"How?" Azrael fell to his knees in disbelief. His right arm had been cut, one leg was sliced open and Taltosh had thrust his broken sword into the other in a desperate ploy. His wounds were not grave, he would live, but he could not fight any longer. Taltosh's left arm had been broken where the haft of Azrael's weapon had struck him, and he let it hang as he approached his former comrade. The wound on his side, barely scabbed over, had opened during the fight, and was bleeding profusely. "Do you hear that?" he asked, gesturing to the gathering of daemons and mutants, "they want me to kill you."
"They looked to me once, now they turn to you..."
"Do you understand now? Do you see that the truth is they don't want a hero? They just want a martyr."
"They would watch me die."
"They will not stand here by your side."
"What have I done?"
The blood from Taltosh's side had fallen and met the cracks on the altar. Azrael had long been bleeding, his blood forming small pools on the stone surface. The clouds in the sky grew still and angry. The monsters around them grew deathly silent. A roar like thunder and lightning rang out.
LET US SEE IF YOU WILL STAND BESIDE YOUR HERO.
The blood of innumerable sacrifices and victims gathered and mixed with the fresh blood that had been spilled. It crawled and splashed as it blackened and burned, it climbed and grabbed at the sky, spreading its oily claws toward the maelstrom. It consumed the light around it, hissing and growling, until the horrific mass had towered above the wounded warriors. With a final crack, a great daemon was born of the blackness. Its skin was black and cracked, with an orange glow behind it like magma. Its face was of a great, horned bull, and about its neck hung a great iron collar. Its leathery wings spread out and were torn from millenia of battle and bloodshed. In one hand, it gripped an axe as large as a great tree, and let out a mighty roar.
Blood.
The crowd had gathered there to watch him fall, to watch his hope destroyed. They watched them beat him, they watched them break him, they watched his last defensive ploy. It was now or never, nothing could be done to save him then. Above the choir of their collective cheers, arose his broken words.
"We are the dead."
Azrael wrenched the broken sword out of his leg, and grasped once more the handle of his glaive. He took to his feet. He could not feel the pain. The daemon could not grasp what drove him forward. Somehow, his rage was lost on the monster. He understood what he must do, and though his weapon grew heavier, he would not be stopped while he lived. With a mighty swing, he cleaved the tendon from behind the monster's foot, the baleful power of his own daemonic weapon preventing the supernatural healing of the beast from closing the wound. It's leg buckled, and in a thunderous crash it fell to its knees. Azrael continued, hacking until the limb had severed, and the blistering hot blood of the beast had spilled out. Taltosh raised his head, and looked through weary eyes. He saw a face he'd seen before. This was not the face of evil, it was the face of a hero, the face of a son, the face of a friend. This was the face of Azrael, redeemed, as he cut down the very creature that sought to control him. The daemon made a desperate grab at the wrathful hero, and was denied with a slash that severed the hand at the wrist. The behemoth cried out with a painful roaring screech, and Azrael drove his blade into it's belly. The monster fell backward, driven down by the awesome might of the hero's blood frenzy. He withdrew his blade and brought it down again and again as he made it's way toward the head of the monster. He leapt into the air as the beast brough its head forward, mouth agape as it tried desperately to rise. Azrael heaved his weapon into its mouth, blood pouring from his arm and legs, his body burned where the blood of the monster had fallen upon his skin. The beast was driven back down, it's screams choked out by the caustic blood pouring from its throat. It began to fade into smoke, but before much of the creature had vanished, it exploded in a cacophany of gore and mortal blood. "IS THIS THE BEST YOU'VE GOT? IS THIS YOUR GREATEST BEAST?" shouted the hero, as he stood at the edge of the altar, watching the panicked screams of the crowd as chaotic energies burst and destroyed their mortal forms. Their own champion defeated, they no longer had a tie to the energy that bound them to this world.
Before the last creature died, Azrael looked back at Taltosh. In a moment, he was at his side. Taltosh looked up, through strained eyes, and tried to speak. At first, nothing came. He was dying, there was no stopping that now. With the last of his strength, he summoned the words.
"If these people.............. tell this story........... to their children........... as they sleep............. maybe someday.................... they'll see a hero...................... is just a man............... who knows he is free.............."
Taltosh was dead. Azrael finally understood. The Grudgebearers carried their heroes, both of them, back the way they had come. The storm had gone, the ground was earth, the voices were silenced. When they had reached the bottom of the cliff, they stood only for a moment before the Kutriguri arrived from the West. Mounting up, placing their fallen hero on the back of a horse, they round around and to the top. There, they burned his body, leaving only his sword and a stone to mark his grave. Azrael turned to his comrades. He knew what he had done, and what must come next.
"My friends. I have been marked by Chaos. From this, there is no escape for me. But as I live, there is no evil that will stand. I will finish what was started."
The Grudgebearers had nothing to say.
"I must journey to the High Elf lands. They know much of this world that we do not, and they may be able to remove this curse from my shoulders. It is far, and I may die on the way, and I almost wish that I shall if it would save this world from the hate I carry in my veins."
Marius clapped him on the shoulder, "I could never let you go alone. You are my brother, and we are all your brothers. We will go with you, and if we must, we will die with you." Marius turned to the rest of them, who all nodded in agreement.
Azrael turned back to the valley from which they escaped. He let out a cry to the wind, as a warning and a tribute.
"WE ARE THE DEAD!"
