Dead... again (5)

It all has been taken away, after all. All hope, all path, all memories have vanished as they always do under blood and fire. Steel reigns free, and I am again what I have always been: a dead man. All is lost, but if this is to be the final chapter of this story, I should start with the beginning. 

They came at night. Keryth leading them, said they wanted to meet and talk. I welcomed the four of them with peace and hospitality, opening the door to the meeting room. But it was not to be. My disposure to talk with the northerners was met with brutality. Hildegard and Murdach hadn't come to talk, they had come to destroy and so they started detonating bombs in our workspace. I went down, alone, unarmed, unarmored, to see what could be done, and I was met with Hildegard's spear.

The void is becoming a closer friend each day, I guess. 

When I came back to the world, the Hall of the Dead lay in shambles. Ransacked, plundered, destroyed. What little we had was lost, what few servants we had lay dead. The hall of feasts completely vanished, the working space torn, the peace meeting room quite appropriately was destroyed as well. It trully was all lost and, among the ashes and the broken walls, one message was left on the handwriting of a blood-thirsty madman:

"For you it may be just business. For us, blood is personal. Remember this when next someone pays you to kill northerners. Murdach, Warchief of the Deoraiocht".

 

And thus it was. I gave one last chance to peace and I travelled to their lands. In front of Tulak, I confronted Murdach once more, unarmed, unarmored. I offered him two roads: he could apologize for what he'd done, how he had violated my hospitality, how he had murdered me in cold blood, how his viciousness had destroyed the very few things I cared for. Or he could chose war, and then I'd blow everything down, hide far from sight, and start raiding, killing their men when alone, destroying unguarded buildings. 

Between pride and peace, he chose pride. 

Now I've taken down what little was left of the Hall of the Dead. Only a reminder remains, that all ends always in blood and steel. For the northerners lack civilization, they only understand brutality and war, bloodshed and closed minds... they trully are barbarians, to be put under the heel of Aquilonia. And in here, in these exiled lands, Old Hag, I will be your scythe. 

So now, the pyre no longer guides us home, for there is no home to go back to. I walk into the void of war, into the void of death, deprived of all hope. We all know I can't face the whole north alone. And yet, it is the road to walk, because a man has to set his feet sometimes and say "no more". There is no more Centuria Obitus, no more mercenary company, no more talks of peace and respect to those that don't deserve it. I am to be wrath and fury, fire, blood and steel until there is nothing left of the one once called Sepherim. 

Ave Hyboria, morituri te salutam... and this time, I guess I'm headed to the last and final death.