"You ofted the Lords of Cinder… the Undead Legion… so that's how their delivered to their thrones…"
Hawkwood watched as the lad he had seen crawl out of the ground just days prior offered the cinders of his former comrades onto their thrones in the shrine.
He never believed it could have been done and yet this nameless undead, clad in lowly knightly armor had done it.
He sat there, awestruck at the very thought that the Lords, those with the mettle and the power to link the fire were taken down by someone so insignificant, someone like him…
He continued to ponder this, sitting upon the ashen steps of the inner rotunda as the lad left through the kindling bonfire, and left the shrine in its continued silence, the winds from the outside flowing and whistling through the causeways and doorframes, blowing up the occasional cloud of ash.
If the Lords were not spared from the curse, then they were no lesser than he…
So then, what did he have to fear?...
Perhaps, someone such as himself could become someone worthy enough to link the fire, and throw off his title as the craven, the crestfallen. Someone such as himself could have their names forever etched into the annals of history as a firelinking Lord.
Something new started to burn within Hawkwood. A desire to become something more than just a withering, old soul trapped forever within the cycle of undeath and rebirth.
No, he would ascend to the mantle of Lordship.
He would be one deserving of the title of a Lord.
He sat up, leaving his shield in the ash, pulling out his worn dagger and greatsword, and started forward, and towards the bonfire.
Hawkwood began his journey in the same manner and directions he had given that lad after he walked into the shrine. Following down into Farron's Keep, and into the home of the Abyss Watchers in the same manner he had done years ago as a young trainee.
Strewn across the floor of the keep lay the hundreds of bodies of his fellow watchers, all of them still clutching their parrying daggers and great swords. Blood stained the great hall's floors and walls, casting shadows from the torches that lined the bricked interior.
"They truly were faithful to the very end…"
"I pity you sorry souls…"
He walked through the barracks, stopping to pick up the steal helm that once identified him as a member of the Legion, along with his sword glass as a final reminder of who he once was and of who he will become. Following the same path his friends had made when they had collectively linked the fire.
He was now the last remaining warrior of the Undead Legion, its only remaining connection to the dying flame of this world.
He would carry their legacy in their absence, he thought to himself. The legion was a source of pride for him long ago. They had carried the burden that was first undertaken by Knight Artorias in the days of old, battling the dark wherever it had sprung up in the land and destroying any trace of it. Leaving out any possibility of the Abyss' spread to anywhere else in the land. For countless years he had traveled with them and had taken part in dismantling countless settlements who were deemed to be infected by the Abyss, leaving him complacent to the woes and troubles of others in service of achieving what he believed to be an overall good.
As Hawkwood proceeded through the land, seeking the Lords of Cinder, time and time again he was met with an empty chamber and an already smoldering bonfire. Time and time again, he was too late to absorb the souls of the Lords, with that armored lad being five paces ahead of him at every turn.
As he progressed, he began to feel more and more hopeless, finding himself eventually at the end of the world, in a darkened shrine and a continually converging world.
Ashen crags jutted into the sky, towers and walls of forgotten kingdoms laid crumbling beneath the dark gray dunes and the wind howled and whispered through the cracks of long dead empires.
He found himself in an arena, atop one of these crags, knowing that this was once the location of the kiln of the first flame.
Swords of every era and of every make were dotted across this arena. Their hilts were worn, and the steel was blackened and burned. Pillars of scorned and hardened ash protruded out of the ground and into the blackening sky, almost appearing to reach out to the sun which had now become eclipsed and dark with small dancing flames flickering beyond the seemingly abyssal crescent.
In the center of the arena laid a single bonfire, to Hawkwood's surprised remained unlit.
"So… in the end you lacked the stones to do it, did you…"
He chuckled to himself in disbelief.
Here had this lad come all this way, to had conquered the Lords of Cinder, the giants of their age… and in the end he did not have the courage to burn himself away.
Hawkwood could understand that feeling, he had been offered the chance to burn with the rest of the Legion but when the time came, he too was too afraid to pick up the mantle of lordship.
But now there was nothing to be afraid of. For he had nothing left to lose, nothing apart from maintaining the legacy of his former compatriots.
And if the first flame had not yet been rekindled…
Then there was still time for him to do so himself and establish himself as his own Lord.
'Hawkwood… an undead worthy of fire… not the craven nor the crestfallen…', he thought to himself. But in this thought he realized something. That a truly powerful soul was needed in order to kindle the first flame. A soul with the strength of the previous Lords of Cinder combined. For without enough souls, the fire would simply putter and scatter without a powerful enough soul. He would have to seek out that lad, and simply take it from him, he thought.
Pondering this he looked down to notice boot prints in the ash, their trail leading farther and farther down the ashen crag.
With this he began to follow behind in the path of the young knightly lad, as he had done previously to get there. Chuckling to himself in a world devoid of life as his red cape fluttered madly in the howling winds that flowed over the grey ash dunes, he proceeded forward with his steel helmet bent over his eyes and his great sword dragging into the ashen ground.