The rider walked down the hewn, stone steps into the forsaken cellar, each footfall resounding throughout the stairwell, dusty though it was. Man or beast did not venture near the cursed grove nor its cursed temple since the shadow fell upon the land. Men had no need of curses, and so the track of roads and traffic passed far 'round the land. Furred beasts, wandering through the woods stepped not into the shadows cast by tree or column. Birds did not pass over it; by shaman reckoning the evil that dwelt within could pluck one out of the sky by its black, ground-bound twin, birds learn as fast as any man. Even the insects, found many times to take up the empty homes of man or beast as their own did not stray in to burrow into woodwork or build hives in strong, gnarled trees.
Yet the rider came. His horse shied at the place, knowing enough from the bearing the trees took and the striking silence of the wild. No farther it whinnied, and the man relented. Onward the rider went on foot then, skirting his way around the overgrowth, thick and unwieldy before he broke through into the clearing's center. The trees stretched up and the columns and vaulted arches of the temple stretched up above even them. Pure serene quite, retreating at his invasion, these sounds not felt by stone and bark in centuries.
Stopping in the entryway, the rider surveyed the gloom and gazing deep, far back into the darkness, he clapped his hands twice in a slow beat. As the sound violated the inside of the structure, so too did light. emanating in waves from the rider's hands, he strode forward, down the center aisle with a determination of where to go. The silent hiss of burnt umbra led the way to the central alter. Sword scraping 'gainst scabbard, the rider readied his blade as he approached. Down from over his head, the blade arced to bite the twisted table, cutting through it all, releasing the moans and screams of victims ages past, escaping to the door, past his taciturn face.
Still more work awaited the rider. This was but the entry. Leaving the side chambers, set up for the merchants who once peddled their corrupted wares, forwards and down he tread. Leather boots beating an address to the dwellers in the deep that the rider descended. The forsaken cellar waited, not as empty as the forum above. The beings of shade and blood hid behind pillars and inside offshoot tunnels, ready to pounce on the rider. Glowing hands and shining sword led the way forward, ferreting out the maleficent beings and slicing them in twain. Onwards always down the leather boots walked, cleansing light and purifying sword close by.
The tunnels opened up to the grander of the two halls, built far beneath its surface mockery. No windows to catch the sun, no way for those above to hear the screams that even still went on, echoing from the walls. In the center stood two figures. One a man-shape, robed in darkest black with darker black still hidden under onyx hood. Behind him, almost cast as a shadow on the wall a form demonic in visage extended upwards almost cast from the first by the invasion of light into this lightless domain.
No words were wasted between the rider and these two lurkers in the deep, for nothing either side said could bridge such a gap of existence. The enmity of the light and the dark, the hatred between one who communes with the sky and the speaker to the deeps knows a greater scope than anything a single man could ever know, more than a nation could comprehend. The two fell upon each other, light and shadow drawing close, stark in their contest of wills. Each finger of power like a rusting birch tree's shadow on a windy day, bathed in the sun. Drawing a long, curved blade, jagged on the edges, the cloaked figure stalked forward to strike down the rider, and the leather boots carried that rider forth to end it first. Blade on blade, the clash sharp in the empty stone hall, melding with the screams of the damned. Then forward came the demon to join the fray, the great overpowering force that had taken many riders to their doom in its day, grown stronger by its steeping in darkness. Claws of darkness ripped down around the rider, forcing him back as the two blades still sang a duet in staccato.
Back he retreated, but slowly the glow around him deepened in strength, his face the same blank slate of emotionless flesh. Farther into the light the shadowed forms had to plunge, farther from the safety of their dark corners and shadowed lair. their hatred drove the rider back to the door of the great hall, out the door and into the tunnels. Cloaked in the screams and torment of the damned, they drove him up, out of their unholy darkness. Each shadowed claw just missing the rider's form, each blow of that jagged word stopping short on the straight steel held in his lighted hands. Finally, they reached the upper hall, and back around the broken alter they pushed him. Boots sliding back across the flat stone floor.
The wails of the damned that followed the hearts of darkness up called out, drawing the side rooms infernal inhabitants. Now the beasts of shade and blood closed in, aiding the sword and claws that rose so far from the depths. More quickly the leather boots trekked back, clearing the door into the moonlight. No solace in the sun awaited the rider. No warm embrace to chase the darkness back down its hole. Yet out in the faint white moonlight he stood, infernal forms of blackened night rushing on towards him.
Muttering old prayers under his breath, chants to make him stronger, he stood holding his shining sword. Slowly his voice grew louder, the enemy upon him, blackness blotting out that faint shimmer of moon and stars above his head. Like a flame igniting the light that glowed around him sprang up, blinding rays like a sun at high noon striking out at the shades. The sword and the hulking demon of black claws were all that stood against him now as the light formed at his back. Just as the demon was of pure shadow, the brilliance that attached itself to him like a skin was that of pure light, stretching out behind him like wings and covering his sword in a radiance no darkness had yet survived to know.
The terror in those two dark forms showed in their movements as they turned their backs to that warrior of the sky, that rider from on high, shading their eyes from the majesty that surrounded him. Back to their tunnels where they might flee and disappear into the stones was their intent, but they had strayed too far from their native place, too far from the embrace of the darkness of the earth. Forward lunged the rider, blade plunging through the cloak, scratching those shadow clutched bones, purging that receptacle of darkness. Again he lunged, this time for the demon. In bit the blade, plunging deep into the being's core, yet the demon was of stronger stuff than old bones. A claw ripped back 'round, nearly catching the rider about the head. Under the arm, then pushing with all his might, the sword ran the course, bursting out the far side, then cutting a swath out the side. The din of voices swelled to a fearsome howl, heard throughout the forest. Then silence once again claimed the grove.
Standing there, the rider surveyed the scene, his prey dissolving into the moonlit night. With a rasp, his sword slid home, back in its sheath as he turned to stride back to his tied up mount, letting the unearthly glow fade back out of this mortal plane. Off he rode, toward the dawn of a new day, his business done.
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