User:Jormungand01/Sedecim

Youth
The boy who would one day be known as Sedecim was born near Tyr's Hand, the easternmost city of the Kingdom of Lordaeron, sometime during the final year of the Second War. For the citizens taking refuge there, those were dark times, for the Horde had overrun much of Lordaeron and shortly prior to Sedecim's birth had besieged the city and cut off the supply routes to Quel'Thalas. Seeing little hope of salvation, his parents fled the city and took refuge in the woods nearby. And on the very day of the birth the walls of Tyr's Hand were torn down at last, the city razed to the ground and the entire remaining population massacred.

For the first sixteen years of his life Sedecim lived in the village of Havenshire, which by some miracle had avoided detection by the Horde. At the age of thirteen he became apprenticed to the village blacksmith, the high elf Idril, and proved to excel at the craft. With his weapons the people for miles around managed to hold off all manner of deadly foes, and if it weren't for his work in the defences of Tyr's Hand rebuilt the city would long ago have fallen to the Scourge. Such was his fame that news of the young master blacksmith travelled even to the courts of King Terenas Menethil, and before long he was summoned to Capital City to fill the armouries of the king himself.

While there he came to idolise the mighty paladin Uther the Lightbringer and gradually became initiated into the training school of the Knights of the Silver Hand. He befriended the king's only son Arthas, who persuaded Terenas to allow Sedecim to become a paladin. In return Sedecim taught Arthas all he knew about the sword, so that the knowledge might allow the young prince to become an unbeatable swordsman. The two became firm friends and when they both were initiated as full Knights of the Silver Hand they journeyed together across much of Lordaeron destroying enemies of the kingdom wherever they might be found.

Sedecim was with the prince at Brill and then participated in the massacre of the citizens of Stratholme. Although he did not wish to slay the innocent he felt bound by friendship and so unwillingly joined in the slaughter. But from that moment on he grew wary of Arthas, sensing now the fanatical devotion to Lordaeron that would lead him to commit whatever atrocities were necessary to defend it. Resolving to keep an eye on the heir to throne, Sedecim later joined him on the ill-fated expedition to Northrend that would culminate with the final conversion of Arthas Menethil to the cause of the undead Scourge.

The events that followed shattered Sedecim's world forever. He witnessed first hand the brutal murder of King Terenas by his own son, and the destruction of the last remaining armies of Lordaeron. He stood by helplessly as the plague spread across the once green woods and fields, destroying every inch of life and raising it up to forever serve the Lich King. When he heard of the fall of Quel'Thalas, the most ancient and powerful realm on the continent, he despaired at last and joined Jaina Proudmoore in the flight to Kalimdor, where he hoped to find peace at last.

However shortly after arriving on Kalimdor the exiles almost immidiately came into conflict with the Horde. While many of the soldiers wished for nothing less than the total destruction of the monsters who had once ravaged their homeland, Sedecim was too young to remember such things and was more willing to negotiate with the orcs. He was among the first to realise that the demonic corruption which had once driven them had vanished, and so mentioned to Jaina the possibility of a truce. Jaina was initially sceptical, but after meeting with the Prophet Medivh atop Stonetalon Peak she embraced the idea and formed an alliance with the orcs and night elves against the dread might of the newly arrived Burning Legion.

And so, at the young age of just eighteen years old, Sedecim the Devout stood upon the slopes of Hyjal and fought the most powerful foe that the world of Azeroth had ever faced. When the human base was overrun by Archimonde and his armies, Sedecim was one of the few who remained behind to give the others the chance to escape through a portal. With blade in hand he fought to the last while his comrades were cut down all around him, but eventually as the last survivors fled to the Horde camp he fell to the fel magics of the Dreadlord Anetheron.

Resurrection
Sedecim's body was not found after the battle, and it was presumed to have been utterly destroyed by the demons. However, unknown to the victorius Alliance, many of the bodies of fallen warriors had been stolen by agents of the Scourge and smuggled out during the battle. Eventually, after a long journey, they came to Icecrown, where the remains of heroes from all the mortal races were brought before the new Lich King and raised as the Death Knights. Of these, many were made into the Knights of the Ebon Blade and prepared for a special assignment - the final destruction of the last resistance in Lordaeron.

For years the new Knights of the Ebon Blade suffered through arduous training and many of them fell within the first year. All over the world of Azeroth they were sent, with assignments ranging from conquering the Vrykul to invading the kingdom of Stormwind. Those who fell were slaughtered and raised again as lesser minions of the Scourge. Though this regime may have been costly in numbers, it ensured that those who remained would be the perfect warriors. Finally, seven years after the battle of Mount Hyjal, the death knights were ready. As a final test of loyalty Sedecim was sent to destroy the only home he had ever known.

One night the skies over the Scarlet Enclave, the last remnant of the kingdom of Lordaeron, were darkened by a monstrous shadow from the North. The mighty necropolis Acherus, second only to Icecrown itself as a bastion of Scourge power, had come to deliver doom upon the innocent. And with the dawn came the death of millions as the greatest legion of death knights ever assembled poured down from Death's Breach to pillage and burn. Within hours Havenshire, the place where Sedecim had grown up, had been razed to the ground, his family slain by his own hand.

Soon New Avalon too had fallen, its inhabitants suffering the same fate, only to be raised again and turned against their own. As the city burned the Knights of the Ebon Blade prepared for the final battle to vanquish the last resistance from the Argent Dawn at Light's Hope Chapel. Yet in the end it was the Light that prevailed, for the holy ground overwhelmed all the forces of shadow that the death knights wielded. And so was the betrayal of the Lich King revealed.

In revenge for being sent to their deaths, the Ebon Blade seceded from the Scourge and vowed never to rest until Arthas had been destroyed. Now, having reclaimed his free will and amended for his past wrongs, Sedecim has become an honoured member of the Alliance and journeyed to Northrend to bring an end to the war against the undead legions.