by Luka Petrov
“I did. I also heard that magic boy was able to cast higher-level spells and made it look easy. Balfomeir mentioned that this boy has exquisite precision to targets and multiple targets at that.”
“I heard that as well. Must be why the Demon Lord wants this kid out of the way,” Vladimir affirmed.
“If I wanted to take the biggest threat to the Demon Lord, I’d be taking Balfomeir. He may look decrepit, but years ago, he was unstoppable. And loyal to a fault,” King Harold mused. “Getting back to business, I can offer myself again before the end of the night to see if Abraxas will take me. At least then, I will have solace knowing that I am with my father.”
Vladimir responded, “Try until you cannot try anymore. You are an honorable man, one of the most honorable I have had the pleasure of serving. I know this is your path and you could not live with yourself if anything ever happened to your kingdom.”
The trusted advisor left King Harold to continue to watch the village out of the window. It seemed that the king had forgotten to give the order to the squire and resumed his deep thought. He then muttered under his breath, “A just and lawful king falling out of alignment is unheard of and it is out of the question. I cannot, I will not allow my guilt to consume me.” After that, the king left and headed to his bedroom. I continued to follow him.
In his private chambers was a king-size bed, covered in the finest of silk. There was also a mirror with a desk. Above the bed was a painting of his late wife, and him together. He went to his desk, looking into the mirror. As he looked at himself in the mirror he said to the reflection, “What have I become. I have turned my village upside down and have roving guards, armies, and bounty hunters tirelessly searching for a boy who can perform a few spells. I am using more resources a day than I bring in a year’s time. And for what? So, the Demon Lord can have a slave and I can keep my village? What happens when I give the boy up, but I won’t have village left?”
King Harold continued to look deep into his own eyes, “Not to mention, giving up an innocent boy. The son of one of my most trusted blacksmiths. All to save this village. Giving up a child for the greater good?”
As the king looked at himself further into the mirror, the reflection looking back darkened as if he was giving into evil. He stopped himself and the reflection turned normal. He said, “I feel myself slipping away. I do not know if my father went through this when he surrendered himself for our village.”
The king looked at a painting of his father, King Hofstra hanging on the wall. He said, “Oh, dad. How I miss you. I remember you teaching me how to fight with a sword and allowing me to sit in on your advisory meetings. How I long to see you once again, but I’m losing myself in all of this.”
As I watched further, the king looked back at the mirror. The mirror reflected several images of King Hofstra teaching a young King Harold how to hold a sword and other weaponry tactics. An image of both his mother and father came across the mirror, during meal times. His mother was always known to be very loving.
Then the visions on the mirror turned dark. An image of Gilmore flashed across the mirrored glass. Plumes of smoke and red glowing embers filled the scene. The Demon Lord cloaked in a black hood loomed over the burning village. The image of the village burned, and the villagers attempted to escape, only to be fleeing the burning village to the awaiting minions as the decapitated each villager that ran one by one.
A vision of King Harold came up on the mirror as he went to help the injured villagers, only to be covered in their crimson blood. The image showed King Harold screaming and crying as he saw his bright red hands who tried to render aid to his villagers. As the king watch these visions flicker on the mirror, he wept. Falling completely apart, he sobbed and sobbed. “Their blood is on my hands,” he wailed.
Then an image of the Demon Lord flashed across the mirror. The images of the burning village was gone and there was nothing but the cloaked, horned Demon Lord whose pale white skin sneered at King Harold as he looked up at the mirror. He was now face to face with the Demon Lord, smiling at him, toying with him. “You have until the end of the night to surrender the boy to me. You must be conflicted. Your village or a worthless boy? That doesn’t seem to be a hard decision to make. You’re a coward, just like your father. You two deserve each other. Your father has been one of my favorite servants,” Lord Abraxas hissed.
King Harold appeared to be taken over by emotion, that he had to divulge the reason for the delay in surrendering me, “Ed escaped last night. I had him secured in a prison cell, and him and his friends got out.”
“You incompetent fool. You cannot even watch a little boy for two days without losing him? You are a worthless piece of crap and you should be ashamed of yourself. I have no other choice, but to attack your village tonight!” Lord Abraxas shouted.
The Demon Lord gave him a wicked smile. The king appeared to realize now that he was in the same position as his father was decades ago. Playing on King Harold’s vulnerabilities, the Demon Lord summoned visions of the king’s childhood memories to play across the mirror. The king, succumbing to Abraxas’ tricks as he watched.
During the visions, an image of his mother, father, and himself as a child were having dinner. The image showed that one of the servants pouring wine slip a vial of poison in the glass of King Hofstra. King Hofstra went to take a sip of the glass but did not feel like drinking wine at that moment and gave the glass to his wife. She drank his wine during dinner. After dinner concluded, she started choking. A young Harold watched in horror and shouted for his dad to render aid to her. His dad attempted to help her, but it was too late. Vomit and blood came up from his mother’s mouth and she died.
The next vision showed that the servant who poisoned King Hofstra’s glass reported the incident to Lord Abraxas. As King Harold watched this unfold, he saw that the poisoning of his mother was the doing of Lord Abraxas when he said, “It was you!”
“It was. I tried to poison your father that night when I was claiming territories and expanding my kingdom. Gilmore was next. Pity, your beautiful mother had to die, and such a horrible way to go. That poison is one of the worst, since it strangles the victim from the inside out, collapsing all air ways and making the inner tissue bleed from inflammation. That was a death that I had planned for your father, but he passed it on to your mother. Oh well. I then decided to make your father my loyal servant and to be a warrior for the side of iniquity, the far better side, if you ask me.”
King Harold barely could keep it together after learning that it was Lord Abraxas himself who poisoned his mother, and he showed no remorse. Of course, it was meant for King Hofstra. Everything worked out in the Demon Lord’s favor in the end, and then some.
“Now, my dear Harold,” the Demon Lord cackled from the mirror. “I will descend on your village in the wee hours of the morning. I will need the boy, or I will begin my long wrath over your people.”
“Take me instead!” King Harold commanded.
“I am not one to take orders. Especially not from an insulant fool like yourself. You could not even keep your own wife alive. At least you did not poison her like your father did,” Abraxas cackled as his image disappeared into the smoke that filled the mirror.
The king paced in his bedroom chamber for some time before retiring to his bed. He toss and turned all night, only to wake up in a cold sweat. As the king sat in his bed, loud screams coming from outside filled the air. Without much preparation, the king dressed himself and put on his armor with the help of his squires before rushing out to find what the commotion was about.
I followed close behind King Harold, only to find that Lord Abraxas stood in the town square and began decapitating villagers that walked in the street with a swift stroke of his freshly sharpened blade. The crowds ran in horror and the Demon Lord could catch one with his blade as a straggler did not realize where the threat was coming from. Blood filled the streets and heads rolled to the side of the square as the Demon Lord fulfilled his promise. L
ord Abraxas stood at least ten feet tall, towering over all of the villagers and wearing his black hooded cloak.
The king rushed down to approach the Demon Lord. As he confronted Lord Abraxas, he stopped swinging his sword. Lord Abraxas smiled at the king, “I am just getting some sword practice in this morning,” the Demon Lord said cavalierly.
“Stop! Stop this right now! I will banish you back to the Abyss where you belong,” King Harold threatened.
“Banish me? You can’t even bruise me,” retorted the Demon Lord. “Now, about that boy. I’m going to need him delivered to me, uh, right now.”
“I have bounty hunters canvasing the forest, the last place we spotted them. We will get you your boy,” King Harold responded.
“Well, this is an unfortunate turn of events,” Lord Abraxas said as he frowned.
The Demon Lord paced while frightened villagers watched. Shaking as they shielded their children from the monster who stood in the middle of the town square. The Demon Lord paused, and then said, “So… you came after all. To stop my sword practice in the middle of town square without the boy that I need. Knowing what I can do, what I have done, you still choose to face me. Tsk, tsk, tsk. Pity. I once hoped that you would show some semblance of wisdom, something that your father sorely lacks. Yes, our beloved King Hofstra still lives, though, not as he once did. His soul is bound to my will, linked to me by chains that no act of daring or courage could ever break. For his sins, his arrogance, I have taken him as an eternal servant. And, soon, I shall do the same to you, my friend.”
Lord Abraxas paused to survey the villagers and their frightened faces and then he continued, “Oh, don’t look so offended dear King Harold. It is nothing you shouldn’t have already figured out… Hmm, king… How pathetic. The very idea that you rule over anything would be laughable, if it weren’t so revolting. What is king? Nothing more than a mongrel cur, barking at those beneath it, demanding respect and fealty it never earned.”
King Harold responded to the taunts coming from Lord Abraxas, “Not I. No, Lord Abraxas. I am not some petty king. Everything that I have, everything that I have built, everything I shall ever be, all of it has been earned. Through blood and sweat. Toil and suffering. Betrayal and vengeance. I have clawed out my dominion with the power I and I alone have earned.” King Harold then made a reference to Lord Abraxas’ dubious fathering, “At least my father claimed me and loved my mother. I might have a birthright to the throne, but I have earned every minute while I have been at the helm.”
“It is not some pathetic mewling about my birthright that will see me dominate this realm. As you are aware, I attempted to claim the seat of the emperor, since I was the eldest son. Oh no. There is no birthright to the bastard son. Instead, I have carved my own path, taking over kingdom after kingdom, and crawling my way out of the Abyss,” Lord Abraxas hissed.
The pair looked at each other, King Harold did not drop his eye contact once. Lord Abraxas continued, “Yes, you know about that I’m sure. That smirk is unbecoming of you whelp, as it was of your mother. Ah, so that is all it takes to break the calm facade. Good. I was almost concerned that you would prove more of a challenge that Hofstra.”
At the revelation of Lord Abraxas’ affection toward King Harold’s mother, King Harold became visibly upset. The two circled each other, never taking their eyes off of one another. The Demon Lord continued is diatribe, “Now… your mother. I knew her well. Often times whilst we were young, growing up in that dreary village of Dolby, the harpy that birthed you would delight in reminding me of my place in the world. ‘No place for a bastard,’ she would say, taunting me with the fact I could never hold true noble status. I could never rise above what I was. She was a rather vicious child and I like to think that, perhaps, she regrets it now, or at least she would have she not… tragically fallen victim to ill humor.”
King Harold put his hand on his sword after he heard that the Demon Lord carelessly killed his mother. Lord Abraxas said, “Ha! That your vainglorious father and the pusillanimous parasites that called themselves his closest advisors ever believed, for even a moment, that the queen was simply a victim of fate, it still brings a smile to my face. In truth, her death was nothing more than an accident of chance, a tiny twist in the skein of destiny. A servant placed a tray carrying two drinks bound for the royal dining hall down for a moment to straighten his turncoat and, upon picking it back up, he turned it, just enough to present your father's drink to your mother.”
King Harold’s eyes lit up, “You meant to poison my mother all along. The potion was never intended for my father.”
“Ah… I see the realization dawning in your eyes. You remember that day, don’t you, my dear King Harold. It seemed a normal feast, did it not? Just another banquet to celebrate another inane ‘victory’ of your father’s. Meat and wine and delicacies for all the simpering imbeciles that he so commonly allowed to disgrace his hall. The servant presented the drinks to them, unaware of his role in the tragedy to come. She takes up the glass, lightly clinks it to her husbands, and takes a sip. The wine is so sweet, she takes another sip, and then another. In but a few moments the entire glass has been drained, though no one thinks it untoward. It is a celebration after all.”
“Up until this point, we had always thought that someone had tried to poison the king and my dad did not want his wine. However, my mother’s glass was really the one that was poisoned. You will pay for this. She was a gentle and sweet soul,” King Harold shouted.
“I remember that night fondly. I watched from a portal mirror. I watched your mother drink her wine and her husbands, the drunk that she was. Unbelievable, she was actually functioning. Watching her take those desperate gulps gave me such pleasure. After her last drink, there would only be a few moments before the poison would kick in. I remember this moment as if it were yesterday. Soon though, her eyes grow heavy and her heart begins to struggle. Like a flame plunged into the water, her light goes out before our eyes. King Hofstra looks over, stricken with a worry she’s allowed herself to become drunk. Then, with a concerned hand on her cheek, he felt her skin growing cold. His beloved queen is dead.”
“How dare you speak about my mother in that manner!” King Harold defended.
“Her death had not been my goal, but looking back, I must say that this outcome was far more delightful than expected. She looked at me as she realized what was happening. She knew I watched her from the portal mirror. I had visited her several times before. I tormented her in her dreams, I spied on her inner most private times. Ha ha ha. I saw the terror in her eyes as her soul crossed over. She knew it was me the moment she faded away. I killed your mother, dear king. Your father fell to my schemes soon after. And now, you shall-”
Just then, King Harold’s sharp sword cut through the edge of the hooded cloak of Lord Abraxas, reveling the scared, pale skin and no hair. “Fool!” Lord Abraxas shouted as he realized that his head had been exposed. The Demon Lord’s soliloquy had been cut short by the swinging of the sword, but the Lord Abraxas dodge in the nick of time, and King Harold only cut through some fabric.
“I challenge you to a duel,” King Harold said in a straight tone, his eyes piercing at the Demon Lord. Both of them draw their swords.
The encounter starts with the king drawing his sword, striking at the demon lord with a mighty swing. The demon lord manages to roll out of the way.
As the Demon Lord closed his eyes and concentrated, a sword appeared in his hands. He approached the king with pace and swung with both of his hands, injuring King Harold.
The demon lord summoned his crude sword, and swung at the king, hitting him for 10 points of damage. The king winced in pain, but he still had enough fight in him.
“I was hoping you would hit harder,” King Harold taunted the Demon Lord.
This angered the Demon Lord and he took a moment to collect himself. Perhaps he underestimated King Harold’s abilities. King Harold caught Lord Abraxas off guard and took severe damage as the king landed a
n upwards swing right in the Demon Lord’s chest.
The king retaliated with an upward swing, catching the Demon Lord off guard, hitting him for 12 points of damage.
“You did well, my dear King Harold. I see you have learned a great deal from your father. He is one of my armies’ top swordsman. I am impressed. Now prepare to meet your maker,” Lord Abraxas yelled as he charged at the king.
The Demon Lord was now enraged, using his full action to strike three times. One strike missed with the king blocking with his sword, the other strike hit him for 7 points of damage, and the third strike was a critical hit, dealing a deadly 25 points of damage.
The king could barely walk. He limped as he soon fell to the floor. The king laid on his back as he held his pierced side, gushing blood. “It won’t be long now,” Abraxas stated as he looked over him. He turned to the villagers and said, “It was my intention to kill your king today, but I have thought of something far worse. I will take your king, restore his life, and have him under my control. This will be far better than watching him die.” The Demon Lord cackled as he placed a crown of iron and thorns over the king’s head, enthralling him to the will of the Dark Lord. As the crown was placed on his head, the king screamed. Blood dripped down from his skull. A few moments went by and the screams and wails turned into mad, manic laughter. The king let out a hideous laugh, now madness filled his once noble eyes.
The king was now weak and was bleeding out. Before the king made a death save, the Demon Lord cast crown of madness on him, replenishing his health. It is impossible for the king to make the proper wisdom save. The only way for the spell to break is by dispelling it or killing the Demon Lord himself. Lord Abraxas now controlled the village of Gilmore.