One thousand years ago:

The unceasing rain hammered on Richard’s helmet with the infuriating stubbornness of a bucking mule. He felt it hit his face, and it washed away the blood and sweat and dirt, and hid his tears.

He looked around with leaden eyes. His brothers lay strewn across the muddy field of battle, broken and torn and crushed, and their blood had stained the trampled earth a dark crimson. He took a shivering breath and, with bleak finality, withdrew his sword from the last remaining monstrosity at his feet.

They had won. He had won. The truth sunk in like the cold rain that had long drenched every last fibre of his garments: It was done. It was over—and he was the last survivor of his Order. Everyone else had met their doom at the hands of the demons.

He looked at the sickening aberrations they had slain. The last one of them had been their mistress, more terrible than even the others. Ten men in had taken to fell her, and she had claimed nine in turn.

With disgust, Richard noticed that the she-demon was still squirming.

“I... will... return,” it said, and Richard’s guts turned themselves in his stomach. Even now, in its death-rattle, its voice was... beautiful. Like that of a fair maiden. It made the creature even more sickening to behold. It was a perverse mockery of a woman’s shape, with dark red, unnaturally smooth skin, lithe, tall, and buxom. It was all a ruse. There was no humanity under that skin. There was only evil behind those eyes. There was nothing but malice in those smooth words.

The she-demon smiled, baring sharp teeth.

“The... time will come... it is... inevitable. My blood is part of this world, and it can never be undone! From the old world and the new, the unknowing and the knowing, from the strong and the weak, I shall be reborn!”

He struck down once more, and struck true, and the demon ceased.

Suddenly, a sharp pain sprang forth from his sword hand, and he collapsed to the ground, dropping his blade as if it was covered in stinging nettles. With trembling hands, he took off his gauntlet and found that his palms and fingers had turned sickly crimson where he had grasped the hilt. Throbbing heat had begun to radiate from his fingers and all through his body, alike to a fever.

His heart turned to stone. He screamed to the uncaring heavens, and wept, and cursed, and screamed again, until his throat was hoarse.

Finally his temper calmed, and he forced himself to his feet. Every heartbeat ached in his hand, and the exhaustion and despair pulled him to the ground as much as his armor and wet clothes did. But he had to do one more thing before he could rest.

The rain had stopped, mercifully. He limped across the battlefield, searching for the Order’s Scholar. Finally, he found Brother Thomas, resting against a stunted tree, cradling the Book of the Order in his dead arms. He had to pry it away. Its leather cover had protected it from the wet for the most part. From Master Thomas’s bags he procured a quill and ink and began writing down the forbidden secrets of the Order as he fought the paralyzing stupor of his boiling blood.

Everything he had sworn only to pass on in whispers, and everything else he could remember—he laid it all open on the blank pages, straining with the effort to make his script legible through the throbbing pain. In his breeches, his manhood was rising against his will. He had to hurry.

When he had written all he knew, he wrapped the book in as much oilcloth and leather as he could gather from the bodies of his fallen brothers. Once he was done, he looked down at his arm, dreading what he would see. The heat had spread past his elbow, and dark red veins were snaking into his sleeves, towards his heart. His ears were rushing with feverish blood. He swallowed heavily.

With trembling hands he picked up his sword and turned it over, pointing the blade at his chest. He looked down at the tightly-wrapped bundle that he had placed on a cairn of stones, atop of which rested Master Thomas’ amulet and half-dagger.

Others would have to rebuild the Order—from naught but this book. All Richard could do now was hope, and pray.

He lifted his gaze towards Heaven one last time and prayed for forgiveness and for mercy, then threw himself onto his sword.