Sir Devon's Arc

Chapter 7 of 7

Devon walked down from the black temple with his sword still in hand. The witch was dead. Her hold on the ground was broken. Below, the frozen army had fallen to bone. He passed a skeleton in dark grey armor, a tattered purple cape still clinging to its frame. He knew that armor. He had knighted the man who wore it. Devon counted the shapes half-buried in the snow. Too few of his own still breathed to hold these mountains. The Frostborn he had dreamed of would never stand. A cold swirl of snow rose from the flat ground. It thickened and took shape. The Lich of Blackrock stood before him. Tall, wrapped in a torn black robe, his pale hands hung at his sides. Where his face should be there was only darkness. Devon had bargained with this thing to save what men he had left. Now it had come to collect. "You kept your word," the lich said. "The witch is dead. I am free of her blood." "Then we are square," Devon said. "I stood as your witness. Let me go." "No." The lich did not raise his voice. "You saw my work begin. The framework needs the witness fixed to one spot. That spot is you." Devon lifted his sword. "I made no promise to stay forever." "You made no promise to leave." The lich stepped closer. His voice dropped, quieter now. "I built this over sixty years. I will not lose it to a man who wants to go home." Devon swung. The blade passed through the black robe and struck nothing. The lich did not move. He raised one pale hand and pressed two fingers to Devon's chest. Cold poured into him. It was not the cold of the mountains. It went past his armor, past his ribs, into his blood. Devon gasped. His sword arm dropped. He looked down and saw dark lines spread beneath his skin, black roots crawling up his neck. His green eyes stung and dimmed. "You wanted to root out dark magic," the lich said. "Now you carry it. A witness must be bound to the work. This is the binding." Devon fell to one knee in the snow. He fought to lift his head. The dead knight in the purple cape lay an arm's length away. Devon reached for it, for the man he had failed. His fingers would not close. The cold reached his heart and held it. "Rise," the lich said. Devon rose. His breath no longer fogged. The scar on his cheek had gone grey. He looked at his own hand and did not know it. Somewhere behind the cold, a small part of him still screamed to ride south. But his legs turned toward the black temple. He followed the lich up the steps, a death knight now, bound to the darkness he had come to destroy.