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Profane. 

It was too pale a word, too bloodless, to describe the atrocity of bringing violence here. But it was also the [i]only[/i] word to describe what these men had done, what they had brought not just upon this place but upon their own souls. And men they were. He felt the temptation to label them monsters, beats, something inhuman but that denied the true vile depths of their depravity. An animal knew no better, a monster did what it would always do. These [i]bastards[/i] knew right from wrong. As mortals, creatures of choice and free will, they chose to do evil. They [i]chose[/i] to desecrate this holy place with their presence, [i]chose[/i] to consign their souls to the infinite darkness and despair that surely awaited them after death.

They could reflect upon that in the void. 

The hound, perhaps believing in whatever mind lay behind that eyeless visage that he was vulnerable, chose to leap upon him while his blade was not bared like the teeth that sought to rend his flesh. His hand was closing around a canteen, not the hilt of his blade, but the beast chose wrongly. Nicomede’s right foot dropped back, he twisted to bring his shield to bear and in the same motion the blade within sprang open. The gaunt creature’s lunge drove the blade into its own chest, deeper, deeper, deeper stopped only by the knight’s armored fist. It wailed its dying rage and pain, scrabbled against the shield and tried in vain to find something, anything, to sink its teeth into before it died. Spittle flew furiously, driven by the throes of its demise dying down only when Nicomede deliberately twisted the blade impaled to the hilt through the cursed beast. But there was no blood, not one drop; not at the entry, not at the exit, not all along his blade’s length.

It was such a small, irrational thing. But he refused. He [i]refused[/i]. No matter how much blood would here be shed, no matter how much sank into the ground at his feet, he [i]would not shed one drop.[/i] Not now. Not here. His soul revolted at the very notion, no matter how unreasonable. Right here, right now, he was just an unreasonable man. Mist clung to his sword, the moisture in the air reacting to the supercooled metal that spread frost through the hound like virulent plague, freezing the tissue surrounding the wound. He withdrew his blade easily and pulled the cap from his canteen with his teeth. Upended the water flowed free, but did not reach the ground.

[color=aa0505]“Goddess of the Moon, Lady Mayon,”[/color] Somewhere before it would reach his feet the water slowed and stopped, gathering before him in a rough sphere that shifted and distorted along its surface like a thing alive. The spell was nothing grandiose, merely the prayer of the faithful for protection suffused with devout sincerity. Rage lurked in the depths of his voice, a raging river masked by winter’s ice, but it only contributed to the words forceful conviction. It was a spell. It was a prayer. It was contrition for the violence he was forced to commit upon Mayon’s land to stay true to her spirit. [color=aa0505]“Wreath those about your work in your embrace, warded by your holy love for the righteous. Let no harm befall them so long as your light remains.”

[i]“Purifica nella luce!”[/i][/color]

The gathered water, reflecting the half moon high above in its depths, filled with a soft, luminous glow in the half second before the mass dissipated into mist that flowed about his fellow knights at the fore of the fray. It clung to them, barely visible bui hauntingly, beautifully luminous in shadows deep and dark as such evil brought within itself. It was protection, protection from curse and malignity as he could. He was no paladin, he carried his own disgrace, but he [i]believed[/i] in every word. He [i]believed[/i] in Mayon and her benevolence, and here in [i]this[/i] place he [i]believed[/i] that counted for something. 

And if belief failed him he would make up for it with ice and steel, sword and shield. He needed no encouragement, no command, he threw himself into the fray with his own mirror of Gerard’s fervor. Serenity’s words could not have reached more receptive ears. Frost clung to his blade, to his armor, the chill showed his breath in the night air with every exhorted breath. The Boars nearest grew sluggish, easy targets; where his blade pierced it froze, afflicted flesh facing the peril of frostbite’s necrosis. [i]If[/i] the targets were to live any longer. The goddesses were good and they were just, and in their benevolence there was hope for mercy.

Not from Sir Nicomede. They had stepped too far into the darkness and he no longer sought to find anything in their hearts but cessation. Where they fell to the ground, lulled by magic from behind him, he did not leave them incapacitated. He left them dead. By blade, by boot, by cleat of ice; if they were within his reach they died. These men and women held no regard for life, so he had none for them.

For there to be anything in their future but unending darkness they would have to use their last thoughts to plead for mercy from the goddesses they profaned.

[color=aa0505]”Forward then!”[/color] He roared, the voice so reserved now rough with the fury of battle.  [color=aa0505]“A toast to glory when our work is [i]done![/i]”[/color]

[@ERode] [@HereComesTheSnow]