Saturday 4 April 2015

The Fall: 16. For the dawn is bright for those who fight

For the dawn is bright for those who fight


Aatrox was nowhere to be seen, and Aalcox was feeling weaker than ever. Malcolm asked himself what was going on, but he could find no answer; a bright light blinded him, and something was tying his feet to the ground.

-This is him Quinn! -shouted a distorted voice.- I can't contain him for long!

The thought of having been caught was started to annoy him, but that phrase made his day; the mage was scared. Some seconds later, he felt his feet breaking free of the chains that tied him, and the light that was blinding him suddenly weakened. Before the woman inlaid in armor could notice, Malcolm had her grabbed by the neck. After struggling a bit he felt that the armor was being torn to pieces; he then found the mage in front of him, wielding a wand whose end was shining bright. Only then Malcolm realized that he was facing the Lady of Luminosity.

She was well known within the Noxian ranks; countless soldiers had succumbed to her spells and sorceries. Still, that little girl was nothing more than a warm-up for someone like him. Malcolm avoided spell after spell moving rapidly through her missiles of what looked like solid light. Once he reached Luxanna's back, he grabbed her face and lifted the Lady of Luminosity from the ground; he wanted to read her before erasing her existence.

A dark and secret past. A family forgotten, another one planned. An explorer. A gift. A smile, hope. A lie. A secret kept. And a long life to live.

-She's the one! -shouted Aalcox and Malcolm at once.

Suddenly, Aalcox started to feel something that weakened him. The light chains had hit deeper than they thought, and he was now being confined to the deepest part of Malcolm's heart.

-Let her go! -shouted Aalcox using Malcolm's voice.

But Malcolm could do nothing because the hero's light was blinding him. Aalcox decided to interrupt the channeling ignoring the possible side-effects; there was no way he could survive such a force for so long.

...

Riven ran towards the last place she had seen the bird land as fast as she could; the wind she had felt was clearly the fruit of Aatrox's wings.

When she got out of the forest and reached the hill she saw them; Malcolm holding the Demacian mage known as Luxanna with one hand, and Quinn, the Demacian scout that she had been hunting, pointing her crossbow at Malcolm's head.

Riven had never liked Malcolm; he was a quiet man who always did his job in silence, ignoring everyone who tried to help or advice him. But her opinion didn't change a plain fact; Malcolm always suceeded. That was why she still wanted to save him; even if she was escaping Noxus, Riven was still Noxian. She wanted them to win this war, and Noxus needed Malcolm in order for that to happen.

-What's broken can be reforged. -whispered Riven to the sword that Malcolm gifted her when she was a child while positioning between him and Quinn.

She heard Quinn's crossbow fire a bolt. After that, Malcolm screamed in pain. Riven called the winds and slashed fiercely in front of her, directings the shockwave towards Quinn who disappeared downhill, falling into a huge rock's gap. And then she realized she was bleeding. She turn towards Malcolm, only to find him grabbing her by the throat.

-I knew you would do something important Riven. -said Malcolm.- I did right, you were the best recipient I could find for the sword that killed the last archmage.

-Why are you doing this, Malcolm? -whispered Riven while choking.

-You would never understand it, and I have no time to explain it. -answered Malcolm, feeling how Aalcox was weaker after every second that passed by.

Lux suddenly fainted, and Malcolm let go of her body, which then hit the ground doing no sound at all. With a strange smile on his face, Malcolm raised a foot and stomped Lux's neck until the head was separated from the body, which got kicked and fell where Quinn had ended up.

-You'll serve a greater good now, Riven. -said Malcolm, raising a fist that was glowing as if it was nothing more than solid light.

Both Riven and Lux screamed a word after that.

...

Quinn was crying; Valor was dead, Lux had been captured and she was going to die abandoned between some rocks lost in a small hill of Runeterra. Nothing could be worse than the certainty of being unable to do anything. At least that what she thought until Lux's beheaded body fell at her side.

...

Darius didn't know what to do; the alliance's army was marching, and they were not morally prepared to face them. His soldiers were afraid; not of death, because a Noxian never fears death, but afraid of going back home with the burden of a lost battle at their backs. The dead ones would be the ones considered lucky that day. A few hundred Noxians against the biggest army that Runeterra had ever seen.

-Malcolm's here. -said a timid voice, whose owner's hand was pointing towards the fading sun.

Darius could not believe what he was seeing; Malcolm and Riven were walking towards the Noxian soldiers, slowly, the man with a smile on his face and the woman hugging her broken sword. When Malcolm was in front of Darius, he showed him Luxanna's severed head.

The Noxian soldiers were silent at the beginning, until they understood what that meant. The whole army singed that day while they marched towards their enemies. No one would believe what happened that night. Not even the protagonists of the unfolded events.

...

-We did it Darkwill. -said Aatrox. -The Darkin of Glory and the Darkin of History crowned the alliance as the victors of the battle and the war, but they had nothing but tears to share. The Noxians were the true victors; theirs was the glory and they rewrote a story that otherwise would have already finished, granting themselves another chance to live.

-But you couldn't stop Jax. -answered the Ziraoth.

-I didn't even find him, and Aalcox thinks he's dead. -replied Aatrox.- As far as we know, he might be dead, his corpse laying in a frozen tomb of the Freljord.

-If that's the case find the body and bring it to me, Aatrox. Stop fooling around.

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