need,” she responded. “This is my burden to bear.”

“Who will aid you if not a friend?” he asked. “We have fought hard and bled alongside each other, against a horror that few could conceive. That is a bond not easily broken.”

What she felt of such things, she id not say, and her face, proud and stern, show little evidence either. “I must commune with Az-Ashar,” she announced. “You are free what you choose to do.”

Thus saying, she turned to return to the shrine, her steps weary but with purpose. Aedmorn, not willing to let her go alone, followed after, returning to the dark interior of the shrine.

Ivkarha had fallen to her knees before the statue of Az-Ashar. Her lips were moving but no words issued forth from them as she gazed up at the statue arms spread wide in supplication. Aedmorn did not approach, leaving her alone with her god. As he stood, watching, waiting, he observed a change within the room, one subtle at first, of a pale bronze light that seem to take a hold and grow in gradual strength until it seemed that the chamber was awash with it. A breeze began to blow, and on it was the hint of sand and spice and heat, yet not uncomfortable.

From the statue, the eagle that it held moved, beating it stone wings and a raucous cry came forth from it.

A voice spoke, one deep and overwhelming in nature, filling the shrine, coming forth from everywhere and nowhere all together.

My child, said it, and Aedmorn knew that he beheld the voice of a god, one that spoke as if with whispers, for the full power of its voice could not be unveiled, You have done well, and more than well. Fear not, my children now rest in peace and your task here is one, for I shall see that harm comes not to them again.

Then did Ivkarha prostate herself before statue of the god. “Oh great Az-Ashara, what would thou have with me?”

Go, now, my child. Linger not here, for your purpose lies beyond this place. It is out there, beyond the deserts, where I dwell, but you shall not be alone.

Then silence returned to the shrine, and the light faded.

Ivkarha rose unsteadily to her feet, her face showing shock at the words of her god, and the message he had imparted.

“It is no easy thing to hear the words of a god,” Aedmorn told her, “Nor to be thrust out into the world beyond for reasons that are yet to be revealed.”

She looked long at him, and in his words and expressions read the truth of the matter. “It happened to you as well.”

“Aye, that is so. The Green Goddess bade me wander the world a while, yet revealed not to me the purpose of it. I search still.”

A laugh came to her lips, one of easy mirth. “Then let us search together, for perhaps it is by the will of the gods that we have been brought together, and that we shall discover this purpose together.”

Aedmorn nodded at that. “We are but servants of those that we serve, and can do naught but follow their commands. Let us be away, to discover what destiny awaits us.”

And it was said that in the place of the dead two came together, one who walked with the Green Goddess, who was life, and the other whom was the last Speaker of the Dead, and that their swordsongs would come to shake the Sundered Realms.