Beckyann Short Number 9

*Sorrow Hill, early evening*

Beckyann's boot pressed down into the soft soil of the cemetery as she took another cat-like step forward. Able to stand still for unnaturally long periods of time, she had slowly made her way across the cleansed ground, taking care not to approach Uther's tomb too closely. The Light coursing from that holy place was enough to cause her some discomfort, even from a distance.

She paused, a hand resting on a tombstone as she peered into the deepening night. There was another crypt on the Hill, a crypt that had not been used in a very long time, the entrance overgrown with bushes and tall plants. All those who had died and been buried there had long since been forgotten when disaster fell upon Lordaeron, and the lonely crypt almost called out for those of ill intent to investigate it.

Baleful blue eyes stared into the night, making out the forms of two men who were standing watch by the crypt's entrance. She couldn't see them too well, but it didn't really matter much. Beckyann knew that they were Cult of the Damned. She'd spotted them moving through the Plaguelands while flying back towards Stormwind, and a quick diversion to the ground had allowed her to track them. They moved with purpose, and the death knight knew that anything that the Cult of the Damned planned was something she would need to put an end to.

As she watched the men standing at their posts, a slow pounding began to build in Beckyann's head. Here were men who had given their very souls over to the Scourge. Men who had helped bring her nation to ruin. Men who were part of an organization that had ended her life in its prime by torturing her to death. The pounding grew stronger, an unnatural pulse at her temples that made it hard to think clearly. She swallowed, feeling a deep seated need begin to build in her. They had to die. They had to pay for what they'd done to her, to all of the people of Lordaeron.

Beckyann's eyes glowed a deep blue as one of her hands came up. Words slipped past her black-painted lips, spoken in the tongue of the dead. Words that had no place in this world, that were forbidden for the living to speak. Tendrils of purple energy began to build around Beckyann's open palm as she applied her necromancy to the task. Her magic reached out, permeating the soil around her. Her voice fell silent as her spell ended, her gaze returning to the men.

At her feet, the first boney hand burst from the soil as Beckyann's minions came to the call of their mistress.

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Deep within the crypt the cultists hurriedly shoved aside coffins and ancient skeletons, clearing a space around one of the larger tombs set into the stone floor of the structure. With whispered words of power, a series of runes began to glow and the tomb opened, revealing a dark staircase that lead deeper into the ground. Several of the cultists turned and grinned at each other, the success of their mission no longer in question. The cache of necromantic texts that had been hidden in this place would be recovered, and they would use them to spawn an entire new generation of apprentice necromancers, dedicated to the spread of undeath.

Their leader, a middle-aged woman wearing a dark black dress with runes sewn onto it, pushed her way through the cultists, heading towards the staircase. She beckoned over her shoulder, and the others fell in behind her, making their way towards their goal.

They had just reached the foot of the staircase and turned to look at the piles of parchments, tomes, and magical implements in the cache when screams erupted from the levels above. The cultists froze in place, eyes wide as they looked at each other and then back up the stairwell. More screams sounded mixed with what sounded like unearthly howls. The sounds were abruptly cut off as a booming detonation occurred. Dust drifted down from the ceiling.

The cult leader glare at the stairwell and gestured with one hand, “Three of you go up and check. It seems our sentries have encountered an enemy.”

Almost before she was finished speaking three of the cultists dashed back up the stairwell. A moment later screams erupted again, much closer this time. A burst of magical light filtered down from the top of the stairwell and a cultist went tumbling down the stairs, his broken body bouncing on the stones like a ragdoll before he came to rest in a motionless heap at the feet of the cult leader.

The woman's glare turned to a look of concern as a silhouette filled the square opening of the top of the staircase. Two points of glowing blue light hovered where eyes should be on the figure, and an almost silky, unnatural female voice drifted down to the waiting cultists, “Oh good, you've all gathered in one place and saved me a bit of trouble.”

The cult leader snarled and pointed up the stairs, “Kill her.” One of the remaining cultists immediately lurched forward, only to have a tendril of dark necromantic energy wrap around his waist and pull him forcibly up the stairs. There was a sickening crunch as his body was impaled and he joined the earlier cultist in tumbling down the stairs. The crypt fell silent as other shadows with glowing yellow eyes crowded around the figure on the stairs. Slowly, Beckyann took a few steps down into the dark recess, the torches of the cultists illuminating her leering face and blonde hair. She grinned at them, her voice almost cheerful.

“You're all going to die down here,” came the happy words.

The cult leader pointed and shrieked, “KILL HER!”

Instantly all of the remaining cultists in the room rushed towards the stairs. Beckyann merely smirked and pointed, her finger like a damning judgment on the men and women below her, “Take them.”

All around her the dead rushed forward, squeezing past her on either side and slamming into the cultists. Screams and shrieks rose up as the damned fought the dead and both sides butchered each other. For her part, Beckyann simply walked casually down the stairs, using her runeblade to bat aside or impale any cultists that managed to fight free. Below her, the cult leader fumed, words of power spilling from her mouth.

Beckyann locked her baleful gaze on the woman, shaking her head slowly. “I wouldn't do that if I were you sweetie. It will just make it worse for you in the end.”

The cult leader finished her spell and pointed, black magic pouring from her hands and hurtling through the air towards the blonde haired woman. In life, the spell surely would have slaughtered Beckyann Eastberg, but in death she commanded the powers of darkness with ease. The spell slammed into a barrier of anti-magic, the energy absorbed into the barrier and flowing into Beckyann's runeblade, which glittered with a deadly light. The blonde woman smirked, walking the rest of the way down the stairs.

“My turn wench. And by the way, I'm going to enjoy this very much,” she hissed. Her hand came up and words spilled from her mouth, a cold gale blowing towards the cult leader. The woman's eyes widened and she began to cough as deadly diseases set into her flesh. Blood began to pool in her mouth and run from her nose as the spell progressed, her flesh beginning to decay in places. Beckyann didn't stop though; she stepped closer, still whispering words of power and sending an howling blast of freezing cold at the woman, flaying off her weakened flesh bit by bit.

Eventually, mercifully, the corpse of the cult leader tumbled to the floor of the crypt. It had been almost completely stripped of flesh, and Beckyann ignored it as she stepped past, heading towards the cache of spellbooks. Behind her, the last cultist died a screaming death, torn to pieces by the undead. Beckyann casually waved a hand and the dead she'd summoned collapsed, sent back to their eternal rest. She reached out, almost reverently taking what looked to be an extremely important text from the pile of tomes in the cache.

The blonde-haired dead woman had a smile on her face as she turned, the light of the fallen torches illuminating her find. It would take weeks to unlock all of the secrets hidden in the cache. Weeks of pleasurable study that would result in increased power. With a smirk the death knight took a step, her plate boot crushing the now empty skull of the woman who thought to play with powers that were forbidden to the living.

There were those who sought power in darkness, and there were those who died and were reborn into it, who subsisted on it like it was lifeblood. The foolish and the weak would never understand what drove a creature like Beckyann now, nor would they want to.