((Author's Note: In an effort to revitalize my own interest in continuing the sequel I began for this story a while back, I've decided to repost Post Tenebras Lux with some editing and a few new sections, as well as a new chapter added at the beginning. Hopefully, these will help flesh out Cyros' background as the main character.

I should first mention that this project was (and still is) meant to be an epic, heroic fantasy story, which obviously may not be everyone's cup of tea (or coffee or whatever). The heroes are written to be larger-than-life, the villains are dark and monstrous, and the action and dialogue contained herein are both meant to be dramatic as well as impressive, without going over-the-top too much hopefully. Some of this might change for the sequel though, to descend more towards realism (World of Warcraft-wise at least) while still retaining the 'epic' feel I'm trying to convey. Please note, however, this really is my first attempt at writing a combination action/romance story, and as you will probably tell, action is really my specialty, but hopefully the romance doesn't come off too weak and out of place, nor too abrupt as it did in the first iteration. It's still quick, but due to the short length of this story, hopefully it can still be accepted.

I began writing this story after I read - and was subsequently inspired by - some other Warcraft fiction on this website, most notably The War Song by T. Mirai and In a Dark Place by Nara Bluestar. I highly recommend both of their stories. They are excellent writers and have plainly worked very hard on their own contributions to this website.

Editing and general brainstorming was assisted with by WoMo and VoiDreamer, both from this website. They are excellent writers as well (VoiDreamer has assisted me on a past project) and they were of invaluable assistance with this story.

Game-wise, this story takes place obviously during the Burning Crusade, but before Wrath of the Lich King. I always appreciate any constructive feedback as well as general encouragement, whatever the case may be.

Thank you and please enjoy.))

Post Tenebras Lux

The ornate warhammer lashed out in a deadly arc as Cyros charged forward, a hulking mountain of blue flesh and silvery plate armor amidst the grotesque and misshapen forms of the Scourge.

They had been fighting for what felt like hours now. Already the setting sun was casting its bright orange-red glow across the land below. Its brilliant light reflected off the gleaming purple crystal head of his weapon moments before it landed with a shuddering impact against decaying flesh, shattering the weak bones beneath and bursting lifeless organs. Within an instant, the draenei vindicator was surrounded yet again by twisted monsters, their fingernails grown into hardened claws, black with filth and corruption. The howling, screeching ghouls pressing in around him were as nothing before Cyros' fury, the weakest of the Scourge's soldiers, but they nevertheless continued to hurl themselves against him in their dozens, seeking to bear him down with sheer weight of numbers.

If the vindicator had been less focused, any less the warrior he was, perhaps he would have been forced to bow before their vicious onslaught, but today his holy purpose gave him the edge.

Cyros pushed his way forward resolutely, moving fast and true, an unstoppable juggernaut. His warhammer was little more than a blur in his armored hands. With teeth bared, his angular, almost aquiline features twisted into a feral snarl, he swung and thrust, chopped and slashed, the ghouls' pestilent bodies falling before him in droves. His eyes were luminous blue-white orbs of fire, narrowed in grim determination and blazing with righteous fury. Every so often, the vindicator would pause for an instant to consecrate the tainted ground beneath his dark purple hooves, fiery golden energies exploding upward from the hard dark soil as it was cleansed and blessed by the power of the Holy Light. The undead packed in around him writhed and shrieked as the divine sanctification stripped them down to black ashes, but still they continued to press forward. Claws scraped and tore ineffectually across his silver breastplate. Rotted fangs chipped and shattered against his arms and shoulders.

The paladin had disdained the use of a helmet for this battle. Let these foul creatures behold the unyielding resolute face of their destroyer. Let them look upon him with fear in their final moments of unlife.

Slowly, but surely, Cyros forced a path towards the looming walls of Andorhal, its black gates hanging open like a festering wound to unleash this tide of evil upon the world. His entire armored form glowed with a faint golden light, from his hooves to his black hair that rose up behind his forehead's twin angular plates of bone, cropped short and spiky. His body was consumed in the aura of just retribution. For every blow the undead struck at him, jagged tendrils of holy energy lashed out to inflict destruction twice-fold upon them. The ghouls killed themselves even as they attempted to end the vindicator's life. During the brief moments of clarity as he fought, Cyros savored this unremitting holy vengeance in the name of the Light.

It seemed all too soon for the paladin as the ghouls' numbers were thinned, dozens of them returned to the abyss that spawned them. Even before the last monstrosity had crumpled to the ground, he was already striding onwards, the creature's head cracking apart beneath his diamond-hard hooves. Cyros knew he could not permit himself even a moment's rest. These ghouls had been mere fodder, nothings to be spent easily to weaken him. Though they had failed, the vindicator knew their masters would surely not be far behind.

Already he could see them advancing forth from the black gates to finish him. These were not mere animated corpses, but skeletal warrior elite, each wielding a rusty weapon and armored in black plate and dull mail. Blood-red fire burned ominously within their empty eye sockets as they tramped forwards, marching in perfect unison, and their fleshless mouths seemed to form mocking smiles.

With a roar of fury, Cyros charged forward to meet them, his crystal warhammer cleaving through their bodies, shattering bones into mere shards and dust. Their weapons cut and stabbed at him, but his plate armor held true against their onslaught as the paladin knew it would, blessed by the Holy Light. As before, he was hemmed in, surrounded on all sides, but whereas a lesser warrior might fear such circumstances and seek to escape them, Cyros reveled in them. Pressed in so close around him, none of the Scourge could escape his wrath as his warhammer lashed out in unstoppable blows to smash them apart. Holy energies blazed, destroying the armored skeletons utterly. Not even the most powerful of their dread masters would be able to raise these servants ever again.

Through the terrible destruction, Cyros advanced, with every movement and every gesture a killing blow. His enemies seemed as legion, but it did not matter, for he was their equal, a champion of the Holy Light, blessed by the Naaru, to sear away the Darkness. His warhammer swung out in a mighty arc, felling six more skeletons, cutting them down like wheat before a scythe.

Ahead, twenty more made their stand, closing in together to form an impenetrable phalanx of bone and metal. The vindicator smiled grimly as he advanced upon them. Raising a large armored fist, he exploded their formation apart with a bolt of golden energy, striding onward even as the remnants of his power incinerated the bodies beneath his hooves. Charging forward unopposed, Cyros was amongst them before they could react, the skeletal figures writhing and falling into shattered pieces as the paladin hewed a path to the very threshold of the gates themselves. Unable to stand against him, the skeletons fell back, retreating in disarray.

But then...

But then Cyros heard the sound of heavy footfalls, the dull clank of plate armor. It was this sound that warned him of his enemy's approach, a deep and rhythmic pounding of great weight upon broken cobblestones. The vindicator paused, raising his warhammer, gauntleted hands clenched tight around the long adamantite haft.

The draenei paladin could feel his enemy approaching, could feel the malice and rage, vast energies dark and corrupted pressing down on him as if he suddenly carried the weight of the world on his shoulders. Cyros' blazing eyes narrowed. His ruse had worked. By attacking the enemy's stronghold directly, he had managed to lure the Scourge's fell commander out into the open. Here and now he would cut down the enemy leader and destroy his growing army.

At last the paladin saw his foe as the figure strode out from beyond the thick wafting curtain of vile greenish mist obscuring the interior of the damned city of Andorhal.

He had surely been a tall and powerful human man in life, but no longer and never again. Now he was a foul monstrosity. He wore an ancient suit of once ornate plate armor, blackened with rust and corruption, and adorned with serrated blades and corroded spikes. A stained and ragged purple cloak hung from his shoulders, flapping in the chill breeze, the hood enshrouding his head in an impenetrable darkness. From within the shadowy depths, two red eyes glared at Cyros with unnatural fury. In his right gauntleted fist, he gripped a fearsome morningstar. The long haft of the weapon had been shaped from a large bone, the rusty chain was thick and spiky, and the bladed head looked to have been carved from a singular block of obsidian, dark purple energies crackling across its surface. On his left arm, he bore a rectangular tower shield nearly as large as he was tall. It was a terrible sight to behold, wrapped in human skins, dried and desiccated, and reinforced with bands of black iron.

The vindicator met his enemy's blazing eyes with his own, reflecting back the hatred and revulsion he felt radiating from the death knight in palpable waves. Alas that such a mighty warrior should have been raised up and twisted by black necromancy into the loathsome mockery that stood before him.

The death knight spoke, his deep voice whispering, as cold and empty as the frigid northern winds.

"Enough, paladin. You came to challenge me and so here I stand."

There could be only one answer.

Both vindicator and death knight exploded into action at the same moment, charging forward to engage in mortal combat, their weapons lashing out with deadly speed and precision.

Cyros was taken aback by his opponent's tremendous strength and martial skill as he was forced back almost immediately upon the defensive. The air was filled with twisting energies as they dueled, golden light flaring against ebon darkness. For a moment, doubt clouded the paladin's mind, but he banished it quickly from his thoughts. The death knight was a soulless unholy abomination and as such Cyros would assuredly cast him down in the name of the Holy Light.

The hard stone blocks of the gatehouse walls cracked and shattered from the power of their blows. The rotted and burnt wood of the gates split and tore as the combatants pressed close to them. Every blow, every strike, was a potential killer; every block, every smash, bone-breaking. And then, before Cyros could truly comprehend it, their war was abruptly over.

It was a tiny thing, a mistimed sweep of his warhammer, a seemingly inconsequential flaw in the flowing sequence of strike upon strike. But it left him open and vulnerable, and the death knight moved swiftly to exploit his weakness. His shield slammed hard into the paladin, throwing Cyros back off-balance, even as the morningstar whipped snake-like fast through the air to crash into the draenei's left side. The vindicator bit back a scream as searing pain engulfed him, his ribs cracking under the force of the impact, the plate armor now torn and buckled. He could feel the black corruption from his enemy's weapon oozing into the grievous wounds, contaminating with a venomous swiftness.

The death knight stepped forward again, smashing Cyros squarely in the face with the edge of his heavy shield. Bones crunched, blood flowed, and the vindicator fell back, stunned, landing with a crash of thick plate armor against the cobblestones. His enemy strode over to glare imperiously down at the fallen draenei and began to raise his morningstar high for the final blow that would end this duel.

Even as Cyros began to comprehend his shameful failure, the death knight staggered suddenly, orange-red flames exploding around him, sending him reeling. The dark warrior backed away, cursing harshly, out of the draenei's dimming vision. Then someone was crouching next to the fallen paladin, cradling his head in soft hands. He knew she was shouting something at him, for it was a woman's voice, but he could barely hear her, she seemed so distant. At last, he understood a part of what she was saying. Summoning what little strength he had left, the vindicator used his inherent ability, a gift granted to all draenei by the Naaru, to begin healing himself.

But it was not so mighty a gift that it kept Cyros from slipping down into the darkness of oblivion.