Warriors from across the Lands Between had gathered for the Radahn Festival. Every year, like the constant motions of the heavens, General Radahn returned to the killing field below Castle Redmane. It was on this broad, sandy plain that Malenia the Severed had staged her main attack on the Castle. No matter his maddened wandering, Radahn always found his way back. He would fight whoever was present, thinking them more of the countless Cleanrot Knights he had slain before Malenia's own flanking attack pulled him away from his men.
It was dangerous business, to do battle with a demigod, even one so ruined as General Radahn. This was something for the Tarnished, the dead who yet lived. This was a chance to improve their skills and seek glory doing battle with a monster of a bygone age. None thought of true victory against the invincible Radahn. Not since their greatest warrior, Vyke of the Dragonspear, vanished below the Capital.
But things were different this year. There were new faces, and some of the old ones had changed.
Long ago, the House of the Moon was equal to that of the Tree, but it had dwindled to near-irrelevance. When the Carian Queen's husband departed and her children were adopted by Marika, the elder prince Radahn knew that was the end of Caria.
He refused.
With his immense strength, he bound the very stars which had guided the fate of Caria for generations. Pinned to their places in the sky, the land of sorcerers and its great Academy would never truly fall. However, at long last, the Lunar Princess Ranni required that fate to conclude. And so, Blaidd Half-wolf stood amongst the Tarnished (and one warrior-jar) on Castle Redmane's shore.
Some were raring to go. Some were checking their equipment a final time. And one shifty-looking bald individual was setting up a mechanical contraption, a ballista of some sort. Maybe he could get a few shots in before the General sniped him, the gathered warriors conceded. That the snarling berserker was able to use a bow at all was a testament to the demigod's honed instincts. Even a surprise attack would be difficult.
From atop the castle walls, the castellan blew a horn to signal that the General had arrived. It was unneeded but ceremonial. It was hard to miss Radahn's immense silhouette crashing onto the plain from the cliffs above, no matter how thick the miasma of Scarlet Rot hung in the air.
All together, the warriors began the charge toward the lone demigod, who loomed atop a high dune. After all this time, he still rode his faithful horse Leonard, though the scrawny beast was as wasted as himself and only rose to his shin. As with the stars, Radahn had rejected through strength alone the truth that he had outgrown his companion.
This was the nature of the Red Lion General. He simply refused anything which displeased him or was demanded of him. The accursed Scarlet Rot which had killed the land itself yet still could not take his life, and the weapons of long gone champions protruded from his undying flesh like an iron mane.
Drawing a greatbow the size of a ship's mast, he immediately loosed a shot which killed the Finger Maiden hiding behind some battlefield debris. Even totally maddened, his memories of war drove him to kill the enemy healer first. She would return of course. But perhaps it would be too late.
As the warriors continued headlong toward him, he grabbed a fistful of arrows and fired them into the air. The great timbers cracked with the force of his magic, then shattered. A volley the size of an entire regiment's attack shadowed the dunes. Most of the warriors broke into a dead run, seeking cover or to simply outpace the rain. As the storm fell, the two heavily-armored warriors fell with it.
Without breaking pace, the General nocked another arrow. He targeted the warrior-jar this time, who would surely shatter. As he fired, the half-wolf batted the jar across the back with the flat of his greatsword. The round warrior was sent hurtling down the dunes. The arrow whizzed overhead, and the jar kept rolling with such momentum that he was nearly to Radahn.
As the General slung his bow over his back again, the warrior-jar found his feet and sprang upward. His fist flew, and with such weight and speed, the blow pushed even Radahn back for a moment. As he staggered, the jar's corpse-wax cap popped open.
The Carian doll of long-dead Dolores surged out of the putrefying remains within like a revenant. Barefooted, she scampered over his breastplate like a monkey and onto the tusks jutting from his helm. She swung with her whole bodyweight, continuing to throw him off-balance.
The massive demigod threw his arms wide, stabilizing himself with gravity magic. Few was the sorcerer who could accomplish such fine control, to say nothing of doing so while half-mad. But Radahn's strength was unbowed even now.
That made it predictable. And an excellent, unbending target.
"Crucible Knight Lapingis, heed thine oath! Loose the Arrow of Dull Gold!"
Radahn started as he heard the sound of the distant ballista, but he had already committed to stopping his fall. With a flash, a bronze harpoon embedded itself in his breastplate. A small trickle of clotting, rotten blood dripped from its edge.
The demigod snarled and reached for the doll, who was already clambering down his back. Leonard whinnied and reared up, letting his master shake her off. Then Radahn snarled and struck the ground with enough force to heave them both into the air. Only, they kept going. In a moment, they had vanished above the clouds.
"Oh!" the warrior-jar said, leaning back and raising his hand to shield eyes he didn't have. "Is that all? Has he left?"
The doll just pat his shoulder and gestured away. The warriors spread out, watching the sky. After a few moments, a sharp red light appeared, casting shadow over the battlefield. They all hurried away from the anticipated crash site as the Conqueror of the Stars hurtled back to earth as a falling star. Only, it spiraled trough the lower air.
In a flash of light, the Blood-blessed swordsman was gone.
The force and heat of Radahn's impact liquefied the sand, and his gravity magic contained the blast at the same time. Glittering mosaics of glass and melted stone floated about him like an armored halo. His paired great-falchions burned with the crest of Gravity sorcery graven into their surface. He roared like his namesake until the bronze spear in his chest twisted and embedded itself deeper.
"Well, what a fine festival this is turning out to be," the castellan said, joining the surviving trio at last. "There's some trickery to that weapon, I take it? I hope you don't intend to simply stall for time and wait for it to take effect. If you were hoping to use more than one, you're out of luck. That scoundrel ran off when General Radahn took flight."
"No," a woman said, "we wouldn't disrespect the General."
Another new warrior approached from the direction of the castle. Her traveling garb was torn and stained, but her viciously curved blade gleamed sharply. Her hair was red as dusk, and her eyes shone with the Grace of Gold. The skin on her right side was ashen with decay, and her arm was that of a Carian doll.
"You…" the old castellan said slowly. "Just as well."
Leonard whinnied, and the power of Radahn's Great Rune burned in the air. Rider and steed alike sparked and came alight with power, burning away the miasma of the Scarlet Rot. The faint red tint which hung over Caelid cleared for the first time in an age.
Radahn charged, and the warriors scattered again. Before they could get away, he slammed his blades into the ground, drawing them back with a gravitational sphere. Only, he winced and growled as his own attack drove the spear deeper into his flesh.
Blaidd rode the shockwave deliberately. He howled as he swung his sword like a hammer, batting the spear still deeper. Radahn wouldn't let this pass and twisted with the attack. His right sword cast up sand and dark lightning as he swung. At the same time, the red-haired woman flew through the air. She slashed at his rising arm, and the afterimage of multiple blows tore across his armor. She swung again and again, spinning to keep aloft. Each hit carried multiple strikes, slowing the greatblade enough for Blaidd to slip away.
Radahn snarled at seeing that technique again. Without missing a beat, he let his sword crash to the ground and snatched the woman from midair. He twisted off his horse and spun high into the air. He crushed her body with both hands even as she slashed at his fingers. As his jump reached its zenith, he evoked an ancient, heretical image of Lord Godfrey.
Then with all his gravitational might, he slammed her into the ground.
Three people shrieked in agony. Even as the swordswoman's bones shattered, Radahn landed on the warrior-jar. The protruding spear cracked clean through his ceramic body and out the other side, but he endured it with all the fortitude he could muster. The doll held him in place, both off them burrowed into the shallow sand with roots growing from her body. Even as the remains of fallen champions leaked from his cracking body, the jar roared and grabbed the spear, pushing it deeper.
The doll flashed with the dull white sign of Bestial power and pushed from behind, keeping the weapon from tearing through his body. Radahn tried to push back, but it was hard to get a grip on the jar's smooth surface.
Leonard charged on his own, knocking the doll's feet out from under her, but Blaidd caught the butt of the spear before it split the jar in half. At the same time, the castellan dove beneath the conflict to drag the broken remains of the woman free. She clearly wasn't Tarnished, so her prospects at resurrection were… questionable.
After a moment, Radahn shuddered. His massive shoulders tensed, then he lurched forward, hacking up a red slurrry of fungus and blood. He slumped over, panting.
"Ah," the warrior-jar sighed. "Thank goodness. I thought I might be joining the champions buried here."
They were all blindsided by a shockwave as the Conqueror of the Stars rose above the battlefield once more. His Great Rune shone a livid red, and his hair shone with inner light. Leonard snorted and shuddered as vitality flooded him, and the pitiful steed galloped to his master's side on hooves of fire.
The Great Rune rose high, outshining the distant Erdtree and turning day to night. As Radahn leaped into the saddle, the edge of the Rune finally burned away the Rot which had infested it for so long. Only, another influence had taken its place. The the outer Ring of the Rune revealed long-covered etching beneath the Rot and the Flame. Concentric rings formed within its bound – and smaller rings within that.
Radahn's gravity flickered within the Rune, and the stars above began to move with a faint twinkling sound. A moment more, and they were clearly falling. They began to catch fire as they descended, a catastrophe descending upon the Lands Between.
Every giant was red of hair. The champion Radagon was known for his own red hair, despite how he hated it. It was unclear the relation between the two, though many suggested a curse. To his disgust, each of his children save delicate Miquella had inherited the trait. Radahn, at least, was proud of it. And his growth was unusual, even for a demigod. But he was a demigod by adoption… wasn't he?
The many-pupilled eye of the Fell God opened within the Rune.
Radahn drew his lost swords to him and raised them high. A tremendous monster fell from the sky, engulfed in flame. It was a wretched celestial chimera of centipede, dragonfly, bull, and man. It crashed over Radahn's blades coating them in some black ichor which seemed to take to fire like oil.
The sky of Caelid burned as falling stars bombarded it, and giantsflame seared the toxic spores of the Rot from the air. The Conqueror of the Stars screamed with unearthly wrath as the power he had long bound up in the heavens descended to save his lands far too late.
He circled one blade above his head, distorting space with his gravity. As he thrust, a hail of burning meteors hurtled toward the warriors below. The image of a glintstone dragon appeared around the doll, and a stream of breath repelled the attack. There was little room to spare, and Radahn was fresh in his restored might. He raised both swords this time.
He unleashed a second volley, more than twice the size. Then, for good measure, he plucked another of the hybrid abominations from the sky and threw it after.
There was no boom. No screams. Just a low aria and a glimmer of silver.
Suddenly, his own attacks were hurtled back at him, all the faster in spite of the land's own gravity. More and more aware, it was a simple matter to hew through stone and bone. As the creature's viscera sprayed over him, it too came alight. The ooze crawled over his armor, burning away the Rot, dust, and blood. It glimmered new and gold.
He started to attack again, to preempt whatever had retaliated. But recognition almost set in. He hesitated. This was clearly not a Cleanrot Knight. His head twitched as he tried to push through the lingering fog and force his mind to work in spite of the damage the Rot had done.
It was no good. He raised his blade to summon more meteors, but the moment they emerged, they were drawn out of his control. They lurched toward his target without him slinging them, but then they harmlessly orbited around the woman and away into the Rotten lands.
She raised her own sword, and the night suddenly became very bright, a silvery sheen almost overwhelming the red of the burning stars. Radahn… this was all so…
Suddenly, she was right there. She was saying something. Why…? This…?
She touched the spear lodged in his chest and looked at him.
He nodded.
He nodded?
He let his swords fall to the dunes far below and took the spear in both hands, despite how it burned to touch. It burned like a fever. He wished it were fire.
Trembling, he forced it deeper, choking as it tore through the other side of his lung. Then he gasped as the burning sensation filled him completely.
"It's okay," she whispered. "It's okay. I'm here. I'm so, so sorry."
She was crying. He was crying.
Radahn let out a low, keening wail and threw his arms around her in spite of the pain.
"Shh. It is alright. I will hold thee as long as thou needst. Mommy is here."