Bright balls of fire seared their images into the empty void of space, millions of years of light coursing through the galaxies and universes to end right here in this moment and time, soaked up by this planet. The brightest of all lights, the Southern Star, burned down on Rigor, mocking him.

  His gauntlet reached out to snuff out the light. It felt so close he could grab it, yet it remained so far away.

  The awful stench of perverted life also drifted so far away. He hung in the air, hundreds of feet off the ground. His white eyes scanned the horizon. Small lights dotted the country side, beacons of civilization among the swampy forest that hid all sorts of depravity. Dancing bugs shined bright, zipping across the swamp, avoiding becoming a frog’s next meal.

  Blood erupted from his mouth again, staining the inside of his helmet. The crimson liquid dripped from his helm onto his breastplate, coursed around the massive snake fang embedded in his chest, and dripped down to the world below.

  The Bone Snake lowered its head with its eye staring right at Rigor. The white painted face of the Bone Doctor slid into view. His eyes burned with an eerie green light; emerald wisps trailed behind him as he moved about, powerful magics churned in his body. His lips cracked when he smiled at Rigor, green sparks erupted where blood once oozed. The Death Knight was right where he wanted him. Now was the time to crush this trespassing filth into the dust where it belonged.

  “And here I thought you were some great warrior, Death Knight, yet you disappoint me so…Still, you put up a more valiant fight than the last churl who disgraced this Basilica. It was much smaller back then. I guess his failure had disastrous consequences after all. I wonder what your failure will bring about in my new world?”

  Rigor smashed his fist down on the Bone Snake’s skull, just barely scuffing the white bone. His strength was failing. He lost too much blood. His legs were crushed in the snake’s mouth and his arms barely able to put out a punch. He stared down the Bone Doctor, not letting his enemy see his weakness. If he were to die here, he would die a warrior’s death. No cowardice, no begging. Just looking into the eyes of his killer. He would have no shame.

  The Bone Doctor tilted his head back, laughing into the night. The snake’s head shook in unison, hissing with each laugh. “Try as you will, there is no escaping my grasp. You lasted longer than the last Death Knight. I didn’t even have to use this power on that welp. Death must have drug you out of the deepest depths of his dungeon, no?” He disappeared, chuckling as he vanished.

  He slid to the other eye, this time his face devious, “This swamp is just the beginning. My Basilica des Bone is the start of this new world. My children will sweep across the land, collecting every breeder they find, adding brothers and sisters to their numbers, claiming bones of those unworthy to build my chapel high enough to reach the heavens. I will gaze down upon everything I own and admire what a God can accomplish with his will alone.”

  Rigor slashed out with his axe, doing nothing more than scraping out a notch in the bone.

  “Now, I will end this farce, taking a cherished prize from Death, and turning it into whatever I deem appropriate for my use. For I am a God, after all…”

  The Bone Snake’s head dipped down, jerking Rigor around. The Death Knight grunted under the strain of his wound jerking about. His eyes remained on the Bone Doctor. Not once would he look away. If it took every last ounce of blood from his body, he would cut the head off the snake, by Necroth he swore, the Bone Doctor’s head would roll.

  A rushing sensation filled his chest as the snake dove down towards the city and dropped down onto the bone stilt town with all its force. Rigor crashed into the bone road first, bursting through the street and into the swamp below. His breath escaped his body on impact.

  Water rushed all about Rigor, filling his suit of armor with the wet stank of the bayou. His chest was burning with fire. He couldn’t breathe. His vision blurred and his lungs begged for air. It took all his strength not to breathe in the murky water. The snake turned upwards and crashed him back up through the street, right through a house. The brief screams of its hiding citizens filled his ears, until it was blotted out from the crashing of more bones into his back. Each crash smashed what air was left in his lungs. He coughed up blood again as the snake slammed him down into the street, not letting go of its prize.

  “We’re not over yet, mon ami, we have just begun your torture!” The Bone Snake took off into the buildings around the Basilica des Bone, smashing Rigor into anything solid enough to cause damage. Blood gushed from his wounds. His vison began to blur deeper. Things unfocused until he could only see colors and brief shapes passing by.

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  His hands trembled and his axe started to slip from his grasp.

  …

  Rays of light strobed overhead. The deep strokes of a chugging engine drowned out most of the swamp’s song around her, but the devastation of that massive snake could be heard miles around. It was starting to look hopeless to Alazandrae. Things had taken an unexpected turn when the Bone Doctor turned into a behemoth of a monster. Something she never thought possible. But if Death Knights were real, then who knows what other things existed in the universe? What other fairy tales were true?

  She shook her head, her dreads flinging around in the breeze as she skated across the swamp. Her steam engine chugging along, puffing out water vapors behind her. She shoveled more and more coal into the furnace, keeping the water tanks as hot as she could, steering when she needed.

  Sweat drenched her clothes and skin. The small view ports afforded very little insight to where she was headed. She kept looking up through the entry hatch to try and find the massive snake. Brief images flashed between holes in the stilt town’s foundation and large cracks between the bones. She saw a black figure clutched in the snake’s jaws slamming into a building for a moment before the snake slithered off deeper into the Basilica. The stilt town shook about as bone blasted all around from the destruction.

  The Bone Doctor must be desperate to kill Rigor if he was willing to damage his home this badly. Where there was desperation, there was fear. Where fear lurked, his humanity shone through, no matter how despicable it was.

  As the devastation unfolded above, she failed to notice the large bone stilt ahead of her. The metal steam boat crashed into the stilt full force, breaking clean through. Bone splintered out and the town sagged above her.

  She froze for a moment, a new idea sparking in her mind. She then steered the steam boat into the nearest stilt, crashing into it on purpose, aiming for the next. She would sink the Basilica down around her, then finish it off with a bang.

  She smirked, this was it. She would repay Rigor Mortis for all that he did for her, and then she would save her mom from this hell, all the while doing things her way.

  The street above her burst open. The Bone Snake dove into the water; bone peppered the metal steam boat. The snake crashed down into the water beside her, dousing her with murky swamp water. It dipped under her boat and back up the other side, crashing back through into the Basilica.

  Poor Rigor was all she could think of now. The man was a play thing now, and he didn’t deserve that shame. She had to do something fast. She turned the boat in the direction the snake was headed in, slamming into another stilt.

  She had to do something reckless, and fast.

  …

  The Bone Snake came full circle back to the chapel, coiling up in front of the largest building in the Basilica. Rigor held his axe tight with two fingers, the feeling in the rest of his body was gone. The only thing holding him to the world was his own fierce will and determination to finish what he started.

  Green emerald eyes burned back through the snake’s eye hole, “Still alive I see. I decided to use your skull as my new piss pot. Only fitting for one who serves Death as a piss poor Death Knight. The rest of your body can serve as my foot rest. Ha! All good things must come to an end though. Au revoir, Death Knight.”

  The howls of the grotesque creatures below filled the air. They huddled about below, waiting for their snack to drop so they could pick his bones clean. They licked their lips in anticipation of their new morsel of flesh. The whooped, hollered, danced, and jumped about, praising their father for the feast soon to come.

  The Bone Doctor let out one more laugh, his heart filled with joy. He was the victor. The Death Knight stood no chance against him from the beginning. Gods do not bow before men, nor do they suffer defeat at their hands. This was all just an inconvenience to test him, to make sure that he was worthy of Godhood. He had no doubts in his mind. This was a joyous day!

  A high-pitched whistle chimed out across the city, blotting out the Bone Doctor’s laugh. He looked around for the sound, annoyed by its intrusion. The ground beneath him jolted and shook, before the whole street beneath the chapel cracked under his weight, until the bones could hold him no more.

  The street gave way, crashing down into the swamp, culminating in a pile of bones, creatures, and the Bone Snake. Below the streets was an old, rusty steam boat, one stashed away years, no, centuries ago. The Bone Doctor tilted his head, confused b the boat’s occupant.

  Upon the rusty ship stood a lone woman, dark of skin, and wild dreads. She looked familiar somehow, but where had he seen her before.

  A torch in hand, light flickered around her. Alazandrae stood defiant to the Bone Doctor. She pushed her fear away, fighting it from her body. This was the moment she worked so hard for. This was her revenge.

  She shouted all her anger and frustration out at the Bone Doctor, “Look at ya, pitiful and weak. Ya look like the snake ya really are.”

  “And who might you be? You insignificant thing.”

  “I am Alazandrae Baptiste, daughter of Calypso, bringer of death to these lands! Ya stole mah mother, desecrated mah village, and pillaged these lands, bringing destruction and sorrow to everyone trying to live their lives decent! I’m here to bring an end to ya, and ya sadistic reign!”

  The Bone Doctor chuckled, “What a silly girl. You will join this Death Knight in my chapel, intertwined together for all eternity. You tepid, pathetic insects trying to deal death to the world. I defy it. I spit in its face. You will feel my wrath!”

  “And ya will feel my revenge!” Alaz tossed the torch into the cargo bay of the steam boat. She dove head first into the murky swamp, disappearing beneath the dark water.

  The Bone Doctor tilted his head again, trying to get a better look at what just happened with the breeder. There was nothing they could do to stop him now. His Godly rights were already established.

  He ruled this land, and soon, the world.

  His eyes fixed deep into the steam boat wondering what the breeder spoke of, then, his eyes were filled with the bright flash of fire searing into the void of his soul.