4

Cyril met him head-on, with a sword of flames herself. The two met, and the two elements screamed as they clashed. Steam splashed out with water and fire. Jogun found elegantly, but it was all he could do to keep up with Cyril's powerful and wild strikes. He countered, parried, and danced with refined footsteps of the High Elves. Cyril was like a wild animal, striking in any manner and without form.

Jogun was not offended. It was said the Elven grace hadn't been around when she was. They were primitive, but he had lived at the height of the High Elven race. He would display his pride until the end. Fear be damned.

The snow followed and swirled with each strike Jogun made. The snow melted where ever Cyril's sword went. Jogun managed to cross through one of her strikes and stabbed out at her unprotected mid-riff. It grazed her, but the fire licked out at his arm before it began to fester there. Burning the limb as it ate away at him. He cursed and cut his arm off, leaving his bad offhand as a result. It didn't matter, for he would die anyway.

But before he could recover, the blade of flames appeared in his sight - flowing away. The world turned on his side as his upper body hit the ground. And he rolled onto his back to see the myriad of twinkling stars that would witness his execution. Jogun lifted his head to see that the Goddess had returned his favor double fold. She'd liberated his upper body from the lower. No innards fell out. Only putrid black magic that was burned away by golden flames.

He felt small strong hands clamp down around his throat as he was lifted off the ground. Cyril lifted him up to her eyes, the flames receding from around her face and hands. But the heat was still intense. Brillant discs of gold appeared before him, framed by silky white hair. Her flawless milky skin, specked with two small lovely pink lips. She was far more lovely than the pictures and statues had made her out to be.

If only she hadn't turned against them...

"Any last words?" Cyril said, her soft voice masking the anger that raged silently through her.

"Long Live Hades," Jogun said slowly with a blossoming smile.

Her free hand shot out, faster than he could catch. It borrowed through his mouth and into his skull. Golden flames rippled up her arm as she grabbed the soul that had been magically anchored to him. Jogun hadn't thought she'd go directly for his soul. He had thought she'd simply kill him. He could have joined his family back in the afterlife, but... Not if his soul was burned away!

He tried to pry out her arm, his free hand smoking as it grabbed her arm. He tried to squirm, but her arms were like thick steel beams. The flames ran through him and wrapped around his soul like starved dogs as it devoured it. He felt a pain that was incomparable to anything he'd ever felt before. His blue-fire eyes flickered just before golden flames jetted past them, even burning away those. But it was taking long. Because Cyril wanted to torture him.

He squirmed in his arms as the flames seared his soul; playing with it as if it were hard candy. His hand had burned away. So, he resorted to beating weakly against her, cursing her as his thoughts were burning away. His memories.

He saw his beautiful wife, the one the vile humans raped before they could kill them. His beautiful children hunted down by the Eastern Dwarves. His neighbors toyed with by the barbaric Beastmen. The inferior races burning his city as they escaped. And for once, peace came for him. His family, standing in the light and calling out to him. But he could not go. His cruel mistress was harsh, regardless of who she favored.

The light was growing dimmer as his family cried out for him now. But he could only smile weakly at them as the golden flames burned through his soul.

"This is my fate," He said.

He, Ardreth Presven, no longer the cursed draugr who served Lahabiel and Hades in their quest for vengeance. No longer the undead General. He was Ardreth Presven, the Commander of the Knights of Sunlight - Follower of the Light Goddess, Madin.

Go. A voice whispered. Before I change my mind.

The voice boiled with restrained rage, but it kept its voice low. Like a coiled dragon, granting mercy on a whim. The flames receded, and his soul began to piece itself back together. It was Cyril. He could feel it. Each piece that had been burned away had come back. All--- Not all. He could feel it. He could no longer remember... As if a large part chunk of his life had been ripped away. He felt an unending hatred, and unbearable sorrow before that too disappeared silently into the light.

All around him, the Emerald Grass Sea was lush with life as the Knights of Sunlight rode back into his city. His family beside the towering arching gateway along with his men's families as well. His pegasus whined as it saw their faces too. The knights dismounted, and he approached his family - kissing his wife on her long slender ear before he patted his little ones on the head.

"You've been gone for a long time," She said.