The Execution of Consequences [Part 1]
Tursidhion had been on the move. The Blasted Lands forsaken once he had gathered news and set motion into play. The Sovereign had called for him and fate had bestowed upon him another gift. The knowledge of the Mercenary and the Jackal’s plan of action had allowed him to carve a new opportunity. A purposeful change of tactics to lower the guards of those around as others preyed on the deception that he was just another mindless goliath. It was just a matter of time before he would catch the Jackal in the land he called home.
However, upon arriving there was something else the Juggernaut had sensed.
Safrona pondered how long had she been staring at the mirrored surface of the lake? Bound souls danced within and without the gossamer-like surface haunting Safrona's senses with their energies. The Courier bled through the dull color of the Ghostlands with her brilliant crimsons painting the ground around her with red fabric. Her skirts trailed and her cloak billowed in the night air.
Tonight, she was not the Courier. Instead, Safrona was a monster come to feed a need. The ethereal glow of the haunted waters was much too tempting. The insidious craving for life making a home of her. A red arm stretched outward to enact the small harvest with fel energies while dragging a few lost souls to her fingertips. Exalting in the whispering of those brief lives she consumed had made them a part of what remained of her own soul.
It would suffice. She had learned control. Turning her gaze from the eerie glow of the ghostly lake Safrona let her focus search the darkness behind her trying to find the path she had initially tread. She had not realized how suddenly cold the night had become until the first drifts of snow touched her face.
The marching scourge siege engine of undeath and frost could feel the Ghostlands calling to him. The unbound essences drew around him and he knew something else was out and about this evening. The towering behemoth of plate began to draw his arctic gaze nearby until a flash of scarlet had been captured within his peripheral vision. The cunning predator narrowed his gaze as he observed the nature of this foreign woman.
She was elvish in stature. Though, something more was drawn from her. He couldn't tell exactly what, though. At least not from the current placement in the dark. Snow had already began to fall and the rate of it had started to pick up. The Juggernaut started to move forward around the time she had began to look back his way. The radical movement of trees and brush foretold something large was heading her way. The temperature lowered vastly as the first recognition of his presence was the violently lit optics of the winter soldier.
Necrotic energy wrapped within saronite plate began to take form as the frigid beast crossed the road with heavy foot falls. A howling blade composed of runes had been drawn and the screams of the damned echoed wildly into the ominous sky above. The intimidating horned helm of the creature left his visage largely concealed though his build signified that he was also of elven make. Just much taller with thicker musculature and a unholy aura.
The line of his eyes had been solely directed toward her until he stood about thirty yards or so from Safrona. The end of the blade was directed toward her before his chords of duality echoed in a mixture of unrelenting rage and a remorseless animosity, "Do you know where it is you tread?" The powerful entity called as he stared endlessly in her direction. The authority in his tone reverberating a past that might have dictated a Blood Knight’s training prior to his ghastly existence now.
The delicate figure in red turned slowly in the darkness to face the malefic legend knowing somehow that she could not outrun such a presence. A hand clenched up to catch her hood in order to keep it close around her face. Then, she drew her cloak fully around her form to fight the unearthly chill back with the insulated fabric. Her shadowed gaze met his own stony stare with equal measure. There was no chance she would take her eyes from him.
"The Ghostlands," she answered with a factual calm. "A broken land haunted by many that still would call it home." Her voice had been soft and measured. Resonant, somehow, as it would reach the Beast's ear. "And you are the unholy spectre that stalks it, as the legend says, aren't you?" She did not move from her place on the road as snow drifting down to dampen the brilliance of her crimson cloak. "Are you so vile that you will cut a courier down amidst her journey too?"
The strength of her hidden stare had not gone unnoticed. There was something innately powerful that resided within the Courier. A deeper story that had been left untold and unforeseen by mortal eyes. The hypothermic temperature of his aura had led the ground beneath to become nearly frozen solid while the snow above continued to fall. Ten yards was diminished as he began to draw closer while she spoke. Every step along the way was as domineering as the last. "I am he of whom you speak, yes."
The answers led him to draw his bone-chilling focus around him as if listening to more than just the gentle delivered words. The inquiries led the Juggernaut to reset his attention solely upon her. The blade had been lowered before his second trek in which five more yards had become suffocated by his advance. "Vile," he repeated with a disdained echo. It was as if he had to consider the statement coming from the woman who hid more than he. "Is that what you consider yourself, courier?"
A revelation had been made since his new position had been acquired. The haunting misery within his soul-reaping stare honed intently upon her as if it could perform such an act alone where he stood. "The echo of someone else in the shell of something else. You can feel them too..." The Juggernaut had given his rune weapon a raise toward the skies where the souls of the fallen began to reach toward the dark heavens above. Their cries, their sorrow, their agony, and their violent vindications stretched as if they could be released from the very arctic reaper that had taken them.
The doleful wails attracted more from beneath the decaying land to join their lost brethren. "A piece inside of you wishes to join them... Come, I shall hold a requiem for your soul." The other clawed gauntlet extended and beckoned her forth.
The pillar of ethereal, damned souls stretched above her. As the Juggernaut drew closer the Courier seemed transfixed by the exhibition and the sounds they made. Some spirits shifted in acknowledgement of her. The eerie presences whispering the truth of her own existence in riddles of madness and sorrow. Yes… There had been a peace in undeath when the pain and sorrows did not hold her hostage anymore. But, that was no longer a realm to which she belonged.
The elf's ears twitched up rigidly and jarred her out of the ethereal reverie by the sharp clink of metal as the clawed gauntlet was offered. "Requiem? I don-... don't know what you are talking about," she muttered out on a breath and taking a step back from the behemoth. Her black boot crushed into freshly fallen snow as to keep to her secrets.
The Juggernaut continued his fixated stare. Ice had began to draw across the very lake she had been standing near earlier. Whatever light that resided up high in the sky had been snuffed out by the blizzard that had set in with the presence of the Dread Lord. Tursidhion could hear the souls calling to her. They reverberated off of her spirit energy. As she began to step back the frost tyrant had lowered his hand and the azure light within the horned helm began to brighten.
"How long will you deny yourself? Do you not deserve serenity? A rest of peaceful eternity?" The Juggernaut took another step forward as she eased back. There was no question that he could feel what she didn't want him too. He fed off of it and, like blood in the water, the arctic titan was lured. "You grow weary and each step you take away from me... You defy only yourself."
"Are you terrified of me lady of crimson?" His dual baritone inquired as he lowered the rune blade to where the tip touched the snow that had accumulated beneath him. The unholy contact had began to extend veins of an eerie jade as if he was desecrating the very ground itself. The spidery lines devoured the wintry element until it wrapped around Safrona. It left her with a ten yard diameter, with her being the center point, without it's defiled influence.
Safrona peered down at her feet staying away from the corrupting edges of the unholy circle. Though, it was quickly growing in attempt to consume her. The blizzard-like winds tore her cowl back away from her face and her long braid whipped behind her loosely. The icy air met her harshly as it tried to topple her over. Still, the delicate elf in all her crimsons stayed her ground. Her lips pressed tightly into one another displeased at this creature's connection. The way he could seem to stare past her flesh to the soul beneath and breaking into her wall of secrets, shook her. There was no point in pretending now.
"Afraid? You are another form, but no more than another demon driven by hatred, or by temptation. You taint your very steps with what you are. I know your kind and I know them well." She calmed the snap of her scarlet cloak and held it tightly in place. Her gaze fixed to the Juggernaut while her facade of calm took root. Safrona’s was a quiet power that revealed itself gradually like a small flame gaining life.
"You are a fool to think that there could be peace in any existence," she started as the wintry breeze died to hear her. The fel-mists of her eyes approaching a full glow as the presence inside of the shell was stirred. Her collected voice held its solemn timbre. "There is no serenity. No peace. There is only failure and loss. In the end there can be only survival to balance the pain."
A rare passion rose from the veins of her body feeling the fel seethe in her blood. Demonic runes formed within the necrotic circle, leaving the Dread Knight with the finality of her words, before letting the translocation gate take her across the lake and away from him. "Surrendering to the Dark is death and death is to serve for my kind. I will not serve numbly, even if it is in your lie of peace, I will burn. Leave me be."
The powerful beast lifted his sword lightly and the land it had desecrated began to weep as if the tainted forest behind could feel it deep within the roots. Did she know his kind? This led the giant of frost to step forward again and his necrotic armor resounded with the motion. He could see further into her eyes and he did not relent in his merciless gaze. The act of calling him foolish had slowly allowed the rage within to evolve further causing cerebral seals to snap.
A look around as the howling winds became quieted by her voice. "Pain is not balanced with loss. Loss is only the beginning of pain." He replied as she began to form demonic runes. Interest captivated his thoughts as she drew away from him at such a rate. Did she feel she could get away from him so easily? In the land of lost souls? A loud whistle was made and it echoed throughout the Ghostlands.
As Safrona stated her piece a haunting neigh reverberated off the dark woods. The luminous hooves of the beast left a cold flame in it's wake as it rushed toward it's master. The horned head of the onyx steed had only been a few inches away from the Courier as it sprinted toward the Juggernaut. It was a phantasmal creature designed for war and conquest. It’s pupiless eyes burned with the very same frozen rage and ghastly flare as the undead soldier that had called it. As it neared, the Juggernaut brought his hand around to capture it by the reins to begin mounting the dark horse.
"You can never outrun Death. If you are strong enough to make me bow. Do it... Otherwise, you' will fall in this life and understand that reprieve is simply on the other side of your final... exhale." The words trailed like a cold whisper to wrap around her ear and freeze her thoughts with the realization of what he was potentially preparing for. The two-handed weapon he wielded as lowered into a sheath and a great scythe was pulled free from his horse’s side before he pointed it directly at her.
The Courier had only heard the echo of his chilling whisper. A sweep of her hands followed through into another quick summon for her Dreadsteed. Wraithsong screamed its hellish defiance into the night carrying it’s mistress through the dark cold of the wood as fast as the demon could. This one would lose interest, as they all do, she thought.
"He will not have us… run!" She whispered in a command in Eredun before glancing back in time to see the great, horrid scythe pointed at her. Her blood ran cold, a shiver running up her spine, a feeling she tried to deny with the prospect of escape. He will find better prey. I am only a courier… that is all I am now… the chase will wane, Safrona tried to believe.
The Courier had a head start. Though, did she believe she could outrun the Dread Knight? Death always came on a pale horse and it's speed was often unmatched. The great Deathcharger reared back with it's dark neighing releasing a cold fire from it's nostrils. She was already on her Dreadsteed and Tursidhion's cold aura provided a path of frost along the lake to cut straight toward her. The dark eyes of the Juggernaut fixated on his target as thunderous hooves crushed the snow beneath the undead beast.
"How far will you run, Courier?" Tursidhion called out to her. The runic scythe was beginning to make it's preparation for a strike as the distance was beginning to close shut. The enchanted blade roared with the might of the frozen north and it called to Safrona. It weeped for her. As if it knew about the sorrow and pain she was about to undergo if the Dread Lord managed to catch her.
Then, as he got close enough in range, the Juggernaut had released the reins of his mighty horse to conjure a shadowy coil within his hand. The grip of death extended outwardly in an attempt to capture her Dreadsteed. The successful grip yanked Wraithsong, with her upon it's back, and sliced the legs clean off with the efficiency of an armored cavalier. Afterwards, his progression slowed down in order to loop about and lock the Courier in his sights again.
The Dreadsteed screamed in rage at the arrogance of Turisidhion's scythe as it cut into its flank and cut it’s way through all four legs. The demon crashed into the surface of the frozen lake, sending the demonic entity’s mistress skidding across the lake’s surface. All the lost souls seemed to hold still as they bore audience to the Juggernaut's hunt.
Hellish fires melted the ice as Wraithsong breathed its last. Entrails searing the demon's icy grave in it’s last bid of defiance. The elf scrambled away from the crater it had created and funneled her demon's essence back to herself before the Nether could claim it fully.
Then, Courier tore off the cloak that her Watcher had gifted her knowing it had kept her from her freedom of movement. Cursing the new ache of her own delicate body she dragged herself away from the cracking lake best she could. Boots stepped to the safety of shore, and still, she felt the beast's eyes on her, unwavering. Dread. She felt it form like icy veins within the heat of her body numbing her to the fingertips.
"...Why do you do this? What in the seven hells do you want of me?! I have done nothing to warrant your chase!"
Two sets of cold, heartless optics blazed a furious trail toward the Dreadstead that had taken the spill from his assault. The scarlet-clad femme's magic was witnessed as she recovered. The glacial scythe was spun with masterful grace in preparation. The ghastly hooves of the deathcharger began to smack against the ground in anxiousness. It knew what it's master sought.
The questions that left her led the undead steed to neigh in discontent. The armed weapon was lowered only briefly so that the Courier knew what the new face of death had become. The knight that had been forsaken by humanity, cursed to bare an eternity for his mistakes, and the very monster that it had created. The Juggernaut's blistering stare fixating on the eyes of the woman who had been unfortunate to cross into his domain.
"You've endured suffering. You've endured loss. And, you have endured indulgence. Yet, you walk among the living as if you are one of them... A second chance," he said with mournful envy. "Then, you become bold, confident in what you are, and venture into the land of unmaking. You take what is mine and it welcomes you greater than I..." The gloomed chord slowly became that of hostility once again.
If Safrona could detect souls she'd recognize that his did not even linger within the glacial colossus. As if it had been misplaced. The phantasmal scythe began to hum with dark energy and as if the deathcharger could wait no more the beast charged while the Juggernaut adjusted his position to become the very reaper that the ghost stories had depicted him as.
