Justiniel, Paladin of Zakarum, crested the hill in full battle array. In his days of mere mortal soldiering he would not have dared attempt such a march dealing with the chafe and sweat of armor at every step – but Akarat granted him vigor now. Mere fatigue would not slay him; the black foes against whom he girt himself with mail and shield were his only concern.
In a shallow depression ahead lay a ruin churned up in furrows. Grey blocks of wrought stone lay cast about upon the ground, ejected from the earth as if from the force of a volcanic eruption. When had this place, once an elaborate catacomb, been despoiled? The Time of Troubles? Or had the disturbance at the corrupted Worldstone's shattering caused the surface of the planet to rebel so against itself?
As soon as he took his first step down the slope, Justiniel noticed a glint of bright color, very much out of place in the drab scene, from atop a pillar-like crag of stone. A human shape, clothed in red, with radiant golden hair… The paladin put his hand to the hilt of his sword.
"What ho!" His voice fell dead upon the surroundings. "Show yourself!"
The woman turned toward him, regarding him for an instant with narrowed eyes. A sharp javelin lay across her lap, its point smeared in some foul green ichor. A bundle of others like it rested on her back, slung over her shoulder, and the curve of a large shield protruded from where it hung behind her on the column.
"Hail." Her voice was rough and contralto, a sort of neutral growl. "I must admit, I thought any company I'd have would come out of that tomb. What brings you here, Zakarumite?"
She'd made it sound like an epithet; his face hardened. "The 'company' you're expecting is responsible for a number of violent deaths among the local townsfolk. I mean to end the menace. And what is your purpose – coming here with the name of Zakarum ringing like a foreign word from your lips?"
She regarded him coolly for a long moment, spinning her javelin as if buffing its haft upon her leather cuisse. "I have heard rumors. Whispers spreading across Sanctuary like the ripple of fear in a crowd. A name: 'Lilith.' I suspect some movement of the Evils on this plane – let us hope the Primes remain shattered." She nodded toward the catacomb opening, its crumbled archway gaping like a cave mouth among the hills. "I seek treasures unearthed by the cataclysm, to arm myself against such a danger."
"Defiler!" Justiniel hissed. "You would deprive the dead of their raiment to increase your own power?"
"And you wouldn't? Were you to find such a wonder, you would take it up, praising your god for delivering it into your hands." She smirked. "I prefer asking permission beforehand over beating myself for atonement afterward."
Sweat slicked Justiniel's grip on his swordhilt. Was this woman trying to goad him into a fight? "And just whom do you pray to, to ask permission for such an act?"
She looked bemused. "Athulua, of course. She sends her regards to Akarat, by the way. Wonders when he and his followers will acknowledge her existence again." She shook her head. "I serve the cause of Order, just as you do."
Justiniel gritted his teeth. "I think you a false light. A heathen tomb-robber claiming opposition to evil only as a means to personal gain."
There was nothing neutral about her growl now. "If you dare pursue your ignorance to blows, I will strike you down where you stand."
The paladin at last could stand it no longer, and drew his sword. It was called the Atlantean, and its consecrated power gave him a surge of courage. "I dare only testify to the Light. And do battle with those who would shadow that truth, if I must."
With a sneer, the woman jumped to her feet, perched atop the stone column like a bird of prey, javelin in her right hand and shield in her left. She raised the spear, and before Justiniel's eyes it transformed into a shaft of sparking light in her hand.
Only a quick prayer to Akarat for safety against lightning saved Justiniel as the bolt descended, let fly from the woman's hand like from a spirit of storms. The lightning burst in front of him at arm's length, wrapping around him as if striking an invisible cage. Smaller bolts streamed outward from the point of impact, arcing into the ground in all directions.
"Your pagan elementalism will avail you not." With a flourish of his sword, Justiniel called once more upon the divinity protecting him, and a ray of brilliant light blazed down from the sky toward his opponent.
Somehow, she dodged.
One moment, she was there, about to be purged by Akarat's wrath, the next she landed unharmed on the ground beside the stone pillar. Divine energy rippled out from the top of the column, fruitless. She evaded the Fist of the Heavens? What unholy prowess is that?
With a shout, he charged her. The reach of her javelin, newly plucked from the bundle on her back, afforded her an advantage in that first instant, but Justiniel's shield glowed and seemed to intercept the blow of its own volition, the attack denied by Heaven's will. The Atlantean swung down, crackling with Justiniel's own elemental empowerment, but it too fell harmlessly: the runes Shael and Eth burned on the warrior-woman's shield as it halted his charge.
They stood locked there, barely a yard apart, each pressing the attack with equal force, the most rapid and powerful strikes each could muster crashing against weapon, shield, and armor alike. Then, in the same moment, the combatants disengaged and stepped back from each other.
"Hold!" bellowed Justiniel. "Take heed—"
But the javelineer already knew. "Looks like we got 'company's' attention."
Indeed, in the moments that had passed during their struggle, the rifts in the ground had birthed ranks of the walking dead. A mighty circle of skeletons and shambling corpses surrounded the two fighters, five deep in places, closing in with unnatural speed.
There was no need for further conversation, nor did any thought linger of continuing their own quarrel: both fighters turned and did what they had first arrived to do. Justiniel called upon the Fist of the Heavens once more; the skeleton it first struck vanished utterly in a blaze of holy light, and the ensuing shockwave of holy power purified a dozen more, dropping them to the ground as lifeless corpses once again. The woman in red hurled another javelin-cum-lightning-bolt, and the explosion of electric current that followed ripped apart an entire formation of the undead.
"Akarat! Receive your restless own at last!" cried Justiniel, and grateful spirits blessed him as they hurried to their reward, empowering him to call down bolt after bolt from the heavens. Meanwhile, the spearwoman engaged the thinning horde in close quarters. She impaled a walking corpse straight through to the ground beneath it, and from the spot her javelin-point touched earth, more lightning crackled through the soil, striking every reanimated monster within several yards.
It took but moments for them to finish off the few that remained.
Shield slung, but javelin still held at the ready, the woman stirred a pile of charred bones with her foot. She crouched down, then, flicking her braid back behind her head, tossed a trinket to Justiniel.
He caught and examined it. A small metal charm, inscribed with an Akaran sigil. Surely it must confer some blessing upon the bearer… He regarded his recent opponent warily.
"I think we stand to gain more from alliance than opposition," she said, returning to her full height. "What say you? Shall we reclaim this place for Order, together?"
Turning the charm over in his fingers, Justiniel nodded slowly.
She smiled at that, the first he'd seen such an expression cross her face without irony. "Well met, then, Paladin. Lead the way, and I will hear your name and story as we descend."
Justiniel raised an eyebrow. "With you at my back? You ask much… Amazon."
She shook her head, that golden braid rocking with it. "You've shown remarkable faith in your god. Keep that… and have some faith in me as well."
He could not argue with that.