“I know, Rufino, I know. But still, we’re going to march out and meet them head on!” said Sooz, rather enjoying being the warlike queen, or so she told herself. Inside, she didn’t feel anything at all like a war queen. In fact, she really wanted to go home and watch TV with her mom. But she couldn’t and now she had nothing to lose. It was “victory or death” as they said in her favorite online MMOG, Realm of Shadows. And now, here she was in her own real-life version.
“We can’t do that—we’ll get slaughtered,” stuttered Agrash.
“Ha, you sniveling little blubberer,” said Skabber Stormfart. “Orcs aren’t scared—we’ll stand beside her, fight to the last Orc if we have to!”
Sooz smiled at the big Orc. “Thank you, Skabber,” she said. “Anyway, I have a plan. Trust me. Now, get the army together; we’re setting off right away.”
Skabber gave a kind of rough Orcish bow and then turned away to do her bidding. Rufino frowned. Then he shrugged, and nodded. “Well, if you’ve got a plan, then I’m with you. I hope it’s a good one, that’s all.”
“Don’t worry, Rufino, I’ll fill you in on the way,” said Sooz.
So it was that an hour or two later Sooz found herself riding in a huge chariot of black steel, with wrought-iron fittings twisted into all sorts of fantastical shapes and symbols, pulled by two big black horses called NightMares. These “horses” had yellow eyes, sleek shiny black coats, snorting sulfurous breath and hooves of what seemed like iron—they gave off sparks whenever they struck stone. Their reins were of shiny black leather, carved with red glyphs and sigils. On the front of the chariot, the Seal of the Dark Lord was outlined in bright, blood-red paint. It was called the Midnight Chariot and it looked magnificent but it wasn’t exactly comfortable! Sooz was being jostled all over the place. Beside her, in the chariot, stood Agrash. Right behind her stood Gargon. There was also the driver who was some kind of special Orc known as the Master of the Steeds of Doom and he lived along with his horses in the Dark Stables round the back of the Tower, stables Sooz hadn’t even realized existed. In her hand she held a stoppered bottle that she’d found in the Dark Library, a bottle labeled “Black Slayer’s Bane” …
Beside the chariot rode Rufino at the head of a hundred human warriors, the Soozville Militia. On her left strode Skabber Stormfart at the head of five hundred Orc warriors, now called the Legion of the Moon Queen. Behind the chariot were a hundred Goblins of her Royal Guard. Above her wheeled thirty or so Nightgaunts, floating effortlessly on the thermals that rose up over the Plains of Desolation. In all, about seven hundred or so soldiers of the Dark, marching out to meet three or four times that number.
A cloud of dust appeared in the distance. The army of Hasdruban and the Black Slayer was marching inexorably toward them.
Agrash gulped nervously. “Are you sure your plan will work, my Lady?” he said.
“Of course it will, Mr. Snotnose!” she said confidently, but secretly she was terrified. She dared not think what would happen if it didn’t work, she couldn’t bear to even let herself consider it. But she had no choice. There was no other way.
As the two armies drew closer, they began to draw up for battle. Sooz peered over the sides of the chariot at her army—they looked pitifully inadequate compared to those that faced them. Her soldiers were actually quite well equipped, thanks to the Storeroom of the Tower, but there were so few, and the serried ranks of the enemy looked so much more professional.
A mounted herald came up, a young man on horseback.
“Parley!” he shouted. “My master, Hasdruban the Pure, and his cohort, the Black Slayer, wish to parley with you under a flag of truce.”
Agrash looked up at Sooz. “No harm in that, my Lady; we might as well hear what they’ve got to say,” he said.
“Aye, I second that,” said Rufino.
“Okay, then, bring it on,” said Sooz in a querulous voice.
The herald frowned, unsure as to what he’d just heard. “You mean you will talk under a flag of truce?” he said.
“Yeah, sure!” said Sooz. She was starting to feel really out of her depth with all these armies, and heralds and parleys and stuff.
“So be it, your Dark Majesty,” said the herald, and he turned and galloped back to the enemy line.
Sooz had her hands over the lip of the chariot, only her eyes showing. She kept ducking back with fear every now and again whenever she began to think about the sheer size of the enemy forces—row upon row of battle-hardened warriors, wielding spears and swords and bows and axes, all ready to rip and tear and kill.
A small group began to approach them from the enemy lines. As they drew near, Sooz could see it was the Black Slayer on a big black horse, and someone else, presumably the White Wizard. He was riding a tall white horse, and wore voluminous white robes. He had white hair, ridiculously hairy white eyebrows, and a big bushy white beard. On his head was a crown of white gold, with a bright blue gem at the front that glowed with a strange light and he held a tall, whitewood staff in one hand, topped with what looked like a little human head carved out of white marble.
His eyes though were black, all black with no whites at all. Creepy, thought Sooz. Beside the Black Slayer walked a heavyset Orc in full armor, carrying a big halberd. Beside the White Wizard strode a man in shiny steel armor, with a large white shield in one hand, and a lance in the other—obviously a Captain of the Paladins of the White Shields, just like her hometown, Whiteshields. Oh, how she longed for home, now more than ever!
As they drew near, Hasdruban said angrily, in a deep voice, “Rufino! So, it is true. You have joined the Dark. I can hardly believe it, and you a Paladin, too! Traitor!”
“No, no, my Lord, it is not what you think, she is not …,” spluttered Rufino.
“Do not speak to me, heretic!” interrupted the Wizard violently. “You will not corrupt me with your vile weasel words, your traitor’s logic! No, death is all you deserve and death is what you will get!”
Sooz was peering over the lip of the chariot in fascination at this exchange. She looked up at the Wizard and the Slayer in fear. These guys were serious! How could she beat them? What was she thinking? She began to shiver and shake in her big clunky Goth boots.
Then the Black Slayer spoke, addressing Agrash, Gargon, and Skabber in his sibilant, spectral voice. He did not even look at Sooz. “Hand over the girl to the White Wizard, along with the Ring and you will be spared. I’ll take over the Tower and rule the Darklands.”
He glanced over at the White Wizard. “Rule in Hasdruban’s name, that is,” he added. “Rufino though, the White One wants him, for … er … correction. Everyone else can live, if they swear loyalty to me.”
“Never!” roared Gargon. “We never give her up to you, or that murderer, the White Wizard! We not give Rufino up either!” he added.
Rufino looked up at Gargon in surprise. He hadn’t been expecting that—Gargon had been his mortal enemy for years! Rufino glanced over at Sooz. It was she who had made this happen, this coming together of enemies, he thought to himself.
Hasdruban turned to Gargon, a look of contemptuous loathing in his eyes. “Bah, the monster lives! Creature of the Netherworlds, you can die along with your evil mis-tress, if that’s what you want!”
“She is not evil …,” began Rufino, but the Wizard shouted “Silence, apostate worm!” and gestured with his hand. The blue gem on his headband glowed brightly for a second, and a white spectral hand appeared out of nowhere, to clamp itself around Rufino’s mouth, silencing him. Rufino glared at the Wizard but he could say nothing. Desperately he wrestled with the white hand, trying to pull it off his face.
Everyone else stepped back in surprise. “There’s a flag of truce, you can’t do that!” squealed Agrash.
Hasdruban blinked. “Well, yes, technically that is true,” he said. “Bah, it is but a minor enchantment, it doesn’t count. It will soon fade and he will be unharmed!”
“Minor or major, it’s still an enchantment! I
t’s still breaking the truce,” said Agrash.
“Bah, nonsense! Rufino is one of ours. He has betrayed us. We can do with him as we wish! Now, you have heard our terms. Hand over that daughter of darkness and you live. Do not, we take her anyway and you die!” said Hasdruban.
Sooz stood there frozen in fear, staring and staring, so intimidated by it all that she couldn’t even speak. Silence reigned for a few seconds. Then Skabber spoke.
“Belchvile, is that you?” He was addressing the Orc next to the Black Slayer.
“Yeah, Skabs, it’s me. How you doing?” said the Orc called Belchvile.
“All right, Belchey-boy, all right. Whatchu doing jobbin’ for the Slayer then? He’ll drop you in it as soon as look at you!” he said.
“Hah, why you following a girl, then? What’s all that about?” replied Belchvile.
“She’s the best king … er, queen … an Orc could have, believe me. Plus she’s going to marry the big boss himself, the Dark Lord. He’ll eat the Slayer for breakfast, when he comes back!” said Skabber.
“Really? I didn’t know she was his girl! We didn’t know that!” said Belchvile.
“SILENCE, you cretins,” yelled the Black Slayer. “This isn’t some Orcish veterans’ reunion, this is serious stuff!” Turning back to Agrash, Gargon, and Rufino, he said, “Now, what do you say to our terms?”
Belchvile shifted from foot to foot. “You didn’t tell us this Queen Sooz was getting married to the Dark Lord. You didn’t tell us that. I mean, that puts a totally different light on things!”
“Shut up! SHUT UP, you stupid Orc!” shouted the Black Slayer.
“Oh, is that how it is?” said Belchvile. “Just ’cause I’m an Orc I must be stupid, huh? That’s racist!”
The Black Slayer put his head in his hands and groaned in frustration.
Hasdruban interjected. “Your concerns are irrelevant, Belchvile. The Dark Lord will never return,” said the White Wizard. “I have exiled him forever to another plane and soon one of my agents will destroy him, if she hasn’t already.”
“NO! That’s not true!” said Sooz, finding her voice at last. “He will return, I know he will! I know him, I love him, and he loves me. He’ll come and rescue me, oh yes he will!” she screamed in a childish rush of words, stamping her foot in anger.
Hasdruban stared at her in astonishment, mouth wide open. Sooz went on. “And I spoke to him on the phone, just yesterday, he was fine. You’re not going to destroy him, never, he’s too smart for that!”
Suddenly Sooz lifted up her arm. In her hand, she held the stoppered bottle she’d brought with her from the Dark Library. At the sight of it the Black Slayer gave a gasp of horror. With her other hand, she reached over and pulled the stopper.
“Nooooo!” cried the Black Slayer.
Out of the bottle writhed a shadowy shape, which grew and grew in size until it became a kind of gray phantom, perhaps the ghostly form of a young woman.
“At last my love, we can be together!” wailed the phantom in a voice like the howling of the wind on a desolate storm-lashed shore.
It hurtled down through the air toward the Black Slayer. As it struck the Slayer, his armor and clothes burst apart in an explosion of tatters, revealing beneath another shadowy form, this time resembling a young man.
“No, please, no,” wailed the Slayer. The phantoms merged into one mass of shadowy grayness before hurtling up into the sky and away. A final cry of “Nooooooooooo!” faded on the wind. And that was the end of the Black Slayer.
Everyone stood there in silence for a moment, astonished by the sudden turn of events.
Hasdruban shrugged. “So much for the Black Slayer. You cannot escape your fate, and he reaped what he sowed.”
“Where’s he gone?” said Belchvile.
“Dragged off to the depths of the Netherworlds, I would think,” said Hasdruban.
The marble head on the top of Hasdruban’s staff suddenly moved, the red veins pulsing, and then it spoke in a thin, reedy voice.
“Black Slayer’s Bane has the Black Slayer Slain!” it said portentously. “So did the Fates decree!”
“Yes, indeed, Whitehead,” said the Wizard. “They did indeed.” Then Hasdruban narrowed his eyes. “Now that is a breach of the truce!”
“Not at all,” said Agrash. “All Queen Sooz did was remove the stopper on a bottle and let fate take its course, a fate the Black Slayer laid down all those years ago when he slew his betrothed on the Altar of the Nether Gods in return for immortality!”
“Yeah,” said Sooz, “and in any case, you broke the truce first!”
Hasdruban grimaced. “Bah, perhaps you have a point,” he said. “No matter. Come, Belchvile, it is obvious they will not agree to our terms, so we must destroy them instead!”
Belchvile hesitated.
Suddenly Sooz piped up again. “Belchvile! Join us! I forgive you for serving the Black Slayer; instead you can be my Captain, serve the Dark again, be with your friend Skabber!” she said in a rush, half expecting it not to work.
“Yeah, Belchey-boy,” said Skabber. “You’re not going to fight for him are you?” he said, jabbing a black-nailed thumb at the White Wizard. “I mean, he massacred loads of our pals, didn’t he? Loads! Hunted ’em down after they’d surrendered and everything!”
The Orc thought for a moment, but not for long. “No, course not!” said Belchvile, decision made. “Now the Black Slayer’s gone, we’re with Sooz, the Dark Queen! ’Course we are, and I shake my fist at that murdering scoundrel, Hasdruban.” And sure enough, he shook his fist at the Wizard.
Hasdruban gave a wry smile at the sight of Belch-vile being rude to him, as if he were expecting it. “How Orcish of you, Belchvile,” he said. “You are perhaps too stupid to realize you have just signed your own death warrant, though it may not be today. So be it then.”
Sooz grinned, and hopped up and down with joy.
“So, White Wiz—who’s your Daddy now!” she said, without thinking.
Hasdruban raised a hairy eyebrow. “Who’s my … What?” he said. Then his eyes narrowed. “Well, whatever. In any case, it seems we are now the outnumbered ones. But there is no need for further bloodshed is there, Queen Sooz? Will you allow us free passage back to Gam, the City of Men? That way, none of your people or mine need die this day. What say you, Dread Queen of the Night?”
Gargon and Agrash shook their heads as one. Even Rufino frowned, as he wrestled with the hand over his mouth. But Sooz ignored them and said, “Yeah, absolutely, fighting is just stupid anyway, so sure, I agree, let’s go home. We’ve won either way, haven’t we?”
Hasdruban nodded, still smiling that wry smile. “Yes, my Lady, you have won. Until we meet again!” he said. The Wizard and his unnamed paladin turned away, riding back to their own lines, leaving Belchvile and the Black Slayer’s horse behind. And also his sword. It had fallen to the ground when the Slayer had been carried off to whatever hideous fate awaited him. His sword of black steel, covered in strange purplish runes, the sword known as the Stealer of Souls. Gingerly, Gargon reached down and picked it up.
With the White Wizard gone, Rufino was able to remove the hand over his mouth at last. “Careful with that blade,” he sputtered. “It is evil indeed and drinks more than the blood of its victims!”
“Aye,” said Gargon, “I have seen it do its work. I think best to keep sword in Storeroom, out of way. Especially away from our Queen, yes?”
“Agreed,” said Rufino, looking up at Gargon. Gargon had been one of his most ancient foes, one of the mightiest warriors that the Dark had to offer, second only to the Black Slayer himself. His head was the prize that all foot soldiers of the Light sought to gain but strangely now they both had something in common, something that bonded them together. They both wanted to make sure Sooz was safe, no matter the cost.
Soon Hasdruban and his army began marching away, back the way they had come, while Belchvile and the Legion of Merciless Mayhem marched forward to join Sooz. Eve
rywhere Orcs and Goblins were celebrating. They’d won a great victory, and without shedding any blood—well, except for the Black Slayer, but nobody on either side liked him much anyway. And all of this because of their own Dark Lady, Sooz the Moon Queen, and her cunning, bravery and wisdom!
“Queen Sooz! Queen Sooz! Queen Sooz!” chanted her soldiers as they began the march back to the Tower of the Moon.
Sooz waved at them as she rode by—and noticed she was still holding the parchment note Dirk had folded into the box labeled “Black Slayer’s Bane.” This is what it said.
Many years ago, the Black Slayer slew his love on the Altar of the Nether Gods, offering her up in return for immortality. I have summoned her shade from Beyond and imprisoned it in this bottle. It is my insurance policy should the Slayer betray me. All I need do is release the ghost and it will seek him out, to be avenged upon him! She will drink his Soul and he will be destroyed forever!
Sooz grinned from ear to ear. This was another one of her best moments ever. Thousands of big hulking Orcish warriors, little freaky Goblin things, and tall, strong men, all chanting her name. She had her own personal army and everything and they loved her! It was just so cool.
Gargon and Agrash also felt the same but Rufino was frowning to himself and thinking. It’d been too easy. Hasdruban’s reaction was too tame when the Black Slayer was disposed of. Had they really won? Or was Hasdruban playing some kind of long game? After all, what had really happened today was that one of the Dark Lord’s most powerful lieutenants had just been destroyed. Hmmm … He looked up at Sooz. May the gods forbid anything happen to her, he thought to himself. It was possible that Sooz could bring them all together, that she could stop thousands of years of conflict and bloodshed, to finally bring peace to the Darklands and the Commonwealth of Good Folk. If anyone could do it, it was this little girl from another world. Rufino vowed to do all in his power to help her achieve it. She was going to need it—after all, it was almost certain that Hasdruban had another plan up his sleeve …
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