Ishkinil shook out her numbed left arm, seeking to return feeling to it once more. She still held her bone sword at the ready even as she did so, her eyes keeping a wary watch upon the skies for the winged beast lest it return once more. She hoped it did not. There had been a moment, just a moment, when their eyes had met as they faced off against each other and she had seen in the winged ape's eyes an understanding, an acceptance that she was not its true foe. Its true purpose she did not understand, but it did not involve her and she had seen that realisation in it's eyes. It had suffered enough already without her adding to its miseries.
Turning her thoughts from it, for it did not do to dwell upon the unknown when other, more immediate dangers still lurked, she continued her cautious advance across the plaza, flexing her hand as it regained is strength. Nearer she drew to what had been the seat of the Everqueen's power, the imposing White Citadel that reared up high upon the sheer sided rocky outcrop at the heart of the city. Broad steps had been carved into the base of the rock, climbing up to the gates of the Citadel. There, at the foot of the steps, a gibbet had been erected, rusty now, still dangling from a wooden scaffold. A desiccated corpse hung in it, skin leathered by wind and heat. Its chest had been cut open and a crown still rested on its brow. It was not one of gold and jewels though, rather that of nails that had been hammered into the skull. A few strands of what had once been lustrous black hair remained and the robes that it wore, once rich and elaborate, were torn and stain dark with dried blood. Her mouth was thrown open in a frozen, eternal scream, the one that she had given as the Summer Lord had plunged his sacrificial dagger into her chest, to cut free her still beating heart, to eat it before her fading eyes.
Here hung all that remained of Nakhurena, once Everqueen of Iskor Yar, both feared and adored by her subject. Feared more was the wrath of the Summer Lord who had thrown her down into ruin, so that none would dare remove her from her rusted cage, and so she hung still, a warning to all who opposed the might of the one who had slain her.
Ishkinil stood at the base of the gibbet, staring up at what had once been the mortal form of an all powerful sorceress, one by whose dark powers she had ruled the city, and had kept Enkurgil's embrace at bay for far too long, a life unnatural extended at the expense of others.
“All shall know his embrace, in time,” she said to the corpse of Nakhurena. “Even you, who defied him to his very face, know that now. He shall not be denied that which is his by rights of all laws and nature.”
Yet the Everqueen had been just one of many, far too many, who had taken to the dark arts to defy death, and n so doing they had ravaged the land and upended the balance of nature in their quest for immortality, a gift that man was not meant to possess. Dark as the Everqueen had been, grasping and ambitious, cruel beyond understanding and a stain upon the land and on nature, she had succumbed to her fate, just as all others had done and would, and Ishkinil bore towards her no hate. Nor did she feel pity for one of monstrous reputation, yet she did not approve of the display of the dead in such a manner.
She feared not the Summer Lord as others did, his wrath nothing to her. Taking up Dirgesinger, she struck at the chains that held the gibbet aloft. The white bone blade bit deep and true and the rusted strands of chains shattered under the mystic touch of the sword, sending the gibbet crashing to the ground, to shatter and break apart and spill the corpse free. The sound of its crash send echoes reverberating around the silent city. Ishkinil stood there, listening and watching, for fear that the sound may have aroused trouble, yet nothing came of it. The reputation of the place was such that none dare approach any more.
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Sheathing Dirgesinger at her side, Ishkinil took up the corpse of the Everqueen from the wreckage of the gibbet, little weight remaining to the desiccated body. She carried the body across to where once there had been a garden n the plaza, one that had been watered by the toil and blood of many slaves, the soil now dry and the planets withered and dead, the trees barren skeletons of what they had once been.
There she lay down the body, upon the barren soil, and over it she placed branches that had fallen from the trees, covering the body. When at last she was done, once more she drew forth Dirgesinger, the blade humming at its release. She rested Dirgesinger upon the pile and from it ran white-blue flames, setting the dried wood alight.
As the flames took and leapt, she stepped back. A low, soft song came from her, a dirge for the fallen, offering the body up to Enkurgil's care. Thus at last was Nakhurena laid to rest as was meant to be, to be taken fully into Enkurgil's embrace. Her fate beyond death was not for her to judge; her only purpose was to deliver the body up as was right and proper. Nakhurena's dark deeds would follow her into the afterlife, to be judge upon her merits by those whose task it was to do so.
Even as Ishkinil sung, she heard another noise in the city, where before there had been none. The whispered beat of wings and the sound of something landing came to her. She turned to where it had come from, Dirgesinger raised, yet the song she sung paused not. The winged-ape that she had faced off against had returned. It stood there, resting upon its four limbs, knuckled upon the ground, watching her. It made no move to attack, head turning from side to side. And then it began to make a noise deep in its throat and chest, like unto a hum, one that echoed the dirge that Ishkinil sung. She did not know if it was merely copying her, or accompanying her, only that it was there, participating.
The dirge carried on, woman and beast together, until the last final notes came to an end. The winged-ape raised itself up to its full height once more and made a soft crooning noise before once more taking to flight, leaving behind Ishkinil with the body of the Everqueen as it burned.
Ishkinil had not expected such a reaction, for the marking of the passing of the dead was not in the nature of mere beasts to perform, once more giving her the impression that behind that bestial visage was an intellect more akin to that of a man than a beast. It may have been that it had some connection to the Everqueen, and was mourning her passing , or it may have been that it was merely imitating her in some manner for its own purposes.
Leaving the corpse behind to burn, to return to ashes as the rites decreed, Ishkinil headed once more for the White Citadel. There had been sorceries bound upon the corpse, ones she could smell, ones that had bound her to the place, yet also others that lingered still from the time that she had still lived. Always such sorceries were corrupting, fuelled, as they were, by pain and death and suffering, by the miseries of others. Enough to twist the lands to bring unnatural death in its wake. She had purged that now, lanced the festering boil, at least for a part. More still remained, she could sense, lurking yet, a scabrous wound upon the fabric of the city. The city could not truly heal until it was gone. In the cities over which the tyrant sorcerers reigned was ever the stench of the black arts and there was the blight ever the strongest. Yet power it gave, seductive in its purposes and desires. Ever where there those who were drawn to it, and always was the need the oppose them who would bring run above the world for their selfish desires.
The steps of the White Citadel rose to meet her, of gleaming white marble that shone in the moonlight, climbing ever higher, and these she ascended, climbing aloft to the entrance of the looming building. Like the gates of the city itself, those of the citadel had been shattered, once bound by sorceries to protect them, but these had been overcome by the Summer Lord and had been blasted asunder by his might. Little remained of them but a few scattered fragments of bronze and timber. The walls around the gate were scorched black from the power hat had shattered them. No light came from within the cavernous opening, nor sound, only a long still and emptiness. From her possessions, Ishkinil took a torch, and a flint and steel. Striking them together to bring forth sparks, she set the torch to burning, and with it she plunged into the dark of what once had been the seat of power of Iskor Yar.