The lord of Saltcliffe pressed Saltclaw to his lips, the smooth whalebone heirloom rang its dreadful note throughout the gloomy cavern.
Aaaaaaaa-RooooooooooAah!
His men rallied around him, swords drawn. Donnor's eyes peered through the dim light. This was the home of Soul Reaver, he could feel it, and he knew that the ancient blade would not be unprotected, not to mention whoever else might have come for the sword. Someone or something killed that man outside the cave, beat him to a bloody pulp so that not even his face could be recognized. Manfryd's great whiskers twitched when they had came upon the body. His drunkard captain's white whiskers only twitched when he hungered for a wench or when, in the rare occasions, he was afraid.
"What sort of beast did this?" twitched the silver whiskers, his hand tight against the handle of his sword.
Donnor stepped over the body and let his eyes adjust to the darkness within the cave opening on the cliff wall. The dark seemed to me calling to him, pulling him inside. "Whatever did in this man, lies within, as does our prize. Steel your hearts men, for death and glory lay ahead."
Now Donnor and his men stand in a dark, dank cavern, dominating the space was a great weirwood tree, black and dead. Aside from spiders, scorpions and black winged moths that inhabited the cave, no other living thing could be seen.
"Spread out! Search the area!" Commanded Donnor. The soldiers of Saltcliffe fanned out across the dark cavern, torches and blades in their hand. Donnor took long strides to the great tree, Manfryd at his side. Donnor stretched out his hand, letting his fingertips run along the face of the tree. The face was twisted and wrong, its mouth sneering and hook nose like a dagger in the dark. It seemed to Donnor that this tree might have once been beautiful as was this whole cavern. He imagined the tree, white and shining with the light of the sun that stole into the cavern, flowers blooming beside the blue stream that was now a putrid black. Sickly moths replaced by colorful butterflies. Donnor sighed as his fingers felt the face of the tree.
Doom-doom!
Donnor pulled his hand from the tree with a start.
"My lord?" Questioned Manfryd's whiskers at his side.
"The blade lies within the tree. Cut it open."
Panicked cries rose up from the far side of the cavern. Donnor looked past the tree to find one of his men, anxiously waving his torch along the ground. A dark mass had taken shape before the swordsmen, a black hulking mass that rose up from the ground, a sickening sound of wet hisses emitted from the creature. Donnor's heart froze as he realized that the black beast was hundreds of spiders and scorpions coming together and forming a single being, a giant made up of thousands of the black inhabitants of the cavern. The beast now towered over the man, he turned to run, but was swallowed up in the black form, his haunting screams suddenly silenced as he disappeared within the black mass.
The loud buzz rang inside the cavern, a sound so loud that all the Ironborn, fearless men all, reavers of the sea, clenched their hands over their ears in pain and in vain attempt to drown out the sound of the black moths that now flew in a frenzy over their heads. One man, on his knees, crying for the loud moths to silence their dreadful song didn't see the monster of spiders and scorpions draw upon him. In an instant he was gone, replaced by the black hulking mass that approached the rest of the paralyzed Ironmen.
Blood oozed from Donnor's ears as he raised Saltclaw to his lips once more, and let the note of his forefathers ring out in the cavern of death. The song drowned out the moths and his men found their courage. Manfryd and Donnor stood up on a high rock, overlooking the dark. Manfryd's sword cut into the air. "Rally to me, Men of salt and Iron! Blessed men of salt and battle, rally to me and our lord!" The Ironborn formed rank and file around the rock, bringing up defensive positions as the towering beast slowly approached them.
The song of Saltcliffe soon gave way to the frenzied call of the moths once again. The air of the cavern above their heads was now black with the winged critters. They formed a thick cloud and swooped down on the heads of the ironborn. Men screamed as the black moths filled their mouths and thousands of their screeching mandibles bit into their flesh. Horror filled their hearts as they watched one man be lifted into the air and slowly be ripped apart by the black cloud to the lament of his tortured screams. Consumed with terror, several men bolted for the cavern door, only to make easy targets for the black monster that stalked the cavern. Their deaths were loud and echoed along the walls of the cavern.
Donnor scanned the room, looking for an exit or a strategy as his men died around him. "The tree! Men, make for the tree!" As men were picked off one by one, consumed by the cloud and the monster, they formed a circle around the weirwood. Donnor and Manfryd, hacked into the face of the tree, desperately opening up the face as splinters of wood flew from the hacked trunk. Donnor and his captain ignored the screams of the dying around them as they slowly revealed a blade buried in the weirwood.
All his men dead, Donnor reached for the sword, only to stop short, feeling the presence of the thousands of arachnids that made up the body of the monster just behind him. He spun around on his heels, his axe held tight in his hands.
"For Saltcliffe!" Called Manfryd as he leaped between the monster and Donnor, he waved a torch at the beast. The monster screamed horribly as the flames of the torch licked up at its ever moving flesh. Manfryd let his blade sink into the monster, only to have it swallow the sword, and move relentlessly toward him. The captain stabbed and slashed with his torch, but the monster only opened up its body to avoid the hot fire, enveloping the captain and swallowing him whole.
Donnor used the distraction to pull the sword from the tree with a great grunt. He marveled at the beauty of the valryian sword as his captain died behind him. The long blade shone with the shimmer of moonlight, folds of steel rippled along the sword. The hilt curved upwards in two sharp daggers, above a black smooth handle that swirled downward to the pummel, fashioned in the shape of a skull. Two jet black eyes, obsidian jewels looked up at Donnor from the pummel.
Soul Reaver is finally mine!
"Nooooooo!" Screamed a voice that charged into him, a heavy shoulder knocking him in the chest, taking the wind from him as he fell to the floor. Yet the sword stayed in his hand, like it was now a part of him. Donnor looked up dazed and distant. A man stood over him, chains clinking around his neck as he stabbed downward with a sword. "The sword is mine!" The blade sunk into Donnor's belly. "It shall carry on the Falwell name! For my wife, for my unborn son!" The stranger's sword plunged into his belly once again.
Donnor felt a sinking feeling, felt life leave him even as Soul Reaver knocked the stranger off him with its skull pummel. He stood up. His body seemed strong and unhindered by the stabs to his stomach. His mind, however was far away. It seemed like Donnor was dreaming. The man looked up in horror as Donnor stood over him. "Gods...! Your eyes!" Soul Reaver sliced into his body, spilling his life's blood to the sound of a horrible scream, and a vast void of light that seemed to be swallowed up by the sword.
"The first of many of the ancient order is now mine!" Said a voice that resonated with a scratchy deep sound, a voice that seemed to far away and yet deep within Donnor. Soul Reaver now turned on the black monster. The beast sank away under the horrible scream of the sword, revealing a child. Donnor, now far away and his vision now darkened perceived that it wasn't a child at all, but someone very very old.
"You have failed in your task. And your soul will now be mine!" said the scratchy voice.
"That may be," said the small man. "But you will fall. Men will rise up and defeat you, as they did before."
"Men?!" Laughed the voice. "Men whose hearts are so easily corrupted! They will kneel to my greatness. I will swallow them all up, and cast them in shadow, destroy their lands, and they will all drown in darkness. Valryia could not destroy me, and they are now no more! So to will it be in the land of the West."
The small man only closed his eyes as the blade took him. Donnor screamed and was no more.