Misericordiam

Category:Malchiae
Category:Stories
Category:SkunkWerks
Category:Sereghim
:And in the fury of this darkest hour
:We will be your light
:You've asked me for my sacrifice
:And I am Winter born
::~The Cruxshadows, Winterborn
=Prologues and Perchances=
Too late.
All had been arranged. He'd measured it all carefully. There would be no suffering, only sleep... sleep eternal. If dreams came, he prayed they would be gentle. What there would be none of is turning back, at least for them. He was last of all, and he prayed again to whatever beneficent being may be listening at this late hour for a swift ending on his part. But had he any faith left in prayer, he wouldn't have come this far, now would he?
He inhaled, a slow filling of the lungs. The air was sweet. The sungrass he grew in the arboretum adjoined to the house made it so. He stepped outside into the late evening air, the chill of those northern climes cut through the trees of Eversong, his eyes, keen as many among his race spied the glow far to the south. Stratholme had fallen. The Scourge marched North now. He could almost feel the cry of the grass between his sandal-shod feet, wailing to him as the Dead Scar slithered towards Eversong like some great black serpent.
Too late.
The Farstriders would take up arms against the invaders of course. However futile, their very nature demanded it if nothing else. The High Ranger General had her nature, the Scourge had its purpose, and Malchiae had his sense. It was all that was left to him now. It had led him inexorably to this moment, hadn't it?
The breeze brought desperate whispers with it in the small hours before so short and at the same time so long before the dawn. The forest was dying, like everything else here. Everything ends. Let the Scourge tend to the forest, he had other endings to tend to. It was cold, but he knew it to be unseasonably so. He drew the curtains at the outer arches to shut it out a little longer. Walking to the bedroom, he smiled at his wife and two lovely daughters, all snug in the bed in the wee hours of the morning. So placid. So peaceful... He went to them and adjusted the coverlet- his youngest daughter's hand had found it's way out from underneath, and touching her soft skin he decided it was too chilled for his liking. After tucking her hand beneath the blanket, he ran an idle finger through his wife's sepia locks as they lay on her cheek, glittering in hues of deep red against the candle light.
Too late.
He sat gently on the corner of the bed and hung his head in his hands.
=Darkest Before the Dawn=
Then came a loose metallic rattle, as sticks might in a shaken metal can. Malchiae snapped his bloodshot eyes open at once. He'd dozed- he didn't know how he'd managed it- but he'd lapsed. He watched a bloodstained, notched blade found its way through the curtains like some obscene and profane invader into this bucolic setting. It parted the drapes, then slid them gingerly aside from the corner of the bedroom. Malchiae was slumped in a small divan, he didn't bother to sit at attention, or tense. Release had come at last. He made himself more comfortable.
Too late.
A gentle, mingled light was coming in through the parted draperies, he wondered if dawn had some, or was it some fume of the Scourge that blotted out the sun. No matter. He watched as the man-like shape trundled into the common room of his house, and he was very still. He glanced across at his wife and children, safe and sound in their bed, he glanced at the small table at his side and soundlessly fetched the blade that he'd set upon it the night before. He pulled it close to him, like an old friend.
The first mockery of human form was shortly followed by a second, with more rotted flesh hanging from it's bones than the first. A third piled in before the drapery was drawn completely aside to reveal the small legion that had gathered outside his humble home in Eversong Woods. One of the trio of undead finally caught him out of the corner of its eyeless gaze. It snapped it's head around, jaw rattling in it's socket as it did so. It regarded him for a moment, the once-had-been warrior, or perhaps scout, or archer. 
Malchiae idly wondered if the Scourge understood words from living creatures, or if they only mindlessly carried out the will of their fel-cursed Lord. It didn't matter. His words would be few.
"You're too late," he said flatly, coldly.
If the skeletal soldier before him had a response to this, it showed no sign of it. It stared at him, and for a long few moments, nothing moved. He finally heard a cold, hollow voice intone from outside, "What's all this rabble? Why have you stopped?" it demanded. Malchiae's hopes sang for a moment- this was a being he could speak to, and perhaps would understand his words at least. Something all at once more man-like and less pushed it's way past the entryway and into the foyer, standing just beside the soldier that regarded him with a leering, yet emotionless expression.
This newcomer was human, at least at first glance. He was adorned head to toe in dark black plate armor, and what showed of his skin was a deadened gray. When he spoke now to the soldier beside him, his eyes sparked with a fierce bluish hue. The Soldier did not respond in voice, instead raising only a bony finger at the Elf slumped in the chair before him.
The grayish man-thing cocked his head to one side at Malchiae, to which Malchiae repeated his three words, "You're too late."
The man-thing's eyes blazed to life with that cobalt fire, he threw his head back and laughed, or what Malchiae gathered was laughing, it sounded like ice grinding against steel. Malchiae very nearly clapped his hands to the sides of his head just to escape the piercing sound of it which wound it's way into his ears as a stiff cold wind on a blustery day would do. His eardrums throbbed impotently, begged for this hellish parody to cease it's mockery if only to hear silence again. Malchiae did not raise his hands, for in one of them, he clasped the knife- a small thing really, sharp, but hardly more than a pruning blade. It was still long enough to reach it's mark.
Malchiae stood up slowly and in one swift motion raised the blade and plunged it deep into his own chest. The laughter stopped, if only for a moment as the blood welled up crimson blots across his fine green tunic. He fell first to his knees, then the floor. As his sight faded, he heard that harsh steel harpy's cackle pierce his ears again.
No matter... beyond their reach now... all of us... sleep comes...