Malcor's Story

by Eric K. Barnum

  The blood mist and shadows of dying made it hard. His vocal chords choked on the blade through his neck as he prayed. Against his death seizure, his hand struggled to form Heal. As the healing prayers held him dying, the knights withdrew their swords and the one he cut smiled and counter-attacked. His almost reformed arm stump slammed the flat of the blade and prevented it from becoming another fatal blow. It cut like an ax into his hip though. The pain of his heart, lungs, spine, and brain registering death but not dying exquisitely tried to dominate his senses, but against it all he remembered a hand sign the king had made at his ceremony. The sign had been followed by Dar Shara flame-striking the knights. Malcor made the signal. A female screamed out, “No! He can’t…!” Was that Ora’s voice or Kendra’s?

  The ground at his feet pulsed and the knights behind him jumped back. Malcor signaled for Heal and Strength and caught the sword buried in his hip. The pulse followed by hot crackling of energy as a circle around him erupted in dragon fire rising up and outwards.

  The sword he held in his hip, melted into slag. The knight holding the sword jumped backwards. The flames rose up before his eyes and he burned. He knew that above all else, he must kill his enemy. He tried to pray but ash filled his mouth. His eyes and senses spoke only of fire, burning, pain. The fury in his heart matched his suffering and he yearned to break free, to fly above and away from it.

  He stepped forward his feet grasping for sensation beyond the burning. Coming Undone clenched in his fist felt slippery and he squeezed it hard mindful of the need for healing but if his death proved to them his worth, he must make it count.

  From the River’s edge, he saw the knight diminished somehow and awestruck. He swung Coming Undone down in an arc that sliced through the knight’s sword. It cut into the knight’s magical armor with the sound of shattering glass and the knight blinked, vanishing and reappearing some distance away. He signaled and something happened. Malcor noted a charred skeleton held his blade. A mist of ash and embers hung in the air around him. He turned back to Tembri and asked, “Am I dead?” and then collapsed.

  Tembri stumbled forward and caught him. “He is past normal healing. He is dying.”

  “Save him,” Kendra ordered. At her command, a trio of Dar priestesses came forward and blessed Malcor with resurrection and healing. As they did so, Kendra said, “It will be a several hours before Malcor recovers. He is to immediately resume fighting. His combat training is sufficient, for now. I want to see how he fares against the undead. Make yourselves ready.”

  Verit and the knights bowed and took a break. They still eyed the boy warily. "How can he be so damaged, but stay in the River so long?" Verit wondered aloud.

  Kendra shrugged as she stepped back from the healers. "He is Kell's son? I can't say, but he is surprising in this and other ways."

  Chapter Seventeen – Memory of the Necromancer

  Dar Rojo stood before a golden throne. The dragon emperor Alerius watched Malcor’s fight and collapse. “Father, as the prophecies tell, my successor will rage beyond death. His fight is worthy of a dragon.”

  Alerius, patriarch of the fire dragons and god emperor of Morbatten, watched the fight. “You humans are amazing. Look, he almost unleashed his dragon there. I cannot see if he will be a fire or some other type. He has the fury of a Red but rather than burning, he berserks like a Shadow with no thought to his destiny. It makes him powerful, but creates risk that he needlessly sacrifices himself when destiny requires him to not. This tendency makes him untrustworthy for epic quests.”

  "So that flamestrike, it was him? I have not seen a paladin ever do that."

  "It is a trait passed down from the Ancients, from their earliest days when the dragon crowned their totems. It is quite rare, but not surprising given his father is Kell," the emperor twisted the view to see the columns of healers who had collapsed supporting Malcor's fight.

  For sixteen thousand years, Alerius had guided Morbatten. Of all the dragons, he alone had seen the potential of these lesser creatures. Before the River, he had nurtured a tribe of them in the mountains here. As the River began to flow, he protected and then began shaping them - into dragons. His fealty to the Queen Takhissis had triggered the Dragon Wars that ended the age of the Eldar races.

  “Rojo, I saw creation burn and nearly fall back into Chaos. I held stars in my hand and pondered ascension to godhood. The Queen commanded me to follow and I almost did. I chose to stay here. Though the River stinks with decay, I will hold this treasure to the ends of time. Tell me LORD, when you stand by Her side in your next life, will you miss these wonders?” The image shifted back to the column of fire that had lashed out when Malcor rebelled against death.

  Most of the dragons, when they spoke had a tendency for a reptilian slurring of certain sounds. So long among humans, Alerius had long ago perfected his Common speech but still inflected certain words oddly. Words linked to fire and the Queen and his memories of the Eldar times especially drew it out.

  “No Father, I will not. Since I first saw Her standing by the River, She is all I see.” He looked up at the dread emperor. “It is too early to call me LORD. If you continue speaking of the wonders and treasures here, maybe I will change my mind.”

  Alerius did not laugh, ever. But when amused, the heat aura bending the air around him would shift. It did now and he smiled down at Rojo. “Perhaps we should speak of the River’s stink then. The Queen may come here personally and have my death if you renege your destiny as LORD.”

  Rojo stood and asked, “You are reflective today oh great king of kings.”

  Alerius humanshifted and together they walked to a large opening in the side of the mountain that looked eastwards to the seas. “I look forward to your ascension Rojo. Too long have I labored against my kind’s innate tendency to dismiss mortals. Except for Armageddon and my two sons, too many fire dragons see Morbatten as a jewel ripe for the taking of treasure. The greatness of the Eldar has died in them and left only a desire for power and its trappings of wealth and veil of fear. The blue patriarch my children have named Spark and the other patriarchs alone share this view. That the other dragons, the metallic and so-called “good” dragons, innately view Tehrans as I do, makes it difficult. The Queen has been too long absent this place. When you become LORD and join with Her, I pray your humanity is not lost. It makes you more precious than all the wealth of Tania. But, even IF, you will make a fine partner for Our Queen.”

  Dawn creased the far distant horizon over the eastern ocean, the start of a clear new day. High up in the dragon emperor’s mountain, the air was cold but neither felt it. Rojo spoke, “Father, I dreamt a dream last night. The ram came with throngs of our people enslaved to war against Heaven. The Temple itself rose up. The Jade God spoke to me and commanded me to serve it. In the dream, I refused and attacked and died. The empire fell and then stood back up in the Jade God’s image. I was taken by the two-faced demon and revived to watch undeath freeze your children… these dreams are becoming more vivid and real-seeming.”

  Alerius stroked the air in front of him and the mountain opening pulsed with magic and a scene opened. Rojo recognized the early empire, back when its people came solely from the tribal barbarians. Like Rojo, they had pale skin but dark almost black hair and broad shoulders. Alerius controlled the image with his hand and said, “This is the first incursion of the Jade God, when I learned about Bloodstone. Watch and see how this happened the first time almost two thousand years ago.”

  Leather hides stitched together made rough armor and clothing. A flowing river split the Dragon and Temple mountains flowing south through the heart of the then Capitol. Rojo noted this because, in his time, there is no river except a fountain. It must have been destroyed in some cataclysmic event. Tania’s histories did not mention it. Large tents had been erected all along the river with their openings facing north to the dragon. A small boy, barely eight years old, struggled along a well-traveled section of ground carrying a heavy burden wrapped in animal hides
. He had a manic sort of look on his face.

  Alerius pushed Rojo and he physically entered the scene, standing there besides the boy. He noticed a ram’s horn protruding from the wrapped burden. No one reacted to him. He heard the boy whimper and then stand as if against his will. He stumbled onwards to the large tent. Rojo followed.

  The large tent served as a tabernacle for the early Tanians. The female priestess stood before a stone statue of a dragon and prayed. The stone carving, a version of the totem, showed wolves, horses, and then griffins, priestesses, and then the dragon emperor. A wild sorcerer stood nearby with other females. At this time, there were no knights. Females served as priestesses or shamans depending on their education. Rojo remembered that writing, swimming, and other basics of Tania’s education system would not yet to be implemented for several centuries.

  The boy stumbled into the tent and fell on his knees. Several priestesses looked annoyance at him and a large man smacked the back of his head for interrupting. He caught his breath and then moaned as something compelled him to pick up the bundle. He lurched forward and made it within ten steps of the high priestess. A worshipper reached out to smack him again, but just before the blow landed, the boy dropped the ram’s skull out of the bundle. A noise rose up from his throat as if being ripped from his lungs by talons. “Orcus….!”

  The Jade God loved its name. Everyone knew never to use it ever. The ram skull pulsed a sick green light. Those nearest the boy scrambled away from him as terror and fear and an ill-wind swept through them. The high priestess turned and began summoning the Queen’s might to turn and dispel the apparition. Rojo had seen this before and knew it would not work.

  The boy’s eyes melted to goo and his body twitched as, like that cursed word, his soul tore free into the ram’s skull. The high priestess banishing prayer struck the skull and nothing happened. Had this been an imitation, it may have. This was the sceptre mount of Orcus’ wand. It needed a body, which it took from the boy’s spinal column. The floor nearby collapsed as a tunnel opened by zombie hands. A vampire rose up from the hole and grabbed the wand. Warriors had entered the tent now but a casual wave of his other hand blasted them back through the tent as if leaves in a strong autumn wind.

  The dread wand fully activated as the souls of those warriors streamed into the wand. The vampire grinned as the priestess attempted to turn it with the Queen’s might. He stood there. The radiance of the turning struck it and the ram’s skull laughed maniacally back at her. “My turn,” the vampire said.

  The wand rearranged itself to face the priestess and commanded with the voice of a thousand nightmares, “Kneel before the one true eternal god!” Green rays of light arced like lightning from the ram’s eye sockets to the priestess’ and she screamed in agony.

  “No…”

  “You will kneel,” the vampire said and again the wand’s monstrous voice – KNEEL. Every bone in the priestess’ body below her knees shattered and she fell to her knees. A whirlwind sucked the tent away to reveal the valley floor being struck by fireballs as a meteor shower exploded overhead and rained death down on the tribes. “You will all kneel,” and the vampire struck the wand to the ground. Like a stone dropping into a pond, the earth rippled outward in a wave as bones shattered when the ripple reached the people. When the ripple touched the dead, their bodies twitched and reanimated.

  Rojo heard Alerius’ voice moan, “At this time, all of my children older than 10 would come back as ghouls or stronger. The suffering of the Innocents haunts me still. Only the very young or sickly would have become zombies. I have since allowed less strength into my children as it increases the population and odds of prodigies such as you and my Circle.”

  Ghouls, ghasts, wraiths, and mummified corpses stood upright and turned on the survivors. Combat broke out across the valley. The vampire laughed and the wand shrieked its glee. The whirlwind overhead swirled with green lightning and then a titanic cloven hoof stepped down from the sky.

  Alerius whispered, “The First Cascade starts…”

  The vampire morphed into a hellhound and attacked the crippled priestess. Somehow, she fought it off. But Rojo’s attention remained on the Jade God as his head peered down from the clouds. Its pestilential breath struck the birds and insects in the sky which fell like wet spider webs of tearing flesh to the earth. “You offend me,” it screamed. Even the undead cowered against the words. The living turned and ran in terror. Rojo, watching this, felt a part of himself respond; all at once and at the same time he wanted to apologize for the offense, to stand rock still, to beg forgiveness, to curry favor, to change whatever it was that offended the titan… and in his heart he understood that Life itself offended the Jade God. The implied reaction to the statement was suicide.

  Chapter Eighteen – The First Cascade

  Alerius in human form gated a legion of fire giants into the battle around the priestess. The familiar kerckhi armored warriors tackled the hellhound and pulled it back from the priestess. Alerius pointed to her and ordered, “Rally my children and let Takhissis’ might guide you. Destroy the wand.” Her wounds instantly healed and divine might filled her being. Kerckhi armor appeared around her as did a column of fire that burst from the ground and rose up around her. Her flames washed over the Dathraki and charred the vampire to a crisp, leaving the sceptre to fall shrieking to the mud.

  Alerius lifted his arms and dragonfire erupted around him burning the undead to ash and healing the living. His dragonshift put him into his powerful form, but he appeared miniscule to the titanic demon. Rojo’s heart leapt with pride as his god emperor attacked. As he raged dragon fire at the demon, other dragons answered the patriarch’s summons as other reds, blue, white, black, and green dragons appeared from nowhere and attacked. Not to be outdone, the so-called “good” dragons appeared as well and silvers and golds joined the fight.

  Alerius spoke to Rojo, “This is the only other time so many of my kind have gathered together since before the Dragon Wars. Our last great alliance. You’ll notice there are no shadow dragons. And now the cascade begins. This much magic and might in one place next to an abyssal power…” The emperor at last cleared the area around the wand. A surviving zombie had grabbed it and began running away. The emperor's exhalation of white hot fire slagged the wet mud, which washed over the zombie. "In my pride, I thought I could destroy the wand." The wand sustained the zombie.

  The Jade God tore into the dragons with its fanged maw and spat out undead dragons. As any creature fell, it immediately rose in undeath. Alerius himself barely avoided such a fate in a desperate maneuver to open a gate inside Orcus’ mouth. The gate to the elemental realm of water filled the demon’s mouth to overflowing. Meanwhile, the combined might of dragons scoured and then severed a massive leg and the Jade God fell to its hands and knees. It screamed but the water gushing forth masked it as a gurgle. Alerius swerved into Orcus’ mouth and shapeshifted at the last instant. His human form passed inside the fangs and a moment later a gate to the realm of fire and then earth opened. Orcus reached for his wand, his Tehran instrument and embodiment of power but a kerckhi grabbed it up just out of Orcus' reach. A swarm of undead gave chase.

  A moment later, a volcano erupted inside the Jade God’s head. At the same time, Alerius chewed his way in dragon form out of one of the Jade God’s eyes. The gore and violence took Rojo’s breath away. “My god, I have read your histories and heard the stories but this… Father. You do us proud to name us your children.”

  "The volcano was the Queen's idea. It is now the Soldier’s Fort. I've always been fond of the purity of the elements as a weapon."

  The death of a gold dragon triggered it. As the gold rose up a dracolich, the powers of “good” sent a heavenly servant to fight. The angel appeared in a flash of sunlight and then more appeared. The green cloud maelstrom darkening Tania cracked open and natural sunlight scorched the undead where its columns touched them.

  Across the plain, the wand shrieked, “Master! Master! Your He
llhounds come!” The dathraki holding it had fallen under its spell, driving the wand into his chest cavity to feed it more power more quickly.

  Across the field of war, gates opened and Orcus’ Hellhounds sprinted forth fangs and claws tearing into the living. In answer to the Hellhounds, other gods sent their servants. And so the fight escalated. Alerius said, “Watch Rojo, the River…”

  The scene shifted and Rojo gasped. With so many alignments and powers clashing, the River had stopped flowing and instead twisted in on itself. Rojo saw Alerius step to the black hole of nothingness at the center. “Behold Anti-Life. This is not even Chaos, not even anything. It is oblivion and nothingness and nightmare and terror. I was naïve and thought I understood but the Jade God already knew. See there.”

  A hellhound ran along the banks of the River with a brown-robed eldar human on its back. Ignoring Alerius, the human enchanted a spell and flew into the void. “That is Bomoki. He seeks to affix Anti-Life in my children’s home.”

  The knotted twisting River tore open and the battle scene in Morbatten suddenly opened in the River. The battle’s participants began moving in and out of time chaotically, and from the blackness all around, demons from the depths of the Abyss surged forth as nightmares that terrified even the undead. “As you know, I moved this to Bloodstone where Bomoki succeeded in opening his portal.” Back in the vision, Alerius slew the rider’s hellhound and returned to the battlefield.

  When the gate shifted with Bomoki, Orcus left. Without Orcus there to maintain the demonic pressure, the battle quickly shifted. Across the valley floor, undead crumbled to ash in sunlight. Angel feathers soaked in blood and burning blew in the wind. Blood mist hung in the air still raining down from fights high above. The idyllic plain had turned macabre. Of all the tribespeople originally gathered there, only twenty-five had survived rallied and protected by the priestess, the dathraki, and Alerius. There were a few tense moments as the forces of dragons and heavenly beings eyed each other. In that tense moment, Alerius reached his head up to the sun and howled. His wings encircled the survivors and all there, bore witness to the red dragon patriarch’s tears as he cradled his twenty-five. The god emperor’s howl turned to sobs and all there heard, “My children, my children…” He turned his wounded head to the sky and roared his anguish so that even the servants of Heaven trembled.