Orange light flickered to life in the helm of the scalemale, the death knight pushing itself off the dragon's ribs to stride forward.
Shon never looked away from the death knight. Not when the doors slammed shut and not when the platoon of skeletons began to stir. Ryuuko sent him all of it, its vision overlapping his own as Shon watched the death knight lift a naked scimitar to point at them. At him.
Between them, an army of history rose on clattering bones. Each set of armor a different example in style through time. The past adventurers who had discovered the cave. The newest wore robes...
"Oi, Tris, I found the Warlocks," Oswall said, lifting his heavy crossbow to his shoulder.
"The door won't open," Ebonwing called, calmer now than before they'd been trapped, her voice becoming a growl as she transformed into a massive grizzly.
"Form up." Tristen barked, falling in beside Shon, his one handed mace expanding into a two handed cudgel.
Alena brandished her shield on Tristen's other side, starting a whispered spell as Ebonwing took the spot beside Shon. Ranito stayed behind them, reminding them, "Disable it. Preferably by dismemberment..." before he too began to chant a spell, rolling a familiar foul smelling ball between his fingers.
Alena finished her prayer first, lighting the room like a spring dawn, revealing the small army of skeletons between them and the death knight.
"How dare you..." the death knight whispered, the sound coming from all around them. It didn't move, didn't pray or chant, and yet it still countered Alena's spell, once again washing them in gloom lit only by Oswall's fallen lantern. "You dare come here? You dare come now?"
Ryuuko hissed from Shon's shoulder, leaning forward as if it actually meant to launch itself at the walking personification of death. It was enough to make Shon grab hold of the pseudodragon's tail, ordering it with all his might to stay with Ranito. In a fight like this, it would only be a distraction and danger to him. The little dragon hissed again, even biting Shon's fingers. But he held firm, and when Ryuuko managed to wiggle its way free, it leapt for the Archmage rather than the undead.
"Allow me Miss Alena," Ranito droned, his voice flat with his focus as he held the little ball of guano and sulfur out to Oswall.
Oswall took the spell components with a grimace, squishing it around the head of his crossbow bolt.
"We need to get through the undead..." Ranito instructed him, but then added with a smirk, "I doubt your weapon will have much of an affect on the Death Knight itself."
"Oh yeah?" Oswall asked, taking aim as the skeletons clamored closer, "We'll see about that." But when he fired he followed the Archmage's instructions, aiming for the center of the horde.
The bolt lodged itself into the cracked leather armor of one poor monster, then exploded as a wash of light and fire filled the room. Shon and Tristen shielded their eyes with their weapons, while Alena lifted her shield, bone chips and rusted metal raining down around them.
Ebonwing roared, rushing into the opening created by the fireball and swiping one great paw across the front line of skeletons already trying to close the gap. As one, Tristen and Alena lifted their respective holy symbols, stepping forward to banish the undead with their holy light. The first few crumpled, but the rest surgered forward.
A second crossbow bolt followed the first, this one lodging itself squarely in the death knight's eye.
It's head snapped back, then fell forward as words flowed from the shadows now dancing in the flickering light of dozens of little fires, "Why here... Why now... Why... Why YOU!"
Bone and metal rattled with the force of the death knight's bellow and a chill unrelated to the cold washed over the team, rooting Shon in place and making Ryuuko squawk.
Then Tristen gave the order Shon had been waiting his entire life for, "Master Sergeant, take the knight. Keep it distracted while we deal with the horde."
Shon sprinted, rolling over Ebonwing's furry muscled back and through the quickly closing gap to the otherside of room, and the true threat. His world focused to only his opponent as the Death Knight lifted its scimitar, not bothering to remove the bolt from its eye. It didn't seem to need it to see anyway, perrying Shon's sword from that direction with ease.
Steel rang against steal as the former knight countered in a fury, it's voice radiating from the helmet towards Shon alone, "He teaches love..." Shon ducked below a swing that twisted at the last moment, the curved tip of the sword cutting shallowly into his shoulder and burning like venom, "yet damn's me for trying to keep it."
The death knight moved with far too much grace in the heavy armor, the scales sliding along each other to give a freedom of movement nearly as broad as Shon's. "He teaches forgiveness..." Shon managed to get in a cut to knights armpit, slicing up and nearly taking the arm only to have his sword catch in the armor as the knight took the hit and pinned the weapon, "yet he never forgave me... Even after..."
Shon let go of his sword to deflect the scimitar's counter, smacking the blade up and away from his neck as the death knight swung with the arm that should've been injured. Taking his sword in his right hand, Shon attempted to slice up again, only for the death knight to let go of the blade and jump back, dark clotted blood spilling down its side. It's dead voice continued in a whisper only Shon could hear over the clamor of battle from behind, "I only wanted her to live..." it finished in another shout that nearly had Shon dropping his sword to hold his ears, "by any means necessary!"
The death knight came in with a vengeance, Shon barely managing to counter each swing. It twisted and turned, as if in a dance, taking advantage of the curve of its sword to twist and slice at Shon from every angle. It managed to push him back a step, continuing with each clang of their weapons, "Even when I realized... love isn't real... it never was..."
Shon growled, dipping and dodging, spinning and countering. This was by no means the only time he'd faced someone who fought like a dancer, his muscle memory taking over as his focus continued to narrow onto the death knight, and its words.
He heard himself answer, though felt no control over his voice, "Love is everything." falling back one more step, the death knight over extended itself and Shon sliced into its exposed elbow, once again nearly taking the arm. Nearly.
Black blood slid down his sword, and the knight dropped its weapon only to catch it with its other hand, slicing into Shon's side. Shon barely managed to catch the knights wrist, keeping the scimitar from cutting him in half. The blade burned and fresh blood soaked his pants as the death knight snarled, "Love is an illusion!"
Shon managed to disengage, but the knight was after him again in a flash, "Even when I ended it... ended her... he continued to torment." Was it toying with him? Shon struggled, gripping his side, but it continued to talk, to vent its torment to him with each attack, "You cannot see love, cannot hear it, or smell it. It's feeling is an illusion, dead with the rotting corps."
Shon backpettled, trying to focus past the burning pain, until he hit the dragon's exposed rib cage. The others had worked their way through the skeletons, and would be coming to assist soon, but Shon could barely register it, taking his sword in both hands and dashing around the monster, slicing across its neck as he went. Not deep enough.
More black blood slowly oozed down the unphased death knights front as it stalked him back towards the center of the room, towards his companions. "Even when I corrected my mistake, he didn't forgive me..."
Shon backed up to the others as the death knight rushed him again. Behind him, Tristen disengaged to spin around Shon, slamming his cudgel into the death knight with a holy smite that nearly knocked it to the ground. On his other side, Alena was praying, resting her hand over his wound. Except it didn't close. It burned like cursed fire and Shon pulled away, swinging for the knight again and taking it once more in the neck. But his strength was failing...
The knight roared, ignoring the hit to swing at Alena. Black fire exploded from where it hit her shoulder and she screamed, dropping her weapon and falling to her knees as the death knight lifted the scimitar above its head.
Shon stepped between them, knowing it would be the end.
Too many things happened at once. A crossbow bolt -shot from between the dragon's ribs- took the monster in the attacking arm, and a bolt of lightning slammed into its chest in a blinding flash that continued to arch across its body as it still swung. Shon couldn't dodge without it hitting Alena, so he kicked its the knee out. It stumbled back, but still the blade sliced down Shon's brow, the headwound washing blood over his face.
He could barely see past the red, blinking the blood away as he roared, slicing deeper into the monsters neck until he hit the bone of its spine and stuck. And he knew... somehow, deep in his aching bones, Shon knew that the knight, the man, had made a terrible terrible mistake, had cursed himself at the end of an era. An era in which his god had died, unable to forgive him once he'd corrected himself.
He should have been redeemed... Shon gasped past the pain of his burning wounds, reaching out to grab the knight by its helm, he pulled it closer, cut it deeper, saying again, "Love is everything..." The knight had loved, loved and lost, and destroyed himself to try and save it, try and get it back, "life is fleeting..."
The death knight laughed, and Shon took its head.
The body fell to its knees, its arms twitching and spine still holding it upright. Just as it didn't need its eye to function, it didn't need its head either. Inside the helm it laughed again, quiet and sad. Behind him, the others were swarming around Alena, struggling to heal her cursed wound as Shon slumped to the ground, still holding the helm and laughing head, whispering, "you see it in their smile, hear it in their voice..." he was losing consciousness, and still the body didn't attack.
The head continued to laugh, its rotted blood soaking into Shon's clothes and infecting his wounds. It laughed, and its body fumbled with its neck, producing a necklace on a broken chain. "If only I had died first...Silverborn" it held the necklace aloft, but Shon couldn't make out what it was, could barely see at all as the fires around them began to flicker and die.
Around him, the others were calling for Alena... and for him... to hold on. The necklace swayed like a pendulum, and Shon lifted one weary hand to take it, though he didn't know why. As soon as he touched it, a voice whispered, or perhaps it was only in his mind, 'heal her'
But he couldn't heal... he wasn't a paladin...
"Os, get me that charm. She stored an extra spell..." Tristen's voice as if from far far away...
A holy charm... Shon looked down at the death knight's necklace but couldn't make out the shape from the pool of rot soaking it. Ebonwing was touching him, trying to heal him... it wasn't working, just like the spells Tristen cast weren't working on Alena.
"Damn it, their cursed wounds Tris, I can't... I..." Ebonwing was sobbing, and Shon slumped to the side, towards Alena. He held the death knights charm to her chest, was it moving at all? He didn't know what to do, had never had holy magic... yet he could chanel it. They wouldn't have assumed he could become a Paladin otherwise. Shon forced his energy through the necklace, Alena gasped, her lips turning blue as he prayed through wavering vision.
Hengist... Soleil... please... he could feel it, the warmth locked away in the necklace, and yet nothing happened. Shon cursed, his senses fading before he remembered... The death knight had been sworn to a different god...
Yoryuu... save her, please... The spell burned up his hand and into his heart and Shon pushed, forcing it towards Alena until she took one shuddering breath. The others gasped, and Shon collapsed.
The Death Knights head was all he could see as it rolled away from him, stopping at its own knees to look back at Shon as he struggled to breath but managed to choke out, "Love... love smells... like cinnamon." And he saw no more.
The orange glow in the knights remaining eye faded, and somewhere on the outer planes... a silver light... flickered... and died.
