by Sean Rodden
Opened his eyes.
No night has ever been darker than was the blackness in his gaze that drear northern morn. No ice colder than the winter of his soul. No fire as hot as the wilding wrath in his heart. He clutched the shaft of his axe in his right hand; his left hand crunched into a hammer of steel. Slowly, and with deadly calm, the Darad began walking toward the gigantic fiend, gradually lengthening his stride and increasing his pace, breaking into a jog, then to a run, then finally an outright sprint. And just as he reached the demon, the great Stone Lord leapt to his right, then to his left, then right again –
Faster than mortal eyes might follow, and with force enough to pulverize city walls, Kh’arsh swung its massive mace. But all the horrid head of the weapon found was air and emptiness, void and vacuum – and the momentum of the swing brought the beast about and opened a vulnerability on its left side.
And there, flying through dust and smoke and shadow, was the Mighty One.
Otherworldly midnight metal ripped into the kuarok’s abdomen, shearing through tattered tissue and burned bone, carving past animate starfire and oblivion, hewing away a huge chunk of the beast’s being. Kh’arsh screeched and countered instantly. An iron-like spike sprang from one of its left elbows, striking for the Darad’s breast, even as a bony protuberance of one frayed wing bore down furiously upon his back. But again, Drogul was not there, and the two barbs collided against one another, clashing, crashing, splintering apart.
Drogul landed, tucked low and tight, tumbled away. The demon’s chain cracked the smoking air like a whip, anticipating the course of the Darad’s movement. But the lethal blades plunged haplessly into earth and stone as their target pushed back with one powerful leg against the direction of his roll, abruptly altering his course and driving his hulking form toward the outrageous fiend once more. Drogul’s war-axe slashed into and right through the beast’s left knee. Flame and entropy spewed forth from the breach in the beast’s existence, washing over Drogul as he dashed aside, and for a horrible moment all was stark white nothingness –
And upon that burning void Kh’arsh’s ungodly mace came down.
The world exploded, imploded, erupted, disrupted. Earth and stone vanished, fire blasted the sky. The unimaginable power of a dead sun ate a howling hole in the universe. And all things touched by that unholy discharge perished, vanished, ceased to exist.
And had he been there, Drogul would have died too.
But the Stone Lord was not there. He had leapt safely away, taking hold of the demon’s chain and tugging its blades free of the earth, swinging the thick length with impossible strength to curl like a constrictor about the beast’s right leg. The devilish head of chain bit down, savagely gnawing and tearing into amorphous demonic muscle. Drogul wrenched the chain back. Hard. Bellowing, its wings flapping desperately as it fought for balance, the kuarok teetered, twisted about, toppled. And as it fell, the great Darad’s fist slammed into the centre of its back, bright blades of inrinil bursting forth from their vambrace, sinking like so many shining swords deep into the demon’s very core.
Kh’arsh lay upon the stony ground, shuddering, its back heaving, skeletal wings outspread, plated tail lashing uselessly. From its many wounds smoke and fire and dreadful darkness oozed into the broken morning.
Drogul’s claws snicked back into their hidden sheaths as he stepped around the fallen fiend, casually moving to stand a short distance before its hideously horned head. There, he once again folded his massive arms across his broad armoured chest and rested on the haft of his steaming black war-axe.
He still looked bored.
Somewhere behind the Lord of Doomfall, in the gap that he had cleaved of the wall of wasted mortality, three black-armoured warriors astride monstrous mar-rendera shared a shocked and stunned silence – a slack-jawed aphony of raw awe. A fourth and smaller warrior stood to one side, fire-maned and bare-chested, chuckling softly to himself as a madman might do at his own indecorous joke.
“Prince Kor,” spoke Ev lin Dar, her voice quiet with wonder, admiration, “could you have matched – ”
“No.”
“No?”
“Not even close, Shield.”
“Well, then,” muttered Gren del Mor as he fastidiously inspected his cone, “I for one am rather glad we switched sides now.”
The Wild One crowed.
“That last little bit was for my friend Rundul, demon,” the Lord of Doomfall grumbled past the rusty mess of his beard. He spoke to the fiend in its own diabolical tongue, for there was not a language heard by Mother Earth that the uldwar of the Daradur did not know. “Consider it your apology.”
The kuarok glared at him, its infernal eyes crimson and baleful. Much of its body continuously morphed and mutated between corporeality and nullity, from raging fire to ruined flesh and back. And then came an abominable vociferation that could have had its sources in the hottest furnaces of Hell.
KILL ME
Drogul stared blackly, blandly. Said nothing.
IF YOU DO NOT KILL ME, FOOL, I WILL HEAL, warned Kh’arsh. And even as the demon spoke, the gashes in its existence rapidly bound themselves with shadow and flame. I CAME HERE WOUNDED AND WEAKENED. YOU TOOK ADMIRABLE ADVANTAGE OF THIS. BUT I WILL HEAL, AND I WILL RISE.
Drogul shrugged.
SHOULD I RISE, WE WILL CLASH AGAIN. AND YOU SHALL FIND ME FAR MORE FORMIDABLE. YES, FAR MORE SO. KILL ME, FOOL. KILL ME NOW.
Drogul shook his head.
WHY WILL YOU NOT KILL ME? shouted the kuarok. WHY RISK IT? YOU HAVE THROWN ME DOWN. WHY MUST YOU PERMIT ME TO RISE?
Drogul peered at the fiend, and there was a thing almost akin to pity in the pits of his eyes.
“Because, demon, I am a warrior of honour,” he said quietly, and with perilous certainty. “And it is the honourable thing to do.”
Kh’arsh pushed itself upward with the tips of its bony wings. Fire and darkness had indeed made the beast whole once more – as whole as it had ever been, considering the demon both was and was not. Black light and white shadow, dark energy and matter without mass, a fatal contradiction forged of the stuff and not-stuff of the universe. The kuarok towered over the Lord of Doomfall, devouring light and being, the hollowness of its essence consuming reality even as the very real inferno in its blazing eyes confirmed the same. But although rage and fury bled from the fiend as water from a burst dam, it made no move to assault the Stone Lord. It held its mace in one fist, the weapon’s huge head resting upon the rock at its cloven feet; its charred chain dangled slackly from the opposite wrist. It remained motionless, save for the shifting shadows and flaring flames. Even the agitated swooshing of its tail had ceased.
HONOUR, YOU SAY.
Drogul nodded.
I COULD DESTROY YOU, DARAD.
The kirun-tar’s moustaches twitched. His eyes gleamed.
“I’m more confident of the sun rising in the west, demon.”
The kuarok hissed then, and smoke and clouds of dark fire billowed from its maw. It turned its horned head northwestward. A thunder of fury rolled throughout its being.
THE SUN HAS ALREADY DONE SO, DARAD, Kh’arsh rumbled cryptically. Something like pain permeated its execrable voice. BUT IT WILL AVAIL YOU NOTHING. THIS – its left wing oscillated about to indicate the defenders of Doomfall before and the host of the Blood King behind – AND ALL OF THAT – the other wing waved in the general direction of the Seven Hills – ARE NAUGHT BUT DISTRACTIONS. SAND IN THE EYES. SLEIGHT OF HAND AND OF FIST AND OF HUNGRY IRON. AND YOU HAVE ALL BEEN SO WOEFULLY BLIND.
Drogul’s breast swelled. He grasped his war-axe in both hard hands, took a single step forward. The coals of his eyes blackened impossibly, then began to burn.
“Speak, demon,” he demanded through gritted teeth. “Tell me now.”
The kuarok cocked its head then, contemplating, considering. Steam susurrated, flame crackled, darkness moaned into the morn. Its tail swished once, twice, then fell still again.
And a moment later the w
orld was altered forever:
THE SECRET STRONGHOLD OF THE ATHAIN PRINCE IS NOT SO SECRET, DARAD. The words were a quiet roar of lightless fire. NOR IS IT SO VERY STRONG. NOR EVEN HELD. NOT ANY MORE.
Drogul stared in silent rage, his great black war-axe smoking in his fists.
NEVERTHELESS, SHOULD YOU ACT SWIFTLY, YOU MAY YET HAVE TIME TO UNDO THIS THING. I WOULD WISH YOU GOOD FORTUNE IN THIS, BUT FOR REASONS I AM DISINCLINED TO EXPRESS, I CANNOT SEEM TO BRING MYSELF TO CARE. The demon bowed its hideous head. MY DEBT TO YOU, LORD OF DOOMFALL, THIS TERRIBLE TITHE OF HONOUR, IS HEREBY PAID.
A moment of utter stillness, of pure unbroken quietude, into and from which came no sound, upon which neither light nor darkness was shed, through which passed no time.
And then –
“No! No! No! No!”
Urchin scampered back toward the terrible demon he had summoned, his cherubic face grotesquely twisted with rage, his little fists balled at his thighs, pounding rhythmically as he emphasized each individual refusal.
Slowly, the kuarok turned its hellish head toward the angry little boy. The ferocious flames of its eyes flared. Smoke and darkness issued from its gaping maw. The air tasted of sulphur and ancient death.
“Traitor! Treacher! Faithless fiend!” shrieked the Leech. His big blue eyes were bright with fury. “Apostate, I name you! Have I not suffered enough betrayal for one morning? Must I endure your cowardly infidelity as well? Must I? Must I? Must, must, mus – ”
The morning died.
The earth buckled and hove.
Darkness and fire were all.
And then the world was absolutely still once more, perfectly serene, placid, like the last fleeting unremembered moments of a dream before waking.
Great clouds of smoke and acrid ash swirled skyward from the vast crater in the rock as Kh’arsh withdrew its mace. The demon’s jawline curved into the semblance of a malformed grin, and its eye-slits blazed a satisfied crimson. Where the ancient entity called Urchin had been there was nothing but the churning memory of flame and shadow. Somewhere at the edge of awareness came the lingering resonance of an unheard scream, shrill with pain and protestation. And when the last agonized repetitive echo was done, there was silence. Pure and pristine.
Ah, such sweet beautiful silence.
Then –
I MIGHT SAY THAT A DEBT OF GRATITUDE NOW LIES WITH YOU, DARAD. BUT IN SOOTH, I DID THE DEED FOR ME. The kuarok inclined its ghastly head. YOU MAY NOW ATTEND YOUR FOLLIES.
And Kh’arsh, one of the few kuarokur to have survived the ruin of First Earth, lashed its tail, tucked its wretched wings, stepped into a gash in the fabric of the Second’s reality –
And was gone.
The Mighty One peered past the shifting haze to the army of the Blood King. Among that horrible host, competent commanders and warlords with no intention of honouring the Darad’s victory over the demon began barking orders. Horns brayed, standards flew, lines and squares and wedges tightened, readying for battle. Unmen and Urkroks. Graniants and half-Urks. Perhaps sixteen thousand of them. Indeed, the struggle for Doomfall was far from done.
Drogul strode back toward the gap in the wall of death.
“Gather the Guard, Captain,” he ordered stiffly. “We go to Allaura immediately.”
“Allaura?” The thick red brow above Dulgar’s solitary eye rose in consternation. “What the fuck, brother? There’s still a mud-fuckin’ army out there! Fuck.”
“We will go by way of the urthrudd.”
“The fuckin’ urthrudd? That could fuckin’ kill half of us!”
“Then half of us might die. But we will not leave the Lady of the Fiannar and her charges to whatever horrid fate has beset them. We have to try.” The Chieftain’s voice dropped to a low and lethal tone. “I won’t say it again, Captain. Gather the Guard.”
“Of course, kirun-tar.” Dulgar scowled, tugged at his beard. “But like I fuckin’ said, there’s still an entire mudfuckin’ army out there – who the fuck is gonna fuckin’ defend Doomfall?”
Before the Mighty One could reply –
“The Bloodspawn will hold Doomfall,”
Drogul turned, gazed up into the glowing white eyes of the Halflord. The Darad said nothing, yet his silence asked everything.
“Yes, my friend.” Kor ben Dor lowered his chin to his chest. “Go now. Go do what you must.” His voice became at once harder than steel and softer than the pale chill whisper of death. “The Bloodspawn will stand in your place.”
“They have you twenty-five to one, giant.”
“No, friend Drogul.” The Halflord rolled casually one shoulder, then the other. “Backward. We have them one to twenty-five.”
“Doomfall must hold, Prince Kor ben Dor.”
The Halflord nodded. “Doomfall will hold.”
The Mighty One stared, then nodded, dropped to one knee, placed one broad palm upon the blood-tainted rock. Waves of power instantly surged through earth and stone toward the Seven Hills. Sensing the reception of his missive, the great Darad rose once again, glanced back to the densely shrouded cleft of Doomfall, then looked at Dulgar.
“Already on their fuckin’ way, kirun-tar.”
Drogul nodded, then met the Halflord’s eyes again, black on white. He raised his war-axe in grave gratitude and salutation.
“Stone and steel, Prince Kor ben Dor!” And, “Stone and steel, brave Bloodspawn of the Fiannar!”
Grinning maniacally, pounding his chest, the Wild One echoed, “Stone and fuckin’ steel!”
And the two legendary Daradur sank swiftly and smoothly into the solid rock.
Alone for the moment, three abreast in the breach, the Prince of the Bloodspawn and the pair of Black Shields stared through the mist and smoke of the shattered morning to the tremendous mustered might of the Blood King.
No words were spoken. No words were necessary. For while some silences are golden, others are forged of unyielding steel.
At length –
“So it comes to this at last,” grumbled Gren del Mor. His sword slid from its scabbard with a saurian hiss. “I suppose that we always knew it would.”
“Or hoped that it would, at least, Gren.”
“Yes. That is true, Ev. And you know what? For the first time since the time before the pain, I’m not complaining.”
“Miracles, Gren.” The tigress snarled, grinned. The grip of Ev lin Dar’s sword felt warm and alive in her heavily callused hand. “Small miracles.”
Then, as the drumsongs of Ugharo and the Hebbingore, of Waldard and the Blackbones rolled across the grasses, rumbling in the rock, the Halflord tilted his head back, shut his eyes, inhaled deeply of the dead dawn – smelling only bitter smoke, the thin coppery reek of blood, and the sour rot of the slain. He then sighed forth one final soaring silver dragon, hefted his weapon, urged his snarling mar-render forward.
And at long last Kor ben Dor led the Bloodspawn to war.
17
THE BLOOD KING
“While the finest among us remain dedicated to war,
this world will never know peace –
for peace also requires commitment nigh upon zealotry,
courage beyond measure,
and the sacrifice of unnumbered beautiful selves.”
Musings of a drunken poet overheard
at the King’s Head, Hiridith
The thud-thud-thud of Rundul’s footfalls slackened as he approached the lake of fire. There, starkly silhouetted against an infernal panorama of flame and halflight, was the tall dark form of Eldurion. The Eldest of the Fiannar had overtaken the Darad during the dash from the bridge and now stood between two grotesque pillars of igneous rock, his long legs planted widely, his golden sword held out to one side, his grey hair and hunting cloak floated on hot winds thrown from the molten morass. The grim Fian struck the very figure of a hero of olde – one of the first Deathward, perhaps, torn from the Tome of the Teller and the tragic Tale of First Earth, taken and transported to the blackened ba
nk of that burning tarn so many miles beneath the Bloodshards.
Rundul of Axar halted at Eldurion’s right shoulder. The Darad rolled the thick haft of his war-axe in his huge hands, slowly spinning the broad deadly blades. Something like heat assailed him, flailed at him. Waves of wrongness, of corruption and abomination, assaulted his senses, scorching his eyes, scratching inside his nostrils, scalding his tongue. The Darad’s brows knotted against an alarming sensation, his black eyes squinting in bemusement, confusion.
What is this? Is this... is this what actual pain feels like?
“It hurts you, Stone Lord.” The Fian’s voice of oiled iron slid through the gurgling of the magma like a snake sidewinding on water. “I can tell.”
“No.” Rundul bared his teeth, and unholy light reflected on their enamel, making his grimace seem agonized and blood-drenched. “Not at all.”
Eldurion sniffed haughtily. “The Daradur do not lie – is that not so?”
“That is so, Fian,” growled the Captain. We don’t lie. We can’t lie. Had the shaft of his weapon not been fashioned of solid steel it would have been crushed in the ferocious grip of his fists. “Never.”
“Or is it simply that they just do not lie well?”
No, we do not lie… but, admittedly, this hurts. Rundul closed his eyes, clenched his jaws. Not me, it doesn’t hurt me, but urth ru Glir, this hurts…
Pain.
Such horrible, brutal pain. Abject agony rising in the deepest places of the self, from the very core of being, cold and hard and unforgiving. Unrelenting, unrepentant. A knife slicing and sleaving the soul. The dull blade, corroded, wretched with rust, notches catching and tearing, making a mess. Hollowing out the heart. Carving and shaping the mind into a ghastly place of suffering, of agony and utmost despair. Driving the floundering spirit down on bleeding knees to worship the pale apathetic illusions of that which had been, of that which could have been, of that which should have been. Woefully wailing for all that would never be. Pain is an altar, and before it all bow in quivering misery, waiting to be splayed upon its surface and sacrificed to some faceless god who simply does not exist – or, if she does exist, just doesn’t give a fucking shit.