A Malstrom of Fire

Chapter One: Sea Of Darkness

I awake screaming, toutching my eye and cursing myself, remembering that day not long ago. Belberith, my right hand, slugs me in the shoulder with his plate gauntlet "Pendragon, are you ill?" One look from my haggard mug perpetuates his immediate silence, for he knows all too well who we hunt, and the rationale behind it "sergeant, are we to keep moving to Eldaron? Shades have been seen in Hauesx and Glaude only a day's march to the east" I shake my head, pointing to four of our men, and then to the eastern fork, my heavy mail jingling incessantly with every motion. Belberith nodds assent immediately "Caron, Luna, east to Hauesx, Jorgen and Elan northeast to Glaude, Break camp, we meet in Eldaron, three days hence" They each nod in turn, approaching me for thier farewell, I take what may be the last look at my men, slapping them each on the shoulder as thier nearly identical plate suits pass me noisily by. A grim smile grows upon my features as I remove my helmet, each of them returning the gesture as I steel myself "Inquisitors, the vassari call you to battle the growing blight upon the world, to call forth your might and your god's will upon those who wish to strike you down, go now, leave none of those undead bastards alive!" My men raise thier blades to the sky and clash them together, the sound echoing through the lifeless waste, dead and dying trees, covered in snow creak as rot consumes them, there are no birds, no creatures of any kind, my troop is the sole breaker of the absolute silence, save the ever present fissures of shadow wafting darkness into the grey, sickly sky above, the dense dry shrubbery about our camp has been cleared away. the shadows whispering malice at our small fire, creeping closer to it as the minutes pass in an attempt to silence it's light. Striding silently to the cart, I drag a man, screaming madness at us as the shade within him writhes, i curse myself again at knowing what i must do. I draw my blade, the inscription upon it's edge reads "for the greater good" my amusement at the irony of such a blade breaks upon my grim exterior, the man stares upon me, his plaintative expression begging me for mercy as his voice simply screams in pain, a crimson crescent stained the otherwise motionless sky, his shadow-laden blood soaking into the parched ground, hungering for his life-blood, annointing each of my men with the skull and crucifix of our order, before taking a heavy stake from the embankment about our tent, i bury it in the ground, impaling the man's body upon it, heaving downward i can hear the sinews i. His body snap as the wooden spike drives further into his corpse, i motion for my troop to gather the unlit kindling from around tge camp, solemnly, without expression they do so, retrieving a torch, i set it alight with the dying embers of our fire, approaching the impaled corpse and setting alight the overly dry brush about his body, each of our men watches as the corpse burns, the inhuman screami g from within it, a shade trapped within his material body, unable to escape the cleansing, ravaging fire. I spot a slight grin upon caron's face as he watches the shade's lamentations into nothing.

After a grim silence waiting, for the ringing scream's seemingly endless echo to fade just as it's creator had, belberith spoke once more "one down, eh Sergeant?" Belberith inqiores, the cutting edge of hope i can hear within his tone sickening me "perhaps, but this battle will never truly be over, those shades kill to create more of thier kind" my lieutenant frowns, shaking off my words visibly "with yourself as the driving force sir, anything is possible.

Believe me... When I say that none of us could have understood the wisdom of his words that day.

An echoing crash fell behind us upon the path, folliwed by a distinctlack of sound, untill that moment, Ravens had been aggravatingly apparent, dogging my men endlessly. The silence stretched on for minutes as our senses strained against the void, the very world hardly daring to breatge as a unholy shriek rang out from the trees. A wave of darkness washing out from them and causing everything the misty tendrils toutch to wither and crumble, focusing on the unearthly glow from within the shadow i let out a guttural roar, hearing only ephemerally the accompanying hiss of leather on steel as my party draws steel, a clatter of wood and metal as the great shields crash to the ground in defensive form, a bastard blade in each hand, i stride to the centere of the wall of steel and oak as it forms, pikes raising from the embankment before the order is scarcely thought of, a shower of clattering metal strikes belberith as I force Luna's diminutive form aside, screaming challenge at the burgeoning darkness, it's wave breaks upon me, and i close my eyes, swinging underhand in mirrorlike perfection, clearing my sides of the blackness as the air ignites in sparks, the blades' magic incinerating the dark maagic of the shades. "Charge!" I hear myself yell as the growl finishes in my throat, i am allready speeding into the bulk of the oncoming wave, as i hear my allies crash against the oncoming storm, everything, as ever is consumed in blackness.

It was as if Telken had been overcome by a daemon, his blows striking with brutal efficiency, cleaving great swaths of the creatures aside, and rending others asunder with his mighty whirling blows, My brother, the daemon of the shadow wars, the Pendragon sent to save the Vassari Imperium? My idle thoughts were torn from my mind as a shade latched it's icy hand onto the pauldron of my armor, we were surrounded in seconds, they tore at luna's armor, stripping entrails and twisted metal from her as she savagely hewed thier billowing skulls apart, hefting half a dozen shadowy bodies upon her spear as she drove it into the earth, defiantly screaming as she fell, my shield let out a crack as itstruck what would have been bone, black ichor spraying across my face, my axe finding the legs of an unfortunate shade, it's severed knees forcing it to crawl as my shield crushed it's skull, the unearthly light fading from it's eyes, a cry sounded from behind me, turning, i spot Jorgen impaled by one of the greater shades, grasping at it's taloned hand as the life spilled from his mouth and eyes, i watched as my brother was torn asunder by the beast, Telken lost within the fray, luna buried beneath the feeding mass of shades, my axe leapt from my hand, carving a path through the shades into the reaper's grim visage, stumbling, it dropped jorgen, charging foreward, i felt the surrounding creatures tearing at my armour, shredding my muscle, as elan buried her spear into the greater shade's back, crushing the oncoming wave of creatures beneath my rushing shield, and greaves, i retrieved luna's pike, burying it within the side of the greater shade, as telken's own broadswords severed it's writhing limbs from it's body in a grim storm of sparks and blood, the crushed bodies of the shades lying behind me struggle to thier feet, as a whirling crash of steel and fire begets them only gaping, oozing wounds, thier broken, gaping forms bubbling sludge and hissing, smoking as they advanced upon us, the sky darkening, growing red, as telken shouted to us "Heads down, cover!" I raised my great shield, gathering our group under it as elan does the same, standing over luna's raggedly breathing body, i hefted her form up, as the burning heat descended upon us, slamming into the ground, our shields, and the shades alike as we hear "Fire!" A femenine voice cutting through the screeching din, as a shade charging me finds itself impaled upon a burning arrow, it's form burning into screaming nothing, a woman advances uon us from the rear, firing arrow after arrow into the horde as telken carves them away from our front, black, burning pitch adhering to our armour, our skin, cauterising our wounds like burning tar, as the hail of arrows rain down, hundreds of shades fall, thier forms burning to nothing and spattering us with shards of bone and blood, i turn my attention to my companions, luna, disemboweled and partially stripped of flesh, whimpering in pain, but breathing, her shredded arm gripping my greaves as tightly as she can mannage, whispering in her agony, inaudible above the din, her pleading expression all too familliar, i nodded, and glanced to Jorgen, who lay in pieced, strewn over several meteres of the battlefield, his final scream lost in the din of battle, peacefully bleeding his last among the bushes, i drive my shield into the nearest shade, drawing luna's. Dagger, and jamming it into the creature's throat, the sky beginning to clear, as twin blades skewer a massive reaper, a spear quickly following as a volley of arrows strike the monstrosity, telken leaps into the creature unarmed, and tackles the beast to the ground, i retrieve my axe, sighting luna's face onve more, as i bury my ace in her skull, the thick, wet impact, crunching under my hand forcing me to a knee as i watch telken's battle, the storm about us faltering under the oppressive arching arrows.

The beast was massive, a dozen feet tall, it sent me back into a tree with nothing more than a flick of it's wrist, a resounding crackling crunch told me my shoulder was broken, the darkness threatening to overtake my mind againb a strange peace settling over my ravaged, torn body, my scraps of armor still hanging limply from my frame, i forced myself up once more, raising my only good handb and finding a broken longsword, striding foreward with increasing speed as my sisters rained hell upon the monster, both my blades and spear buried in it's hulking mass, i drag my fingers along the blade's broken edge, drawing the beast's baleful gaze, surginf foreward as i growled an incantation, my blade melting within my hands, toutching the crushed form of my brother jorgen, the metal of his armor splintered, molding into my own, i stand, armor renewed, as the shade approaches, waiting it grew nearer, decimating the bodies in it's path, as it bore down upon me, i reached up for the beast, shards of steel clenched in my fists, piercing it's arm, climbing it's massive form, as it attempts to shake me, bleeding it's black icor about the field, an arrow pierces the velvety shadow beside me, and i kick it, snapping the shaft off and causing the beast to howl as i scale itcs body, reaching my blades, i tear them from it's form as another arrow arcs into it's eye, reacing up i leap onto itcs raising arms, soaring upwars, before landing once more upon it's billowing form, driving my blades into it's eyes, itcs form shudders as it collapses, sending my body once more into the ground with bone-shattering force. It only hurt for a moment, before i found myself losing consciousness once more.