The old friends looked upon each other. "One last time?" Asked Markus a sad smile crossing his bearded face. "Aye, let's give 'em something to sing about," replied Germaine. They spurred their horses forward and turned to face their army. They examined the two thousand mounted warriors behind them on the hill, some their faces resolute, others terrified, others hopeless, most of them hidden behind helmets of shining steel. "We ride warriors of Solamnia!" Markus yelled, "We ride forward with but one guarantee, death. There is no shame and running but know you will die with an arrow in your back rather than your chest. So ride with me men and women of Ansalon! Ride with me this evening to our deaths, but before we die we will make it known to these beats that today we made our stand! One last glorious charge of the solamnic people! We will make this valley forever remember this stand, because we will stain this ground with our blood and the blood of our enemy!" as Markus finished his rallying cry Germaine drew his sword while he turned his horse to the enemy, "Today is a good day to die!" He shouted holding his sword high. A boom erupted as the warriors behind him yelled in agreement and drew forth their own weapons. Markus turned and drew his sword, holding it high with Germaine and his warriors. They looked to each other once again and dropped their swords in unison, "CHARGE!" they shouted together and spurred their mounts and began their final charge, their warriors following their swords lowering towards their enemy. The almost unending lines of orcs, goblins, dragon born and almost every evil creature imaginable looked upon the charging warriors and for a moment felt a pang of fear that physically hurt, instead of a couple thousand knights, squires, town guards and peasants, they saw mighty angels of the god Paladin their armor glistened brightly as a comet blazing across the dark night sky on unicorns whose horns flashed in the sun, but at the bottom of the mile long slope the evil army enveloped in shadows watched the charging warriors trans form into what they were, desperate humans. Markus and Germaine soon felt a coldness come over them for the sun had set and shadow began to encompass their galloping warriors. The fear that visibly overcome their enemy before was now gone, replaced by an eagerness to kill as the front lines dropped their long cruel pikes to meet their foe.
Markus and Germaine no longer need to look at each other, the childhood friends knew what each other thought, that this was it. Within moments of entering the cold shadow the pair along with hundreds of their warriors crashed into the enemy lines some being impaled by the pikes, many skillfully knocking them aside to draw the first blood of the battle and raging through the first few lines of the evil horde. Soon the warriors delved deep into the front of the enemy and were then encircled by the raging beasts. The remaining warriors circled and began to fight back the charges of the enemy. Markus fought valiantly but his horse was stabbed in the chest and fell forward, Markus skillfully jumped from his horse and brought his sword down on an orc, slicing it clean it two, but was now separated from his army by lines of evil creatures. Almost at the same time as Markus, Germaine's horse was pierced through with a dozen arrows like a pin cushion and he jumped next to his friend slicing off a dragonborns head that had almost snuck up on Markus. "Thanks!" Marcus said parrying a goblins sword thrust and stabbing him through the heart. Germaine lopped off the arms of a bear like creature before slicing its guts open, "Wouldn't be a battle if I didn't have to save your ass!" Markus smiled quickly before having to fend off a blow from an axe, but it was too late, the axe glanced off his sword catching his leg and leaving a gashing wound, Markus cried in pain and in his dying throws killed two approaching goblins before a dragon born put a pike threw his heart. Germaine turned and yelled in a furry killing the dragon born with a slash, cutting through the creatures skull at an angle causing his brain to spill out like someone had tipped a bowl of porridge over. Germaine was now blind with wrath weaving a path of destruction around his dead friend before archers took aim and filled him with arrows.
Germaine dropped to his knees, looking at his friend in despair. He briefly glimpsed the battle around him, barely holding to life he saw the two thousand strong army he and his friend had led now diminished to a few hundred, and quickly being overwhelmed. His eyes closed tears streamed down his gritty face and he fell beside his dearest friend letting the sweet release of death take him. A young archer near the outside of the circle saw his leaders lying slain and was filled with rage, sadness, and hopelessness and continued to rain arrows into the horde. "So this is how it all ends…" the young man thought snapping an arrow into a corrupted elves eye socket, he thought to his youth, remembering tales of the glory of battle, "There is no glory in this…." He thought to himself "only the death of the greatest among us." Just then the young man heard a great thunderclap overhead, but no clouds were there. Just then an explosion rocked the ground a few hundred feet for the last of the warrior's lines. The tired heroes stumbled back and the onslaught paused as the evil creatures looked in shock as a group of their allies had disappeared in a flash, replaced by a crater and some body parts falling to the ground. They then reviled in fear but didn't know why. They looked to the hills surrounding the valley but only one figure stood with a torch in its hand. The figure sat on a black horse that was in an ephemeral form like a ghost with blazing red eyes, the warrior holding the torch was clad in dark black form fitting armor with the emblem of a raven emblazoned in it and under a black hood, in the shadows of the cover blazed two emerald eyes. The creatures stood in shock along with the exhausted warriors of Solamnia. Then the torch vanished into thin air and the black clad warrior could now only be found by the blazing red eyes of its mount and its own emerald green eyes. Then all at once a bright light shown from the mysterious figures left hand revealing the warrior and at the same time a darkness that seemed to suck in the light next to it appeared in its right hand and revealed a terrifying transformation. The horse form contorted underneath the rider, rising her into the air slowly. Soon the evil army looked in horror as the dark horse had transformed into a terrifying dragon that stood twenty feet high. The evil creatures surrounding the fighters of Solamnia began to back away and some even began running to the hills eyes still on the dark, but also strangely bright figure atop the now fully formed ghost like dragon. Then blasting horns echoed from the hills around them the horde and the army of knights looked around and thousands upon thousands of torches and magical light lit up the surrounding hills revealing humans clad in shining armor like the solamnic knights and hundreds of wizards clad in white, red, and black, but not only humans stood at the top of these hills. Thousands of dwarves, elves, and numerous other creatures stood looking upon the battlefield in eerie silence.
Then the shadowy dragon took flight and hovered menacingly for what was only a few seconds, but felt like hours to the horde, then it let out a shrieking howl that pierced to the very soul of every living, and the non-living, creature. Upon the end of the howl a boom erupted from the peoples lining the hills as they charged the horde below, the wizards stood back along with some elves, dwarves and humans, raining deadly bolts, arrows, deadly magic, and the dwarves booming canons on the evil assembled below. Humans and elves on horse, along with centaurs, and even a few unicorns led the charge with animals ranging from wolves to wolverines following close behind. This gave hope to the surrounded warriors as they let loose a fearsome war cry and charged into the horde around them. The shocked dark horde now came down from their shock, but their looks had changed from an eagerness to kill, to a panic for sheer survival. The young archer took all this in and again let loose a deadly barrage of arrows, letting loose his arrows, arrows from the dead around him, and a shout of rage and triumph as the hordes numbers tried to take a stand against the charging warriors from the hills and from within their own ranks. The evil army quickly collapsed into chaos as their numbers shrank from millions before to a few hundred thousand now. The ghostly dragon and its rider rained deadly black fire from above as its rider suddenly leapt into a pack of a thousand cowering goblins, leaving its dragon to reign hell from above.
They now realized both the bright light and sucking dark hole were swords, both looking as sharp and deadly as they did bright and dark. The warrior rose from the crouch it landed it looked up and surveyed the horde around it. Soon it drew back the hood to reveal and feminine elven face, emerald eyes still ablaze, and looked into an orcs eyes. Then smiled such an evil smile the orc froze in terror. Then, the female warrior burst into action, charging into the crowd swords slashing, the bright blade causing orcs to ablaze in a holy white fire, the dark blade causing them to shudder and crumple to the ground like a dying tree, and into dust. She slashed through the horde with a deadly grace, like a dancer she twirled, jumped, and even flipped through the horde. She stopped momentarily as the horde quickly opened a small circle around her to reveal a mighty troll. Not only any troll, the troll king Traygare the Bone Eater. Trolls are known for being fearless, mostly because they were too dumb to realize danger, and Traygare was no exception, except he was very bright, even by human standards. He stood with a massive sword the size of three men and wickedly curved with a serrated end and a chain longer than his own twelve foot body was high and with links as thick as oaks trees. Traygare stared dismissively at the woman and roared a fierce battle cry. The woman stood strong, unfazed by the massive troll, almost uninterested. She then stood with her feet together, with her eyes closed, arms folded across her chest, and her swords pointed towards the sky. The troll king smiled, thinking she was accepting her death. He lifted the chain and began twirling it in the air emitting a sickly shriek. "There is a good girl, accept your fate elvish bitch! He then reared back and swung the mighty chain and as it began to fall towards the women, without opening her eyes she crouched swords low and behind her and leaped at the chain! While in the air she swung the swords up decimating the chain and as she fell she went straight through the stunned troll's chest emerging through the other side, the troll's heart impaled on the dark sword. The troll looked down in shock and felt the hole in his chest before collapsing forward, dead. The woman opened her gleaming emerald eyes to stare into the face of an orc, and she smiled "It is rude to call people names". At that moment thousands of evil creatures laid down their weapons and fell to their knees in surrender. The dark clad female frowned, "I was just starting to have fun…" she said with disappointment in her voice. With that she lifted her bright sword and her armies halted their attack as the evil army laid their weapons down in surrender, their number being down from over a million to a just over two hundred thousand in under ten minutes made them quickly realize they were no match for this army and the deadly dragon above.
The woman calmly sheathed her swords and walked through the terrified horde, stepping over bodies like they weren't even there. She walked with haste over to the pair of generals who had led the Solamnic's last charge. She approached the bodies of Markus and Germaine and let loose a sign, kneeling down she closed the eyes of Markus and looked with sadness at Germaine. The army of Solamnics that had charged with them had begun collecting the hordes weapons along with the army from the hills, talking and introducing themselves to anyone and everyone. Except the young archer, he approached the elven woman from the side and he too stared at the bodies with great sadness. "They were great men." The woman said not taking her eyes from Germaine as she swept his bangs from his long brown hair from his face. "Aye ma'am, they were." "Don't call me ma'am." The woman snapped quickly snapping her head at the man, eyes narrowed. He noticed her eyes no longer gleamed as before, but now were a duller green like the grass of a meadow. She quickly shot her head back to the bodies of the men, "I am sorry, I did not mean to snap… I am Cahleem…" She said as she began to stand. She looked at the young man. He stared in shock, this couldn't be, he thought, Cahleem was the fabled dragon slayer who could fell a dragon with nothing but her sword, now swords, and her fabled ghost horse, but Cahleem was a man. "The Cahleem?" He asked in admiration. He had listened to stories of the great Cahleem since he was a child and couldn't believe he was meeting her. "I thought you took no sides?" He asked. Cahleem looked to him, sadness in her eyes, "I didn't, until I met these two but a year or so ago." She smiled, not the terrifying smile of the killer earlier, but of a person remembering old friends long gone, "Until these two idealistic idiots convinced me there was things more important than my treasures…" Her voice trailed off and she looked at the young man. "I am sorry I never got your name… "Brace ma- Cahleem." He said extending his hand with a smile, Cahleem extended her hand and grasped his forearm in a firm shake and a smile. Just then the massive dragon began to descend towards Cahleem. Brace looked in awe and shock as the massive dragon began to transform into the shape of a man in a dark cloak, eyes still glowing red. He complete his transformation when he landed and looked at Brace's wide eyes. "Rinest," he said in his shadowy voice. "Nice to meet you knight." "Oh I am no knight umm, sir…" his voice trailing off. Rinest cocked his head eyes narrowed. "You bear their armor, fight their battles, how are you not a night." "I have yet to undertake the trials." Brace said shaking the shock and awe from his face. "Humans and your rituals and rights…" Rinest said shaking his head. He then looked at Cahleem "Ready to leave my dearest?" Cahleem looked to Rinest. "No old friend." She smiled, "We have some human rituals to partake in."
Cahleem brought out her bright sword and let it shine with a bright light drawing the army's attention. They swiftly gathered around. "Listen up. I am not one for speeches so here it goes. Today we lost great men, Markus, Germaine, and all the other brave knights who died in the final charge of the Solamnics! Today we mark this spot the Valley of the Last Hero's! Here will stand a monument to the knights who gave their lives for a cause bigger than themselves!" A roar of approval shook the ground as it erupted from the army. She held her sword up for silence. "Furthermore with the loss of the final Generals of Solamnia I will declare a new leader for the last of the Solamnic people!" Murmuring began among the knights, "How can she choose?" "Who is she to tell us who leads us" they asked quietly. "Silence!" a booming voice sounded from Rinests shadowy form. "Thank you," Cahleem said smiling politely to her companion. "I have the right to choose as I was granted by Paladin himself! Take it up with him if you so choose! How else would I hold the BrightStriker?" The knight's eyes all went wide. "But the BrightStriker…" Brace murmured "Was hidden away from man by Paladin during the cataclysm for fear its power would cause further chaos!" Cahleem interrupted. "With the power given to me by Paladin I hereby appoint… Brace! King of Solamnia!" The crowd boomed applause except for the Knights who stood in shock and some of the older in anger. "He's not even a knight! Or of royal blood!" one man yelled indignantly. Cahleem smiled "Perfect!" she said happily. She turned to Brace. "King Brace make sure these two get a proper send of eh?" Brace was still staring at her in utter surprise. He had never had a squire much less had to take charge of a people! "Oh don't worry, its only like ten thousand people, you will be fine!" She said laughing. "I… well… um… yes they will be taken to Solamnia and given a proper send off." Brace said still shocked. "Good, Rinest! Let's go!" Without telling him Rinest transformed quickly into a horse as she stepped seamlessly into his stirrup mid transformation and swung onto her shadowy friend, now a horse. "Ride!" She shouted and the pair galloped through the cheering army and when she reached the top of the hill Rinest transformed into the mighty dragon once more and flew into the distance. Leaving the new King to stare at the black dot as it disappeared into the moonlit night, smiling. He then gulped, turned to his few hundred Knights. "Alright you heard her, let's get these hero's home!"