To expedite, explore and extract... (continued)

[Letho]

((Continued from over yonder (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?p=2102#post2102). Also closed to Storm Veritas...))

“Gah, if it was any colder we’d be slidin’ instead of sailin’!” the bawdy voice of one of the sailors echoed through the mess hall, his observation greeted with the series of yars and ayes and an occasional said well, yer bugger!. It was no more then a generic dialogue that the buccaneers liked to practice, the establishing of already well known facts. Soon after that claim their conversation would trail off to the well known fact how treacherous sea is (always accompanied by a tell-tale that all nodded on and few believed in) and the memory of the warm climate of the southernmost islands of the Corone. During the last three weeks Letho heard enough of this stories to last him a lifetime, but unlike him, the sailors found it obligatory to perform this ridiculous ritual during every single meal. He didn’t mind though, because the stories and the constant complaining were just the way the crew was, their own way of dealing with the situation at hand. The wind was never suitable enough, grog was always far too weak, their beds always had a lump that needed straightening (It’s your back that needs straightening! some would shout at this and a round of raucous laughter followed) and Nyd was never close enough.

There were only three things they never said a word against, three issues that were not commented on even in hushed whispers and were almost sacred. The first was Myrhia’s cooking. The frail redhead took on the command over the mess hall from the day the ship’s cook perished in the night of the rebellion, and she governed it with a firm fist, keeping it as clean as it could be given the current situation. On top of that – and though Letho’s opinion on the matter was probably severely biased – she managed to produce extraordinary meals that borderlined with magical. Heavenly tender meat steaks, deliciously spiced stews that erased any stench (and there was stench present in every aspect of the sailor’s life) in the close proximity of the kitchen and fresh steaming bread loafs that she made every day. With more then half of crew left afloat hundreds of miles behind, she had an abundance to work with and the bellies of those that survived the insurrection felt it on daily basis. They all kindly thanked her after every meal and kept their usually big mouth shut when she would make them the never-too-welcome greens instead of a juicy steak. Letho’s surveying eyes that scanned protectively over her served as a good reminder to the men as well, reminding them that they were lucky to have her.

The second thing that nobody ever spoke against was Selena and her dominant governing of the “Intrepid”. Needless to say, not many sailors found it comfortable to sail under the strict fist of a woman, but it took only a couple of days for the golden haired beauty to strike respect into them with something other then her ravishing loveliness. Even most experienced and knowledgeable of them were amazed by her vast insight in all the functions of the ship, her commands never wrong and her course never faltering. She led them through two storms without as much as a broken sail and if that wasn’t enough, she never found it hard to use those silky slender hands and legs of hers to climb the mast and tie down a loose rope. And on top of that she was an extraordinarily good looking woman and judging by the way Storm measured her, it wasn’t just the sea solitude that was talking.

The final issue they never dared to speak about (or against) was Letho. Whenever the swordsman commanded something, it was done almost instantly and whenever he woke up with the beaten weary look in his eyes, they knew it’s best to stay away from him. They all knew what could happen if they prodded him, their simple minds far too rational to instigate something they most likely couldn’t put down. So in any manner he was their captain, fearless to all that goes around him and fearsome for those who dared to oppose him. His word was the final one, even Selena daring to serve her opinion only in subtle propositions, and during the three weeks Letho’s confidence solidified to one he had when he had an entire kingdom at his feet.

And Storm? Storm was basically one of the guys, the sly man managing to adjust himself to every possible situation and talk his way out of every argument. He was a talker, a jack-of-all-trades and the crew accepted him more readily then any of the four that weren’t their usual members. Letho doubted that this was the true face of the man, he doubted that anybody saw the true face of Storm Veritas save for himself on that forenoon when the shady man told his story. Well, perhaps Selena did. During the three weeks she and the black haired man spent an awful lot time together, maybe even became lovers. But that was a matter that Letho refused to look in further because what went on behind closed doors between a man and a woman was... Well, it was a matter between a man and a woman, not them and the rest of the some forty men that sailed with them. Letho didn’t ask, Storm and Selena didn’t tell, and that was good enough.

The sailors were right about one thing they constantly nagged about; it was starting to get devastatingly cold. The smooth surface of the main deck was now regularly covered with crispy frost every single morning, and on couple of occasions the sky opened up and rained snow down on them. On top of that, the wind shifted course and was now defying their progress, deflating their sails as it blew from the south they tried to reach. This made their journey agonizingly slow and taxing on the crew, but Selena masterfully used whatever pockets of the opposite wind remained, zigzagging through the open sea and edging them ever closer to the island that was bound to be at the end of their trajectory that led south.

Today, however, was a calm day, nearly windless and Selena was down in the mess hall, eating her meal with Storm at her side. It was an uncanny occurrence that absolutely no wind was present in the air, but the blonde didn’t lose much sleep over it. The journey was cumbersome enough for her already, especially the last week, and she seized this opportunity for relaxation wholeheartedly. The sailors have started their storytelling and chest beating as Letho strolled into the room, his eyes first noticing the teenage girl with rosy cheeks and a forehead sprinkled with beads of sweat. It was by no means an easy task to feed so many men and the swordsman never undermined her contribution to this voyage. They were all a team, a machine that would go bust if only one of the cogs was out of alignment and she played her part with incredible zest.

Because of that vigor in the young girl she greeted the man with a shy smile, her forearm attempting to brush of the sweat drops as he took a seat at the table closest to her. In a couple of seconds she was sitting next to him, a rich platter with a dominating baked pork chop with a side of mashed potatoes standing in front of the man as she waited for his reaction to the food. Letho, just like the rest of the crew, had no complaints. In fact to him the meal was a touch of what things may be like once he settles down with the redhead as his wife.

“So, no sign of land yet?” she asked him silently, her question not really an inquiry since if there was land in sight, the entire ship would be screaming about it.

“No, not yet. It’s damn cold though, so it’s bound to be close.” he said in between bites.

“You should try working in here. It’s never cold in here.” she responded, her cherry colored face confirming her words instantly. Letho was glad though. The kitchen was the only room they could afford to heat, and she was the very person he wanted someplace warm.

“Perhaps I should.” he said, her cherubic visage cocked and staring into his eyes, making him break the seriousness. “And perhaps I should make your sweet little behind climb those ropes and ladders.”

“Maybe you should.” she retorted, taking absolutely no insult from his teasing proposition. Instead she leant forwards and kissed him deeply, her lips picking up the taste of the salty potato from his own. “But who would cook for you lazy bunch then, dear?”

[Storm Veritas]

It was good to work himself into a rhythm, to become one with those around him, to earn his keep and make an honest living. The sailor’s life had been something quite welcome to Storm. A dizzying array of aches and pains by day’s end always seemed a somewhat earnest resolution, and it filled him with pride to learn the skills of setting skiffs, raising masts, and casting nets for some afternoon game. He laughed and joked with them; the spirits of the pirates always high so long as he could keep the jokes coming. It was easy to be in a good mood for a change, to pass along his contagious humor. It was easy because of her.

The woman by his side had become quite taken, and, per usual, they sat together and dined. The others would ride Storm, teasing him about a godly luck or divine intervention bringing this jewel to his side, and perhaps they were right. Selena was the most beautiful woman he had laid eyes upon, and the hard work that marked each day passed on the wings of the wind itself as Storm awaited the opportunity to put his hands upon her. She would be waiting in his chamber at night; her porcelain skin and smooth, soft curves.

Life is good.

And so would dinner be, the ambrosial meal coming in piping hot before the lovers. Selena, though a vivacious and animalistic woman between sheets, was tough to distinguish from a man by manners alone. She laughed and joked and ate as the men did; her sharp wit and sardonic tone a match for Storm himself. Here, sitting over some sort of spiced pork, the two offered crude, belligerent jokes between chomps of the steam-covered vittles and long gulps of the amber brown mead. They were oblivious and merry, a timeless duo that were enjoying their very existences.

Storm was nearly two-thirds done his plate when Selena slammed her fork onto an empty dish, leaning back and rubbing an impossibly tight stomach with her slender, milky white fingers. She groaned for effect, and lamented that when the grizzled Veritas grew up to be a man, perhaps he could eat with her. The other denizens in the room laughed at his expense, but Storm merely smiled coyly. These men merely wanted what he already had, if a small chuckle would sate their jealousy, it was a small price to pay.

But you’re not getting away with it, you silly b*tch.

He turned to her, his hand rifling out with impressive speed for an inebriated old fool, grabbing a robust handful of her taut backside. She jumped and giggled, slugging him in the arm for his troubles, but maintained the watchful eye and knowing smile. He was full and happy, and pushed away from the dinner table, another appreciative nod to their incredibly skilled chef Mhyria.

He kissed her quickly, soft lips barely touching hers, a quick peck to part ways. She bit his lower lip gently, pulling it from his face quickly, so the others would not see. His eyes widened considerably at this, yet she offered only a teasing smile. He would have much, much more later.

She went to the quarters, he to the deck. He loved to walk a bit at night after a filling meal, aiding the digestion with some salty sea air. The air was bitingly cold tonight, his lungs burning with each oxygen rich breath. It brought a smile to his face; each passing night would continue to become colder, but it was another step in the process. Things would grow colder still until they reached Nyd, and then they would go home. He would live with Selena on Corone, some place he would build on the outskirts of Concordia forest, far from the leering eye of Radasanth.

The house I will build for you, beautiful. It will be our utopia. Long days and pleasant nights, say thank’ye.

The bliss that the world-weary traveler felt was almost disquieting; he feared the gods must have something terrible in mind to bless him so completely in this stage of his life.

[Letho]

With Storm and Selena gone from the dimly lit mess hall, the entire merry atmosphere seemed to die down a little bit, the dining commotion gradually dissipating as the rest of the sailors made their way out. The half that got the night watch got the usual generic set of mocking instigations as they jealously cursed at those that headed towards the sleeping quarters and before long Letho was nestled in the very corner of the room, sitting on a simple oaken bench and edging towards dozing. His eyes wearily followed Myrhia as she scampered around like some wingless fairy, nearly floating above the floorboards as she made her way from one table to the next, gathering the generally well-emptied tin plates. She would make quite a wife one day, his mind commented, and that was how he was looking at her more and more with each passing day. Their journey was stuck in a rather dull uneventful stalemate and these kinds of thoughts amused the swordsman, these visions of the future he would craft once he got the blade. She was taken from him once, the unfair bitch of a fate allowing the redhead to be burned alive in front of his very eyes. But that same bitch brought her back, and not only that, but as unlikely as it seemed to him fate dealt the cards in a fashion that there was a chance, however slight and remote, that he could love her wholeheartedly once again without abandoning his family back in Savion. People always said that one cannot have the cake and eat it at the same time. Letho was on a task to prove them wrong.

“And speaking of eating the cake...” a voice in his mind whispered slyly as the red haired nymph approached the table behind which the dark man seemed to be half-asleep already. Her hand extended towards the table gently, but instead of the unsightly metallic plate, she was met by a meaty hand of her lover, the bulky man pulling her onto himself and wrapping his muscled arms around her miniscule body. She let out a surprising yelp at first, but once finding herself lodged in the safety of his warm hands she fidgeted her body just enough so she could look at him and let out a serene appetizing moan.

“You tired?” he asked her softly, as her limber arms squeezed him tenuously and she nested in his embrace. Again, it was not really a question that needed an answer. Of course she was tired, everybody was tired at the end of another taxing and agonizingly slow day. “I could gather the rest if you want.” Letho offered, but Myrha instantly shook her little head in denial.

“No, I’m alright. You do your job and I’ll do mine.” she replied sweetly, placing a pecker on his cheek but not trying to squirm out of his embrace yet. She wasn’t a perfectionist, but the things she started she liked to see until the end and some random daily chore was no exception. But for the time being this breather that Letho provided her by his sudden action was more then welcome and she just took a moment to enjoy the safety of their intimate embrace. “It’s strangely quiet today.” she added nonchalantly, just picking a purposeless theme that would change that disquieting detail.

But she was right; today was a disturbingly quiet day. Aside from the pirate jabber of the sailors and the occasional healthy creak of the wooden hull, everything else seemed to be robbed of any sign of life. No howling draft that managed to spook her a myriad of times already, no soothing splash of the waves, no drift of the light gray clouds above their heads, nothing but deathly silence that after her sentence took dominion over the mess hall as well. It was as if everything in the close vicinity of the “Intrepid” was caught in a still frame, making the daily covered distance inexistent. It was downright bewildering to see the nature play such a trick on them, launching sticks and stones the last three weeks at them only to die down to a tame lifeless watery wasteland.

“I know and I don’t like it.” he responded in a substantially more serious voice. There were only two occasions when the weather doused down to a complete standstill; when the storm was over or when the storm was just about to start. And seeing that Nyd was still out of their grasp, Letho seriously suspected that this could very well be the deep breath before the plunge. Selena made nothing of it, saying that it is natural to come at these kinds of flat windless patches when venturing this far south, but the dominant cocky definiteness of her voice was severely lacking in that statement, making the swordsman think she was trying to assure both herself and him at the same time. Myrhia just uttered a silent melodic laughter, her fingers pinching him gently just below the ribs.

“Hey, don’t you start complaining like the rest of them. This is a welcome break for all of us. Come on...” she spoke, making her way out of his embrace and picking up the last pair of platters. “...let’s make use of it. Not all on Intrepid has to be dead!” and with that said her foot kicked his side teasingly, her visible eye giving the man a seductive wink over her shoulder that usurped his insides instantaneously. Despite the heaviness and the disturbance of this break weighing heavily on his mind, he couldn’t prevent a smile from appearing on his face. And if she added her familiar feeblish naughty purr to that look, the kind that she uttered when the two would be safely tucked underneath the sheets and his lips were dancing all over her silky pale skin, he would have to reach for every single shred of morale that was left inside of him to prevent himself from taking her right there on the messy table of the dining room. Luckily for Letho (and his morals) she simply scurried away from him and behind the crummy counter made out of a solid three-inch thick plank and a pair of barrels.

“We should also work on your gloominess, grumpy.” she added, scraping the remains into a bucket and giving him a sly devious smirk. “Everything is not always some mischief directed against us, you know? I mean, this silence could be just that... silence.” she said matter-o-factly, her face shifting to the commanding visage of a scholar that just ran onto a piece of wisdom long forgotten. It was a sweet expression, the one that soothed her even more when she would put her reading glasses, giving her the authoritative cocky sass that she rediscovered after Letho broke her binds of slavery. Shame it lasted only about two seconds.

Because even as Myrhia’s piece of wisdom was done and Letho prepared a well-measured witty retort that was bound to make her laugh (or frown), a rambunctious thundering creak tore the silence to shreds. It was an ear-piercing sound, an unlikely earthquake that lifted the port bow of the ship, thrusting the massive vessel sideways. Both the lass and the swordsman lost their balance instantly, Letho landing his head on the edge of the oaken table and cutting his forehead while Myrhia landed on her back, a barrel filled with fish-guts and filthy water spilling all over her. The “Intrepid” shimmied and swayed a couple of times in long agonizing movements before it solidified back to a standstill once again, producing a solid walking surface once again. Cursing the idiot that managed to direct the ship to a reef while the ship was barely moving, Letho got up to his feet first, leering over the counter to find miserable Myrhia covered with fish entrails.

“You alright, Myri?” he asked her as she threw the sticky matter from her damp cloth, her face crumpled to a disgusting frown.

“NO!” she rifled instantly, not even looking up. “What the hell happened?”

“I think we hit a rock. Go to higher decks and stay there while I see what’s going on.” he replied swiftly once he saw that all was well with the redhead... Well, more or less. Her eyes managed to catch him just as he darted through the doorway, his leather coat following his swift movement with slight delay.

***

The very second Letho stepped onto the main deck of the “Intrepid”, he knew something was terribly amiss. The wind was back with a vengeance, blowing furiously across the back of the ship, tensing their sails backwards and pushing the ship away from wanted course. On top of that, the air was infested with snowflakes and they weren’t the soft fluffy kind that seeped down on them a couple of days ago. They were like razor blades, sharp and brisk and unforgiving, led by the unseen hand and empowered by the harsh tempest.

“What the hell is going on here?!” the swordsman shouted over the howling whiffs of the wind as he climbed to the command post of the ship where Bors, the eldest and most experienced of the sailors, held the helm in a desperate clutch.

“I have no idea, sir. One moment it was calm, and the next something hit us and all this cold hell breaks loose!!” the bald man shouted, his bulky hands wrestling with the round wheel, trying to keep the ship on course against the wind.

“What do you mean, something hit us?!” once again Letho screamed.

“I’m telling you, this ship wasn’t moving. It came out of nowhere. Like a...” but his voice was cut short by what could only described as a tremendous bestial roar that seemed to only further amplify the power of the windstorm that already tore one sail and broke a handful of ropes. The sailors vehemently worked on bringing the other sails down, jumping like madmen from one rope to another, climbing masts as fast as if it was standing horizontally instead of vertically. Letho moved away from Bors, approaching the left side of the ship, his eyes peering through the flakes that assaulted his eyeballs and into the darkness, searching for the source of the deafening animalistic cry. Nothing but dully gray blur returned the glare until the moon managed to break a hold of the clouds and spill silver all over the stormy sea. What Letho saw left him thunderstruck.

A behemoth of gargantuan proportions stood against their ship, the dragon-like head peering at the “Intrepid” with a pair of luminous azure eyes. This serpentine leviathan was titanic in every sense of the word, his jaws alone nearly large enough to bite the side of the ship. His turquoise scales basked in the moonlight, shimmering as the monster moved its massive head that stood some good fifty feet above the water, at the end of the bulky neck that seemed to tense for another roar. The humongous mouth opened up and once again maelstrom took over the main deck, nearly throwing Letho’s bulky solid figure off his feet by the wind assault. However, while the swordsman managed to remain standing, the first of the three masts of the ship let out a sickly moaning creak before it buckled under the tempest, taking with it a net of ropes and throwing a pair of sailors overboard.

“So it’s true.” Letho spoke in a silent tone that got lost in the bedlam around him like a feather in a middle of a tornado. “The Guardian of the Holy Land.”

[Storm Veritas]

Life rarely moves downhill in a slow and steady descent; usually the world changes with a terrific crash, a singular event that sets the tone. Today, for Storm Veritas, the world would change with a literal crash. He entered the event with a dull bliss glazing over him, but knew that things would not be the same once hell broke loose.

As he made his way to the top level, the boat pitched mightily. He fell upon the stairs, crashing into the hard oak wall that lined the stairs itself. A mighty groan came from him as he landed hard, ribs leading into the handrail, but his own cry of displeasure was drowned by the general cussing that came from the denizens below. Such tipping was an unfortunate inevitability of life on the sea, but in the weeks that Selena was at the helm, the Intrepid had not tipped once. Pulling himself up by tugging hard at the hip-height handrail, Storm swore under his breath at the inept fool who probably was fearing for his life.

F*cking morons! Probably asleep at the wheel again. I bet that moron smashed us up into ice. So help me god, if I have to work to repair the ship because of some idiot’s carelessness, heads will roll.

Yet as he reached the deck of the ship, he was greeted with a disconcerting realization; this was no simple ice patch. It was snowing now; an awful howling sleet that bit at his face and whistled by with a harrowing shriek. His thoughts scrambled briefly, trying to figure where this atrocious storm had come from. There was no time to make a conscious decision. A bestial, bellowing cry, and Storm was frozen in his tracks. The wind magnified significantly, and he squatted low to avoid being blown from the deck. A thundering crack, and whipping sounds cut through the wind as ropes flipped violently across the hardwood planks and one of the masts fell to the wooden floor. Sailors were frantic, and working with a furious intensity.

Something was terribly amiss, and Storm peered to the front of the large vessel through a snow-straining squint. Some horrid monstrosity had breached the ship, and was climbing to the deck with an awful cry. It was enormous; an awful thing, larger and more ferocious than anything Storm had seen in all his travels. The head of the beast was serpentine, its cry high pitched and ear-drum shattering. There was almost nothing he could think to do, and the fear-struck traveler was motionless. This was an awful place; and he stood little chance of surviving, but he also resigned himself to the fact that the underbelly would be no safer.

Holy sh*t. What the f*ck is this thing?

Things quickly dove from bad to worse. From ahead, he caught the raising of another hatch. The beautiful blonde locks that emerged atop the deck needed no introduction. Selena had come to investigate the scene, her bravery and curiosity vastly outweighing whatever common sense and instinctive fear that should have kept her safely tucked away. The wind whipped her hair back, and Storm began to dart forward as he saw her. When she stumbled, his heart skipped a beat, the generally self-serving wanderer fearing for the girl.

”Selena!”

His voice was cut dead by the howling winds, but he persevered, driving his legs and moving through the logic-defying wind. It drove at him, pressed him, but he lunged forward and would not relent. As he reached the girl, he clasped desperately to a broken mast-stump, clinging for dear life as the looming nightmare cawed from above the bow.

From his periphery, he caught the struggles of mighty Letho, the man whom seemed game for anything. The tremendous sword-wielder was flailing here, looking no more capable or battle-ready than Storm himself.

The massive head lurched low, disappearing beneath the sight of the ship. The wind died slightly, yet the three were speechless, clinging to their positions with a sense of desperation and shared fear. The wind still tore at them, and offered no warning for the strike that followed. A massive tail lurched from the starboard side, an ungainly, massive thing that looped high above the ship. It was thick, a muscle-riddled thing, and barbed with long, overwhelming spikes. Ducking down, Storm was helpless as he watched the terrible thing assault the Intrepid.

The second mast was struck, easily yielding behind the tremendous momentum of the beast. The resultant crash was thunderous; and the helpless trio watched as several of the shipmates were pitched overboard. The scream of the men were crushing; these were men Storm had grown to know and trust.

His eyes were wide as he clasped the tiny hand of his lady, fear holding him at bay as he looked to Letho. There would need to be some divine intervention. He needed an answer, a strategy, a piece of guidance or critical wisdom.

He needed a miracle.

[Letho]

The tail swipe that crippled their sailing capabilities even further swished less then a foot above Letho’s head before it continued to effortlessly tear their main mast. Almost instantly the horrific screams mixed with the brisk snapping of the tensed ropes and the crashing wood filled the stormy night, sounds of bodies and debris landing in the icy water that would surely prove to be their very grave. So many lives were lost during the insurrection, and yet this leviathan found the body count lacking, adding another set of twisted faces to the haunting image forming in Letho’s mind. Dead, rotten, staring aimlessly, they would all whisper in accusing voices on some random placid night, reminding the knight that he placed all their lives in jeopardy just so he could pursue his own unicorn, the very essence of something no mortal should be allowed. All living things were given one denominator and it was that they all had just one life to live, one path with its own set of choices at the countless crossroads. Letho stubbornly stood against this just like he stubbornly defied the tempest, refusing to bow down to the very laws that bind all. Great achievements always requested great sacrifices.

However, at this point further sacrifices were not necessary. As bold and dogged as these sailors were, ready to defy and battle until the end, they were out of their league against the Nyd Guardian. The serpentine behemoth was a thing far more ancient and powerful then anything they could even comprehend, created in the time when creation was at its full blossom, when the continents were shaped and formed until they were mold into what they were today. It was a thing of fables up until now for Letho, something he read about in fairytales and vague worn parchments in the damp areas of Savion Royal Library. But it was clear now that the old saying was right and for once there was fire where there was smoke. The beast was as real and tangible as the swordsman himself, ready to vigilantly fulfill the task that was given to it at the dawn of time; protect the Holy Land.

There was nothing that could stand against it right now, nothing that could put a chink into the armor of horror that the monstrosity secured around itself more and more with each wiling tempest. Storm and Selena were rightly mesmerized below the last mast that seemed like a plausible target for the next attack, Bors and most of his men spent more time staring at the azure luminous eyes that peered out of the darkness like two defiled opals then at actually trying to salvage the “Intrepid”, Myrhia was probably tumbling down below, fearful for her lover, but obedient and keeping her head down below. Not even Letho, with all the superhuman might packed in his muscles, could stand against something as mighty as this. They couldn’t defy the terrifying beast.

Chodan could.

“You are strong, mortal
I shall grant you my power
Call upon me in times of trouble...”

Those were the words that Chodan, the Guardian of Audelas, spoke to Letho in the untamed land of Oscenia before he imbued the swordsman with his own might. He became the essential part of Letho on that fateful day, a presence lingering deep inside his consciousness, transforming a weary beaten wandered into something far greater then just an exiled prince that had a grudge against the world and feebly attempted to regain his throne. In every sense of the word, he was a Guardian now as well, albeit still not in control of the true magnitude of his powers, but a Guardian nonetheless. All he had to do is call upon the might of his deity.

“Everybody, get down below!” he screamed at the remaining sailors whose eyes sought council in those of the swordsman, his sharp command causing twofold emotions within them. Because they wanted to stand beside their captain, as uncanny and weird and uncaptain as he might have been during the entire course of their journey. But at the same time this sea behemoth was something they wanted to live through, something they wanted to tell over a pint of ale in some smoky tavern filled with disbelieving eyes and middle-aged waitresses and their soggy bottoms. Something they could speak of in a raspy voice with a pipe in their toothless mouth and a grandchild or three in their lap. Because in the end you were either a hero or you weren’t and it was pretty clear who got to carry that title on board of the “Intrepid”. The same fearless burly man that was using the pause in the maelstrom to usher them down below with his rigid voice and a firm posture. Reluctantly they submitted to his will, slipping below deck as the beast circled around the ship once before lifting its massive head above the bow of the ship once again.

“You two as well!” he spoke to Selena and Storm in a harsh, nearly growling tone, his frowning face peering down at the two with a decisive frown. It was a no-nonsense tone and expression, the kind that the swordsman used every time he would put his foot down and announced this was not to be discussed any further. Still, the golden haired woman and her bright blue eyes returned the glare firmly, not bending to his command like the others. There was steel in that woman, the kind Letho seldom saw in a woman, and perhaps if the situation was different and he met her under different circumstances, they wouldn’t be just traveling companions. She was the kind of woman Myrhia always wanted to be, the kind that would fit perfectly against a warrior such as himself. But right now he was in no mood for her sass.

“If you want to live you will get away! This is beyond you now!” he added in more of a growl, his fist pounding on the huge wooden trunk that stood behind the two. It was the first and only warning he could afford at the time, the leviathan once again tensing his massive throat muscles and letting another uncontrolled whirlwind at the main deck of the ship. The last remaining mast moaned and creaked, but remained upright, strongly warning the swordsman that it would not live another one of those. Without another word Letho turned away from the pair, his struggling strides taking him towards the very tip of the vessel where the demon waited for him with his jaws closed shut and his icy blue eyes staring from above like two beacons of false hope. His coat was fluttering behind him vehemently, like a flag caught on some ancient battlefield that was won by a legion of wind elementals, his thick beard now almost completely white from the frost and the snow that got caught in it. He was almost a ghost, standing solely against something that even ten score of men wouldn’t dare to stand in front, and yet there was no reluctance in him. They say that heroes are no braver then any common man, they are only braver five minutes longer. Letho hoped his five minutes would be enough.

Seeing the sole figure of the captain approaching, the beast braced for another onslaught via the razor sharp winds. It wanted to blow this puny insolent human away, together with what was left of his crummy boat and his decimated crew. But this time his roar was intercepted by another, en par in power as Letho fell to his knees and raised his head to the moonlit sky. His bestial howl silenced the leviathan, making the gargantuan creature cease his intended assault only to witness the peculiar sight indeed. Letho grew. Even in his kneeling position with his hands tensed at his side, the man grew in size and bulk with each second of his wolverine howl. His bones crunched and shifted, his trembling shape shifting and deviating from his original form. And as if that wasn’t enough, thick tufts of silver hair started to grow over his clothing, devouring his attire and covering his entire body with smooth bestial hair that was immediately tousled by the ferocious wind. It was an uncanny horrific transformation, turning a man into a werewolf during a single howl, and once the figure stood up it was Letho no more. Standing almost nine feet tall with extremities of amazing girth and foot-long claws, Chodan made his stand against the quieted Guardian of Nyd.

“Stand down, beast! I have no quarrel with you!” the werewolf growled at the towering serpent whose unstoppable wave of destruction seemed to be paused by the silver beast. Even the wind seemed to die down to an icy gale as the two faced each other.

“The land beyond is sealed. You of all should know this, Chodan. So your quarrel is with me!” and with that said the beast unleashed the power of its stormy breath once again. Only this time Chodan wasn’t blown away, his hind claws burying themselves into the wood and keeping his body as solid as a rock. Only another set of ropes gave way and a sail tore asunder.

“You would dare to engage another Guardian, thing?” the furry beast spoke again through its teeth, the mouthpiece dominated by two humongous fangs.

“Guardian you may be, but your lands are due west. And they are where you should have stayed!” thundered the leviathan, letting another insane tempest rip. The mast creaked unhealthily for a fraction of a second before it too joined the other three, leaving the “Intrepid” dead in the water and at the mercy of the seemingly merciless demon. “There is nothing for you here!” it added. A bright blazing flame flashed in the brown eyes of the werewolf, the clear sign of the Chodanite blood reaching the boiling point.

“You’re wrong. Everything I need is here. And I will not be robbed of it!” and with a maddening horrid wail the landmass of fur and flesh took two massive strides towards the bow of the ship, leaping straight towards the head of the titanic Guardian. It was a seemingly impossible mission, his werewolf figure still so minute compared to the humongous body of the behemoth, but Chodan darted through mid air all the same. With a sonic boom the meaty fist of the wolf creature struck the scaly face of the leviathan, causing a tremor that shook both the serpentine body of the beast as well as the entire “Intrepid” that was bleeding profusely from the uncanny encounter. The silver furred werewolf, imbued by a whitish aura, flew into the dark grave of the icy sea together with the stricken Guardian of Nyd.

And suddenly, as if by some magic, deathly silence took reign once again.

[Storm Veritas]

The action atop the deck was fantastic, yet Storm was gripped by fear and disbelief. The command of the captain, the mighty Letho, fell on deaf ears as both Storm and Selena watched in awe. The man, the sword-wielder actually changed before their eyes, morphing into some enormous, lupine monstrosity. Storm’s hands went instinctively to the shoulders of the stunning Selena; his protective tendency dominating what was likely better sense.

”Go, get down, get safe. Underneath is better for you now. Go.”

The headstrong blonde was as oblivious to this “command” as Storm may have expected, seeing the sights before them were simply too amazing to pull their eyes from. Through the heavy, torrential rains and howling winds, this man-beast stood nearly ten feet tall, a defiant image speaking in foreign tongues directly to the leviathan.

What the f*ck?

The things that lay before him were as irrational as the sea-storm that had struck them. It was small enough to not obscure the moon, yet managed to destroy their ability to navigate. What lay before Storm now destroyed his ability to process real from the extraordinary. The wolf and the serpent were engaged in some unrecognizable dialect; some conflict no doubt as they disputed something Veritas didn’t understand. In a flash, the wolf, leapt, a mighty blow struck to the jaw of the terrible lizard. It was an explosion; the thunderous smash deafening above the environmental noise. The two figures fell to the water below, both crashing smoothly to the endless black sea.

There was no discussion, there was no rationalization. Storm was running, his feet beating a hard path across the moonlit deck. His footfalls were in a harmonic thump with what seemed like every raindrop, a breathtaking speed he had not displayed before. He would not hesitate, he would not hold Selena. There was more than this to the needed goings on of the day. There were bigger matters at hand. He leapt from the deck, his body looping through the air, cutting a smooth path as he gracefully searched for Letho.



~*~

Bedlam. The entire ship was a frenzy of activity, the underbelly alive with cries, screams, and general terror. Unbeknownst to the people held captive by the terrible serpent, the battle above the ship was all but over. The serpent had plunged back to the sea, but men were still screaming, crying, praying. There was a single messenger from the top deck, a rail of a man, beaten and battered and bloodied. He had found her; he could deliver the message. Falling to his knees before the beautiful, frantic Myhria, he spoke merely one sentence.

”Ma’am, the captain… fighting the serpent… in the water.”

The brave heroine was running before the courageous messenger could collapse to the ground.



~*~

Selena was running, not trying to coax Storm to stay with her. She knew better; he was the only one she had meet with the same bull-headed ways that defined herself. It was what tied them together; what allowed them to understand each other. Besides, she had a job of her own; there were none that could keep the ship as steady, none that could stay the course with only a rudder at their disposal. With the mighty barge bucking and heaving, the nubile young temptress took the wheel, and fought mightily to right the ship. It was taking on water quickly now, but she could only do the work of one person.



~*~

He hit the water unexpectedly, his muscles instantly burning and crying, lungs feeling a crushing feeling. The shadow of the mighty Intrepid obscured any moonlight that could guide him, and he was left to reach out into the water in a complete obsidian tomb. There was nothing, his hands fleeting fruitlessly before him, the pain of the cold seizing him, making it hard to continue. Only the bubbles of breath that fluttered past his nose would guide him to the direction of the surface.

And then, another instance of the gods loving this man, this “Letho”. His hand brushed against a long, thick, course swatch of fur. He clasped, and grabbed, and clutched, pulling to him an outrageously large body. It was impossibly heavy; weighed down by the copious, downy fur that had just exuded the confident ivory aura. Was Letho conscious? He didn’t appear to be moving…

Too heavy, I need air! Can’t leave him here, can’t leave him to die. Can’t let him drown as well. Can’t push him up.

Storm’s legs kicked hard, ignoring the crippling stronghold of the cold water, forcing his body up. The massive frame in his hands floated up with him, and by pressing the physique up from underneath the water, he could feel it break the surface.

That would have to be good enough; Storm scrambled to the side of the body, thrusting up for the surface and taking a much-needed gasp of oxygen. He didn’t think this through; how would he get back to the ship? How could he lift this massive hulk?

As he took that breath of air, however, he was thankful for life, and nothing more. The cold was not bothering him at this point, his body numb and dull. There was only air; his only concern.

[Letho]

“What have you got yourself into again, you big oak?” was the question that frantically kept replaying in the head of Myrhianna Bastillien as she sped through the belly of the “Intrepid”, taking two, three steps at the time, tripping, stumbling, pushing herself up instantly as she made her way to the main deck. Serpent, the petrified solider said, and by the looks of his bulged eyes and ghost face, it wasn’t just some six-foot long python that Letho could strangle with his bare hands. No, it had to be something more, something colossal when he had to call upon the power of Chodan, something that could tear through the wooden hull of the barge as if it was a mere scaled down model sailing in a murky pond. The question kept rewinding and playing and each time the answers brought a new batch of fear for her lover.

When she finally emerged on the main deck, her feet slipped on the drizzly wooden floor, making her lose her balance and nearly slide all the way to the other side. The cold slapped her like a harsh slave master, biting her tender body that was clad in nothing but a pair of denim pants and an unbuttoned scarlet shirt. Yet the girl felt none of this, instinctively regaining her stature as her eyes panicky surveyed the bustle of the main deck where a handful of sailors recognized the end of the stormy strife and returned to aid the defiant blonde that wrestled with the massive helm. Selena’s determination was overwhelming, her azure eyes squinted and focused, her face cringed and crumpled into a visage of sheer dauntlessness. They were taking a lot of water, but what was more important only one side of the ship was hit, making the entire vessel lean and turn leftwards. The wind has shifted course now, working in their favor now and even with their decimated masts, it made the ship sail forwards. The golden haired vixen had to make sure they were going in the right direction, circling around the place where her lover dove thoughtlessly after what was once their captain.

“Where is he?!” Myrhia shouted towards the woman that was in the middle of shouting an order for their carpenter to make his way down below and plug the hole as best as he could.

“He fell overboard... Storm jumped in after him. To the left of you!” Selena replied, her head nodding in the direction that her hands couldn’t point at thins moment. Yet all that redhead could see after following the imaginary line of Selena’s eyes was blackness, endless and dull and as inviting as a tomb. She strained her eyes to their fullest, leaning to the side of the ship and scanning the surface below that gave out a shimmer or two every couple of moments, but not revealing a shape or a figure of a man. There just wasn’t enough light, and the moon only added insult to injury, hiding its treacherous cheesy face behind the patch of gloomy clouds.

“Think, think, think... What would Letho do? He would grin, frown, smash some things and do something insane... No, that’s no good. Light, we need light!” she rummaged through her head, her teeth biting into her lower lip and her fists clenching at her sides. Light is what they needed, a lot of it at least for a short while just to locate Letho and Storm, just so they knew where to throw their nets and get them out. Her simple mind tracked down the only thing that could provide the desired effects; gunpowder.

“Gunpowder! We need gunpowder!” she shouted at the buccaneer at her side whose eyes seemed as desperate as her own as they tried to spot any sign of their captain. Her hand grabbed his shoulder resolutely, her slender fingers applying an iron tight clutch and turning him towards her with uncanny ease. “There is some gunpowder down below, yes?” she asked the perplexed sailor that nodded reluctantly. They had no cannons (Letho ditching them back in Corone in order to lighten the ship and increase their speed), but a couple of sacks of gunpowder remained. “Go get it, as much as you can! Just go!!” her usually kind and mellow voice was strict now, her pale face enlightened by the vehement flash in her green eyes. There were only two situations in which she was a volatile firecracker and the confused forty year-old veteran of sea faring just met one. The second? The second was something only Letho and velvety sheets knew about.

While the gunpowder was being lumbered out of the belly of the ship, Myrhia expedited to their own quarters, easily tracking down the monster of a weapon Letho carried around. The six-foot long gunblade was not in her best memories, the damn thing nearly tearing her shoulder with the tremendous recoil, but right now she needed it. It was to be the fuse, a detonator for her flashbomb... hopefully. With the weapon in tow behind her, she managed to rejoin the four panting men that brought the two hundred pound sacks with triple x written all over them.

“On the count of three throw one of those sacks overboard as hard as you can!” she commanded the four, her lank figure wrestling with the humongous sword-gun, checking if it was loaded before leaning it on the wooden fence.

“What are you going...” but before he even got to finish, the keen frown whipped him across the face.

“One!”

“You’re going to shoot it?!” he persisted with his inquiries, but all he got in response was...

“Two!”

“Miss, do you know what this stuff...” the other tried to explain, but then another voice thundered over the entire ruckus that reigned over the main deck.

“JUST THROW THE DAMN THING!” Selena bellowed from her place above them, erasing any doubt that might have conjured in their simple minds. The two sailors hastened to grab the sack, swinging it twice to gain enough momentum.

“Three!” Myrhia shouted and the burlap sack was launched from the side of the ship. Its arch was pathetic, rising only slightly before reaching the apex and darting towards the mouth of darkness that was ready to swallow it together with the redhead’s effort to save her beloved. But her aim was trained by the best, her hand steady and calm despite the chill that wrapped its bony fingers around her entire body, and when the rifle cracked the silence of the aftermath and thundered inhumanly, she did not falter. Unfortunately, the recoil propelled her lithe body backwards as if it was weightless, and as if that wasn’t enough, her detonator detonated something alright. The sack exploded almost instantly after the shot, shaming the gunshot with its overwhelming barraging sound. The blast impelled the sailors backwards as well, making their bodies flip like rag dolls before landing on the hardwood floor. The only one who didn’t topple over was the most solid of them all; the fearless blonde maiden whose eyes did what others could not.

“There!” Selena yelled as the mowed men slowly regained their bearings, shaking their heads as if it would help to eliminate the mind-shattering buzzing in their ears and the huge white flashing blur in front of their eyes. “Goddamn you all, you good-for-nothings! Get up! Twenty paces by our main mast!” Selena bawled, leaving the helm for a short while to support her command with a bunch of kicks at the behinds of the squirming sailors. She was desperate now, the image of the man and the beast below standing in front of her eyes, etched into them by the outstanding flash. Both men were paramount to her right now, Letho for what he was about to do and Storm for what he was doing to her, and she would be damned if she would lose either of them.

Groggily, the mariners came to their senses, the muted picture of the golden haired woman finally getting the needed tone to make sense for them. The nets were thrown deftly, with years of experience guiding them to the very spot Selena pointed out, and when the burly muscles of the tanned hands yanked on the rough ropes, they felt the weight within the net. In a matter of moments they pulled their seemingly lifeless “catch” to the main deck, and once they did, the expression on their faces was pretty much the same one as if they just caught a giant monster squid. Storm they expected, together with his weary bleached face, unruly hair sticking to his head and the uncontrolled coughs that threw up the salty water in spasms and throbs. But the giant heap of silvery hair and flesh was a disquieting occurrence indeed and something they preferred dead and lifeless.

“What is THAT?!” Bors was the only one bold enough to ask the question that ran through all of their heads.

“It’s Letho!” Myrhia replied from behind his back, holding her badly bruised shoulder frailly and falling onto his werewolf form. She leant her ear on his furry unmoving chest, hoping, praying that there would be a heartbeat for her to hear. Nothing. For full ten seconds there was nothing but the whispers of the buccaneers and the whistle of the chilling gale. And then a single beat, sluggish, weak, but definitely present enough to make her own heart leap in her chest. “Quick, we need to get water out of his lungs!” she spoke, but none seemed to be ready to lend a hand. “Come on, he’s not going to bite.” she said and he, or rather it, certainly didn’t look like something what wouldn’t bite. In fact, it looked like something that would do exactly the opposite if it woke up.

“Oh, for gods sakes, I’ll do it.” Selena rolled her deep blue eyes, kneeling beside the wolfish man and pressing hard against the bulky muscles of his chest. Once, twice, thrice her shivering hands pressed, applying enough pressure for the beast to instinctively cough and purge the water from its lungs. It burst through his jaws, passing through the twin fangs and spilling on the snow covered wood. Yet, that was the only sign of life and most of the sailors were contempt with that fact for now. Who knew what would have happened if it woke up and saw them all looming over it? They didn’t and they wanted it to stay that way. “Let’s take them down below. They need a warm bed right now.” the substitute captain spoke, helping Storm back to his feet and firing a brisk command/warning look to the others to do the same with Letho.

“I wouldn’t recommend it, miss.” a voice spoke from behind the crowd, a drenched shivering young fellow barely managing to squeeze through his chattering teeth in a miserable tone. “Dane sent me to tell you... We’re taking too much water. Half an hour, one at most before all decks are flooded.” he reported the unfortunate news from the ship’s carpenter. Selena, paused only for a fraction of a second, her decisive mind reaching the only solution that would grant them at least some chance of coming out of this alive.

“Very well. Salvage as much of rations as you can from the lower decks. We’ll take these two to the captain’s quarters. Bors, keep the course southwards. Nyd is our only chance right now.” she recited her orders to the sailors that were once again taken aback by her unnerving cold calmness. Letho was their captain, but his reign was one of fear, especially now when he shown his true face. But they admired her, respected the woman for what she truly was on this journey; the true leader. Without a word they put her plan into action, the plan that turned their goal on this mission into their only trump card that could bring them salvation.

[Storm Veritas]

Leaning back, holding to the surface the frame of the massive creature, Storm huffed and heaved at the air, desperately gasping for the short breaths that would mercilessly burn his lungs. His body was freezing, his limbs numbing, his vision blurring. The explosion above him came in a loud but distilled blur of sound and color, the net crashing down seconds later, harmlessly pressing down the buoys that were once called warriors. Wrenching his arm through the ties in the net, he wrapped his long legs about the back of the were-thing, clasping his toes as he drifted to and fro in the realm of subconscious.

He was dragged from the water, and laid on the ship. The usually sultry voice of the seductress Selena boomed above and about him, telling the sailors something. It was again dull, and he could not discern what was happening. There was only cold and black, the bitter breeze tearing at him, his breaths taking more labor and more work. The blankets that came quickly were tossed on him just as he felt that he could stave off death no longer.

In five minutes that felt an eternity, Veritas was ushered back to the land of the living. He managed to sit up, his face a pallid, ghastly bluish color, his lips and nose burning ferociously. His fingertips went to his face, the soft flickers of electricity fending off the onslaught of frostbite. The sizzle was soothing, and he began to feel better. The vision returned, and the sounds came back as well, a growing, rolling thunder of frenetic action and terrifying cries of fear from the shipmates.

He began to rise, the large woolen blanket covering him in a massive crimson shroud. The lovely image of Selena manning the wheel was before him, her tender curves no less appetizing in these, the harshest of conditions. Her golden locks were flowing behind her, a windswept vision.

Damn, that’s a fine woman. Gonna have to live, to keep on keepin’ on. Gonna have to eat a few more slices of that right there.

The first step was the hardest; although the wind and rain had somehow faded, the cold remained, and his limbs were stiff, sore, and miserable. He was the lurching zombie, struggling to flex and bend and assimilate human pedestrian mobility. The deck was a mirror, the reflection the massive moon, and the thick sheet of rain cover created the brilliant image upon the hardwood. Thirty feet beyond the wood-tempered Luna stood his Selena, the one who was strong and just and good. The one who had saved him, and made a man of him.

He lumbered forth, essentially falling into the waiting arms of the wheel captain. She stood behind him as he clasped it, and held him up as her arms snaked around him. Even above the salt air, her lovely scent was ever present, teasing his nostrils with the warm pheromones of sex and feminine beauty.

They sailed, the ship making headway for Nyd. The torrent of energy around them was escaped, their lone mission to guide the rudder. Point south and drift, take the few remaining masts to guide them in. Straight and narrow, no twists, no turns. It was a relatively pedestrian task, one that he embraced as the perfect woman guided him through a difficult recovery.

In your arms. The only place I want to be. The only place I need to have to call home.

“I love you Selena.”

She smiled, kissing him and ushering him with the same return; magical words that welled his eyes and swelled his chest. The weather was terrible, the night as difficult as any he could remember, his pain as deep as any he had felt. Yet he felt relieved, he felt alive. He had a reason to continue, a smile on his face with each new morning.

The ship was sinking, taking on water from below, the deck slowly lurching closer and closer to the water. After what seemed like seconds, the horizon popped, a thin peak that grew fast broad and flat. A land of white, barren and vast, devoid of life or emotion or energy. How it harbored anything worthwhile was beyond him, but as long as this angelic Selena graced the shores, he would happily travel to the ends of hell.

Yet this was no hell he was traveling to, rather yet a bitterly cold and lifeless paradise.

The land spread as more and more came to the surface. The morning sun shined off the snow dusted landscape with a divine sheen, creating the idyllic landscape one could only envision in dreams. As the ship sailed in to shore, those aboard the Intrepid praised the gods for keeping their ship afloat long enough to bite ito the snowy beachfront. Large, rolling hills seemed to lazily crop the face of this place, this frozen utopia, as the sight-lines to destiny remained largely obscured.

[Letho]

All the ruckus, cheering shouts and frantic land-hos in the world seemed insufficient to awake the pair that slumbered in the richly furnished captain’s quarters. They both slept with the tranquility of a corpse, and only the perpetual rise of their chest and the occasional muffled whimper that came from Myrhia’s throat cut the monotonous silence of the room. It came as no wonder though, that they seemed lifeless in their moment of rest. The night was a treacherous bitch towards them both, fatiguing them to the point where sleeping was the only function their bodies could perform. Wrestling a ship sized monster in an icy embrace of the sea and trying to dry up a heap of fur with a hurt shoulder and her own two lank arms took a heavy toll on Letho and Myrhia, draining their energy to the point of collapsing.

It was in such collapsed position - with the silvery werewolf in his regained human form and the scrawny redhead slumped at the side of his cot holding one of his massive hands in both of her own – that Bors found the pair. His fear from meeting the bestial side of the coin called Letho Ravenheart was surpassed now by the excitement and thrill caused by the ivory landmass that greeted them with a cold welcome. So the burly mariner came stumbling through the heavy oaken door, his breath short and shallow and his lips curled in a wide smile of decimated teeth.

“Land! We struck land!” his voice hid no emotions as he watched the sleeping beauty and her beast slowly regain their mobility, torn away from the sweet embrace of their joined slumber. Myrhia was first to come to her senses, her crusty eyes popping wide open in an instant, her fair little head shaking gingerly as her irises narrowed, getting used to the bright light of a new day. She tore herself from the dream leftover, letting go of Letho’s hand and jumping onto her feet nimbly, hastening towards the closest window. Wiping her eyes with her clenched fists, she waited for her squinted eyes to amortize the exceptionally strong white illumination. And once they did the view before her seemed glorious, stretching her lips wide and making her heart leap in her small chest. It wasn’t a beautiful land by any means, the sight itself looking like a patch of Salvar that was torn from its motherland and set in the middle of the sea. But it was what it signified that mattered to her, what it contained; a chance for her to be joined with her love once again. Well that, and after so much time spent on the sea, any kind of land was more then a sight for sore eyes.

“Letho! Letho wake up!! Wake up, we are here! We are finally here!” she shouted merrily, scampering back to his side and shaking his shoulder frantically. It was only then that the usually light sleeper Letho was awoken, his consciousness returning in an extremely sluggish manner. The eyes of lacquered wood were revealed slowly, and yet they fell on the sweetest sight imaginable; the cherubic face of his beloved that smirked above him, looming like a good fairy with two more wishes to fulfill. Letho smiled weakly in return. It seemed all was good after all. He was alive, she was alive and according to her words they even managed to survive the battle with the Guardian and reach the Holy Land of Nyd. It was more then he could hope for as he and Chodan leapt into a suicide brawl with the leviathan. His first movement was in slow motion, his creaky joints rebelling against doing their job at first, but it reached its target all the same and his hand cupped her cheek gently.

“I sincerely hope this is not a dream.” he commented in a slurry raspy voice, his words making the tomboy girl to laugh melodically before she planted a deep kiss on his lips. Her familiar enticing taste envenomed his system instantaneously. No, there was no way this could be a dream.

“It’s not.” she responded as she moved away slightly from him, her face creasing a bit into a mild frown. “But it damn well could have been if we haven’t fished you two out. Don’t you ever do that again, you hear?!” the red haired teenager spoke strictly, hitting the solid shoulder of the lying man.

“The two of us?” Letho asked with a perplexed look on his face just before he pulled himself up to a sitting position. His head failed to respond in a good manner to this sudden movement, sending dull mind-shattering pain through his cortex and making his hand clasp to his temples gently.

“Yes, Storm and you. He jumped in after you, kept you afloat after your dive.” she responded in a weak mousy voice, moving from his side and allowing him to regain his composure on his own. He was usually grumpy during the mornings, and after a night such as the last one, she figured her high-pitched voice was not a welcome addition to the bedlam in his head. But more then the tone of her voice, it was her words that usurped what little calm he managed to conjure in his head. Storm dove in after him, saved his life? That was not something he could foresee, and even if he could, it was not something he wanted to take part in. Owing a favor to someone was an important thing to the knight and owing was not a position he liked to put himself into. And now he owed everything he had to Storm. He owed both his own and Myrhia’s life to a scrawny shady stowaway that just happened to stumble into their cargo hold. Needless to say, it was one web he didn’t want to tangle himself into, and yet he was trapped into it all the same. A life boon was not easy to repay.

“You don’t say...” the gruff man spoke distantly, pushing himself to his feet and taking a couple of probation steps towards the window. His knees thought about buckling, then decided not to under the profound influence of his iron will, and in a couple of heavy thumps of the weary feet he was leant on the wooden windowsill. To say the sight before them wasn’t enchanting would be an understatement, the swordsman not impressed by the uninviting look of Nyd. But all the same, he felt a divine presence here, a touch of ancientness simply so tangible to his senses that it could not be just a product of his imagination. There was an eerie power ripping through this place, a pulse of something so old and mighty that it struck respect into his bones. “So this is the fabled Nyd.” once again spoken to nobody in particular, in a tone that said: “Hello and well met, strange land of the ancients. Respect where respect is due, but I’m going for the prize that you treasured for so long.”

***

A couple of minutes after his revival, after taking a bite to eat and bringing his limbs back to their optimal functionality, the pair emerged from the warmth of the captain’s quarters and into the brick frosty gale of the main deck. There was snow in the air, soft and fluffy, descending apologetically more then falling onto their ship that now stood imbedded into the soft sand of the shore. The whole barge was pulsating with activity, the sailors clad in thick furry coats doing everything in their power to restore the “Intrepid” at least to a shadow of its former glory. Letho admired these folk, so tireless and stringy, never giving up, working whole day on a pint of rum and the good spirits that seemed to rest in the murky alcohol.

“ALL HAIL CAPTAIN RAVENHEART!!!” Selena instantly bawled at the anthill below her and their attentions instantly went to the stern of the ship. They hailed and cheered and raised their hands and threw their winter caps in greeting, a merry crowd that found pleasure in the fact that they weren’t currently digested in the entrails of the monstrosity that now slept somewhere on the bottom of the ocean. Thanks to their captain. Sure he was a monster himself, he could take men by the dozen and tear them apart and not to mention shapeshift into a goddamned werewolf. But he was on their side and having something of that magnitude in front of them was something to be merry about. “Now back to work, you good-for-nothing cretins!!” she added, barely suppressing a smile and they obeyed.

“It’s good to see you back on your feet, Letho.” she turned her attention to the swordsman and his companion. “You’re not going to bite me, aren’t you?” she teasingly added with mirth in her voice as her azure eye offered a sly wink to the man.

“It’s good to be back.” he responded, not really in a mood for pleasantries and word games. “I see you managed to get us to Nyd. Good job. Good job indeed.”

“It’s the men that did a good job, Letho, I just fiddled around with the helm.” she said in a more serious voice. “Maybe you should let them know that.”

“I will.” the knight spoke in a controlled raspy voice, his hands crossed at his chest as he looked over his crew. The Intrepid crew. But first he had to let somebody else know something he had a hard time admitting. His eyes shifted towards the man that looked just as miserable as he did, the man that dove after him into the ocean that nearly turned out to be a tomb for them both.

“Storm...” he addressed the man sharply. “I heard what you did last night. It was a foolish thing to do and quite frankly I don’t know why you did it. But I...” and at this point his pride kicked in and decided to make its last stand. Letho paused, his lips paused in mid-motion, his eyes staring keenly into the gray ones of the man he owed so much by now.

“He’s glad that you did it and he wants to thank you for it an apologize for being an ass.” Myrhia jumped in with her childish voice, cocked head and irresistible smile as she rifled the half-truths in rapid succession. Though his face didn’t show it, the girl blindsided him with this and he felt the need to counter it, to somehow pertain his untouchable mask.

“Yeah, something like that.” he surrendered, speaking with a mild grin before he turned away from the man and approached the fence that overlooked the bustle of the main deck. It was time for another speech, something he flopped at the first time he tried. But Letho was a fast learner, and the little speech Storm gave to the crew some weeks ago taught him a great deal on how to deal with this heap of tipsy simple-minded mariners.

“Alright, people listen up!” he started, breaking the eerily silence of the falling snow. His voice struck respect and even fear into them, making them instantly turn their attention to the man-god that stood on the ledge above them. “It was a damn good job you did so far. We are here, this is Nyd.” Letho spoke, spreading his hands to the snowy environment. “Yes, I know, it looks like Salvar on a bad winter day. But we’re not here to make home here and start a family. Although if some of you want to, we sure wouldn’t mind the extra vacancy on our way back.” and a round of laughter followed his words. Not as strong as the cheers Storm got, not by a long shot, but it was good enough given a fact that the swordsman was no jester. “But seriously, the worse part is over. All you have to do now is wait right here, fix this heap of junk, and wait for me to return. You risked your lives enough on the sea. There is no need to risk it on the land as well. I will move inland alone...” but this was met with slight disapproval and shaking heads combined with murmurs. They came this far and they wanted to go all the way now, regardless of the fact that they would probably not live to see Intrepid again. Letho calmed them down with his hand. “Settle down people! Now listen, even I don’t know what lays over yonder, but I can assure you it is ancient and powerful and not happy of us invading its land. A single man, or a very small party, is more likely to explore unnoticed then a bulk of men. And we want to be unnoticed and leave these shores as soon as humanly possible. Understood?”

It wasn’t. It didn’t sit well in their insides, but there was such determination in his royal commanding voice that they couldn’t oppose it. With the men returning to their chores with enough material to grumblingly discuss for a couple of days, Letho turned to his diminutive sidekick. “So, you’re still up for this?” he asked Myrhia. The response didn’t come in words, but rather in a small pecker at his lips and a firm clutch of her hands around his arm. Of course she was still up for this. They made a promise what now seemed ages ago. Together. No matter what. Well that, and she was the cause for this entire mess.

[Storm Veritas]

The morning came, and inevitably, the looming Letho came ambling towards Storm. He was an impressive figure, but Storm knew what he was coming for, and it would not be pretty. Such discussions were inherently awkward, and this was no exception. Letho looked to figure why Storm had risked so much for him, but Veritas knew there was no answer. Hell, he didn’t know why he had jumped in either. It wasn’t like him to act selflessly, and although there was a certain admiration or affinity for this courageous man, he had no allegiance to him.

But you’re a family now. You need him to get home. You need him to get Selena home. You don’t even have a god-damned boat right now, this floating trainwreck is doomed, and you know it.

He smiled, but by the time he looked up from his seated resting spot, the white clad swordsman was addressing the masses. There would be no opportunity for the wary traveler to settle the score or straighten things out, as Ravenheart quickly turned to the crew and began to usher out an informal speech. He spoke better now, a charismatic voice that boomed and thrust and captivated. It amazed Storm; was that a sense of humor that he was trying for? This couldn’t be the same hulk of a thing that was dredged from the sea just one night before, could it?

Letho upset them, as he is bound to do. His decree that they were not going on-shore went over with all the popularity of a vicious fart in the laundry room. These people were promised treasures and riches, women and wares, and they had risked life and limb to get there. The disquieted group grew more and more unsettled, and Veritas watched as several of them began to huddle in small groups. It was a tell-tale sign of clique-forming; another potential uprising a-brew. It was time for the bastard to do his bastard thing. Lying to the troops was far too easy.

Sit down, you big oaf, before you get us both killed.

Lurching forward from his oaken bench, Storm stood before the crowd. Still green in the gills from his icicle impersonation just one night before, the rise and speech came from a far more frail and timid man than the one that the crew normally knew. He cleared his throat thrice; the second such strum driving up a thick, salty mouthful of mucous. Shining the deck with his sickness, he spoke in a tone that was as lighthearted as he could muster.

“Gentlemen, how about a hand for our Captain Sunshine, right here?” His initial offering was accompanied by a mocking clap, a bilge-drawn smile across his face. “Letho Ravenheart, destroyer of the terrible and tantalizing!”

His words were not met with the same laughter he was used to; the whispers of the crew hesitant. By risking himself for this Ravenheart, he had been tied to the warrior, and was not the same scoundrel that they entrusted with blind avarice. He would have to work harder.

“We can’t barge out here, get ourselves seen, and let the riches here be hidden! No, Letho, Myhria, Selena, and Myself will go; a small scout group to test the waters. Less of us, less noise, less rations.

“And we’ll have to come back, you fools. We’ll need hands to carry the riches. To bring the treasure home, and trade it for more tangible goods. Booty for booty, so to speak.”

Raucous laughter from the hesitant crowd. It seemed to make some semblance of sense, as the group ate, drank, and fought well, but wasn’t precisely earmarked for anything stealthy.

Coincidentally, he had just allowed for himself and his love to join the hunting crew. As powerful as Letho was, Storm was not prepared to trust him with the distribution of wealth. There would be little the scant bandit could do to call him on the carpet, had Letho tried to cheat him. Here, with the eyes of the women upon him, that pesky morality that Letho was bogged down with would force him to keep the count straight.

And a few nights in the wilderness with Selena… well… might bring some of that animal in her back. The last few nights have been far too uneventful, and I need to get this here sex machine jumpstarted.

[Letho]

Frankly, Letho didn’t give a damn anymore about the disquieted murmur of the crew at this point. He was here, where he needed to be, in the land of Nyd that slept for a millennia and was about to be yanked out of slumber by a brash hand of the Savion Guardian. The Blade of the Judicator was the heart of it, the reason Nyd was what Nyd was; an icy uninviting hell that sent out a clear message that anything with a beating heart and a sane mind is not welcome here. And Letho was here to rip that heart out. Naturally, that was bound to draw some consequences in tow, and probably some rather dire ones, but that was something he would deal with when time came. What he didn’t want to do is make these men deal with it. It was not their battle and even if it was, they were in way over their heads already. Sea and all the wretched misfortunes of it’s fickle treachery was something they could wrestle, but what hibernated beyond the ivory horizon was beyond them.

Storm, however, had a much more distinguished sense of subtlety and what Letho discarded as unimportant and trivial, he found paramount to correct. Morale was a wily unpredictable thing, rising to its peaks over rather trite things, small things that weaved the happiness and satisfaction in life. But the only thing faster then its ascend was the slump the damn thing took when something was not going the right way. Letho discarded that detail as something not imperative at the current moment, but he was a bludgeoner. The peak of his finesse was that little speech and an occasional feigned parry in a swordfight. Storm on the other hand was a manipulator of sorts, somebody who played the enticing tune by which the other merrily danced. It was no wonder that he found it necessary to iron out the rugged way the swordsman addressed his weary mariners.

“Twice now you promised them riches, Storm. Tell me, what happens if we find none on our little expedition?” Letho spoke to the man silently once his crowd-winning speech was done and the sailors once again fell under the influence of his limber refined eloquence. It wasn’t really a question that needed an answer, more of a bitter remark and a reminder that a promise is a fool’s mirth.

“Don’t be such a drag, Letho. You know as well as I do what the stories say of this place.” Selena jumped in, readily defending her man and reassuring... Reassuring who? Perhaps herself. Perhaps Storm. Perhaps just easing their minds by telling over and over again that things were going to be alright. It was a good tactic with only one flaw. In real world things seldom went the way they were planned.

“Yes, I do know what the stories say. But that’s just what they are; stories. If we prove them to be nothing but stories we will have one mad crew on our back and no men to help us get off this hunk of ice.” his pessimistic views continued, but he cut them off right there. This was all just a pointless jabber that kept playing the one game nobody could master because what ifs were as treacherous as the sea itself, and calculating in order to foresee something was as doable as performing a head operation with a battleaxe.

“Well, somebody certainly got up on a wrong foot!” the blonde commented briskly, not really liking the dark view that Letho presented.

“Woman, I’ve been getting up on a wrong foot ever since there was a bed to get up from” was what both his mind and his frowning visage saw as the only reply to her words. He held back the words but kept the face of someone who just took a bite of a rotten apple. The buccaneers maybe saw Nyd as something to cheer about, but with Letho that was not the case. If anything, the vast whiteness was the last warning sign that stood before the point of no return, cautioning him to either bring his best game into this mess or put the tail between his legs and flee.

“We leave before noon. You two can’t keep up, you get left behind.” he instructed sharply to Selena and her man in a no-nonsense business tone. Because now was the time that separated the men from boys, the time to put the cards on the table and do real business. All this shenanigans of sailing was just a prelude, a means to an end that was bound to be either glorious or catastrophic. The reasons why Storm and Selena wanted a part in this task was beyond Letho, but he could either stay here and hold a lengthy palaver with them or not give a damn about it and put a couple of snowy miles between them and the wreckage that was once the great barge “Intrepid”. Which of the two would he pick was quite obvious.

So it was on that day, with the hidden sun still hanging high above them, concealing its warming face from the pearly land behind a curtain of dull gray clouds, that the small camaraderie of four set their feet on a land which a human foot hasn’t trekked for an eon. Nyd made it certain that the message of unwelcome goes through though, greeting the four with a knee deep snow and tempests that made Berevar seem like a mere spring in Corone caught in a chilly night gale. It seemed that the land was willed against them somehow, not aiding them in any means, but rather taking every possible low blow it could on every step. Jagged unseen rocks below the snow, winds that passed through the fur of their winter coats unhindered by the thick layer of isolation material, sharp icy razorblades riding those same winds as if trying to shave the unshaven faces of the males and rub the faces of the females with sandpaper. Needless to say, it was a miserable trek to begin with, and with every step the hits just kept on coming. Frozen thorny weeds below the snow tangling around their ankles, frozen bogs turned into a glassy mirrors making them nearly fall flat on their faces (luckily Letho brought four sets of iron spiked chains that they could wrap around their boots) and a bald land without as much as a hint of a shelter made it a miserable start of an exhaustingly long walk. And the first day wasn’t even finished.

Letho walked in front not only because the leader of an expedition should lead by example, but because he was the only one suitable to be a plow. His bulky legs and inhuman strength made him thread the path for those behind him, his bearded face staring directly into the snowy slaps that the weather kept landing on their frozen faces. He remotely remembered an encounter with a wizard that had the power to teleport his body to a remote location, and never more then now did the swordsman wish he studied the art of magic instead of the art of the blade. His blade was just a weigh on his back now and was of no real use to any of them.

Behind him, clinging to his coat most of the time to keep her scrawny figure from being thrown out of balance, Myrhia followed, as miserable as she has ever been. Well, maybe not as she’s ever been. Not like when she was dying on Letho’s hands in the land of Salvar when the pair decided to help a person that for some obscure reason called himself a Showstopper. Not as miserable like then, not by a long shot. But still pretty damn miserable, especially when despite all her efforts, the invisible icicle fingers passed through her two fur coats to tickle her ribs with numbingly cold. But she kept her eyes on the prize, on the Blade of the Judicator that was there, that was undeniably there. She could feel it opposing them, pushing them away, she could feel its immense power somewhere in front of them, setting its will against them and yet radiating with might like a beacon.

When the day started to die its slow fading death with the sky above shifting more and more to a darker hues of gray, and when the four started to make peace with a fact that they would either have to spend a night in the open or keep on going just to keep themselves warm, the horizon gave them at least something to cheer about. There was a line of what seemed like gigantic trees, white and beautiful in its own frozen kind of way with their mysterious crowns that were unlike anything that could be seen in the known lands. They looked almost like shapes of giant headless men, carved roughly from sheer ice with the bulk of their body and arms forming the weird crown. And they seemed to be going on forever in front of them, the lineup stretching southwards and straight towards the hills in the distance, a glade forgotten by time caught in a sleepy nightmare.

“What is that, Letho?!” Myrhia shouted over the howling wind, her eyes once again better then Letho’s at long distances.

“I don’t know, but those trees seem like a good shelter. We’ll make camp there!” he responded, nodding towards Storm and Selena before starting the machine once again and creating a path for the rest to follow. It was only when they were nearly below one of these trees that Letho paused, his neck cracking gently as he raised his face to survey the frozen white monstrosity that went as high as fifty paces.

“By the gods!” was all he managed to utter once he realized these were no trees that stood before them in a perfect lines, reaching towards the foot of what seemed like the mother of all mountains with its monstrously large peak that disappeared in the clouds above. “I thought they were but a legend. The Builders...” he said, placing his gauntleted hand on the nearest foot of one of the iced things. Now it could be seen that each tree had two trunks that served as the legs and that the crown above was indeed a torso of a giant, with two huge arms that each looked large enough to crush their ship in one blow. Their heads were slumped on their jagged chests, their entire figure as if carved from a block of white ice by an inept drunk stonemason. They only carried the faint resemblance to a human form, but there was no doubt to Letho who they were. He looked at those arms... The arms that shaped the world into what it was today. For the first time in a very long while the swordsman was stricken with such overwhelming respect towards these elders that he nearly fell to his knees. They were in the presence of the greatness and none of them even could comprehend how much greatness was he talking about. But this was not a good time to be awestricken. He didn’t come here to admire the things of old. He came to oppose them.

“Here!” he said to the rest, pointing towards the spot behind one of the gigantic feet that seemed to be growing out of the land itself, the roots of snow and ice connecting the Builders with Nyd, creating a good shelter from the wind in the process. There was no fear in Letho that the Builders might wake up and attack them. If they wanted to do that neither of the four would be standing here right now. As the day died around them, so did the ferocious wind and the strife of nature against the four. It seemed that even Nyd acknowledged their determination and admitted the loss of round one, leaving them to settle below one the giants.

[Storm Veritas]

We are definitely not in f*cking Kansas anymore.

The entire tone of the journey had changed in the blink of an eye, and it was quite honestly more than Storm was prepared to deal with. No sooner had Letho come to and regained consciousness than did he reclaim that same attitude that made him so offputting in the first place. Rude, derisive, bitter… not quite the same man that had tried to meekly offer thanks only moments before. Yet there was something more in this man, there was something much more unsettling.

Storm kept his eyes on the leader as he churned mightily through the snow, the rest of the group following in the wake of the muscular trailblazer. There was no dialogue, no discussion, and only a few resentful comments were offered over to attempt to break the silence. The wind howled over the bitter white landscape, and Storm could feel the chill hitting Selena even harder than himself. There was no doubt that Mhyria would be miserable as well, but Letho Ravenheart seemed altogether unaffected by the fate of his own lover.

He’s out of his mind. Gone. Game over, turn out the lights.

Indeed, there seemed to have been a metamorphosis of sorts. While this ivory swordsman was never exactly the jocular type, he was downright caustic now, a cynical silence as he raged forth, an unspoken hatred for the land and all things within as he persevered. There was nothing inside; he appeared as an empty shell, the powerful visage disguising nothing beneath.

Whatever it was, he made the only path available, and he broke through the ice-crusted snow with an impressive ease. The resultant path was easy enough to traverse, and staying low to the snowline offered the group a respite from the blasting winds. Although catching a corner of the jagged ice shelf at the thigh or hip was painful, he couldn’t fathom how the legs of this long-lost soldier were not torn to shreds. Yet Letho rambled on, keeping the good fight forth and doing nothing to quell the tides of fear and fatigue within his own small crew. Certainly, this was a man on a mission, with little to nothing that would stand in his way.

It came as quite a relief, then, when the man’s posture changed, and Storm watched as Letho gazed upward at a mighty set of tree-things that loomed about. He seemed deferential, a sight that Veritas had certainly never laid eyes upon. This was the same man that spoke down some venomous monstrosity of the sea, some sizeless, ageless thing that reckoned to smite the entire Intrepid with but a whisper. Yet here, the mighty Ravenheart cowered before a set of monstrous trees.

The cold must have gotten him. Looney toons. Say goodnight, Virginia, because whoever lived upstairs packed up and moved down the street.

Plunking his ass at the foot of the first mighty tree, Storm leaned back nonchalantly and extracted a much-needed cigarette from beneath his thick leather overcoat. Looking up at the lovely ladies, both even colder and more miserable than he, he patted by his side for Selena as he lit the paper with a flick of voltage from his fingertips.

“Sit down, sugar. You look like you could use a rest.”



~*~

A half smile danced across the face of the buxom blonde, but she merely scoffed at the suggestion of Storm. Although she had become quite smitten with him, it was not in her nature to relent to any sign of weakness. Sitting down, resting as it were, would simply not do. The tears at her eyes were wind forced, and she eagerly unwrapped a thick covering of wool, leaving her in merely a thick shirt and pants. The trappings of Veritas were that of the id, the barbaric and hedonistic endeavor. Tempting to say the least, but there were bigger fish to fry today.

The reverence that Letho displayed for these things was disturbing, and Selena walked closer to him as he stood silently. Her arms crossed, she was a bit trepidatious; for if Letho were frightened, she felt it was likely in the best interest of everyone to cower in unabashed terror. His words were strong and driven, and his beliefs resolute. She took a deep breath as she walked closer, soaking up the situation as it were. The massive sequoian overgrowths before her were oddly misshapen, resembling statuesque representations of men. Her mind raced, and kept reverting to the thoughts of Ents she had read of in some ancient scrolls. It seemed impossible, but she had learned to leave skepticism at the door when traveling with those in defiance of destiny. She spoke to the de facto leader, a decidedly un-Selena meekness to her voice.

”Builders? Tell me, Letho… what are you talking about? What are these things? Are they trees? Titans? Are these the earth-gods?”

[Letho]

“Y-You kn-kn-know, t-those things w-will k-k-kill you.” Myrhia said to Storm and his smoldering cigarette as her teeth chattered loud enough to make her words next to incomprehensible. She was sitting with her knees pulled up to her flat chest, wrapped in an abundant coat made out of brownish fur, possibly originating from an unfortunate bear. It was a comic sight; a minute fur ball with an angelic face stiffened from the onslaught of the blizzard, trying to curl those perfect broken lips into a smile that would explain that her words were only a jest. Her hands kept yanking at the edge of the oversized fur desperately, trying to extract as much heat from it as possible, trying to close all the holes that let out the small amount of warmth that her body managed to generate. At any case, at this time of futile battle with coldness, that kind of death seemed much more appealing that ending up as a human icicle in some god forsaken land, sitting below something called a Builder. “C-Can I try one?” she finally asked shyly, her emerald eyes looking from the depth of her huge hood.

“Myri!” came the voice from behind her, and though she couldn’t see it, she knew it was accompanied with a firm, keen frowning look and a stone chiseled face that looked prematurely aged with the frost giving it an ancient remark.

“I know, I know!” she replied immediately, though her voice wasn’t the submissive surrendering one. “It’s just so damned cold.” She knew quite well about Letho’s thoughts on the matter, the harsh words of how only idiots and lunatics drew smoke into their lungs, how tobacco or pipe weed was something weaklings couldn’t do without, a taint of the body that was like a parasite that wouldn’t let go until it sucked every iota of life from its carrier. And whether she agreed with them or not, the swordsman was very strict about those things and she was certain that if she went against his advice (or was it a command?), he would give her the eye for a long while. A very long while, possibly until she would start to bore him with her apologies and he would break under her sweet kisses. But right now even that small glowing announcement of fire that stood at the end of the smoky cig seemed like a minute sun.

She was right though, it was damned cold. Maybe Letho’s outside didn’t show it, but his entire being was bursting with suppressed hatred towards this land with each step they made through it. Because it threw at them a bitter kind of cold, the kisses of a betrayer that fell all over their bodies each and every second of an overly long day. He turned, ignoring Selena’s inquiry for the time being, and couldn’t help but smile at her miserable shape, holding for her fur and rocking gently on her spot. It was the first time he smiled ever since the morning back in the captain’s quarters on “Intrepid” and he couldn’t help it. It certainly helped his visage to at least somewhat release itself from the clutch of the frozen blizzard on his facial features.

“It’s not funny, you oak!” she tried to shout, but came up with a raspy barely elevated tone. Her leg made up for it though, protruding from below the furry coating and striking the man at the side of his foot. This little meaningless effort of the redhead managed to bring at least some of his good spirits back, making him take a seat at her side and kiss her forehead almost in apology. She wasn’t big on niceties right now though, throwing her hands around his waist and clinging onto his bulky figure like a child for a mother that’s been away for months. He gathered her tiny body as close as he could with his left, his right rummaging through the big neatly packed backpack he carried around for years now. Myrhia often said that it was a magical sack because of how much stuff there were within, but it was all a matter of careful soldier-like packing, each and every thing placed with a caring trained precision. He finally pulled out two rations, wrapped in small fist sized squares, placed them onto his lap, then pulled out two more. It was his garden variety ration, three pieces of overly salty meat jerky, a piece of dry (and rather tasteless) bread wrapped into a large leaf that carried the faint smell of menthol. He tossed one each to Storm and Selena and by that time Myrhia already dug into her own, chewing on the tough rubbery jerky. Halfway through her second piece of meat she noticed a minute finger sized root that looked like a carrot that got beat up during its time of growth.

“Letho...” she spoke with her mouth full, then swallowed dryly before she continued as her fingers grabbed a hold of the stringy root. “What’s this?”

“Fire root. It’s as close to fire we’re going to get here.” he spoke silently, unwrapping his own ration with visible lack of interest. Food was not what he wanted now. In fact, he felt like he could get up right now and run like a madman for days until he would place his hands around the hilt of the Blade. It called him, called him with every attempt to push him away, called him with power that was set against him. Because all of that meant it was what he was searching for, that the obscure weapon indeed could grant him something no man ever had before. Two lives lived at the same time. He picked up the jerky, rolled it up into a cylinder then threw it into his mouth. It was almost bitter and everything but tasty, but it did the trick. With the hunger at least somewhat sated, time came to answer Selena’s question. It was time for storytelling anyways.

“I won’t speak their true name in these lands, for to speak one’s name without his presence is to summon his spirit. And the spirits of the Builders are best left to slumber.” he spoke suddenly, snapping Selena’s attention away from the meal in her lap and the man at her side. Myrhia lifted her face up to his, but his rich browns failed to look back. He was in his daydream mode, with the eyes going out of focus as if they were staring into the mysterious world of their own. It made her smile coyly; she loved that head-in-the-clouds look. It made him that much more human. “Translated in Tradespeak, they could be called Builders, Architects, Creators, a couple of other names as well. It is said that during the creation of the world, the almighty Creator poured his might into the creatures that would aid him in his endeavors. They were beasts of great intelligence and might, created to live forever and govern all races. They were the dragons, His favored. But in all their might, the dragons grew too prideful, filled with disdain and even scorn towards all others, and they refused the patronage of the world, let alone using their powers to shape it. So the wyrms were cursed instead of blessed, cursed to live out their days with those they despised, hunted, hated by them.”

He paused there, satisfied that he at least captured the interest of the women because Myrhia was halted in mid chew, holding the food in her mouth and looking up at him with an anxious look, while Selena had the more refined, unimpressed look, though her azure eyes flashed with profound interest. Taking a sip from his flask, the handing it to the teenager that stood stiffened in his embrace, he continued. “So He created the Builders, an offset of the dragons so to speak. Obedient and more powerful then anything that ever grazed the world, these giants lifted and collapsed mountains, lowered the flatlands into seas and shaped the landscape into what we see today. But to prevent them from being corrupted like the dragons, or maybe to keep them as silent wards, the Creator froze them together with his promised land, to wait the destruction of the world and join him as loyal servants in the Halls of the Final Gathering.”

Wrapping the leftovers of his meal and placing them back into his bag, he added in a softer tone that announced the story entered the more relaxed soothing waters. “That thing back at the sea? The Builders made it and placed it there. It is to them like drawing a shape in the sand to us. But the Age of Creation ended a long time ago, and the Builders will remain in their stasis until the Age of Destruction comes.” He yanked the leather strap, closed the bag and added with a sincere smile that was now somehow much warmer once his face was defrosted and young again. “I guess we’re lucky that the Age of Destruction still has yet to come to pass.”

“Wow...” was all that Myrhia managed at first. His stories always left her speechless, her simple innocent mind taking in all that he said like a sponge left for dry in some forgotten kitchen for a decade. She didn’t even notice that her meal was unfinished and that her body was still ravenous with hunger (not to mention rest).

“And the Blade? How is the Blade of the Judicator linked to the Builders?” Selena asked with an impatient tone of a child that was left at the edge of a bedroll with unfinished story. Letho just smiled slyly.

“That... is a story best left for some other time.” he disappointed both women who seemed ready for another story (and possibly another handful after that). “For now I suggest we turn in. That is if any of you doesn’t have a story of their own to tell to pass time?”

[Storm Veritas]

Storm sat and smoked, catching a curious coalescence of repulsion and jealousy from the lovely redheaded maiden. She was timid, almost afraid to come closer, although the warmth of the tiny blaze was attractive to them all. He knew that he could keep the flickers going, and the dryness here, in spite of the snow-packed ground… it charged him. He even considered sparking the tree itself, but the words and general fear from Letho was sobering. Were the generally fearless leader so trepidatious, perhaps there was a method to the madness.

He sat and waited, eagerly grasping at the leaf-wrapped meat. The protein was needed, it helped with his headaches, things he had been suffering silently through for several hours now. The place, it was lucid, it was unbelievable. Whatever motivated Ravenheart, that accursed blade, it may have led them on an excursion that none would return from.

He took each bite with a voracious pull, and the cold weather had hardened the jerky further still. The pieces came apart only with tooth-shaking effort, and Veritas thought he could taste a cuprous lick of blood along with the satisfying salted meats. Gum damage be damned, it was well worth it. He devoured the small portion, his own mind scrambling.

So the last thing I eat may end up being this dehydrated crap? This isn’t how it was supposed to be, Letho. A trip, a trek, a journey, a victory. Riches for you, me, and all the men. Wasn’t that the Nyd you referred to? I was supposed to die in a sea of riches, the last taste on my lips the sanguine tang of Selena. Not here. Not like this. Not for you. I’ve already put myself out there once, if you do recall. TWICE, if you want to be technical.

His doubts were unquestionably drawn, and his faith in the leader shaken, but Storm continued on, silently listening to the nonsensical tale of his physical superior. Selena and Myrhia both seemed rapt by the tale, but the wary traveler felt that it was no more than folklore, the foolish gibberish that mothers tell their sons to motivate good behavior.

Sure. These big trees built the mountains. Right. And God appeared to me last week in a grilled cheese sandwich.

When Letho finally ceased his diatribe, he was asked of his need for the Blade of the Judicator. Storm’s eyebrows leapt; finally, a chance for some answers! Yet the longwinded leader merely deflected the question, choosing instead to offer no such explanation. They were risking life and limb in the miserable cold because I tell you to, as Veritas saw it, and the answer was simply not acceptable.

When asked if he had a tale of his own, there was no longer an opportunity to hold back. Storm took the bait, and ran with it.

“Pass the time, you say? I do believe I know the perfect tale.” His body was curled taut, his eyes fixed on the fire roots popping from the ground. It was an opportunity he simply could not resist. It was outside of his ability. He continued, arms draped across his thighs as he hunched forward over the stump, peering out at the disturbingly blued skins of his traveling companions.

“I grew up in a quiet town, a simple, unassuming one horse sh*tbox of a town. We all lived happily and naively, farming and mining and such. Blue collar, honest folk, who went to church and prayed. Life was simple, life was good, and the town thanked the heavens for it.

“One day, as we were going about our business, a mighty cloud formed overhead. There was crashing and banging and kicking and screaming. Torrential rains, heavy winds… f*cking chaos. Cows tossed around, women and children screaming, rain of frogs, you name it.

“Then, my father went to the field to combat it. A great noodle, a large, limp, wet thing came down from the clouds, grasping him and flinging him over the mountains. From the cloud, other massive, columnal sprays of goat feces, poisoning the land. Little green aliens from the clouds, with fancy weapons, ray-guns and all that sh*t.”

An incredulous look from the three. They weren’t buying any of it, thank God.

“Violence, cataclysm. Carnage, chaos. By the end of the day, the town was dead, leaving me in the hospices of merely one alien, who raised me and blessed me and shuttled me down back to my bed, gifted with the powers of the sacred noodle.”

Selena groaned. She knew where he was going. She gave him a disapproving look, but also knew that it was far too late to stop Storm. Once the tripe started flowing, his verbal diarrhea knew no bounds.

“And now, that same cloud hovers here, in the land of the walking trees, the builders of the earth, and the spewers of other such assorted sh*t.”

He couldn’t help but smile, although he knew that the all-too-serious Ravenheart would likely not take kindly to it. Pride goeth before the fall.

[Letho]

Despite her spirits currently making a taut stand in an area between utterly hapless and I-would-sell-my-soul-to-get-somewhere-warm miserable, Myrhia couldn’t help not to utter a frolicky giggle at the story Storm narrated in a half-serious, half-wiseass tone. It was the kind of a tale that reminded her of the years of her childhood, years before the wretched slavery that now seemed a millennia ago. The kind that she and her brother, Ertian, used to conjure on some random summer day as they snuck from their daily chores and sat on the docks, scabby legs dangling above the murky water as they drifted to the things that could not be. It was usually a derisory absurdity, a concoction made of dreams, thoughts and fantasies, a rummy little thing filled with mirth and laughter and mockery of all things reasonable that wasted the remnants of the hard day and magically altered their moods from a slump to a careless exaltation.

Unfortunately, one look towards Letho (who held her so close she could smell his masculine fresh sweat mixed with the mundane scent of his skin) made it clear that once again she and her lover didn’t share the same taste (or rather distaste as the swordsman would likely have put it in this instance) when it comes to entertainment. The terminal illness that stood on his brow in a form of an acute frown, that she was used to. But below those thick dark eyebrows loomed a broody look that would probably split Storm’s head if it was made out of the same organic material as a melon. Truth was, up until the calf started to go airborne, Letho was in his attentive mode, then switched to divertingly entertained with a touch of annoyance. But the bitter crescendo that the louche loudmouth saved for the period (or an exclamation mark) of his little jest was the drop that spilled the cup of the usually indifferent apathetic swordsman. The ignorance he could handle just as he could make peace with the fact that his view of genesis seemed like a bedtime story to others. But the conspicuous mockery (intentionally) feebly concealed behind sarcasm was that “righteous” slap at his face that a bit too much for him to swallow down. He paused for a couple of seconds (an eerily comfortless silence littered with wind whiffs taking over the governing of their little campsite) and Myrhia got ready to play her usual role at Letho’s debates (or rants); the peacemaker.

“You never struck me as an ignorant fellow, Storm. A lot of other things perhaps, but not ignorant.” the swordsman begun in an ascertained seemingly placid tone, keeping his bitterness (and disappointment) in check and his fuse away from the fire. “And yet ignorance is the only that can explain your clamant mockery of my beliefs...” Myrhia was actually proud of him up until this point for keeping such a civilized tone. But one glance at his squinted eyes revealed the flames that were too close to that fuse to leave it untouched. That’s why what followed came as no surprise to her. “...comparing them to some lunacy you just pulled out of your ass and patronizingly served us as if you hold the wisdom of the ages and we are young, beardless and foolish. I never asked you to believe, as I recall, just as I never asked you to join me on MY mission, on MY ship!” his tone was becoming tempestuous now, reaching the point after which usually the blades spoke further, writing the result of yet another feud in crimson ink. But instead of knocking some sense into the man (and he oh so wanted to do that), Letho eased the reins of the wagon that was taking him to berserker land.

“Doesn’t matter though. Believe it or mock it, there are things at work here that will soon unravel in a manner even the blind couldn’t shun aside.” and this was spoken in such a low grievous tone that it raised the hair on Myrhia’s neck and sent her gooseflesh rippling down her spine.

“What? What is going to happen, Letho?” Selena spoke, but even as her precipitous inquiry left her frozen lips, she could see that her fishing for an answer to what was the role of the Blade of the Judicator fell into the murky waters of the swordsman’s mind. Instead of a regular answer, he just grinned, stretched those damned broken lips into a mysterious smirk that raised more questions then it gave answers, and pulled up his hood.

“Enough chitchat.” spoken in a definite unmovable tone. If a gigantic granite rock or a mountain had a mouth to voice their thoughts, the manner of speaking wouldn’t differ much from those two words. The conclusion sent all four to the world of their own, where thoughts rushed in like a typhoon, leaving the wreckage of questions and half-assed assumptions.

Truth was, Letho had no idea what was going to happen other then the magnitude of it would have to be colossal. The Blade was the only divine artifact left from the Age of Creation, forged by the Ancients, the elemental deities, that once governed all earth at the very commencement. If something like that was put to rest and out of human range, waking it up should result in something... Something grand, perhaps even catastrophic. It was an avid risk to even reach the point where they were now, but the greatest hazard, the mother lode of all bets placed on the table, it still stood before them, beyond the stormy seas, monstrous leviathans and deathly-cold environments. Because the greatest risk of it all was the Blade itself.

***

The following day they walked the path of the Elders, passing between the glacial wintry titans that stood at both sides, each caught in the same posture of a soldier on a watchful guard. They didn’t look like trees, unlike what Storm’s rant claimed, not when they were this close to them. Despite being lined up to form an avenue of ghastly a apparitions, they were more like oversized humans, encased in an icy glacier during a windy day that disfigured their extremities to a point where they looked as if they were cut sharply from a block of ice. And regardless of their immobilized state, they were here, their presence as definite as the pull of the Blade that stood beyond (within?) the mountain whose footing they were about to hit by the day’s end. They never moved, their hidden eyes never shifted at the intrusion of the four outsiders, but their wills and their sprits undeniably lurked around the path, radiating the faint sense of... Anxiety? Prevision? Expectation?

Nonetheless, Letho was unswayed by these unseen powers, threading the path with remarkable vehemence, pausing only when Myrhia would yank his coat and tell him that if they didn’t stop soon, they would suffer the same death as the watchers at their sides. His will was decisive to the point of being malignant, making his every stride a slap to the face of this land and his every second spent against the ferocious wind a stand of defiance against the snowy tide. At times he felt the desire not only to acquire the Blade, but the rip it out of the bowels of Nyd, tear it away from it slumber site and spit into the face of all that worked against him. Because in the end, there was a good intention behind all of this. He wasn’t doing it for power or glory or anything akin to such mundane things human hearts desired. He was simply doing this because of love, because he had too much of it inside of himself, too much for just one body, one world. In the back of his mind there was a whisper though, wispy and thin, trying to say something about good intentions and what usually happened on a path paved by those good intentions. At this time, however, the swordsman didn’t pay much heed to the psycho babble.

***

“What does it say, Letho?” Myrhia asked in her usual timid, inquisitive voice as her lover stared at the pearly white arch that stood above the monumental double doors made out of what seemed like white gold. They saw the door about an hour ago, springing out on the horizon in all the shimmering yellowish glory. Half an hour later they could see the doorway was imbedded in the mountain itself and that, beside it and the ivory arch, there was nothing else but the snowy slope that darted upwards at a deathly steep and smooth angle. And now they were standing in front of these twenty feet high entryway that seemingly led into the entrails of the mountain itself. The wind gave up, literary gave up as if it was saying: “Another round goes to you, wanderer. My job here is done.”, and even though the cold was still so bitter it brought dull ache into their extremities, their voices at least didn’t have to wrestle with the tempests anymore.

“You know, I have absolutely no idea. Those runes are unlike any I ever seen before and they seem... shifty somehow.” Letho replied in a perplexed tone. Shifty was the only word he could find that would describe the inscription above, the tall stylish runes not only unrecognizable to him, but constantly changing before his eyes, as if they were some sort of devised trickery of a mage that deceived the eyes of the observer. Myrhia didn’t see them as shifty, though, just something she couldn’t even begin to decipher. She was still struggling with longer words in Tradespeak, so she gave it a rest and shrugged her shoulder, thankful that the wind ceased and hopeful that beyond the door the cold would subside at least in some small manner.

Not dwelling on the creepy changing letters above, Letho did what doers do; placed his shoulder against the door and gave it a push. The first time the doors didn’t even show an intention to move an iota from their original position. The crack in the middle was barely visible, a thin line almost as if drawn by the thinnest quill imaginable. “Come on, bastard, open up!” his mind “mused” to the doors before giving it another go, this time putting all the might of his bulky muscles into it. The hinges gave a disapproving yawp, screeched for a fraction of a second as the door trembled and the snow from the arch cascaded down on top of them, but remained shut once again.

“Come on, don’t just stand there!” he told to the others who seemed each caught in their own train of thought. If Letho was in sane mind, he would see the disquieting look in Selena’s azure eyes that stared at the runes above. Because those eyes didn’t see the runes as shifty. They saw them true and clear and what they said struck dread into her bones. With the joint effort the monolithic doors swung inwards and the party of four stepped into the Halls of the Ancients.

High above the gaping door, solid and unanimous, the runes formed a warning:

“Read this, Worthy One, and know that fate of the World lies beyond these doors.”

And Letho couldn’t read it.

[Storm Veritas]

If his intent was to upset the mighty swordsman, Storm had succeeded more wildly than he could ever have imagined. Letho raged, embarking on a verbose tirade that was both restrained and unhinged, an unabashed bastardization of literal grace and primal fury. The seething, infuriated warrior looked upon Veritas with utter disdain now, the furrowed brow not guising a festering rage that boiled within him. He was itching; his fingers twitching randomly as a gunslinger’s; ever waiting for the opportunity to strike out and attempt to bring the wordy heathen down. Defiant still, Storm merely watched the immature outburst and smiled.

You wanna jump? Do it! Jump! Because I’m sick of your sh*t, your pompous attitude, your ridiculous rage. I’m sick of following you to hell, being carried through the wilderness like a child. Come on, and do us both a favor. Make the move.

Although the tension was thick, Storm didn’t act out. Some semblance of restraint was used in the presence of Selena. It wasn’t that he felt she didn’t wish to see violence; surely Letho was wearing on the last nerves of the entire group. Yet Storm knew that he was no match for Ravenheart, and would likely be struck down, leaving her a vacant third wheel with the madman and his snow bride. It was difficult, but Storm bit his tongue, merely offering his response to his psyche in an effort to quell the flames of his own vigilance.

You didn’t ask me to save your life, or the life of your bride, being raped either. Yet I did both of them and that seemed to work out pretty well. Don’t forget that you would have been chum for the sharks were it not for me. Don’t forget that I’m the reason you’re still here. I’m the reason that your ship still lives to float.

It was a sleepless night, and when they awoke, Storm was moving without words.



~*~

The Builders were true, as Storm could plainly see as they walked through, but that was no excuse for the ridiculous confrontation over a silly joke. Storm knew now that Letho could never be happy; without a sense of humor or an understanding of the people he dealt with, this man was nothing more than a self-righteous walking cliché. As he continued on, he was quiet, his resentment growing as the journey grew ever more perilous. The wind was howling; it was such that their voices were nearly lost under the scream of the element itself. It was only when her hand fell on his shoulder that Storm would turn to Selena, and only then that he could hear her voice. Some fifty feet behind the plodding leader, she spoke to him with tears in her eyes.

“Storm, you have to stop him,” she began, face reddened by the blustery cold. “You have to keep Letho from the Blade of the Judicator.”

The words were clear through the wind, but Storm made her repeat herself. She was forceful, but why had she not said something before? Where was this coming from? He watched, confused, wordless, as she went more into depth.

“When we left, we knew that he was going for it. But the Blade chooses its master, and I fear that Letho is not the chosen one. He is not the one who will wield it for justice; he is not the just man I thought it was. The trip, this… this f*cking odyssey has changed him! You must see it! We need to stop him before it is too late. The Blade must not fall into his hands!”

He couldn’t pretend to understand her, and he thought that the cold was breaking her. He reached to her, and held her tight to his bosom as they walked, his soft and soothing tones trying to stifle her sorrow. She was delirious; clearly these were the words of a ravaged woman. He couldn’t bear to tell her that she was wrong. He couldn’t bear to tell her she was mistaken.

And besides, they were nearly upon the mountain; they were nearly upon that mighty door. The journey was nearly over, and they’d be happy again, on their way to the cabin outside Corone before they knew it.



~*~

The door was massive, but Storm recognized the runes immediately. He had been able to read the ancient’s speak since youth, it was something his parents had gifted him with before they left him. The words, the prophecy, it was clear as day. Even the fall of snow and the fury of the long-since mad leader would not deter them from here. If the fate of the world lay with them, if the fate of mankind sat behind the doors, perhaps it was this very journey that had brought him here. It couldn’t be luck; surely this was something more.

My destiny. A meaning, at last. Something to live for, a reason to continue.

His eyes left the mighty door, laying once again upon Selena, who was now glowing. Her face was a radiant golden, some seraphic vision that was beyond mortal comprehension. Her face glowed with life and energy, the same color that the runes above would hum and send forth to the travelers. She was… connected, somehow, although he knew not how. Despite glorious sheen to her skin, it was her eyes that told her tale of disapproval. Her glare directed at Ravenheart was that of hatred now, a disdain that was unlike anything that Storm had ever seen. She was a powerful woman, but Veritas had never seen such passion from her soul. Not even in the throes of passion, where she had shocked him.

And maybe my baby isn’t the crazy one after all… What the f*ck is going on here?

Yet before him, the massive doors were open, a brilliant and familiar golf of glow emanating from the interior. Storm had somehow missed the opening as he gazed upon Selena, and Letho was already entering.



~*~

The place behind the doors was not of earthen construction; such was clear as Storm entered. They could no longer possibly be in a place of human occupation. The extravagance which lay behind the doors was apparent in the opulence of the size of the structure itself; a long, wide, and straight hallway, over which a ceiling arched one hundred feet from the ground if it was an inch. The imposing hallway was basked in golden light, which was incredibly powerful yet simultaneously soothing. Large, oak-thick pillars of what appeared to be ivory stretched from the floor, bracing the wall to the ceiling whereupon they arched together in dramatic hemispheres. The walls were uncovered yet ornate; intricate carvings into what had to be pure gold telling stories in what appeared to be the artwork of the gods themselves. The floor which they stepped on was composed of large, gleaming, institutional shined gold tile, obviously untouched and unimpressed by the postulation of dirt or dust or time itself.

Holy sh*t. I guess taking my boots off wouldn’t exactly suffice here.

Awestruck and literally frozen, Storm had to shake himself to keep moving. Letho had not stopped, and was now twenty feet in front of him, wandering slowly yet steadily. The Blade of the Judicator was before them all ahead, and the fate of the World lay before them.

[Letho]

Even though at first sight, Myrhia gave of an impression of a rather wide-eyed, maybe even dim-witted silent person who was utterly foxed in all of this, she was pretty aware of what was going on around her. And regardless of how much she spun, twisted and turned this jigsaw that fell into her lap in the polar wasteland of Nyd, she just couldn’t make it look right. It was always Letho that messed up her solution, or rather what had become of the kind gentle knight that her heart yearned so much it did the wrong thing from right reasons. And it wasn’t anything prominent in him that caused this disruption in her. He still treated her with the same gentleness, smiled that same heartily smile, talked in the majestic high-and-mighty voice that made her insides tremble, acted the way his stubborn oaken head always acted.

And yet he did change. His every step was not only a courageous stand of defiance against the will of the furious land, but a malicious punch into its face. His eyes, that once held all the warmth of the world in that glitter of lacquered wood, seemed doused down, quenched to a chill that grew with every frozen mile they trekked. She first mistook it for fatigue, but she knew his weariness and all its faces and this wasn’t it. No, he seemed driven, captivated by an unseen force that had the guile and cunning to remain coffined to the darkest depth of his psyche and work its way from the bottom. And even a dumb little her could figure out that it was the Blade that was his drive not because it called him, but because it rejected his arrogation.

However, all of that could have been peachy if the circumstances were different. She would tell him that he was a fool and that this wasn’t right and kept telling it to him, kept crying and begging at his feet, until he would succumb and turn away. But they were here because of her, because she, in her endless affection towards the Savion prince, did something anserine and, while creating a second chance for being one with her lover once again, she created a whole lot of mess as well. The problem wasn’t that Letho wanted the blade, but rather that she needed him to want it, and by feeling that, she stopped being the moral compass that the swordsman needed from time to time. So Myrhia kept to herself, kept repeating that she’s just feeling last minute jitters and that all would be well once her lover holds the Blade within his grasp.

By passing through the ivory archway and into the alien halls beyond, this feeling of unease became even more potent. Once easily amazed by glitter of ornaments and rather simple trinkets, Myrhianna Bastillien saw nothing attractive in the Hall of the Ancients. Sure, it was a colossal creation, far beyond anything her mind could comprehend with its flummoxing detailed goldwork that covered the walls, creating countless frescos of stories untold and battles fought at the very commencement of time, and gargantuan pillars of perfect pearly granite that rocketed to the ceiling so far above she had to squint her eyes to notice the arcs the column heads formed at the very top, creating dome after dome after dome, each one graced by a different set of imagery. And certainly there was no doubt at the magnificence of the myriad of banquet halls that all greeted them with the same spotless glamour, all ready for a royal ball of gigantic proportions under the queer yellow light that seemed to be coming from nowhere and yet encompassing all four of them. But all the grandeur of the world couldn’t erase one simple fact, an unnerving realization that struck the coy female the very second her light boots started tapping on the polished tiles of the floor; they weren’t supposed to be here.

Letho was dauntless though. On any given day (if that day was not spent in the colorless monochromatic kingdom of Nyd) the swordsman would perceive this worrisome mist that loomed around them and at least make some sort of assortment. But the Blade of the Judicator was close now, so close he could feel it pulsate, breathe, like a heart torn from the chest that was beating still. It made the Halls of the Ancients bend in a way, squirm and shiver under the immense power, inflate with each beat and deflate when it was done.

“By the gods...” he murmured in a faraway tone, his eyes staring at the wondrous decorations, but seeing only the pulse, only the titanic might that supported not only the walls and the columns, but the land of Nyd as it was, inaccessible and with a heart of ice. “This is incredible.” spoken like a man that just got a shot of his favorite drug and started the trip to his own land of unicorns and sparkly rainbows. This finally ushered Myrhia to speak.

“Letho.” her voice timid, mousy, echoing with a mesmerizing whisper through the vacant empty halls. “Are you certain this is alright? I... I don’t think we’re supposed to be here.” she spoke, her emerald eyes not looking at his own, but rather glaring around with salient fright.

The dark knight snapped out of his daze, wordless at first, but the blank look lasted only a second before giving in to a tender smile. “Don’t worry. It is here, Myri. I can feel it.” Letho spoke softly, not reassuring her in the very least. She didn’t like that smile, the mirthless, hollow, perfidious copy of the Letho she knew and loved with all of her heart. Surprisingly, out of all four voices in the hall, Letho’s was the strongest and yet the only one that had no echo return to it. It creeped Myrhia out. “Come on, it’s just a bit further ahead.”

And indeed it was. The swordsman led the way with a decisive stride now, his muscles and joints defrosted and as obedient as ever, his heavy boots stomping on the eternal smoothness of the tiles and thundering through the silence like war drums, currently tuned to marching speed. Two gates, crafted of what seemed like an angelic-white ivory, stood gapping open at each side of the hallway, leading to treasuries littered with neatly arranged coin piles and jewel stacks so high, each and every dragon would lust even at the thought of it. The sight of them was overwhelming, the treasuries itself seeming so much more, like manifestos of pure bliss that glimmered in dominating yellow that reflected and shifted to the green of the emeralds, the azure of the sapphires, the scarlet of the rubies, the pure translucent white of the diamonds, all amalgamating in an translucent enchanting glow. Letho passed by them, then two others, as if they weren’t there, as if the promise made to the buccaneers that were freezing and working their ass off wasn’t even made. His mind justified this by stating he would pick some of it up on his way back, but the truth was he simply didn’t care for such earthly possessions. Not now when the Blade was one door away.

The door itself stood at the end of the main hallway they walked for nearly half an hour now and out of all the doors and gates, it was the only one that was closed shut. The doorframe was picturesque to say the least, with detailed engravings on each side that rose high into a sharp pointed arc that seemed at least thirty feet above them. On the left side of the frame, carved from what seemed like pitch-black marble as smooth as a dark opal, stood the forces of evil. Hideous demons and wailing wraiths engulfed in flames screamed with their eyes pointed towards the other side, their feet planted on the backs of tormented souls that cried out with terror on their visages. On the right, forged from spotless white stone, the usual set of angels and saints stood in all their feathery holy glory. Only their faces lacked the usual serenity of the holy icons. Their hands carried swords, their visages crumpled in an expression of what seemed like righteous anger and they too directed their glances to the other side. But neither of the sides directed their furious looks at the other. In the middle of the door, that slowly lost both of the monochromatic hues the closer it got to the center where it carried the tone of indifferent gray, stood a huge round seal and on it was a figure of a hooded man, bowed and weary. Even though it was but a simple image with no details to accompany it, Letho felt as if he never saw somebody more alone then that figure on the gray seal.

Around the seal and all over the gigantic door were more of those shifty alien runes and the swordsman didn’t even bother to try to decipher them this time. They seemed haunting somehow, mocking him with their incontinence and capriciousness. What he couldn’t read said:

“Beyond the Door of the Soul lies the Blade of the Judicator. Wield it justly, Worthy One, and bring forth the Age of Destruction, when the blessed shall be exalted, and the cursed damned for eternity. But do not tarry, for you shall bring upon yourself the wrath of the Four.”

“This is it. This is what we came here for. The Blade of the Judicator... within our grasp.” Letho spoke to all present and none in specific, his voice rising high with excitement that rippled through his insides like an unstoppable maelstrom. Myrhia was petrified at this tone. She heart Doomsayers speak in that same high disturbed tone, announcing that the end is near and that the sky will rain fire on their worthless tainted souls and whatnot, but none of those strange preaching folk managed to strike such dread into her as her lover as they stood in front of those doors. Selena, on the other hand, seemed content and serene to Letho, but the swordsman was damn near blind by this point. If he could have seen what went around him, he would notice that she was as tense as a set bear trap. The gauntleted hand touched the door and to everybody’s surprise it swung inwards instantly without a sound save for the one of the broken weary-wanderer seal.

What stood before them was a hall that was so sizeable in girth, the word “hall” didn’t encompass it. It was dizzyingly high, almost as if somebody carved the entire mountain insides and created one gigantic cave. And in the middle of it stood a tower of ebony, at least some good thirty paces in diameter at the bottom and rising up without losing an inch to its width. No engravings decorated the body of the dark tower, nothing but the two set of staircases that spiraled around it at each sides, meeting in the middle, then continuing on their ascending path up the sides of the tower to meet again some twenty paces up. The stairways met at least a dozen times before the top that emanated bright white glow that was the only enlightenment in the large room. Letho’s fists clutched at his sides so tight, the metal crunched and moaned underneath his inhuman strength. This was it. This was where he would bend destiny to his favor, where he would slap the fate back for all the times it slapped him during his life. The Blade was calling and he answered.

[Storm Veritas]

By the time Storm had reached the doorway, he knew that the moments that lay ahead would define the life he led in his time on Althanas. This was judgement; tried and true. There was nothing more clear to him than the mural that graced the doorway; it was the very duality of man. On one side lay the demons; the dark, the decrepit. The merchants of death and hedonism. Opposite them stood the angels; sword-bearing bringers of justice, of good, of humanity. There was a time where justice and good and humanity were parts of him; driving motivations that pushed him to excel, to be the very best man he could be. Being with Selena made him feel like perhaps all those days were not behind him.

Perhaps there is some good purpose left for me, for the man in gray.

The gray figure above the door was a telling one; for he was what Storm knew was every man. For every man, no matter how noble or just, would still feel the pull of temptation. Every villain, no matter how vile, still carried a scrap of mercy. No man was the black, no man the white, but rather the many shades of gray. Men did what they felt was right, what felt right, and Veritas had learned through personal experience that what separated the good from the bad was little more than perspective. It was the fate of man to fall to himself.

Even the good ones fall, Ravenheart. Even the noble stray.

He knew that today Letho’s perspective had changed. Such was life. The warrior in white was drawn to take this sword, this blade, and the power that it must wield was frightening. For although Storm had grown to detest Letho, to hate his haughty attitude and self-righteous diatribes, at the core he knew that this was not an evil man. Something had taken him, had pulled him to a darker shade of gray. It was the power. The potential for success will make any man question righteousness. It would make any man stray from his so-called worthy course.

You should know.

As he walked through the doorway, the awe-inspiring tower was marked with a series of ascending stairs, crossing paths and doubling over themselves. It was plain, and blindingly tall, and it was certainly the home of the blade. Only the worthy would reach the top and take the sword, as Storm knew would have to be the case. If it were easy, the sword would have left these halls long ago.

And you wouldn’t be freezing here, stuck in the middle of nowhere, trying to stop a man you once trusted from taking hold of his life’s dream.

There was something here, some sense of fate. The contrast and the color. The black and the white. Selena and Myrhia knew it; they gave off the same vibe. All that traveled with Letho were afraid of him now, and more afraid of what he may do with such newfound power. This was not the same man he had met aboard the intrepid; the brave swordsman who put his life on the line to face the sea-beast. Not the same man who would have died for Storm and Selena and Myrhia.

This was a monster. Veritas felt the pull at his gut, a wrenching feeling. The fight would come, and he may not survive. But the eyes of Selena had it; he had not come this far without reason. He would be here, and try to stop the monster. He would try to stop the taking of the blade. He would likely die trying to do so; for he knew he was no match for mighty Ravenheart.

And he knew that the world, for once, needed him. Selena needed him. For this, and this alone, he would put himself on the line. As good a reason to die as he would ever have.

With but a nod and a self-doubting, half-hearted smile, he walked to the stairs behind Letho. His dagger was drawn now, dancing between his fingertips. The time had come, and he began to run.

[Letho]

A sudden urge overcame Letho, an exhort to start running up those ebony stairways as fast as his feet could muster and not to stop until he reached the acme of the dark tower. And it wasn’t because the power that reigned on the top floor of that tower was tempting him to acquire it, but because it didn’t, because even now, when he was in its hallowed halls, it was willing him away. And he wanted to put an end to it and to the injustice that the Fate bestowed upon him once and for all. But there was still sufficient composure within him for his will to prevent this maddening dash, to yank the reins, yell whoa boy! and slow down the wild mustang that was now far from the proud stallion he was raised into. So he walked with a grin, his fingers tingling with the power of the gods that was soon to be his own to bend to his own will.

But before he even managed to set his foot on the first step that started the helix of stairs above, his path was barred by Selena who didn’t seem all that jocund and mirthful as the day Storm and he met her on the main deck of the “Intrepid”. She spoke of the blade with amusement then, as if it was a mere trinket of venial importance and she only coveted to witness its restoration and extraction. But now, now Selena stood before him with an exacting rigid frown, her golden locks damp and tousled and diminishing her bonny visage, her eyes clad in a keen frosted azure, her pale gloved hands steadfast around a curved jagged dagger that was pointed at his chest. Her determination was effulgent, the same firm-browed solid expression of the captain that wrestled the wrath of the sea while Letho was rassling the leviathan.

“Letho, stop!” but he didn’t, not until the point of her blade touched his chest and made contact with the breastplate below. “This isn’t right and you know it! That... That THING up there wasn’t meant to be wielded by one of us.” her voice was frenetic, yet fearless just like her stature before this man-god that sought to become more of the latter. Myrhia froze at Letho’s side, unable to move even if her life depended on it right now, when the final chapter of an overly long tale was slowly unwinding. Of course, there was always a paragraph reserved for betrayal, but was that Selena’s genuine intention? Or was she just trying to do what she felt was right? But then again, weren’t they all here because they were doing something that according to their book was just and fair? “Do you know what the runes said? They said...”

“I DON’T CARE WHAT THE RUNES SAID, HARLOT!!!” he bellowed with a growl, his voice so terrifying and cogent that despite the lack of echo, the endless hall around them seemed to quake under its might. “Now stand aside. We both know you don’t have what it takes to stop me.” he continued in a trivial manner, as if she was a child that just bashed into his study while he was rummaging through some important paperwork. But when he moved to sidestep, she followed his motion fluently, limberly, positioning herself once again in front of the stairs with the same intrepid face. The face that slowly started to aggravate Letho enough to consider reaching for his own blade.

“Don’t you see what this thing has done to you? Don’t you see that it mudded your eyes, Letho?” this time it was the voice of the reason, still rigid but infinitely more warm and sympathizing. The swordsman’s hand moved with unequaled speed, flashing in a blur and grasping her wrist with his insensate metallic fingers that nearly shattered her bones beneath. He wrenched her towards himself, his malicious grin in her face and his flaming eyes inches away from melting the ice in her azure ones.

“Nothing mudded my eyes, woman! That thing up there... It’s my destiny. And not even the gods can take it away from me!” his voice rumbled, low and brutal, mesmerizing for any lesser human. He flicked her away from himself like a mere buzzing insect, casting her from his path and making a step forwards. But once again the woman stopped his advance, this time with only her voice that seemed to pulsate with cold resolve.

“You’re wrong!” this alone was enough for him to jerk his head around like an aroused beast and whip her with his harsh glance. “Maybe I cannot stop you from climbing to your doom, but I can beat you to it.”

Their exchanged looks lasted but a fraction of a second, an assortment that both made clicked like a switch in their minds, sending their bodies dashing up the stairs. Selena took the right spiral, her light feet barely touching the dark granite below her feet, hovering like a fairy up the flight of stairs. On the left spiral Letho charged like a bull with rabies, each step cracking, even shattering some of the steps as he took them three, four at the time. He had to have it, had to beat this dastardly annoying woman to it, beat her to it and beat the life out of her if needed, because... because... No! Whys ceased to matter at this point. Everything faded and evanesced before the Blade... His blade. No, he would not allow this haggard witch to obtain it.

With her demented bewildered lover already halfway to the fist crossing of the stair volutes, Myrhia was still thunderstruck in the foot of the tower, fighting to grasp just what was going on. Or rather, how to position herself towards what was going on. This was wrong, awry in so many ways it made her eyes water. This was not hers Letho, not the man because of whom she found a way to change the past itself just to be with him, not the man that saved her back in Scara Brae with a gentle touch and a compassionate glare. But she swallowed hard at that, gulped and reaffirmed her posture, because even though harebrained at the time, there was a slim chance he would revert to at least a portion of his former self. And a slim chance was better then no chance at all.

With Letho and Selena clashing for the first time some twenty paces above their heads, the mahogany haired teenager reached out with her lissome hands and provided two steel daggers from the sheathes in her bracers. Her supreme agility allowed her to move faster then Storm and at the first crossing the two were bound to meet. And she would play her part, take her piece of the doom and prevent this man, granting Letho... No, granting both of them what they wanted.

***

At the first crossing the fallen knight was behind the lithe pirate captain just enough to catch the glimpse of her heels at the next curve that circled around the tower. At the second one though, they met face to face, two apparitions both clad in sheer determination conjured by an unhinged desire in Letho’s case and righteous resolve in Selena. He dashed at her without a pause in his sprint, his bastard sword coming down in a diagonal downwards slash powerful enough to cleave her nimble trunk. But the velocity with which the woman moved was petrifying, almost too blistering for his eyes to follow. She skirted to the left, making the powerful strike create a crack in the night stone below, and even as she did so she passed by his undefended side, her right foot hitting his knee from behind and making him buckle, her right foot following with the roundhouse kick that buried itself into his temple, slamming the burly warrior into the wall. Instantly she dashed towards the stairs once again, certain that she incapacitated the man at least for at least a while, but before her light boot even touched the first step, a swishing sound came from behind her back. A dagger spun vigorously, thrown with uncanny precision and only her remarkable reflexes prevented the blade from stabbing itself into her leg. Instead it brushed against it, creating a rather pesky wound on her calf. On the other end of that throw Letho had a bloodied smirk of a lunatic, the man spitting the burgundy red liquid onto the ground. This wasn’t over, not by a long shot, not until there was a tower to climb and a blade to arrogate.

So the fabled chase went on, the beauty against the beast on the tower of doom.

[Storm Veritas]

Things were breaking down; the situation spiraling (literally) out of control. Storm felt confused and disturbed by the ongoing event, the charge of Letho met alongside Selena. From his footing at the base of the massive obsidian spire, the two were rapidly circling, leaving his line of sight within seconds. What seemed like a small lead would end up being enormous. He had to think, to consider as he ran up the twisting stairway opposite the redheaded Myrhia.

Why has he lost his mind so? What is Selena talking about? Can I catch up to them? What would I do if I did?

There were more questions than answers, but he knew that his goal was to catch and stop Letho. Something, some pervasive element, had drawn the warrior here, and had overtaken his better judgment. The monster rapidly ascending the tower was not the same man that he fought alongside aboard the Intrepid. Whatever effect this sword had on Ravenheart, it was overwhelming, and Selena was racing to stop him. She would be overmatched, and Storm had to help her.

The stairs came together around the bend, and Veritas never saw the convergence. As he rapidly rose, he was blindsided by a vehement shot from Myrhia. She struck him squarely in the hip with a shoulder tackle; smashing him into the stone wall behind. She was feisty, but weak, and he turned quickly, tossing her to the stairs, leaving her hunched. Exasperated, he screamed at her as he continued up the stairs.

“Myrhia, what the f*ck are you doing?! Can’t you see that old prick has lost his mind? We need to stop him!”

He couldn’t stop now, couldn’t check on her, but could hear the pitter-pat of feet about the other side of the stairway. There was the option of really cutting loose, unleashing his full foot speed and leaving her in the dust.

No. You need her. You need the leverage.

Of course, he was waiting at the next union of stairways, some 720 degrees of rotation about the spiraling stairs. The tower was thinner here, the stairs feeling slightly steeper. She came charging up, long auburn strands fastened to her face through sweat’s adhesion. She was maniacal, blades brandished and eyes wide. His attempts to ration with her were for naught, as she sliced the blade through the air with speed and hatred. She was going to stop him, or die trying.

The right hand looped through his field of vision, Storm clasping her slender wrist in his powerful right hand and holding her taut. The left hand then came about, and he couldn’t stop it; she dug a deep groove through his shoulder, the deceptively sharp blade cutting through thick clothing. His right hand flared in an electrical outlet of raw energies, and she fell to her knees. The blades would clank down as well; one settling upon the stair, a second falling some sixty feet to the ornate hall below. The smell of burnt flesh wafted up as Storm released his grip from her, the marks of his fingers scorching deep black burns through her soft ivory skin. Unapologetic, he spoke to her, shaking her shoulders and staring her in the eye.

“Myrhia, I know you love him, and I love Selena. Selena told me that Letho needs to be stopped. I know about the runes, and their prophecy; he CAN NOT take the blade. We can’t let it happen. Please, come with me, help me stop Letho.

“Help me save Letho.”

His words struck a chord, and yet he could not halt for long. In seconds, a confused girl was rising, following, watching the rapid footfalls of a racing Storm. In spite of his thumping heart and fatigued frame, he continued along the stairway to the top of this pillar. For his stairs held tracks of small feet, and spattered flecks of blood. He looked as the dainty footprints, impossibly small, were laced up on every other stair; Selena was obviously running, and obviously hurt.

There could be no time for hesitation. Storm began to accelerate up the stairs, his feet a frenetic flurry, his frame pulling away gradually from a very game Myrhia. He probably couldn’t catch the two from behind; probably couldn’t save her.

But I have to try.

Towards the top, his feet were failing, lungs burning, and legs screaming. The crust of the tower was finally breached, the end of these atrocious stairs. With Myrhia silently sprinting only a few stairs behind, Storm laid eyes on the end of the world.

[Letho]

By the time they reached the plateau on top of the sinister tower, both Selena and Letho were lacerated, contused, stabbed, broken, weary and tenderised like a piece of ten years old meat jerky. They clashed four times during the ascend, exchanged blows and gasconades like cutthroat enemies, held nothing back, and came up rather even in the end. The swordsman had a gargantuan headache and a dagger wedged in his left shoulder blade, but Selena paid her dues with a deep gash in her calf a turbulent ache in her torso that would for certain amount to at least a couple of broken ribs. The ball-and-chain trammeled to their lead feet was a mutual illness, curtsey of physical fatigue that made them heave like steam engines going up a steep drag of the hillside. They were macabre apparitions, deathly wan with savagely ruffled hair stuck to their damp (in Letho’s case bloody) foreheads as they veered their trunks around the last curve, their feet unfaltering, fueled by rank resolve.

When they finally stepped over that final obstacle, that single stair that stood at the edge of their destinies, they were vexed by the shine of the blade. The ivory illumination was slightly altered, shifted to a remarkably bright nuance of cerulean that didn’t radiate, but rather came in a form of a constant eruption from the very center of the round flat dish. The site itself was far from eye-catching, completely deprived of the ornate glamour of the halls below. Dark blood-red stone stood at their feet, chapped, graceless, unreflecting, seemingly devouring every bit of light that was directed at it. Markings, undecipherable by a mortal soul, littered the dour floor in concentric circles, and the very instant a foot was set at the edge of the round arena, they too beamed with luminance, forming columns of azure livid light that extended up to the spherical dome high above.

And even as those ivory pillars struck the rocky ceiling, a rumbling could be heard, almost as if they were in the vicinity of a beast that had the hunger of the centuries in its belly together with all the war drums that were ever struck at the dawn of a battle. The cave around them shook with terrifying providential might, the stone walls that seemed as old as the foundations of the world started to crack and fissure, throwing down a torrent of pebbles that gradually grew in girth with each passing second. The den of the Blade was collapsing, their presence triggered what seemed like the safety mechanism, but the tower itself was unfazed by the tectonic shifting around it, as if its foundations went deeper, deeper then this material world; as if the tower and the blade were not a part of Althanas at all.

“DON’T YOU SEE, LETHO? YOU WILL DESTROY US ALL!! THIS IS NOT ABOUT YOU ANYMORE!!! CAN YOU NOT FEEL THE POWER THAT YOU WISH TO UNLEASH?!?!” Selena bawled, not being able to see Letho through the pearly light that, though it barricaded her view, failed to blind her eyes. But she knew he was there, she felt his dauntless will withstanding her words even as she spoke them, just as she knew the Blade of the Judicator was there, somewhere in the middle of the sea of white, waiting to fulfill its destiny whether it was to save the world or bring forth its Armageddon.

And she was right. He was there, standing on the edge of this scene and literary not hearing a single word she was saying. His entire being was enthralled by the might that now rippled through him, touched every ounce of his being, and even though every iota of that force was pushing him away, he let it course over him, through him, purging him, elevating him, unable to defy him. And now it was his. He scudded from a standstill as if there was no injury encumbering his body, almost winging towards the most vivid column in the forest of them. And with every step he made he could see more of it, the lambent metal of the double-edged sword that glinted as if it was sparged with stardust. The armguard of the blade was two-fold, one side forming an angelic wing made out of what seemed like molten pearls poured into a beatific shape, while the other glimmered with the swarthiness of ebony, as pure as a moonless night in a form of a demonic wing. The two were mended in the middle at the sides of a faceless figure of a human in what seemed the most neutral gray ever blended. In the same semblance the hilt continued, spiraling downwards enough for a two-handed grip, ending with what seemed like a plain rounded piece of indifferent metal. It was a perfect blade, a dream of every swordsman, and only for Letho that aspiration would come true.

But just as he was to enfold his hands around that hilt, just as he was but a stride away from fulfillment, an osseous steely hand emerged from the light, caught him by the wrist and nimbly tripped him over her protruded leg. He rolled away towards the edge, his trunk reeling through the beams, making them flicker repeatedly as he passed, until he came to a halt some five paces from the dark abyss. The cave around them continued to degrade in stability, the clods of rock now creating a deadly downpour as the dome above continued the grind and groan. Yet not a single rock managed to land on the surface of the plateau.

“I won’t let you do this, Letho. I won’t let you destroy the world!” she spoke a bit more steadily now, standing above him with an autocratic expression. She wielded no weapon, neither of them did. Her curvy dagger was resting in Letho’s back, and Letho’s bastard sword was left stuck in an ebony wall some two conflicts ago.

“The world? The world!? The world be damned!! Tell me, where was the world when Kristiniel died? Where was the world when Myrhia burned before my eyes? To hell with the world!” he was ranting, raving in a spiteful tone, like so many madmen he met in his life and classified as demented, his voice low and defying and as acerb as they come. And before her eyes he changed, his peering ferocious eyes shifting to crimson as his muscles expanded in a blink of an eye. A vile dark red aura imbued his gigantic figure that now looked more of a beast then the werewolf transformation, because his eyes were blazing, veins thick as a fingers gushed with his boiling blood and jumped out on his neck, his forehead, littering his arms. His hair was fluttering in sync with the shimmer of the glow that stood out in the crystalline white of the Blade. She awoke the rage within him and irritated him enough to make it more powerful then ever. He rose back to his feet with agonizing slowness, like a demented phoenix that on path to resurrection took a wrong turn and wound up in hell, his hands crossed at his chest and his head bowed low. The scarlet eyes breezed with flames peered at the frail woman below the bushy eyebrows, the two gauntlets providing foot-long talons with a satisfying metallic click that got lost in the rumble of the collapsing cave. He spoke no further. Only a sadistic daredevil grin appeared on the edge of his lips, completing the visage of the phantasm that lurked in nightmares and should have never existed.

Letho charged and he was like a tidal wave; overwhelming and unstoppable. He was just as mobile as Selena now, catching up with all her limber evasions and dodges, and his every strike was a potential disaster. He came at her with double slash of both of his talons, but the woman stepped back from the first, ducked below the other and dashed past him. Her hand reached for the dagger in Letho’s back in backhand motion, trying to regain her blade and balance the odds at least in some small manner, but even as her fingers made contact with the blade, the unhinged swordsman reached behind his back with his left, catching her by the wrist. She twisted the blade, hoping that the pain would make him let go as the meaty wet sound of gushing blood and tearing muscle added a morbid detail to the pain that ripped through his back. But the more she twisted the more his grip tightened until she yawped in anguish and agony as the bones of her wrist snapped.

Her vision hazed and blurred, her consciousness begging her will to give in and just give up, but even as her right fell lifelessly from the hilt, her left picked up the blade, yanked it out and instantly went for the liver shot. She never wanted to kill him, not when she was assigned the mission to stop him, not when she had a drop on him back on the “Intrepid”, and even now, as he was on the brink of taking her life, she didn’t want to do it. Letho was a good man, one of the few truly benevolent ones. But he stepped astray and it seemed the only atonement for his sins was death. The curved jagged blade, still warm from the heated blood of the husky warrior, darted for Letho’s side, just below the line of her breastplate. Not quick and painless as her usual jobs, but it would have to do.

Only it didn’t do. He rotated his trunk counterclockwise, his right snaffling her dagger by the blade and shattering it effortlessly with a clutch of his metallic fingers and a hellish growl. His left, vitiated from the wound in the back, was still fast enough to catch bewildered Selena by the neck and throw her down on her face, making the woman let out a clamant mewl. Slamming his knee against her spine as he climbed on top of her, he pinned her body against the stone so hard it made the woman finally lost all links to her consciousness. He brought his scraggy right talon below her long pallid neck and his demented face so close he could smell her cherubic perfume mixed with three days worth of sweat. She was the last obstacle and he just stepped over it.

[Storm Veritas]

At the top of the spire, the two that stood apart from each other could not have been more directly juxtaposed. Selena and Letho were polar opposites; the thin and athletic woman, pure and good and well intentioned, matched only in physical skill by the overwhelming swordsman. The blood, the bruises, the fatigue, it was a wonder either of them were stangin. As Storm began to move forward, defying his burning lungs and screaming body, he was helpless as Ravenheart transformed to some ungodly other form. He was too late; and there would be no second chance to stop the coming of the apocalypse now.

The monstrosity to behold that was Letho literally knocked Storm to his knees. The aura, no longer pure and white and heroic, was a vile crimson, the beast of passion and hedonism. It was hideous, a muscular demon, some terrible thing that easily outstripped the terrible denizens of Antioch and even Vainta upon Haida. This atrocity was truly horrendous; like nothing Storm had seen before. Climbing slowly to his knees, Veritas slowly struggled to stand while Selena charged hard.

“No! Selena, no!”

The words fell on deaf ears; Selena was driven by duty and honor to take down the monster, to smite the beast. She rolled with him, fought with him as only the bravest could fathom, and was quickly struck down, pinned squarely beneath the massive scarlet frame of the beast.

And let destiny take hold. Your sole purpose. Your sole service to the world.

When he summoned his power, it came with an intensity that he had never felt before. Storm stood tall stretching both arms to the sky in a call for power that was quickly and definitively answered. His fast-glowing ivory hands were met with two streaming channels, thick pulsing electric energy radiating from the beyond; channeled through the merely human domain of the cave itself. It hit him with such power that he felt as though he were floating, and for the first time Veritas acknowledged perhaps it was not he that controlled the lightning.

His skin was sizzling, a heat unfelt by the messenger of pain, his eyes aglow with some brilliant powder blue. His body moved smoothly, arms by his side as he strode forth at the two wrestling combatants. He was emotionless, cold, and only when the energy rode its way to the outstretched right hand in some blinding blue light did he recover the only remaining emotion.

Hatred.

Die, you filthy son of a bitch. Take your hands off her, and feel the pain. Ride the lightning, you pompous motherf*cker.

He stepped hard with his left foot, swinging his right hand overhead and firing the strongest blast of electrical energy he had ever fired, seen, or heard about. A sickening hiss came with his hand, a crackling buzz, the hair on the nape of his neck proud and at attention. The bolt had barely left his hand before his eyes widened in despair.

No…

Letho had turned, using his power to lift forth the girl, thrusting her forth as she gave one last Herculean effort. The beam traveled the thirty feet in the blink of an eyes, yet Storm could swear he saw Selena’s face, a contorted compromise of confusion and sadness before the blast struck her squarely in the chest.

“Selena! No!”

There was no more hatred; only fear and terror and desperation. He was oblivious to the fate-changing scope of the situation, blindly running to the girl, knowing it was too late. The blast hit her in a pure, ironically idyllic explosion, the buxom beauty fired off towards the edge as Storm pursued with a terrified stumble. Mouth agape, he was closing on her as she rolled to the edge. There were no intelligent thoughts now; stophersaveherfixhermakeitbetter.

Had he been coherent or intelligent or wary, he may have notice the good the blast had done. He may have seen that he had also dazed the mighty Demon-thing, giving the group one last chance to stop the coming of the end. He may have realized that he had an opportunity to make it better, yet the only priority now was her. The outstretched, blackened right palm grabbed cloth, her torn shirt pulling as she rolled over the edge, dragging him to the precipice of the tower. He was still slowly sliding, his torso looming over the edge as he frantically gripping the girl, looking at her slumped, hunched corpse.

Nothing.

His hands pulsed, energy dancing from his right hand through the girl and to his left, searing her and forcing her body to jump reactively. Her head rolled back, beautiful blonde tresses falling away from her face, giving Storm the chance to look once more upon her. Blood poured freely from both nostrils, a trickle from the right ear, a fourth stream beginning at the mouth. Her eyes were open, but the striking blues were replaced with a dead, grayed gaze. Worse yet, he was sliding.

“No baby, no… I didn’t… I couldn’t… I love you…”

His body continued sliding slowly, and though his legs scrambled, he had to let her go. The surface of the tower top was devoid of grip, and he had no choice but to let his lone love fall down, crashing from the tower’s sides, falling in a blood-riddled pulp to the floor.

There was nothing left. He curled now upon himself, arms wrapping around his torturred frame as he began to cry. Perhaps Myrhia could stop the man-demon, but the fate of this world no longer concerned one Storm Veritas.

[Letho]

It was a nightmare, a goddamned fairytale gone horribly wrong, and just like in every one of these demented dreams, Myrhia frantically craved for a way out. She was a prisoner that desperately scudded through the endless hall with floors of mud, her thoughts were her feeble feet that, regardless of how hard she tried, couldn’t escape from the embrace of the dreaded halls of the Blade. And every step she made in this escapade made her face another dead end. Letho changing into a monster – a barred door. Selena defeated and pending for execution – a padlocked chained door. Hers and Storm’s inability to defeat Letho even if they tried – a damned foot-thick iron door welded for the wall. So in the end, Myrhia did what could be expected from a nineteen years old former slave girl when faced with something as dire as this matter; she froze. While the things around her revolved at blistering speed and the crucial matters edged towards the final resolve, all the frail redhead managed to do was crawl back into a corner of her mind and crumple into a little ball while her body stood perfectly still with a visage of incredulity and resignation.

“Letho, don’t! Don’t do it! I... I never wanted this...” the crumpled Myrhia whimpered while the emerald eyes watched as her lover, the very person that lived by the Old Code of the Knights of Savion, prepared to murder Selena in the stupor of his hatred and enthrallment. But none of those words passed over the frozen lips of Myrhianna Bastillien.

“Come...”

Storm stepped forwards, doing what she hadn’t have the guts to do and unleashing a desperate attack at the enraged behemoth. But they ventured too deep into a realm of the incubus and just like it gibed a genuine nightmare, his attack failed and failed utterly. The jagged acrid lightning bolt squirmed through the air like an undeterminable scribble of a child, following the uncanny frivolous trajectory, and instead of incapacitating the raving demon, it struck the lithe body of the golden haired beauty. For a fraction of a second she shook like a rag doll, her limbs quivering and cramping with electricity, before the blast propelled her body towards the edge.

“Come, little one...”

“No! Selena! No... Help her... How could you? Letho, how could...” again that mewling voice of a slave that just got beaten by her master and thrown into a damp airless corner of the basement. And again Myrhia just stood there, watching Storm’s heroic attempt to save his lover, watching him pull and yank and squirm as the lifeless body of his bride slipped further and further from his hands. And then the gentle smooth hand dropped out of his grasp and his voice was lost in the rumble of the quaking walls. He looked so old, filled with woe of the centuries as his sand eyes stared in disbelief and bathed his face with tears. And above him towered the dismal man, a hellish apparition environed by scarlet flames with the eyes of a hellhound and the visage of the Dark Lord himself. And for the first time in her life Myrhia felt hatred towards the man she loved with all her heart. He lifted his right to strike down the crying man.

“Come... You are worthy.”

There was such a pull in those words that came to the red-haired lass that both the whimpering Myrhia and the transfixed one were simply forced to turn their attention away from the execution scene. Or rather, it was the world that was forced to ferment, shift, whirl and deviate until the two green eyes of the diffident girl fell on the Blade of the Judicator. And even as they did the voluminous luminance opened up like a secret door imbedded into the walls of a palace, revealing a coherent path where there was no azure livid light to bar the way. And there it stood, in all its grandeur, levitating and spinning with agonizing slowness, the Blade of the Judicator that chose its own master.

“Come...”

And she did. This was all her fault; it was her outcry that started the avalanche that led to this point. It was only right that whatever doom the Blade brought should be hers as well. Her first step was speculative, wavering, the second one gradually grew in resoluteness, by the fourth she was pacing, by the sixth she winged over the stone floor, carried by the call of the calm elysian voice. With her face drenched in tears and her heart beating at a frenetic rate, she leapt towards the Blade.

***

By the time Letho realized there was a prominent aberrance in the force of the Blade that was up until now solely focused on repelling his confiscation, it was too late to act. His eyes fled away from the defeated louche stowaway, darted towards where his Blade waited, and found Myrhia flying towards it. Her lank pallid hands seized the turgid hilt, yanking the massive sword out of its placid hovering position, and before he even managed to utter a word of dismay or anger, she landed with the Blade of the Judicator in her hands. It was humongous compared to her lithe frame, nearly five feet of divine metal held before her rapidly rising chest looking as if it would make her topple forwards. But she held it unwaveringly, her breath heaving and her eyes caught in a gaze of a daydreamer.

The rumble of the caving walls terminated instantly. The illuminated circles started to shut down one by one across the floor as the light around Myrhia and the Blade seemed to thicken, as if it was getting compressed before it was vacuumed into the body of the frail teenager. And she shone, gleamed with a beaming luminance that radiated from her eyes, her mouth, the tips of her fingers, every single pore of her body seemed to be an outlet of the tremendous might. It was a resplendent sight to behold, and yet at the same time so affrighting that even Letho didn’t manage to defy it. She looked so hollow, her body just a vessel for this rattling power, and it was that lack of Myrhia that mesmerized the swordsman.

However, the blankness of Myrhia’s characteristics lasted but a couple of seconds during which the young girl raised the sword high above her head. The beaming enlightenment surged through her limbs like a river of silver, coursing through her extremities and pouring into the blade where it compressed even further with a hissing suction sound. And it grew in power, grew until Letho felt warm blood dripping from his ears, until it reached such a high frequency that every bone in his body felt as if it was going to implode and every thought was purged from his collapsing mind. It erased his rage effortlessly, throwing the man to his knees and returning him to his humane shape and size, and making him cover his ears in agony.

And then, when the sheen of the Blade was no more then a twinkle, a single radiant pea-sized pearl on the tip of the blade, the sound simply ceased for that fraction of a second that took Myrhia to strike the weapon against the ground beneath her feet. And even as the edge of the blade impacted the dark stone of the tower, a boom of inestimable magnitude spread around the teenager, preceded by a wave of pure translucent energy. It blasted around the girl in a single concentric wave in all directions and everything it touched was converted in a blink of an eye. The obscure tower on which they stood cracked, then simply exploded, ridding itself of the benighted outer shell and revealing the ivory stone below.

The cave around them followed the same example and burst outwards, sending a myriad of stone fragments towards the blustery sky above. The gray clouds were erased as if they were but a drawing on a chalkboard, replaced by a clear azure and a blazing sun. The nature that was coffined in millennia old frost was simply substituted as the wave propagated, where a snow-clad frigid land of Nyd once stood infinite grasslands appeared, as gentle as a touch of a mother and as tame as a satisfied lover. The Ancients, the colossal titans that stood as the honorary guard in seemingly endless lines across the land, awoke from their slumber. Their faces were formless, lacking any contour that would form a visage, forming a faceless mask for each and every one of these gargantuan giants. Their bodies were stout and husky, their skin shining as if it was made out of metal, but of the kind that seemed liquid and solid at the same time, creasing on places where human skin creased and perfectly solid on every other spot. Their blank faces turned towards the origin of the wave.

And there, on the highest outlet of the tallest swirling tower of ivory, stood Myrhia’s calm figure, blissfully placid as her eyes gazed over the paradise that spread below her feet. The castle in whose midst the tower stood was a vast complex, with cascading bridges connecting spiraling structures, each one reaching towards the heavens higher then the next one, coquetting with its slim helix figures that darted to dizzying heights, and spreading across the horizon as wide as the mountain that stood there beforehand.

But Letho saw none of this, or rather, he saw it and it failed to strike awe into him. Because with the erasure of his anger and the disappearance of the Blade’s will, reason stepped in and it rewound his actions, serving it to him with absolutely no sugarcoating. And he realized what he had done in his blind lust for the power of the Blade. He remembered the righteous blaze in the azure eyes of the graceful Selena, the determination that stood against his dimmed will, and the hollowness of the lifeless visage that drifted downwards, freefalling, fading away from this world and etching itself into Letho’s heart. A part of him died that day, a portion of his self-righteous accolade and pride, and only now he felt like a true fallen knight. He betrayed the Code, but what was more important, he betrayed the people that trusted him. Instead of safety and support, he gave them nothing but woe and agony and cold death.

They say the road to hell is pawed with good intentions. Letho couldn’t argue this phrase even if he wanted to. But then Myrhia turned, her gingery little head turned and cast a longing woeful glance over her shoulder, and even though a smile was the last thing on her mind, and even though there way no usual jocund spark in her emeralds, Letho was certain about one thing.

She was worth going to hell for.

But before he could even start to wrestle the demon of Selena’s death, there was one thing that his pride demanded, one thing that even his tainted honor couldn’t swallow down regardless of how hazardous it might turn up to be. Letho got up to his feet, walked to Storm with the strides of a man who walked through a desert for a month on a glass of water, and fell to his knees. His healthy right provided the dagger that moments ago still stood in the flesh of his back, turned it around so the tip of the blade was pointed at his bulky chest, and bowed his head low.

“My life for hers.” he muttered in a raspy low voice of an utterly ashamed man. It was a voice that was seldom used by the Savion Prince and now it came out in its most humble form. “It’s an unfair trade, but it’s the only one I can offer you.”

Myrhia caught a glimpse of this scene and did nothing. Because there was a part of her that shared whatever passed through Storm’s mind right now... A part that wanted to push that blade as well.

[Storm Veritas]

The epitome of egoism came as the world changed around Storm. Myrhia had been called by the Blade of the Judicator, which had chosen its rightful owner. The following explosive event, the crashing, the light and the sun and the utter magnitude of the situation was all-encompassing, but it was more than the traveler could process. There would be no fulfillment in this magnificent circumstance, no consolation in the enshrinement of Myrhia as the Blade’s defender of the faith. The world would not end now, the end of days was not upon them, Letho not capable of doing the bidding of his own hedonistic desire.

But none of this mattered to the shell of a man, huddled atop the face, curled and fetal and pitiful. There was nothing left for him now. In nearly thirty years, the only one who extended to him, the only chance, the only true love he had felt was gone. He had killed Selena, accidental or not, and his soul felt devoid and black for it. The newfound compassion, the sympathy, the general human emotions and dreams that had been fostered were gone. His chest heaving and face streaked with saline streams of tears, the mind of Veritas raced for some sort of explanation.

Selena! My angel, what have I done to you!? I loved you, I’d never, I could never… but I have…

I killed her. The only one that mattered the only good thing for me on this miserable planet. This can’t be coincidence, this is f*cking fate. No one else is so snake-bitten. My one purpose, the one thing I could do for this place, this world, this life… and I kill the one I love, and fail to do a god damned thing. Let her slip through my fingers, and watch her fall. Watch her die. Watch her suffer.

The grief was not subsiding, but rather building as he was approached by the reticent, penitent Ravenheart. He had seen the look before; a humble acceptance of duty, the knowledge of wrongdoing. The powerful warrior put himself at Storm’s mercy, looking up through tired eyes at a now-kneeling Veritas, still steaming and trying to find a way to grieve. He offered himself up, and Storm tried to compose himself. Standing, he rolled his head to the side, a few pops bringing him back. Apparently, such grieving would not be afforded someone as lowly as he.

The mind of the mage was twisting, turning, becoming less arranged and more illogical.

Taking the dagger, Storm looked at the chestplate of Letho, and fantasized driving the dagger home, watching him suffer, hearing him die. To see Myrhia suffer now would be fun, he thought, let that whore taste some of the misery that her monstrous counterpart had helped to inspire. Sneering, there was nothing for this man in the heart of Veritas anymore; nothing but rage and hatred and resentment. He hadn’t killed Selena; Storm had, but he had certainly helped.

And he no doubt enjoys this silly display of nobility. I bet he thinks I won’t kill him. Isn’t that right, you smarmy cocksucker?

But there was more here; more details than what would simply surface. Why would he offer himself? Why had he done all this? As Storm’s dementia spiraled further, it was all becoming clear. His words came quickly, in stammered tense through a heavy stutter.

“I see now. Let you die and escape and leave a hero! Let you be the martyr! Well, how about f*ck you!? How about you leave that for the one who cared? Do you forget that wonderful woman that you held up for me to destroy? Those eyes that still look at me, that will always look at me?”

It wasn’t his fault, but Storm could no longer see this. He fired the dagger to the ivory face, the clanking sound somewhat distant and removed. There was no time for this, he thought as he stumbled apart. Staring at his twisted, elongated and gaunt hands, he was disgusted by the sight of his own flesh, the monstrous malformations of the machine of death. Like himself, the two of them made him sick now, and such a voyage was preposterous in hindsight. To waste his time with such sycophants, foolishness. He served none from here, he was a man of his own concerns. There was no one for him, merely all opposed, all laughing, all ridiculing.

Run away then, Storm, you child. Go run and hide and be miserable.

Letho, Myrhia, they laugh at you. Selena would have a good chuckle too, come to think of it. Wonder how you’ll be welcomed back on the ship? Think you’ll be taken back with open arms?

He staggered out, making way down the stairs, a punch-drunk boxer searching for the ring corner. His body cried, but there was no remorse. There was no one here to help, nor would any come to help him. His friends had betrayed him, as he could see clearly. Whatever there was out there for him. It would be a long journey home, but he knew it well. To steal some jewels and smuggle aboard the inevitably repaired Intrepid. To stowaway home.

To be alone, again. To lose touch with humanity, and discard these relationships that had betrayed him. To be the monster. Reborn.

[Letho]

Even though his would be executor opted for a passive resolution, in many ways his words struck fiercer then any blade ever could. Because he was right; it would be so easy to die right now in this pool of self-pity and rue. The pain from the thrust would last seconds, minutes if Storm decided to take his time with bringing the grim reaper to make his rounds. But those moments of pain and agony would be an absolution compared to the incriminating eyes that would now become his stalker, his shadow, his own personal demon that would haunt him, forever reminding him of the wrong he can never right.

Even when Storm’s footsteps were long lost in the warm whiffs that whistled around the ivory tower, Letho remained on his knees. He was a mere shadow on the polished pearly surface, a crumbled monster that stared into his bloody palms, caught in a moment of incredulity. This was not him, not Myrhia’s Letho. He knew how and when to compromise, he knew when to step back and seek the alternative and he knew where in the countless hues of gray stood the line that no good man should cross. But that Letho seemed so vague now, like a memory of something so righteous and pristine that it simply couldn’t be genuine. In his stead stood somebody... something that couldn’t even lift its head to look into the eyes of his beloved that stood at his side. With which eyes would she look back? Timorous eyes of concealed disappointment? Teary eyes of sheer woe? Or the bland emerald hue of the eyes that feigned the expression that was supposed to make him feel like everything would be alright?

“I... I wanted the Blade for us, Myri...” he finally summoned enough boldness to speak and try to explain something that had no justifiable explanation. His eyes kept staring at his bloodstained hands, these tools of destruction that he honed to perfection. He would chop them off right now if they would give him back but a fraction of the righteous solace. But they wouldn’t. They were just the tools and tools didn’t kill people. Monsters killed people. “...but somewhere along the way I just... I lost my bearing. I knew it... I knew that it doesn’t want me. And I charged forward anyways. I charged forward because it defied me. And this accursed desire turned me into a monster.” he spoke in the same humble voice as before, so uncanny for his persona, his fists clenching as the image of the dead azure eyes flashed in his mind again and again and again.

Frail, silent, tiny steps clicked on the smooth surface. He could see her shadow passing over him, emphasizing the girl to the point where she looked like a Valkyrie with a brandished blade and a cape caught in a heavenly dash of wind. She threaded as softly as a doe until she finally positioned herself in front of the kneeling man. He couldn’t look up. His eyes managed to reach the brim of her furry coat, but refused to proceed, the disgrace and the guilt pressing them down to their rightful subjugated place. And for the first time in his life Letho Ravenheart felt the meaning of true fear. Because there was a good possibility that the eyes that looked down on his right now, looked down with loathe and hate, and both would make him lose everything. His life, his soul, and everything he ever loved.

Myrhia stood before him for what seemed a century spent in agony of anticipation until she finally lowered herself to her knees as well. Her two pallid lank hands placed the argent blade on the ground between them before they tranquilly settled in her lap. There was no loathing in her eyes, no hatred, no fake smile on her lips, no disappointment. Just a look that was one part dread and two parts disarray. “So what do we do now, Letho?” she finally asked in a silent broken voice filled with fright. She didn’t know where do they go from here or was there a place to go from here and that was what scared her the most. Letho’s face was pale and woeful, offering no insurances that were usually a hallmark of his visage.

“I don’t know. I guess it’s up to you. This...” he motioned with his hands towards his fatigued body clad in the tattered black coat. “...this is not the man you once loved, the man for whom you transcended time and space. That man would have never done what I did today. What is left...” he continued, shaking his head wearily. “I can’t ask you to take your chance with what is left.”

She looked up at his face wordlessly, expressionlessly. Her usually decipherable visage, that was the very reflection of what went on behind those gorgeous green eyes of her, was a perfect poker face. But then she cocked her head ever so slightly, as if she was making an estimation of some sort and her hand moved slowly. They touched his cheeks, traced down the line of his jaw, passed over his forehead as soft as a feather, rummaged through his tousled hair, searching over his face as a blind man would if he wanted to get a mental image of the person he is speaking to. Her eyes, those piercing jewels of candor, never moved away from his own. Her hands finally made a stop at his frowned brow and her thumbs gently ironed out the crease on his forehead. It made her smile meekly, tenderly, like a rose timidly opening its petals to the cold dewy dawn.

“There is still enough of the Letho I know here.” she said in little over a whisper, her face now softening up a little bit as her hands came to rest on his broad shoulders.

“Are you certain?” he asked, his meaty tainted hands not daring to touch the perfection that was Myrhia at this moment... at every moment.

She was. Selena’s death was something she would never forget, something that quite possibly murdered the child in Myrhia and tore away a portion of her love for Letho. But there was still so much goodness and chivalry and honor left there. Men fall all the time, stumbling over the foul deeds and succumbing to their innermost desires. But a fall doesn’t make a man fallen. It is not getting up that does and she would not allow Letho to fade away into the glum image of desperation and wickedness. Her tiny hands took one of his own resolutely, pulling him up to his feet before she reached for the Blade of the Judicator and freely offered it to him. It didn’t call him anymore, it was just a blade like any other to him. All the tantalizing power contained within that piece of metal responded to its rightful owner and it wasn’t Letho. That’s why, when he took it, nothing spectacular happened.

“Yes, I am certain. Now let us bring an end to this.” she spoke in a voice so much stronger then his own at this moment. With her free hand Myrhia made a motion through the warm air and a bright flash sparked for a fraction of a second, opening up a wide round portal. Despite everything that occurred, they left the sunny land of Nyd just the way they arrived in Corone months before; hand in hand. They walked as lovers, as soulmates... As one.

((Concluded in The ghosts of the past (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?p=2175#post2175).))