13th Day of Glade, 340th Year of the Age of Sundering
Raising his arm, Masagh had just enough time to close his eyes before smashing through the window. A kitchen flew by and then his hip and elbow impacted another door frame, hard. He spun twice and slammed sideways into something else. Then Sabrione’s armored form impacted near him. Then the rest of the plaster and clay wall and glass window that had erupted with them rained down on the pair of them.
Masagh could only roll over onto his chest and close his eyes. He was sure it was the end for the pair of them. Debris rained downfall around. He felt the sharp pang of something pierce his leg at the back of his thigh.
Then the debris stopped falling. Dust was thick in the air when he opened his eyes. Pushing the torn apart back of a chair off his head, Masagh was able to see the piled remains of the partially collapsed house. He and Sabrione were in the basement apparently, and about half the east facing wall had been blown inward. The remnants of a collapsed second story floor hung down.
He pulled what turned out to be the central support of a window frame out of the back of his leg as Sabrione pushed herself to her feet.
A loud cracking and a low rumble told them it was time to leave.
“Cynfael!” Sabrione called. There was no answer.
The upper corner of the mansion seemed to be teetering inward. “Sabrione, we have to move!” Masagh rasped, pointing up at the crumbling architecture. She grunted and turned to run further into the basement of the house, away from the explosion site. Masagh followed as part of the second story finally crumbled inward. A deafening crash signaled the stairway they had fallen down being crushed.
The ceiling shook and dust streamed down on them both as they ran. Masagh followed as Sabrione shouldered clutter out of the way. Around the corner more of the basement had been collapsed. A small door sat deep on one wall and the rest of the room was an incline of brick and debris. A pair of beautifully youthful Vampyres were stepped down the rubble.
“Masagh, the door.” Sabrione said, lifting her blade.
He raised his own.
“The door!” She repeated, her voice angry. “Find another way to Cynfael.”
The Vampyres were smirking now, confident in their quarry. The sun was coming and they had caught their enemies. Masagh turned and left them to Sabrione alone. What could he do, but obey? Fresh and inexperienced, the youngest Creth could do only what he was told. Dropping his shoulder into the storm door, Masagh heard the first rasps of steel as Sabrione clashed with them.
He didn’t look back.
The storm door crashed open under his weight and Masagh stumbled into the dark hallway beyond. It lead towards the greenhouse where Masagh could hear the sounds of fighting. Cynfael must be fighting there brunt of their cell by himself. Unfortunately the end of the hallway was a crumbled mound of rubble. Upon closer inspection, the mound was unnavigable. Masagh cursed and spun around.
“Too high to climb, corpse-eater?” A woman in dark chainmail asked, her pale nymph-like face twisting in a vicious smirk. She held a naked blade in one hand.
A Vampyre. She was one of the three that had come down into the basement, and must have slipped past Sabrione. Now she stood before him, trapping him.
Then swords sprung up and came together with violent intent. She was so fast, it was all the undead knight could do to keep her edge from his flesh. His claymore jarred against his palm with the viciousness of her strikes. Lunge, strike, strike, feint.
He stumbled at the last and she swooped in. An overhead strike was just eager and sloppy enough for him to bring his blade up and block it. His gut wrenched as he heard Weaponmaster Cynfael yell from across the rubble.
They would each die alone this morning. The pair stumbled back against the wall as they struggled with their entangled blades. The Vampyre spun her blade to catch his hilt and disarm him. Masagh knew that would be a quick and brutal end to him if he lost the claymore, instead he continued the motion and stepped into her. Using his shoulder to push her back he was able to disengage.
Swords met in another vicious flurry as the panic rose in him. Both his allies were fighting against at least two to one odds and here he was, struggling to fight a single enemy. His sister’s charge to find another way to the greenhouse where Cynfael was trapped raced around his head. The Weaponmaster was good, but could he face however many Vampyres remained in the greenhouse after the explosion? Could Masagh’s inexperienced presence help?
A step forward and a twist of his sword sent her blade slamming into the wall. Her steel broke the plaster of the hallways and sunk into the wood and stone beneath.
Masagh did not wait for a better opportunity. While her weapon was stuck he lunged at her with a thrust. With a snarl she dodged to the side. While he found no flesh with his strike, Masagh did find his way unblocked. Stepped with the strike, Masagh broke into a run as she cursed him for cowardice.
He heard the eldritch muttering of a spell and felt a Vitalitasi incantation impact his back to no avail. He was blessed with the long death and their magic did not work on one such as he. Turning a corner in the narrow basement corridor he found a winding staircase. Without a backwards glance he began to ascend with as much speed as he could manage in his leather armor and claymore.
Damn I hope this alchemist’s book is worth it… He thought bitterly.
Cynfael had received intelligence that a master alchemist living in the mansion had obtained some ancient book of hidden recipes. He, Sabrione, and Masagh had followed the sewers to the mansion and attempted infiltration. They had been met with a kill squad of Kinvaren Vampyres.
The staircase lead into a familiar hall that he knew to be adjacent to the greenhouse. There was no door and the only windows were too high and laced with brass bars. He didn’t have time to figure out how to get through it. The Vampyre was probably right behind him.
Instead Masagh sprinted across the hall, knocking chairs and braziers out of his way as he did so. He kicked a door in and found himself in some sort of laboratory. Beakers and vials sat on shelves and a pair of huge cauldrons squatted in the center of the room. Along the adjacent edge to the door he walked through was a series of high windows.
“The grave made me, and the grave will take me.” Masagh heard the voice of his Weaponmaster coming through the ajar door in the center of the wall. Footsteps heralded pursuit behind him. In the moment Masagh slunk back against the wall and raised his blade. Hardening his nerve, he waited as the footsteps grew louder.
She came through the doorway like a blur, already turning to move towards the greenhouse which she knew he sought. A snarl of victory escaped his lips as he brought the claymore down on her. Her body crashed forward into a table covered in neatly organized ingredients. Her head rolled along the flat granite stone of the floor towards the door. It came to rest face down with her long silky hair covering the face.
The room grew still again, his gaze a hostage of the grisly head. He had done it, he had bested one of the Kinvaren. The sense of victory had lasted no more than the moment it took to swing the sword. Now he faced a courtyard full of them, or cowardice.
The claymore was heavy in the hand as the undead pulled the door further open.
He still stood. His sword still swerved through the air. The Weaponmaster of House Creth stood against four warriors of the Kinvaren Coven, with another three dead on the ground. The white hand of Creth upon his tabard was splattered with Vitalitasi blood. The alchemist, or what was left of him, was a bloody mess on the other side of the greenhouse. His pale fist still clutched one of the clay balls he had been attempting to defend himself with. The same clay balls that had brought down half his mansion and sent Sabrione and Masagh flying through the rubble.
Beneath it all, the precious plants and fungi the alchemist had been cultivating lay trampled and broken underfoot. The foggy glass of the greenhouse roof was splintered and shattered. White beams of sunlight cut across the battlefield between Masagh and the fight.
Cynfael stood in a patch of shade surrounded on all sides by Vitalitasi and that deadly light.
It was only a few steps in the light. He could make it. Never before had Masagh seen the death of a ghoul by sunlight. Never before had Masagh seen the death of a ghoul. But Cynfael stood alone against many. Too long had he felt alone for him to abide another dying alone.
“Weaponmaster!” Masagh shouted. Everyone in the greenhouse turned towards him.
Cynfael capitalized on the distraction. He had always been the best of them. Where others may accomplish feats that leave one in awe of their skill, Cynfael simply moved with perfection. He never took two steps where one would suffice. He never gave ground unless necessary. Masagh had never seen his like amongst the Knights of Creth in his time growing up watching their drilling, or his small time amongst them. Cynfael was a thing of the old Empire, a killer who had shouldered the conquest of undeath. Implacable and resolute, deadly and graceful, He was a warrior of the ancient kind.
Now his sword shimmered through the air and with it came three more. The blades of Cynfael, weaving through the killing dance. Before the Vitalitasi could turn back round one of their number lost an arm and another was cut in half.
“No! Survive Masagh!” Cynfael roared at him. A Vitalitasi blade struck him in the gut and the Weaponmaster groaned and stumbled back but did not fall.
It was more than he could bear. Masagh ignored the order and took a few steps back. He would dive through the light and whatever was left of him on the other side would die beside his mentor.
‘The grave made me, and the grave will take me.” He muttered, brushing his thin, leathery lips to the naked blade. His last thought before charging forward was a hope that Sabrione at least would find escape.
Step. He closed his eyes.
Step. Someone shouted something he could not make out.
Step.
He was pulled off his feet from behind. He was grappled from behind by strong arms. Masagh struggled to get his sword up before he realized it was Sabrione. “No brother, it won’t take you today.” She gasped. She struggled against him, heaving him back from the light.
“Sabrione, no!”
“We cannot.” She heaved him back another step as the figures in the greenhouse fought on. Cynfael struck with the Reaving blades. He found throat of one and for a moment Masagh was hopeful of his survival.
“Go, take him and go, Sabrione!” Cynfael roared as he clashed blades with the remaining Vampyre. A movement caught the eye, and Masagh turned in horror to see the one armed Vampyre struggling with the alchemist’s corpse.
“Sabrione, the -“
The Vampyre threw the clay ball at the already cracked glass above. His eyes followed it. When it impacted it split and erupted. A ball of fire and glass shattered outward and rained down on those below.
The sunlight shone through. Cynfael blinked in the light and looked up in surprise. Then the remaining Vampyre ran him through the chest. The ghoul stumbled back and his eyes drifted down to where Sabrione and Masagh stood in the doorway. He reached a now empty hand up. It did not make it past his waist before his flesh began to wither off him.
The Weaponmaster of Creth fell to his knees as his body began to deteriorate. His ancient swords fell out of the air to clatter around him. Cynfael had followed Emerande to the continent so many hundred years ago. He had helped her carve out a place in Gel’Grandal for the family. He was amongst a scant handful of ghouls who had been born in the glory of the Undead Empire. Now he turned to dust in some stranger mansion in a city far from his home.
“Come on.” Sabrione breathed in his ear. She pulled at him.
Masagh no longer fought her. He followed her through the mansion as she fled. He followed her back down into the adjacent servant’s housing. He followed her back into the storm drain that lead through the sewers. All the while his mind was fixated on the shocked face of Cynfael as his physical form eroded to dust in the sunlight.
He had always been used to the cadaver appearance of his kin, having grown up with it the norm. But in the sunlight it appeared eerie and unnatural next to the vibrancy of the Vitalitasi. Cynfael had died in a place they did not belong. From it, Masagh had learned a lesson that he would never forget.
Death can come to all.
Cynfael 'Scourgeblade' Gaurath
Weaponmaster of House Creth
Age of Clockwork - 13 Glade, 340 Age of Sundering
