Prologue: Red Fallow's Watch

Between the third and fourth arrows' piercing, their noises thuds as they punctured human flesh and organs and bones, the hunter peered into hell. Within the caldera of the open field, the volcano of his village deteriorated in towers of fire and geysers of smoke. Faces imprinted on the fiber of his memory echoed in the contorted countenances they now were in presence of horror, tears like lava in the reflection of the blaze falling in remorse for their peers, their homes, their lost family and devastated lives. Only years ago had this village been rebuilt upon the ashes of the devastated Red Fallow's Watch for it to fall once more. Children unable to flee their homes pitifully stared, blank of expression, emotions singed by the smoke inhalation, from second-story windows. Their wide irises ogled at him, struck down and pinned as he was. He was forced to become witness to their deaths; fire consumed many, their love-locks of blonde hair withering into ash as their skin bubbled and blistered, or as their homes collapsed, their miniature bodies splayed upon the rubble, impaled on rafters.

Grateful he almost was that his physical pain mounted, numbing the sight of their deaths. Blood simmered from where the arrows pierced. Leaks in his body stained his leather armor, blood ultramafic in its swift, red downpours, collecting as a puddle beneath him. Its dampness was all that saved him from the sweltering temperatures of the burning village. So many had already been surrendered to heaven, freed from that of which he now suffered. Divine punishment, was it, or Fate's irony? For suffer he did, head wailing, brain tremulous within the concave of his skull, limbs immobile from loss of blood, body parched as if a sponge wringed of water.

And the Luskans had won, though they were preordained to die in his mind.

His treachery they were aware, his betrayal evident when his remaining compassion nary could allow him to slay those people who had reared him, smiled at him, fed him, taught him. The hunter had warned them, the hunter had told them, and even yet obstinate they were, ignoring his plea for their escape. No, the innocents lay murdered that night, and his enemies prowled the Neverwinter wood still. From the smoky air he stole a breath, drowning his lungs in the piercing stench of it. He exhaled, released the foulness from within. A pause, possibly unconsciousness, maybe exhaustion, hopefully death, spanned.

A vision.

A lapse in the hellish scene and in pale visage from the smoke and flames tread the barefoot woman swathed in white. Many ran about her, frantic, flailing, and fleeting, but not she- tranquility was her that night, embodied in the stormy skin of her arms and the lanterns of her rose eyes. Beside his fallen body her knees met the earth, a hand replaced from her side to his torso between the web of arrows trapped inside him. The other hand folded, leaving only a finger she pressed to the petals of her lips, calling in a voice quiet and toxic that articulated, "Bishop, ranger of the wood of Neverwinter. You pass now to the Abyss."

He clamored for words, grasped them in the confines of his mind but not within the basin of his mouth. He could not question her presence, could not summon a voice. An angelic smile laced itself on the silk of her alabaster face, upturning as nimble fingers lifted his head in her palm. She spoke, "I am the tanar'ri Axarthys Saintrowe. Sent here to the mortal plane I was for purpose of revealing to your soul my world, where my lord the Purging Duke Alvarez bears interest of your torture of the Luskan breed. An honor it is to be admitted to his table, though first you must die. Let us see to it that death arrives swift upon its heathen wings."

Replacing his head to the earth beneath them, her spidery hands placed themselves one at the base and at the fletching of the projectiles. So as not to tear more flesh, the tanar'ri guided the arrows out the other side of his chest. His pain elevated to misery, numbed only by the hemorrhaging. Weakened, the last sound available to express his suffering was a long exhale, a caress of the wind by the hiss it made. Freed of the penetrations, he could lie unbolted to the earth, warmed by the pond of his blood that had cascaded from his wounds into the pit below. The tanar'ri's hands were the pillars of support that enabled him to retain his head held upward in position, allowing the orange flames to cast radiant, sparkling light over his features. The chill of his dying skin heated by the blazing homes surrounding him, he felt he'd drank from the chalice of death for the first time.

In desperation he desired to drown himself with the whole of it, to swallow all the liquid death the chalice offered to him. His lids closed over almond-colored eyes, and what felt a deep sleep washed the parched shores of his consciousness. In his thoughts, the tanar'ri Axarthys had his hand pressed between hers, accompanied by a touch of her gaze as it traced the circle of his irises in stare. Her countenance consoled him in its gentleness, her floating footsteps leading them towards a tall, ivory gateway bathed in blue flames as she said, "The mortal plane I now depart. It is here I shall await you when from your realm you have passed."

"How will I find you?" In his thoughts he asked of her. She approached him, two fingers stroking the line of his jaw.

"Beloved of hunters, if find me you do not, then find you I shall. Go now." Axarthys whispered. With her farewell came the collapse of his vision, thoughts reduced to the ash of the blackness of closed eyes. When they opened, and the feeling of hands upon his body remained, he wondered if the demon had stayed by him on the mortal plane as he died. Instead, where once her face filled the space above him, instead there stood clad in leather armor a man with unkempt hair and elven ears that attested to the racial grace he lacked. His lopsided smile greeted the hunter, the man's voice rumbling, "Best get you out of here before the whole place goes up in flames. You must be the last villager alive."

The hunter felt his body rise, and in his silence protested the aid of this stranger. He fought to have his vocal chords tremble in noise, only to release a gargle of blood in his throat. The stranger shifted the hunter's weight to his shoulder, carrying him as if he were a pig freshly slaughtered. Save the pig was dead, and the hunter lived, as badly as he wished to die. He needed to reach the gateway, to meet Axarthys Saintrowe, pursue her to the abyssal planes and in her small offers of hands to hold and smiles to bestow revel. He watched the earth move beneath, a trail of his blood left in the wake of the stranger. If he lived, would she find him? Would she follow? Would ever he walk the paths of the Abyss, exalted by its natives as a torturer of talent, a ranger of skill?

Did he even believe his vision as real, or simply a delusion of his blood loss?

His eyes shut once more as if committing such action would allow for his entry into infinite slumber. What felt an endless void- the nearest he'd been to death- as he was hauled through the woodlands of Neverwinter was filled in its cavity only by the throb of a hundred thousand agonies, numbered so many no distinctive ache existed, only the amalgamation of all his pain present. Between the desertion of the tanar'ri and the discovery of his fallen form by the stranger, a slur of recurrent memories replayed in the theatre of his mind, reliving them periodically as he was carried off. Between spans of consciousness, the hunter felt the shudder of the gate of a horse's canter beneath him, stirring his thoughts.

And what felt years later, the movement ceased. His ears caught the clicking of metal stirrups, harkened the creak of wooden panels beneath his feet, body escalating as he was carted up a flight of stairs. Then, the supple curvature of a feather-down mattress, wounds caressed by linen sheets. Soon, arctic water froze the burn of the punctures, poultice that smelt of rosemary plugging where the arrows filled prior. His body was lifted, replaced upon the coverlets, lifted, replaced, the tug of cotton round his middle, his bandage a giant hand that clutched him, choked his desire for death out of his lungs in a bleeding cough. Exhaling, the hunter found that the grip had loosened, the heat of the poultice tingling within his innards. The slimmest measure of comfort afforded to him, restless, weary sleep trailed, overtaking him for the few hours time had left to exhale before the first breath of dawn.

It was the speckles of sunlight through the curtains that awoke him on what he thought the morrow, playfully dancing in radiant patches cross the cocoa-colored bed linens. His neck strained upward, the ceiling above reflective in its white of the sun's rays. Beneath him, the wash basin ran red with the diluted blood cleaned from his wounds, a haunting reminder of the transpirations at Redfallow's Watch. For now, the ache of his wounds outweighed the hurt of his memories. In that consolation he was content.

Some time passed before the stranger returned to him. He'd entered with caution, closing the door quietly in its hinges as to not disturb his charge, traversing the chamber in hushed footsteps only heralded by the cry of leather bending in his movement. The hunter awakened. The stranger advanced, spoke, "You're awake after five days. Really got the wind knocked out of you, eh?" The stranger chuckled. Not as pleased, the hunter only narrowed the plane of his eyes in squint. The stranger leaned his weight against an adjoining wall, continuing, "A woman came in to see you. Said you would know who she was, so didn't give me names or nothing. Suspicious. Looked like… well, I'd say a tiefling".

Her.

"I'll see her." Exhaustedly the hunter muttered. The stranger, nameless even still, returned with a nod, launching off the surface of the wall to walk from the room. Many moments passed before the handle of his door clicked, the sashay of a woman's stiletto boots tapping the floor underneath her soles. It was the tanar'ri, no longer a blurred apparition amidst the blaze of his village, now materialized. The clarity of her had him swallowing with difficulty, tense in her being. Her snowy hair tumbled from a knot at the base of her neck atop the mercilessly taut white leather of her body armor. She bowed her brow in what was deference and greeting, perching herself at the head of his bed.

"Are you real?" He uttered. One of her hands embraced his. Her touch reverberated through him, skin tingling in the sensation of her demonic power. What a faultless answer to his question, he thought.

"You remember me." She stated. He nodded. She then asked, "And my name?"

"A-a-a-"

"Axarthys," she cooed.

"Axarthys Saintrowe." He recalled aloud, "You swore to take me to the Abyss."

"But you lived, and I cannot take you there now." She said, "Fate does not allow me to kill you and bring you to my realm, thus I must await your death. My lord the Purging Duke has requested I remain with you until that time arrives and assure that if in death you cannot please my lord with your talent for torture, than in life I will aid you in usage of your gifts. If you do not refuse me, I would travel with you."

"And now?" He asked.

"I would stay by you and ease your pain." She offered, glancing at the basin. Returning to him, she assessed what injuries remained. She removed the coverlets, drawing away the gauze covering his wounds. Her hand slipped into the void between bandage and flesh, settling over the bloodied craters in his chest. He groaned in the sting of her touch. Soon, though, he could feel her not at all. She'd straddled his hips, fingers dipped into the holes left by the arrows as she leaned over him. The misery and exhaustion he felt fled him, the piercing agony of each of his wounds numbed by her touch. He hadn't realized her lips gnawing on his, her face dipping atop his to press it back onto the pillows with a kiss. When she drew from him she ordered, "Now sleep. Heal soon you will."

Within a week, he stood, walked, ate and drank. The stranger- Duncan, as now he named himself- thought it miraculous, the work of some divine force, not even considering accrediting the enigma that spent hours sleeping by Bishop's side, warming his body as he slept, caressing his wounds as to heal them. One afternoon, venturing outdoors to stroll the docks of Neverwinter, she appeared to him again, outfitted in an ivory gown that left her bare feet to reveal themselves at the bottom hem. She was standing towards the sea, her lengthy locks dancing like serpentine tendrils from her head in a cascade of white.

"Relieved I am to see you well." She smiled. She seemed a mirage.

"I would not be well without you." He admitted, "Though you may very well know it is not in my nature to thank others."

"And it is not in mine to receive gratitude. I am pleased enough to see you well again. Let us walk together." She said, taking his arm in hers. They strode the cobblestone paths of the Docks District, the patter of her bare feet on the earth a gentle drum echoing in his ears. He gazed down on her, marveled at how disturbing and lovely she was. So many had abandoned him, left his soul to wither. His morality had shriveled, his heart had wilted. His mentors and Luskan had beaten his body and shattered his spirit, leaving his faith a desolate wasteland parched of hope and human decency. The stranger- Duncan- had stolen the only reprieve he was ever offered, death. But Axarthys had restored his peace and lifted the first brick of his decimated life, setting it between his palms to gently order: Go now, and live again.

His faith was a fountain that could never again be refilled to free its waters into the desert of his soul. But at very best, Axarthys had offered up to him a chalice and once more he could taste what being emotionally quenched felt like. He wished to cling to her, to reclaim whatever of his soul, shattered at Red Fallow's Watch, lingered. Amidst the storm, she was an anchor.

Every moment lived in her presence he cherished, every touch he treasured. The months and then years carried on, and they ventured the outer reaches of Neverwinter's woods together. They had become insufferably dear allies. Bishop prayed their coexistence was endless, only pausing for him to pass onto her world in death. In time, however, his happiness would end.

It was many months afterward that Axarthys had led him into the depths of the forest, weaving a winding path through the trees. Stars in the night sky above sparkled as if glass upon the crystalline surface of a pond central to a glade in the wood. Axarthys stepped into its waters to the height of her knees, holding a hand of halting to Bishop. He stopped, watched her wade deeper. From the surface broke a demoness of wings a shade white and radiant, gown chiffon and cerulean pouring from her shoulders. She was in her entirety white; from horns to tresses to wings to skin, save her eyes, as pink as Axarthys's. The demon regarded Axarthys, then Bishop.

"You bring the mortal?" She asked.

"Necessary it is he hears of what now shall befall me." Axarthys answered. Her voice, once pleasantly serene if not soothingly emotionless, was entwined with sadness. The other tanar'ri beckoned the hunter, so he joined Axarthys in the pond, glancing to capture the fleeting sight of pain in his protector's eyes.

"Very well. Fond you must be of your pet, Lamb."

"Lamb?" Asked Bishop. The white-winged tanar'ri glared.

"Silence your pet." She hissed.

Axarthys took his hand, facing him to utter, "Lamb I am called by the Abyssal denizens. This is Bird. These are… titles, suppose I, for the intermediaries of the Abyss to this plane."

The other demon added, "All the Saintrowe demons have these names. Must you question us, pet?"

"I am no-"

"Bishop." Axarthys called softly. His lips immediately froze. Bird stepped forth from the water, reposing at its edge to dip her armored legs into the coolness of the liquid beneath. A hand was dipped into the pool, lifted to a puddle of liquid glass in her palm.

"You wish to know more of your orders, and for the pet to know as well. Allow me to be frank. You have been summoned to battle in the Blood Wars and cannot shirk the draft- it was you who was ordered specifically from my lady Loviatar and the Purging Duke, and precisely the demon I must bring to the Abyss. The Lady of Pain so does appreciate your skills and wishes to have them tested against the Baatezu."

"Diplomacy, not battle, is my sect, Bird." Axarthys said, "I am an intermediary."

"As am I, Lamb; as are all Saintrowes. And yet have we a choice? Would you in audacity defy a goddess and in your foolishness betray the high tide in your heart that begs you to slay those of the Nine Hells?" Bird turned her hand, the water spilling from it. The ripples in the water's wake resounded in a trickle, followed by, "In four years, Lamb, we rendezvous at the gateway. Prepare yourself for war by traveling aside the pet. Our Lord and Lady will not have mercy on your dying soul should you fail."

"Answer the call I shall," whispered Axarthys, "I await our next meeting, Bird."

"As do I, my Lamb." Bird smiled. She slipped beneath the water's guise. In her departure Bishop faced Axarthys, brow quizzical and lips stiffened into an irritated line. The tanar'ri only returned his expression with an emotionless gaze, lifting her dress to tread the forest floor again, retracting her footprints towards the distant glow of the lantern-lined walks of Neverwinter under the hills they ventured. When at last they arrived at the peak of the escalations and began to descend, Bishop grasped one of her shoulders, stopping her. A gasp, and she whirled on her feet, turning about. Her bones were prominent, only masked by her skin's façade and the scarce sinew that coursed between them. Fragile she was, and his movement had startled her.

"Who was that demon back there, Axarthys?" He asked to no answer. He added, "And what are those names, those, those titles?"

She replied forthrightly, "I see not why you concern. Pet names we share as a mark of our familial bond. My mother and contact she is. She is Nonah Naxcthre of sin Saintrowe, the commandant of my demonic host."

"Demonic host? Like….like a choir of angels?"

"Like a legion of soldiers." She responded annoyed.

"But why did you take me to her? So I know that our days together are numbered? To see that your masters' whim is fickle, and you are shuffled about, mission to mission?" He said. Her head shook, locks swaying.

"So that you see the time we share is short and precious." She murmured passionately, as if he would remember them.

The words meant nothing to the hunter then, nor did they resound in the emptiness of his heart or the void of his soul for many days, weeks, months, years. The phrase detached from memory, erased by time as the tanar'ri traveled with him. Through forest and dungeon alike they ventured, the sound of the shatter of her ivory-leather whip against enemy shields the echo of the drone of his arrows in flight. Many a foe did they condemn to the rack and iron maiden, often sacrificing finger nails pried from hands of enemies or eyeballs extracted from sockets as offerings to the Purging Duke. Tactful words poured from the tanar'ri's lips many a time saved them the sweat and blood of battle, however much he craved it, only later to be rewarded fully enjoying her naked body in his bed, lying beside her unwounded himself. It was then that in moans rumbled from the pit of his vocal chords, a symphony to their rhythmic oscillations, he felt his urge to kill satiated in the cradle of her legs. She would not have had him go unfulfilled, and in the morning he would wake to the assurance of her slumbering form adjacent. Lust bound them in relationship, sex the weapon the Lamb used to his pleasure.

But even that satisfaction could not compare to the nearness they shared. Where once he was admonished for his rebelliousness, she had praised him. Where once he was despised and loathed he was in her loved and cherished. Cheered she would in his victories and wept she would in his defeats. She was his friend, his lover, his companion, and never once his leader. Restored he was to confidence, to pride, to happiness in her embrace, both emotion and physical.

He relished their company, blissful in ignorance to the four years' time that swept past them. And when it had come, the adventure ceased. There was no more war, no more love to make. She had taken his fingers, entangled them in hers, and led him in silence to the pond that Bird had materialized from ages past. Axarthys entered the waters to her waist, beckoning him to join her. They embraced in the chill of the pool, tears of exodus soaking their cheeks where the water beneath did not reach. All that cared for him fleeted, and as much as he grasped onto it, like grains of sand it slipped from his hands. She faded into the water, leaving him only with the words, "I will return for you, my hunter."

Then the four years were short and precious, and he could only lie broken at the shore of the pond, gazing into it as if he could capture one last glimpse of her snowy hair and stormy skin. He never did.

-

Author's Notes:

Sorry there was some delay in posting because I was traveling -I had most of this chapter pre-written before leaving so I could post as soon as I returned- but the chapter update time will be about the same for the following chapter. I invest a great deal of time and effort into my work to ensure the highest quality writing and would not post anything I wouldn't myself read, so please excuse the slow updates. Aside from that, hope you enjoyed as always and happy reading!

-Valah

PS- An author tidbit: it killed me not to get to write as Nevalle this time around!

UPDATE: The rating has been changed back to T. I decided after rereading this chapter and beginning the next that the content in this chapter was not strong enough alone to merit an M rating, as the following chapters will be T if not lower in rating. Thanks for putting up with the changes!