Osiris Open Final: Revenant Vs Storm

[Philomel]

A mighty thunder rolled out across the arena. Sudden and mighty it was like a tremendous storm that was incoming - brutal and unforgiving.

Around the arena, on the many layers of stone seats under the white sun and dimly clouded sky, the warriors and monks and priests of the Jhagati stared with wide eyes and baited breath. Some lips moved in silent prayer. Others quietly cursed beneath their breath. Those who were uncertain glanced around at the thirty foot granite wall that was supposed to pen the two fighters within. Was it enough to also keep within it the Horseman of Death? Would the magical protections that some of them had raised, mostly to protect themselves from the battle, be enough to resist the wrath of Him Who Was Coming?

As the roll of thunder rose they took a collective breath. Before William the area that stood between the posts that made the archway began to shimmer, and flicker. It was like a mirage in a frightfully hot desert, as cruel as the outlands of Fallien, where no one ever went. The air began to ripple like a pool of water, no certain epicentre, but rather many as more thunders came.

Boom. The air shivered. Boom. It waved hectically. Boom. The stone that made the archway itself shook somewhat, as if it was threatening to fall down from the pressure.

Boom!

A sudden rush of chaotic wind and the moving space between the archway ... shattered.

Suddenly a wild, ashen-coloured horse sprang from the midst of the broken air. Its hooves striking forwards it was as if it had broken through a void, for there was no perceptible place from behind the archway where it had come from. Instead, it had come from another dimension all from itself. His eyes blazing with fire he whinnied loud as he bouded through and into the arena. On his back was a gaunt, pale man, with skin sunken and sticking to bone. Seemingly skeletal he wore naught but a great white robe that fluttered in the wind, and he held onto the horse's mane with a single, skeletal hand. Fire burned also in his eyes and he let out a long, painful moan as he raised the empty hand. Into his hand shimmered light, and that light formed into a long, wicked scythe.

The rider and horse landed, heavily on the ground before William. Behind them the archway did not seal, but rather showed the deadly land of their origin. Fire burned over an arid, blackened landscape. Twisted towers of brimstone rose to the sky as mountains. All was lit by a full red sun that blazed in the sky and the stench of sulphur and charcoal wafted in from their reality. Their kingdom.

Hades.

"Sacrifice!" The rider and horse said as one, in a mighty, terrible voice. Then he lifted his deadly scythe, which the fighters would soon discover was as hard as adamantine. His horse reared, shrieking out a challenge, before bounding forwards to throw him and his rider, Death, right at William. With skin of dehlar, and a breath with poison that could kill, this was truly the ultimate foe.