Empyrean looked at the doors warily, but they were not attacked. Silence descended on the three Ancients, as they looked at the doors, confused. None of them dared to open the oaken doors. Had they retreated? Empyrean walked to the door and pulled the bolt back. He opened the door cautiously and looked out.
Nothing.
He looked at Sigil closely, but Sigil was impassive. Yusai was also very silent. Empyrean walked out, sabre at his side, eyes narrowed. Nothing attacked him. He continued walking out, and then stopped at the bridge. The door had shut behind him. Where had they gone?
Sigil eased up a little, but Yusai was still tense. The shadows seemed to deepening and the air grew colder as Sigil looked up: the sound of Beings drawing nearer, snarling and spitting. Sigil's gaze went toward the circular hole in the ceiling above the stairs, and there he saw the eyes. Yusai followed his gaze, and suddenly the katana was off his back and he was in a crouch. Beings began to drop down onto the stairs or climb across the ceiling.
Empyrean lowered his sabre and looked at the mountains in the distance. They were empty and solitary, looming over the grey landscape. Snow flurried around him but he was not cold. He only hoped that the remaining Ancients had made it to the East Shore. He knew there was still time for the three of them to get there, but something compelled him to stay here.
He picked up the sound of arrows hitting flesh and stone, clattering along the ground, and turned to look at the Castle. He ascended the stairs slowly, mouth in a thin line. His hands rested on the doors, and he was about to push when something flashed in his mind. They are bound to this place for eternity.
He pushed open the doors to behold the sight of Sigil and Locksley fighting hordes of Beings.
Sigil got to the bottom of the stairs and fired point blank into a creature's neck. Yusai umped over three and sliced them in half, landing in a crouch as the bodies fell apart behind him. "Get to the top!" Empyrean shouted, drawing his knife out as well as his sword. The hordes turned at the sight of the new visitor, and Empyrean charged them, spinning, slashing and slicing. Blood spread among the floor as Beings were felled left right and centre.
Sigil shot hails of arrows into the Beings, watching them fall from their wounds. As he went for another arrow, he realized he had none left. He yelled and cursed in frustration but Yusai seized him and dragged him up the stairs. Beings began to mass at the bottom as Yusai and Sigil fell backwards onto a step. Sigil pulled out his knife, snarling at the creatures.
Empyrean ducked as a Being came at him, dropped, and kicked its legs from under him, and then brought the hilt down on its skull, crushing it. A Being a few feet away rose up and growled. Empyrean threw his knife and it hit it in the throat, making it fall to its knees. He got up and tried to pull the knife out, but Beings surrounded him. He turned into an Ancient killing machine, dismembering the creatures in sprays of blood and limbs.
Several more Beings dropped from the ceiling, and Yusai snapped his leg out. The Being's neck cracked and it fell backwards off the stairs. Sigil had the Book in his hands; he opened it to a page and tried to read it. But there was only one word: Thrae.
As this word was read, a deeper chill seemed to permeate through the reality. Empyrean yelled as his sword shattered on the skull of a Being, and he went into hand-to-hand fighting. Yusai tried to kick another Being in the face, but it grabbed his leg and snarled, trying to bite through the armour. Sigil put the Book back, yelled like a wolf and jumped off the stairs.
Time slowed down as he flew downwards, towards a group of creatures massed below. Yusai had skewered the head of the creature he was struggling against and it fell dead. He ripped the katana out, and blood rained over the steps as the head rolled down them. Empyrean was using his fists to lay a flurry of punches on a creature's face, beating it into a bloody mess.
Time came back as Sigil felt the pain of physical contact. He heard bones breaking underneath him and dead Beings fell. Beings came at him from all sides and he went into a flurry of knife attacks. A Being grabbed him in a chokehold and Sigil sawed through its wrists, but the grip did not relent. The creature bared its teeth and then bit into Sigil's arm. He watched the incisors sink into his skin, and blood the colour of his eyes started to seep out, spilling on the floor.
Yusai was still on the stairs, descending into a state of brutality as heads disconnected from bodies and lifeless scarred corpses rained down. Empyrean's fists were swollen. He knife-handed another creature in the throat and it choked on its own blood. He made his way to the stairs, examining the bite wounds.
Sigil's vision began to grey as he watched his two fellow Ancients stand back-to-back. Empyrean had reclaimed his knife and he looked like the God of War, his eyes narrowed and his face calm. Yusai had a snarl on his face as he prepared his katana for the next onslaught.
The Beings closed in and Sigil brought one down, hands around its throat, choking it out. The two other Ancients were retreating up the stairs, fighting furiously for their lives, but Sigil found his limbs would not move. He tried to move towards the stairs himself, but his knees gave way and he fell. He began crawling towards the first step, the ground cold beneath him. He could no longer feel the Wise One's presence: in his place lay a cold void, and another presence, and then nothing. He still heard a voice in his head, murmuring a name different to his own, but one he seemed familiar to. Empyrean and Yusai were too engrossed in defending themselves to notice Sigil lying lifelessly at the bottom of the steps. Beings swarmed him and he disappeared from view.
Empyrean felt a cold vice-like grip close around his wrist and he felt the bones in his arm break as the Being twisted it. He used his other arm to shatter its sharp teeth, and it fell back in alarm, blood pouring out of its maw. Empyrean looked down at his broken arm, and inhaled in pain. Yusai still had his sword. "Get up." He said. Empyrean got to his knees, but his eyes looked clouded. He gazed at his arm again and saw a really deep bite mark.
His veins were beginning to blacken, to the colour of ink and night. He was hallucinating, the sounds of steel and growls fading away and then coming back. He saw a moon in a clear dark blue sky, clouds tinted brown at the edges. Where was Sigil? He looked at his arm again. The veins in his body were also beginning to darken. Yusai looked as if he was about to sever Empyrean's arm, to stop the infection, but Empyrean shook his head. "It is too late. Get out of here while you still can. Take the roof." Empyrean was cut off as Beings took him to the floor, tearing into him. Yusai's light brown eyes narrowed as he shook his head. "No."
Empyrean's arm reached out, in his grip, his knife. And then he turned it on his wrist and slashed it. He threw the Beings off him and backed away, snarling at them in Arcadiniq dialect. Turning to Yusai he smiled slightly and said, "It is time to ascend, to a higher place." With that, he slashed his other wrist and charged the crowds, fighting until he bled out.
Yusai stood motionless for a moment. And then he looked up, the dim light brightening his eyes. He jumped up, clinging desperately to the edge of the circular hole. Below him were the Beings who snapped and bit, snarling in rage. He pulled himself up, holding his katana in both hands.
He looked across the ramparts to see a flag with an insignia on it, but it was too faded to make out. The sun was a white disc through the grey sheets above. He began sprinting towards the flag, as Beings clung onto the edge of the circular hole, growling.
Yusai stopped when he reached the flag. There were several metres of battlement left before there was a steep drop into a deep valley, where a Spirit Catcher monument stood, the sun glinting off its design. Yusai turned to face the Beings charging him, their disfigured elegance made more hideous by the sunlight. He began spinning his katana in his grip, and then he charged them, spinning and slicing through them. Limbs flew over the edge of the battlements and bodies hit the floor.
He sliced a creature's arm off and it hit the floor, blood spreading around it, but the Being still stood. He brought his sword up through the creature's jaw, killing it. He slowly ripped the sword out and threw the corpse down. Three Beings charged him at once and he drop-kicked them, knocking them down. One made to get back up and he brought his katana across its throat. Blood flowed out of the wounds and the body rolled forward, spasms making it thrash.
They tried to surround him but Yusai was too fast, too deadly. The lacerated bodies hit the floor, blood seeping into the spaces between the tiles. A Being grabbed Yusai from behind and in surprise; he brought his katana down on the roof. He watched it shatter into silver fragments. The handle felt dead in his grip as he felt the creature's teeth pierced his flesh. There was no pain, but a cold feeling seeped through his muscles and veins and his vision went grey.
In a final effort to fight the infection, Yusai jammed the jagged blade into the eye of the Being and it stumbled back. He watched as blood gushed out of its eye socket and it fell to its knees, growling in pain. Yusai ripped the remnants of the blade out, taking with it bits of tissue and muscle, and brought it across its throat. The creature collapsed the floor hard, now a dead corpse.
Yusai stood looking down at the shattered katana, and then at his wrist. The veins had started to blacken, and he felt as if he was losing control of himself. He felt the urge to start ripping the corpse apart and eat the innards of his enemy. He threw the blade to the side, and looked at the horizons. Snow descended again. Blood seeped out of the wound on his neck: the Being had bit right through his armour.
Maybe the infection had a different affect on each different individual. They got bitten, they started to hallucinate, and then they either became better and more susceptible to control by a higher power, or they descended into an animal-like state, losing complete control. Whichever way it went, Yusai had lost.
He began sprinting across the battlements, getting faster and faster as he neared the end. All the time in his head, he heard the name Lloyd. A name derived from the first Unukit who challenged Imperium? The end came nearer and nearer to him, and then he was in space.
The entirety of the valley was spread below him and he slowly began to plummet. His thoughts and consciousness felt as if they were cleansed. All of his veins were black and he began to float, in the air. He could feel his soul being divided; one part was dyed black, and the other part was ascending. But his body only fell, faster and faster.
He was ascending to Earth.