Devouring Darkness

by Bradley Counter

“What is this sudden burst of strength?” Orlon managed to ask as he struggled for breath. “How can you be this powerful?”

  “Easy; I was never as weak as you assumed. This human was correct when he told you earlier that he wasn’t who you thought. Did you really believe that you were fighting me; ha, how pathetic.”

  Garen’s hand squeezed tighter, crushing the lightwielder’s throat with surprising ease. Orlon’s hands shot up and grabbed at his fingers, but the lightwielder was powerless to pry the fingers from his throat. Tighter, still, he squeezed, and watched as Orlon’s struggling became even more desperate.

  Raising a hand high over his head, Orlon formed a sword of light and swept it downward in a vicious arc. Purple lightning hissed and popped as it surrounded Garen’s left arm from fingertip to elbow in a flash. Orlon’s attack was aimed at his throat, but he didn’t feel the slightest hint of fear. With practiced ease, he swiftly raised his arm and caught the sword by the blade an inch from his face.

  “Your feeble attempts are amusing, lightwielder,” Garen stated smugly, “but you needn’t worry; I won’t let you die so easily. No, it must be much slower.”

  After a brief, final squeeze on Orlon’s throat, Garen released his enemy, and Orlon slipped from his grasp. Instead of falling to the ground as Garen had expected, Orlon dropped into a crouch and immediately launched a brutal, upward thrust with his elbow. Taken by surprise, Garen felt a sharp pain in his chest, as two of his ribs were instantly broken by the blow and he was set flying backward.

  “Your arrogance means nothing to me, demon,” Orlon said in pained breathes. “I will kill you this day!”

  “Unlikely,” Garen said rising to his feet. “We both know what really happened 200 years ago, so don’t delude yourself. Even in this disgusting form, I’m more powerful than you, human; you know this as well as I. No amount of trickery is going to save you this time, though I see it came at a price the last time. Tell me, what’s it like being blind for 200 years?”

  “I still see more than you could imagine, demon!”

  Orlon dashed forward forming a sword of light in his right hand as he rapidly closed the distance between them. Watching his approach with unwavering confidence, Garen felt his lips curve into a sly smile.

  “You’re faster than I remember, lightwielder,” he stated smugly, “but that will not save you from me.”

  Orlon’s sword slashed at Garen from his left, so Garen formed a blade of his own and raised it to block. Just before the blades would’ve collided, Orlon sword changed into a chain of light in an instant. The chain met Garen’s blade and bent around it, striking him in the ribs on his left side.

  A sharp pain surprised him and, with a groan, he looked down to see that the end of the chain had been transformed into a sickle that was buried deep in his side. Intense heat accompanied the brilliant light of the sickle, and as he watched, the flesh around it started to blacken and burn away.

  Relentless in his attack, Orlon formed a spear in his other hand and stabbed it straight at Garen’s exposed chest. With his right hand shrouded in lightning, Garen grabbed the spear and stopped it several inches from his chest. Without slowing, Orlon extended the spear tip another two feet.

  A howl of pain and rage exploded out of Garen as the spear plunged straight through him, narrowly missing both his heart and spine as it erupted from his back. Orlon released his hold on the spear and let him stagger backward slightly until the sickle-tipped-chain buried in his side pulled tight and forced him to stop. He glared at Orlon in pure hatred as the lightwielder formed yet another weapon in his right hand: a blade of light as tall as Orlon himself and as wide as his head.

  “I told you that I’ve been training for this for 200 years. I’m not the same enemy that you fought all those years ago. I am vengeance for all those that you’ve slain, and I will purify you with the light of The Goddess.”

  Orlon swept down with the sword in a perfect, lightning-fast slash aimed at his collarbone, but the demon within Garen would not accept defeat. In a blinding flash of movement that matched Orlon’s swordplay, Garen’s arm shot up and slapped the blade aside. Carried by his momentum, Orlon stepped forward to complete his sword stroke and Garen reached out and grabbed the sides of his head in both hands. Ignoring the pain of both the sickle in his ribs and the spear in his chest, Garen pulled Orlon into a vicious head-butt that resounded off the mountainside.

  Orlon staggered and nearly fell, but Garen refused to let him go. Again and again, he brought his head to bear against the lightwielder’s face. Only after the third blow, when Orlon’s face was covered in blood, did Garen release his hold on the lightwielder’s head. Lightning surged around Garen consuming the weapons of light imbedded in his body even as Orlon fell to the ground at his feet.

  “You will never defeat me, fool.” Garen spit at the fallen lightwielder as he slowly walked around him. “Tricks won’t save you this time and neither will your wretched goddess. This time you will meet the same fate as everyone else who has ever dared to challenge my might.”

  Garen stopped pacing and sneered down at his enemy. The purple lightning that surrounded his body surged into his hand and before Orlon could do anything more than raise his head, the lightning arced out from Garen’s hand and exploded against his chest in a dazzling flash of violet light.

  Garen smiled as Orlon tried desperately to protect himself with a barrier of light, but the surge of lightning proved too powerful and he was thrown against the mountainside. Without mercy, the lightning continued to stream from Garen’s hand pressing Orlon farther into the black stone. Only a feeble shield of light separated Orlon’s body from the raging torrent of demonic lightning, but the stone around him was already beginning to glow from the heat of the exchange.

  Laughing triumphantly, Garen continued pouring more of his power into the lightning causing it to explode in size and intensity. Bolts of lightning lashed out from his hand striking not only at Orlon but at the mountainside all around him. Cold, black stone turned molten in an instant and the mountainside around Orlon began to slide down over him even as he struggled to fight back against Garen’s immense power.

  “Now do you understand, lightwielder, even the very ground here wants to kill you. You will be swallowed by these stones and sealed forever in the darkness of this mountain.”