Jerome was, for all the credit due to the boy he truly was, in relatively high spirits as the Italians routed and broke across the dunes of the desert battlefield. The tanks, the men, it all had worked somehow in a miraculous fashion and as he looked about the battlefield he recognized a group of figures. He felt both energized and tired at the same time, he'd undergone training for this, known he'd have to face death at one point or another, but his first battle had been rough and he slowly trudged and waded across the mire and muck of the battlefield. Mud -made not with water, but blood and ichor- clung to the young man's feet. War, it was a visceral, sensational environment that now wrapped itself about Jerome's senses and threatened to overwhelm him even now as it subsided.
His vision, it wavered from behind tears that threatened to spill from eyes caked with dirt, dust and sand. He did not know if he was crying or simply reacting to an irritation, but that he could not look about himself. He didn't need to look about himself. Had he done so already, he'd need not question why tears threatened to fall from his eyes. They sounded like him, men and boys his ag perhaps. His blood curdled as he heard some scream, and others raggedly breathe in their final dying moments. They all spoke in tongues he'd not of understood were it not for the pin, but he dared not wrench it away. He felt trapped, even as he walked past wounded, to only find more with worse afflictions. Others now wandered about the broken earth of the battleground, but acrid plumes of dark and curling smoke, some coming from bodies, other from equipment, now forced Jerome to avert his eyes. Ashes fell slowly like flakes of snow, but they did not dissolve as the fell upon his lashes or clothes. He blinked furiously for a moment before the moisture in his eyes finally spilled out.
It was a lot to take in, but perhaps the worst of it all was the smell of it all. His body longed for the sweet aroma of Georgia, of his family's plantation, of the summer rains and all the joy at his family's table. His body shuddered deeply and thoroughly as he shook off the creeping dread and fear that began to settle in himself. An icy chill that spread across his back slowly roused him from his stupor and exhaustion. Durendal was not one for sentiment, but it knew war, and loss, and what it could do to those whom had never encountered it before. A firm presence, Jerome forced his eyes open and noticed now that he'd sunk to his knees near the burned and ruined hulk of some vehicle not far from the small collection of SHADOWCOM commandos. He shoved a hand down into the sand and struggled to his feet, dusting off himself as best he could and fighting down another rush of bile to the back of his throat as he crossed a new line of dead to reach the center of it all.
They were just wrapping up as he walked up, his Enfield rifle at hand as he slowly went through the process of checking to make sure it was still functioning properly. Unloading and cycling through the various functions of the weapon, he caught the tail-end of the conversation before finally reloading the weapon and looking into the center of the group. There was a map, it looked like a section was specifically marked in alarming colors and patterns, but if that was what the enemy had avoided, then they'd be alright using that land. Right?
Wrong.
The blade sung on his back and Jerome staggered from carpet, drawn to the ground in the stinging and biting sands of the storm which he had no interest in moving any faster through. His eyes were bleary once again, but he crouched low and took cover beside one of the vans that had also pulled to a stop. There was the howling of the wind, a great monstrous cacophony of sound and noise which threatened to erode away the last of Jerome's ability to hear in the wake of the battle from earlier the night before. He'd recovered quickly after being brought upon the carpet once again, letting his mind focus on the swirling and hurtling landscape around and beneath him as he'd floated along. It had been wonderful, but the sandstorm had quickly brought a halt to all of that. As he felt the howling begin to subside, something new took its place and his heart found a new vigorous pace at which to beat. Something was- no, not something, it was someone, or a lot of someone's actually. Footsteps, dozens of them? Hundreds of them? Perhaps even a thousand? He moved from his low crouch to look about the convoy with eyes that widened as they found themselves surveying unearthly beings clad in ancient clothes and armor.
The blade singed and stung and bit and hummed. It shook Jerome to his core and it was unlike that which he'd ever known before from the enchanted sword. It was vicious, bloodthirsty, enraged in a way he'd not imagined such an artifact could become and he struggled to keep his mind clear of the heat radiating into the back of his mind, invading his thoughts. He had no clue what these 'people' were, but they were unholy and had obviously struck a steel-cored nerve in the heart of Durendal. It had been denied blood for almost three days now, but it would not be kept bound any longer. Jerome bowed his head, uttering a quick prayer as he dropped to a knee and shifted the heavy weight upon his back to a shoulder. Unslinging the wraps from himself, he laid the long parcel which he'd kept tightly bound before, now gently as a babe upon the desert floor. The prayer was not long, but, it did enough and as he finished the uttering of the final words in the ages old incantation, he felt the blade's anger subside. It wasn't an unfamiliar feeling which grew and welled up inside of Jerome, he'd known it before in training with the blade. The strength, the pure raw power he felt coursing through himself as he brought it to the forefront of his mind, he grimly smiled.
The two straps which had kept the wrappings about the blade now came unlatched, and gingerly pulling back one fold, than another, the gleaming metal of the blade struck the desert sun and the sound of a keening distantly filled Jerome's ears. It had taken life before, now it would protect it in his hands. That was the mind with which he reached forth and passed his palm over the flat of the blade. From tip to pommel, and wrapped his hand about the hilt. A deep breath in, even as he heard a great shouting and moving of bodies about him, clearing his mind of the rush of feelings that now threatened to well up beside him. He would not be driven over the edge, the battle from the night before laying so fresh in his memory, but Durendal now laying within his grip. His breath pushed out from between his lips and so he stood and brought the blade to mid-guard. A wavering in the air before him, about the blade as even light found itself uncomfortably distorted by the edge of the ancient sword.
Under his breath, the Templar spoke but a single phrase. It was not one filled with enchantment or divinity, but rather of love and passion. This was his calling, his art, his purpose.
"Let us dance well, Durendal."
