There was a sudden smash of splintering wood, and the weathered door leaped from its hinges and crashed to the floor with a harsh report. The figure silhouetted in the mossy stone doorway made no move to apologize for the abrupt entry and instead darted further into the darkened recesses of the damp vault. Pausing briefly, he knelt and examined a thin, almost invisible wire that stretched the length of the passageway. It was unbroken. As he rounded a corner, the blackness became complete; the warm, white light shining in from the entrance was obscured by the cold silence of the tomb. The intruder ceased his pace, looking over his shoulder suspiciously, before sinking into the deeper shadow cast by a carved pillar, the weight of which had, in years past, slowly sent a spiderweb of hairline cracks through the smooth marble floor of the grave. Reaching into his tunic, he drew a long dagger, wordlessly weighing the familiar balance in his hand. This was his weapon. This was what he had killed fourteen men with, and what he would die clutching.<br/><br/>Although, he reasoned, today he would not meet death. Here, in the darkness of the crypt, he had the advantage. He<span style="font-style: italic">knew</span>the darkness, every pillar, every stone. He could fight here in the pitch-blackness and know his way by the touch of his feet on rock, by the flow of air currents. The man who hunted him would have no such luck. He would die, here in the dark, like the rest of his selfish breed and their insidious machinations.<br/>He did not know who the demon following him was. He had never seen him before the moment that a knife-point had slammed its way through the thin walls of the small local pub and had missed puncturing his head by two and a half inches, just because he had leaned forward to spoon soup into his mouth. And, he reminded himself, besides the knife-blade itself, he still hadn't seen his attacker. He had run.<br/><br/>He'd always known they'd come for him. He'd flung his armor and blade into a stream, but had kept his shield, hung it up over his fireplace. He had kept it bright, a beacon of the glory of former days. It was his last bastion of honor left to brighten his waning days. And it was his death warrant.<br/><br/>And what had it all been for? He had been a killer. He had celebrated his life as a killer. He had wasted away, alone in a forgotten village, proud of having been a killer.<br/>And now he would die a killer. A killer extinguished by a killer. A simple cog in a vicious cycle of violence and death.<br/>He got to his feet, walking slowly to the center of the vault, staring at nothing yet seeing all. "Those who live by the sword," he whispered, "die by the sword."<br/><br/>"And the sword by which they die weeps tears of blood for its sins."<br/><br/>The echo of the second voice was broken by the clatter of the dagger to the stone floor, as he stared down at the bloodstained blade-tip that sprouted from his chest. The words of the old saying uttered by victor and vanquished echoed valiantly in his mind, slowly losing their meaning to the rolling mist of calm grey silence that overtook his vision and carried him far away across distant oceans to his last resting place.<br/><br/>The Warden placed one gloved hand against the neck of the dead man and pulled the blade from his body, turning away as it collapsed face-down on the cold, crypt floor. "Find more peace in death than you did in life."<br/><br/>As he left the crypt, he deftly stepped over the taut, unbroken wire and pulled his wide-brimmed hat low over his eyes against the glaring sunlight.<br/>The first rule of the Warden: Know your enemy.<br/><br/>Looking about the quiet stand of trees that encircled the small clearing that served as an anteroom to the tomb, his attention was caught by the leering call of a crow circling the cloudy skies above him. He stretched forth his crimson-draped arm, and the carrion bird dived earthwards and alighted on it. He unrolled the message parchment from its leg and scanned the words briefly. They were short, concise, and explicit. He did not need to retain the paper; its message was clear.<br/>The Warden skimmed a film of blood from his blade-tip and smeared it on the note, before fastening it again to the bird and throwing it into the air. It took wing and was quickly lost over the treeline.<br/><br/>The warden plunged his dagger into the earth and drew it out again, clean of blood. Sheathing it with the others on his chest, the Warden wordlessly set off through the woods, towards the setting sun.<br/><br/>He did not look back. He never looked back.