First and Last King
Twenty Second Day of the Eleventh Month 293 AC
This was not the first time Danar Crowl had descended into the tombs of the Old Ones to make an end of something that wouldn't stay dead, but never in a tomb quite like this. He'd seen chambers filled with tools and banners turned to dust by the ages, armories stacked with weapons and armor of bronze turned green with age. He'd seen temples carved into the rock to gods older than the Old Gods, but never something like this. Looking up the long dark shaft, Wisdom Xor's keen eyes had caught, he called out, "Hello, anyone here?"
"Expecting the dead to answer, are you?" Clegane scoffed.
"I'm listening for echoes, or
trying to at least," the Northener said with a shake of his head. "I could sing at it if you prefer?" he added archly.
The Hound subsided with an annoyed grunt. For some reason, he liked the idea of singing in a fight less than any other sort of magic, or maybe he just didn't like Danar, the singer did not much care either way. "The shaft doesn't seem to open anywhere..."
"I might be able to get through if I squeeze a bit," Wisdom Xor said, helpful as ever.
"No need... I think I know what it was for," Soft Strider's lilting voice was accompanied by the faint scrape of metal on stone as she lifted a circle of copper eaten away by time. "This was part of a bucket once. It must have been lowered into the barrow, perhaps with food or water."
"So all that talk of sacrifice was shit," Clegane proclaimed, almost with satisfaction at the world living down to his expectations.
"Well they have not been feeding him in a very long time," Alyssa noted darkly. "Whatever he may once have been, he's well and truly dead by now."
"Am... I.... now... I don't... remember..." a gurgling rasping sound arose from the back of the chamber, though they had checked the room with every sense they possessed. As four of the companions whirled to look and Xor opened his mouth to shout a warning, they saw a thing far fouler than merely a walking corpse.
A warrior it must once have been, garbed in an armor of bronze with a bone-white cloak thrown over its shoulders. Most of it was shriveled and dead, blackened skin stretched out over old bones, but horrifically not all was so withered. Two fresh eyes stared madly out of its skull, one green, one sky-blue. Fleshy pink fingers tightened around the hilt of its bastard sword, and when it spoke, a living tongue lay nestled like a worm in the ruin of its mouth.
So that's why it needed the fey to cut folk up and steal way the bits, some distant corner of Danar's mind, a part that was not screaming at him to kill it, now noted.
Yet before he could utter the words of spell or song, before even Clegane could charge, the thing's head snapped back as though from a blow and its voice changed to dreadful certainty: "
Kneel!" it shouted with a dreadful will that made the tomb shake.
Shocked as he was by the foe's sudden appearance, Danar was able to shake off the power, as were Soft Strider and Xor, but to his horror he saw that the Hound and Alyssa were both ensnared, about to prostrate themselves before the blade and perish. The Skagosi sang a single note of the Greendream that knew not time and in its wake he had all the time in the world, to unbind the power of the dark king's voice before it could wholly take hold.
"You da..." it never finished the word, as Clegane was on him with a shout of wordless rage. Dragonsteel against accursed bronze sparked, blood splattered. A freshly harvested finger flew from the wight's hand, leaving it looking down in shock, but it did not pause for more than a moment. Even as two dragonglass-tipped arrows flew by its head and one heavy crossbow bolt embedded itself in its neck, the cursed king cut at the Hound's throat, sending a torrent of crimson down the warrior's armor.
But before a second blow could land, Xor's own magic was spun into the air, ripping the sword out of the wight's hand altogether, sending it clattering into the dark. As Soft Strider shot again, this time with a purpose, Danar finally recovered enough to put his fingers to the lute again. Songs that had once emboldened Skagosi raiders through the frozen seas now sounded in the depths, granting strength of arm and skill of eye. Even unarmed the wight fought with dreadful purpose fit to rip his foes limb from limb, but though the Hound's left arm lay limp at his side he continued to cut great chunks from the dead and defiled flesh.
"Beg for death!" the dead king demanded once more in his dreadful voice, but this time the Hound was ready for it and with a final heavy blow struck its head from its shoulders.
Amid the blood and ichor the pale cloak was still unstained, beckoning.
OOC: No vote on this one since it would have just been more Westerosi politics, like 'what do you tell Lady Dustin' and there is also no need. You have people with good social skills here.
