The shrieking filled the room. A noise so loud it might nearly overwhelm a normal man, but one of Cyrdic's excellent hearing was sent to his knees. A dark shape wreathed in an even blacker shadow coalesced and then disippated one moment to the next, and the pregnant abomination disappeared into the ether after Camilla's daring maneuver with the sword. She had to have known something he didn't. Then again he was used to that. She was far more clever than he. He crashed onto the floor just as she did, as the glass broke around them.

Cyrdic lifted his head out of the debris, glass and splintered wood on his brown head of hair as he tried to move. Immediately he felt how weak he was from the blood loss. He knew he would have an even greater collection of scars if he lived through this. Of course, when he saw Camilla out cold, he felt a surge of strength flow through him as he gripped his runic sword. An energy borne of the desire to get to her began in his chest and surged through his limbs. 

"By the strength of Ulric..." he breathed, invoking the Lord of Battle to give him power. "By Sigmar and the Hammer..." The entire world seemed devoid of moisture. Even when he swallowed, he could only taste dust. He gripped the chair of an elderly table, and such was his strength that even at his weakest, the rotten wood couldn't help but give as he pulled himself forward. 

The table crashed into the ground, and Cyrdic pulled himself up, using the ruined tabletop as something to hold himself upon. "If I could give my life for hers, I would do it." he muttered, not knowing what that dark spirit was or what had happened other than seeing her fall. He was almost glad she couldn't hear him say that. She would cut him in two. 

As soon as the words escaped his lips, he heard footsteps behind him upon the creaking floor. He did not have time to turn before he saw a white light as an intense pain tore through him, and he was cracked across the back of the head. The Ostlander suddenly felt weightless as he fell into oblivion alongside Camilla, losing all sense of himself. The hilt of his sword was the last sensation he recalled as he faded away. 

[hr] 

Soft sheets and cool air kissed her skin, the pillow underneath her long dark hair crunched from her head not having moved since God's knows when. Camilla found herself in one of the rooms of the Castle, at the fore of Chateau D'Epee. She would recognize it as the room she and Cyrdic had been given once her mind caught up to her. Slightly dizzied and sore, not to mention famished, she felt otherwise alright, the last thing she had remembered was the screeching of the fading ghost. 

Briefly, weakly, she turned her head to gaze about the room. The servants had been through since she had departed, obviously. The cupboards were dusted and her items, as well as her traveling clothes were neatly folded on a plumed chair in the corner of the room. Next to her items was Cyrdic's runic sword. Drawing a large breath, she turned to her right. Beside her on the large bed was nothing but empty space... 

"Contessa De La Trantio, I see you are well." said a voice from the doorway. Even weakened as she was, her head whipped to the side to see Armand standing there, as if he were a paid sentry or entrusted guardian rather than a visitor. Haughty, he still had an air of handsome superiority and command about him, though he still no doubt had an IQ that only a Brettonian indulging on foolish local honor could have. 

"What happened?" she asked, her accent decidedly Tilean. "Where is Cyrdic?" 

The Knight stood there for a moment, before giving a sigh. With the careful approach of a priest of Shallya, he stepped over to one of the lesser cushioned chairs of the room, pulling it toward the bed silently, save for the light scraping along the floor. She would notice he did not have his sword with him, despite him usually bringing it wherever he would go in this thrice poxed castle. Moving his surcoat out of the way of his seat, he set himself down and grew somber, grim even. 

"I am sorry, Contessa..." he said, a sadness on his visage. "Your lover was killed by the beasts of the dark..." 
[hr] 

Cyrdic had no concept or time or space. The blackness had engulfed him so thoroughly, all he could do was run. Feet padding through endless expanses of snow. Windswept mountains filled with pines, a sight so beautiful no imperial painting could match it. He had never felt such energy and tirelessness. But it was not simply the cold that brought a briskness to his pace, but the scent of the elk. He could smell the prey near. 

Only when he arrived, he could not see any of the prey he sought. The coniferous forest was endless, the pines towering over his powerful form as he loped further into the deep of the woods; ever running toward the smell of blood. Soon, after what seemed an eternity, he came to the edge of a red stained clearing, where a battle of warriors wielding weapons of pattern welded steel ran one another through, clashed shields, or grappled upon the ground in an ugly but brutally appealing display of battle prowess and death. With boundless joy coupled with a predator's ferocity, the wolf named Cyrdic entered the fray, bearing his canines as he howled into the battlefield. 

[hr] 

He awoke slowly, and then all at once. A sword lay impaled in his stomach, and a broken table lay above his body. The halls were silent as death, but the Gods had not deemed him fit to die this day. Cyrdic's hand moving brought another creak from the wooden floor...
[@Penny]