“I am sorry it has come to this, my love,” she explained to him sadly. “But I have no time to bear witness to another one of your fights. When Hekate died, I absorbed her power for myself, which I intend on taking with me.” She shifted towards the window, her bare feet gliding on the floor.
David tried to summon any power he had to move, but it was of no avail. The invisible chains the Morrigan had wrapped them in held firm.
“After I died, I entered our Upperworld and my every memory was restored. My days as Nephthys drifted back, my long, happy years as the Morrigan, my most recent days in this rotting prison of flesh. And as I paused to examine my life, to fully understand it, I realized there had always been two constants.” She faced them. “The two of you. I realized that I cannot have one of you without the other, and that all this—eons of chaos and pain, battles and strife—all come down to one great flaw. Me.”
David felt his insides screaming.
“I am the reason the two halves of the Great He cannot reconcile, I am the reason the scales of earth have tipped into instability, I am the reason my sister’s soul has been fragmented and lost forever. I tell you this not to invoke pity, it is just the simple, clear truth of what is. I am tired of being fought over, tired of this world.”
She approached Lucius, placing her hands on his chest as she looked into his eyes. “My Set, I can never love you the way you need me to, but your fire will always burn in my veins. Even so, know that you will never possess me. No matter how you try to manipulate the world around you, I will never be yours. You must abandon this game, for if you force me to play, I will always win.” She placed her lips against his cheek and pulled her hands away, pulling along with them tendrils of fire. She was robbing him of his powers.
She placed her hands on David in a similar way, and he immediately felt the extraction of energy. “You may keep what was given to you by our sons, but I will need back my crows.” She smiled sadly, pulling wisps of black smoke from the hole she’d opened in his chest. Then she cupped her hands around his face, kissing him, long and firm. When she pulled away, Delicia’s eyes had turned to a sparkling blue, boring into his. “Horus will look after you,” Morrigan said. “Do not search for me. I must take my leave of you again, this time for good.” Although her words were resolute, he watched tears well around her eyes, threatening to spill. “I love you more than I ever thought was possible, and yet, I know we were never meant to be.”
He could hear the winter wind screaming outside, knowing it was he who stirred its squalls. It nearly drowned out the sounds of men, battling beyond the river that ran below the tower.
Morrigan drew back to the window as if responding to its call. The frayed, blood-stained dress she wore fluttered around her. Her raven hair followed suit, its waves rippling in the crisp air. She turned her head slowly to look at them one last time. “Do not come after me.”
And with that, she jumped.
It only took a few moments before their invisible bounds dissipated, David racing to the window to observe Delicia’s body smashed on the rocks that carved out the river below. Both Delicia’s and Morrigan’s souls were free.
He fell to his knees in disbelief.
She was truly gone.
From the corner of his eye, he noticed Lucius had also collapsed to the floor, holding his head in his hands in similar torment. When he looked up, the whites of his eyes were like coal, his cheeks streaked with inky black tears. David found himself trapped in a moment of compassion for him. He had never seen him look so distraught, his arrogance melted away by heartbreak, his gleaming golden eyes snuffed out by the tragic curse that was immortal weeping. It occurred to David in that moment, that she was just as much his weakness as she was David’s. “We do not have to fight this war,” he said quietly.
Lucius did not respond, his head falling back into his hands as he gripped fistfuls of ebony hair. David felt a sudden, unusual shift in the air. He rose to his feet.
“She took all the power…” Lucius managed.
“She does not want us to fight,” David continued as he approached him. “We can put this feud of ours to rest, for her.”
“Hear me!” Lucius screeched, catching David off guard, his overwrought expression, painted in black, terrifying. “She took the power that kept me human!”
David scrambled backwards, realizing what he meant.
Warmth began to steadily rise around them as David flattened himself against the wall. He had never witnessed a transformation like the one that now befell the unfortunate soul before him, staring in perfect horror as Lucius’s armor fell to pieces, his skin bubbling and popping as it melted away to reveal leathery black scales, his skeleton distorting its shape and bursting cruelly from its confines. Smoldering heat strangled the room as gnarled wings ruptured from his back, stretching up towards the heavens, scraping the ceiling as it lengthened beyond human proportion.
The floor beneath them began to tremble as it struggled to maintain the immense weight of the creature rapidly expanding within its hold, the beams loosening as crumbling limestone rained down from above. A wayward stone landed on David’s shoulder, breaking him free of his paralysis. He edged towards the open window as he watched he who was once a man of refinement and splendor fall victim to a merciless metamorphosis.
It looked directly at him, opening its jaws to scream, David face to face with the abominable creature from his dreams. The recognition jolted him, causing him to fall backwards out of the window just as the daemonic dragon let fly its torrent of fiery breath.
David hoisted himself out the rubble, his head pounding and dust in his lungs.
Somehow, the tower had managed to fall in the same direction of the extended drawbridge, David saved from a similar fate as his lover and instead landing on solid ground. In the distance, the war held on, expired bodies cluttering the menagerie of gargoyles that Lucius had once filled his courtyard with. They were in their element among the contorted corpses beneath them, bringing life to their exaggerated grins and bulging eyes.
The human calvary and infantry had long since retreated, the battle now creature verses creature clashing together in a growling culmination of metal and bared teeth. There was no holding back amongst the combating creatures, who swooped and dived as each tried to gain the upper hand against their opposing equals.
David knelt, his freshly bruised and battered body provoking a wince as he searched the crumbled stone and brick for his sword. He knew it wouldn’t be too much longer before the beast rose from the collapsed tower, if it had survived the fall.
Without warning, a sword whizzed past him, narrowly missing his extended arm. He ducked forward, missing another forceful blow, Dragos striking without reserve. David groaned, his body still working to mend itself from the fall. “I suppose this means you are the traitor,” he flatlined. “I should have known.”
Dragos did not respond, his eyes cold behind his armored helmet. He took another purposeful swing, this time, the blade nicking the exposed part of David’s arm. “I warned you to wear armor,” he said, matching David’s smug tone.
The beads of black rising from his skin brought David back to life. He leapt to the top of the highest pile of wreckage and swooped down to knock him from where he stood. Dragos’s helmet fell from the impact as he hit the ground, revealing eyes and a grin wild with exhilaration. He laughed, thoroughly enjoying the confrontation.
Weaponless, David reached around the fledgling blood drinker’s throat, but was unable to impede his joyful laughter. He gripped tighter, his entire being tensed with exertion, trying to render him unconscious, when Dragos abruptly slammed his fist into David’s unprotected chest, grinding what felt like razor blades into his skin.
David fell back with a gasp, realizing the gloves that covered the creature’s hands were welded with silver, silver spikes extending out from between each finger. The wound he’d left behind was considerable, David heaving for breath as blood gushed from the torn flesh. Dragos retrieved both his sword and helmet without rush, knowing he’d incapacitated David well beyond immediate repair.
David grew dizzy as he tried to stop his rapidly seeping wound, searching frantically around him for a weapon that could hold off his opponent before he had the chance to make it worse.
Dragos came closer, flippantly twirling his sword. “Do not despair, Great David. I only meant to slow you down. Lucius would never forgive me if I stole his kill. In fact, I am in charge of someone else, someone I was hoping would be near...” His taunting proved prophetic, for mere seconds after he’d trailed off, Danulf emerged, his dual axes slicing through the air without mercy. They connected with their intended target, Dragos swept off his feet in one swift blow.
David could now stand, the hole in his chest mended enough that he no longer poured blood onto the wet earth. Noticing he was weaponless, Danulf tossed him one of his axes. David caught it easily, enjoying the feel of the leather wrapped handle and the heaviness of the blade. From memories long forgotten, he recalled a similar feel to his hammer, a weapon that would one day be referred to as the Club of Daghda. He met Danulf’s eyes as Dragos struggled to his feet. “Dan, he was the shadow for Lucius.”
“That explains a lot.” Danulf wiped a lick of sweat from his brow.
Dragos finally reached his feet, but did not attack, instead sticking two fingers in his mouth, pulling out a shrill whistle. From all ends of the courtyard, the surviving nemorti paused in mid-battle to turn towards the sound. Dragos casually moved out of the way, deriding them as hundreds of nemorti suddenly hurtled towards them, as if controlled by unseen forces, their weapons at hand.
Danulf and David braced themselves with axes raised. “Are you ready for this?” Danulf asked him.
“No, but at this moment, I am too exhausted for fear.” He tightened his grip on the axe.
“Bah, we are immortal pagan gods from the lands of old. They should be the ones to fear us,” Danulf pointed out as he took a couple of practice swings.
