The torture went on for hours, and by sunrise, the former paladin was a bleeding heap. The chains fastened tightly around her wrist were the only thing keeping her standing, her knees had given out hours ago. With her left eye swollen shut, Bela fell to the ground as the chains were released from the wall. Her wrists still bound, the ‘Dark Father’ spoke. He’d been silent through the entirety of the torture, and so had Bela. Never once had she cried out, only did her lips move in prayer to the light. She didn’t care about her life, but she couldn’t go to the grave knowing this monster still lived another hour. If she would die, she was going to take the bastard with her. She was good at playing injured, or showing pain where she felt none, the man must think he had her in the palm of her hand. 

“Are you ready now to face your final Master? Death?” he asked as he put a long gray finger under her bloody chin, and Bela lifted her head just enough to spit into the man’s face. “I will face it, but not alone.” She used all her strength to launch herself at the man, knocking him off balance and onto the dirty cave floor.
But even as he fell, Bela didn’t rest, her body landed on top of the dazed master, and she could hear him whispering spells. With both hands Bela took the man’s head and slammed it sharply into the cave floor, the whispering faltered then, but his hands fell to his sides. Even as she felt the blood leak from his head, Bela could hear the sounds of footsteps.

With little energy left, the paladin groped in the darkness for something, a blade he’d used to flay her skin, it was sickly sharp and was just the thing she needed to cut the dark master’s head off. The spells stopped falling from his lips as a sickening sound filled the room, a man gurgling on his own blood, as the paladin kicked the man’s now severed head away from her. 

They were coming, his children, and with a small knife in her hand, Belamica pulled herself up. Within her, she knew her final hours were coming to a close, and no matter how good she was at pretending, the Light was ebbing. The man had flayed her legs and arms, cut away most of her clothing and left gaping wounds in her side. In the darkness she could see her blood, glittering and shining in the torch light he’d acquired. 

“The light is the bane of darkness…”

She grumbled as she held the small blade in her shaking hand. The footsteps were growing closer now, and Bela knew there had to be hundreds of undead marching to tear her apart.

“With the light we will shepherd the flock…”

She could feel the tears as she recited the prayer of the light, the knife in her hand the only important thing now.

“And shelter them in the glow of the Father. May the light bless me…” she whispered the last part as the undead filtered through the two entrances to the cave. “and fill me with your holy might. So shall it be until the end!” She pushed out into the crowd and took as many with her as she could before they swarmed her.

Belamica Darkthorn died a hero, her valor was told of by kings and princes, songs were sung of how she ended the undead plague the ‘Dark Father’ had unleashed upon the land, and like so many hero’s, her songs faded as did the memory of her great deeds.