by Rex Jameson
Allison buried her face into Cedric’s breastplate. He removed his gloves and stroked her dirty hair. He kissed the top of her head.
“The pyres still burn,” he said, looking at the fire that consumed Jonas the Younger. “There’s still time to honor one more hero.”
She looked up again, tears glistening in the glow of so many paladin weapons around her. She nodded.
“Yes,” she said. “He’d want that.”
“He would,” Cedric replied.
He got up and grabbed Jonas the Elder’s arm. Henry grabbed the other. Allison, Sylas and Sarah followed them as they carried the body of a former Council member to the funeral pyre of his grandson. Henry moved to Jonas’s feet as Cedric held onto his torso. They swung the body three times between them before having enough momentum to launch him onto the fire. Jonas landed awkwardly but solidly, an arm dangling down from his position atop what remained of Jonas the Younger.
“Farewell, Papa,” Allison whispered.
“Farewell, Father,” Cedric said, nodding.
“Goodbye, Papa!” Sylas and Sarah said.
The paladins each raised their weapons into the air, illuminating the entire valley beneath Xhonia.
“Farewell, Jonas the Mighty!” Cedric said. “We will tell our children and their children’s children the story of your battle with Orcus at the foot of Mount Godun! We will sing a song in your honor, and we will meet you soon in the Abyss!”
The paladins gave a hearty huzzah in unison.
“And when we meet again in that dark void,” Cedric said, “may the demons tremble, for we will give them no quarter, not even in the afterlife!”
The paladins around him nodded as they looked to the west, away from the pyres and the sealed mountain—toward the army of undead who wreaked havoc on Foxbro and marched on to Kingarth. The demons in the Abyss would have to wait. There was still work to do on Nirendia.
24
The Blood Lord
Julian Mallory rode in an open-air carriage along the stone-paved Western King’s Road just northeast of Fomsea. He and his beautiful half-sister Jayna sat in the back seat, her hand in his. Master Kraytos sat up front, next to the driver. His gallant knights followed on horseback, with Simon Casterby leading.
The suspension on the carriage wasn’t made for the speed and uneven terrain they were navigating. Julian felt every bump in the road. His teeth chattered, and his rear end chafed from all the bouncing against the thin cushion of the seat and his thin, silken pants. Still, despite the discomfort, there was no time to stop or slow down. His entire estate, newly inherited from his father, was in peril. He needed to get back to his castle. Mallory Keep’s outer wall was still breached and in need of new masonry. The inner walls also needed maintenance. For a moment, he remembered why. In his mind’s eye, he watched his father fall from the ramparts.
The Keep wasn’t completely defenseless. Hundreds of knights and thousands of archers remained, but they needed leadership. Ultimately, they also needed the fortifications rebuilt to maximize troop effectiveness. His land wouldn’t just defend itself.
“Can we go any faster?” Julian asked the driver.
“Only if you want the wheels to come off!” Kraytos said. “We’re going as fast as we can!”
Jayna leaned against Julian and then rested her head on the soft furs and cloth against his chest. Despite the severe jostling from the poor suspension, she kept her face there. She reached her arms around him. He smiled as he tried to run his fingers through her hair and rub her scalp through the extreme jolts of the carriage along the well-worn road. She squeezed him so tightly that her body hardly jumped.
“What the—?” Kraytos screamed.
Julian looked up to find a man with a long, black beard and a tattered dark robe in the middle of the highway.
“Out of the way!” the driver yelled. “High Lord Mallory! Make way!”
But the man in the road remained steadfast. He slammed a black staff into the road to signify his stubbornness.
Julian waved at him to move aside. He didn’t want to kill yet another man who found himself in the path of his carriages. But it wasn’t the man who changed course; it was the horses.
The two stallions neighed and panicked before splitting cleanly in opposite directions from their separator pole. The tug and bearing buckles snapped and leather strips became whips, flailing the driver. The driver cursed in frustration, pain and panic.
“Jayna!” Julian managed to yell as he wrapped his arms around her.
She never looked up. The pole ran into a divot in the stone-paved road, and the carriage and its contents were flipped and flung afield. Julian went airborne, and Jayna came out of his arms.
Everything happened so quickly that he didn’t get a chance to call out again. He rolled along the adjacent grass field for thirty feet, tumbling violently and painfully across packed earth, rocks and tree limbs.
Everything hurt, and he struggled to breathe. He thought he might have punctured a lung.
“Jayna!” he yelled, despite the pain in his chest. “Jayna!”
He rolled to his side and scanned for her. The man in black was walking toward him. The carriage was shattered into three large pieces. The driver lay face-down in the street. Kraytos leaned forward nearby, but his legs were twisted in a grotesque way. Julian’s master, teacher of books and swords, gaped down at his own broken body.
“Lord Julian,” he managed to say, blood coming out of his mouth and his face shaking as he struggled with what must have been intense and indescribable pain. He pointed toward a spot behind Julian before he gagged on his blood.
Julian saw her white undergarments and the dark panther furs sprawled forty paces away. He crawled toward her.
“Jayna!” Julian screamed again.
She did not move or respond. He recognized that some of the folds of white underneath her weren’t part of her beautiful dress but a large flat rock. He climbed to his feet and fell over and over again as he forced his body to locomote—each leg a broken gear off its spoke. Where his legs failed him, his hands caught the ground. Halfway to his wounded sister, a dark figure barred his path. The man in the black, tattered cloak who had caused the accident looked down at him pitilessly.
“Please!” Julian begged, pushing the man’s leg aside.
A black staff cracked him hard across the shoulder and shoved his back to the ground.
“She’s still alive!” Julian said. “Let me go!”
“Lord Mallory?” the man said. “I believe that’s what your driver called you?”
His skin was pale, and his beard and hair were dark as night. His robe looked ancient and torn, and his tunic was similarly shorn.
“Yes!” Julian said. “My sister!”
“Are you the same Mallory that the people of Perketh pledge loyalty to?” the man asked.
Julian pushed aside the staff for a moment and began to crawl again toward Jayna. The man stopped him cold, rolling Julian onto his back once more.
“Don’t worry about her,” the man said. “She’s not long for this world.”
“No!” Julian screamed.
Adrenaline pumped through his body, and he forgot his pain. He howled in rage as he threw the man’s staff head aside and pushed himself off the ground. He sprinted toward her, but a strong hand grabbed his arm.
“Let go of me!” Julian demanded.
“Listen to me, boy,” the man said, “and hear me well. I am Orcus, Lord of the Undead.”
Julian’s eyes grew wide, and he stopped struggling. He looked over the man’s shoulder at his two-dozen knights, who had caught up to the carriage and tried to catch the two spooked horses. Simon Casterby rode forward to check on Jayna.
“My Lord,” Simon said, “you must come quickly! Jayna’s hurt badly.”
“They cannot save you,” Orcus whispered. “They cannot save her. Only I can do that.”
“You said she was dying!” Julian said through gritted teeth.
&
nbsp; “Which is why I’m your only hope.”
Julian looked at his lover and despaired.
“You should kill me right now,” Julian said. “Without her, I’m a dead man already.”
“I can save her,” Orcus said, squeezing his arm.
“And make her one of your mindless minions?” Julian asked. He guffawed. “Kill me now. My life is over anyway.”
Orcus growled and released his arm. Julian watched Simon remove his sword from his scabbard. He dropped his visor and pointed at the demon lord and waited for a command. Julian shook his head. He had a feeling that swords would be just as ineffective against this creature as they had been against the undead.
Besides, Jayna was dead. He didn’t see the point. Moments ago, she had been in his arms. Not two minutes ago, his fingers were running through her hair, and her arms were around him.
“My Lord?” Simon asked.
“I came across some of your subjects today,” Orcus said. “The people in Perketh resisted me. When I told them who I was, they defied me—much like you’re doing right now. On other worlds, such defiance hasn’t happened. I put the people down, and they turned and served, just as any other living creature might. But these creatures here, in Perketh, they defy me still. Alive, they served you. Undead, they serve you still. I’m intrigued… and that’s what’s keeping you alive.”
“My Lord?” Simon repeated again, looking for orders.
“My opponent Mekadesh,” Orcus continued, “another demon lord, has changed the rules of the game on me. She has regained some of her strength. She has named a champion—a man, much like you I feel. Defiant… I can feel him gaining power and becoming a leader of her people. I have a proposition for you. I can make you different from others. Your bride, too.”
“We’re not married,” Julian said mournfully as his eyes watered.
Orcus motioned for Julian to join him for a walk. Julian looked past the demon lord at his faithful servant Kraytos, who writhed in pain as two knights dismounted and began making a litter for him. Others tried to right and piece together the carriage, but a wheel had broken from the axle. The knights soon gave up on the task.
Orcus kept a slow and hobbled gait, leaning into his staff. Julian realized that the demon lord might be pretending to be disabled to make his knights less suspicious. His men moved on to the unresponsive driver. Others rode over to check on his sister on the rock. Julian growled in frustration at being forced to listen to this demon lord’s rambling instead of tending to his sister’s last moments.
“When I was born,” Orcus said, “I became a lord of many things. My subjects were a bit different than yours, I’m sure. Corpses responded to me whenever I came near. They followed me around before I even knew what death was. But they were not the only things I commanded.”
The adrenaline in Julian’s body started to peter out. The aches returned. He couldn’t walk normally. He noticed his gait and Orcus’ were not so different. Perhaps the demon lord was just mimicking him to put him more at ease.
“I found that I could create a number of things,” Orcus said. “Some were small: diseases and pestilence. I exhaled and the very air responded to me, mutating and morphing to my presence. It took some time and practice to perfect that art. I killed quite by accident. I spoiled food and infected creatures that I cared for. But I practiced all of that too. I became a master of arts not performed anywhere else. I pushed the boundaries of what I and my subjects could do.”
“What does that have to do with me?” Julian asked.
“Mekadesh, the creature you call The Holy One, has created a powerful being,” he said, “a creature much like my brother Demogorgon and I have fought before. We killed her general once. We can kill it again. I’d like for you and your sister to be its doom.”
“I’m not going to be one of your undead,” Julian said.
Orcus laughed. “If I wanted you to be one of my undead, you’d be one. Would you like me to prove it to you with your lover?”
Orcus turned quickly toward Jayna and raised his black, goat-headed staff at her.
“No!” Julian said, pushing the staff back down.
Orcus grunted and resumed his walk. Julian rejoined him.
“What do you want?” Julian asked.
“I want what you want,” Orcus said. “I want to give you the power to protect your people. I want you to be imbued with more strength, more speed, and more power than any man you will ever face. I want your future wife to return to you, stronger than ever. I want you to stand over the Necromancer with your boot on his throat.”
“The Necromancer?” Julian asked.
He remembered his father falling from the Keep. He saw the demon cheering triumphantly beside Janus’ lifeless body. The demon lord’s words struck a chord. Julian wanted more than just the return of his sister. He wanted his father’s murderer—the one who ultimately unleashed the demon.
“What does the Necromancer have to do with this?” Julian asked.
“The Holy One has chosen him to lead her armies,” Orcus said. “She has imbued him with immense power. I fear she will augment him further. To combat her and the Necromancer, I will give you and your betrothed a dark gift.”
“What are you offering me?”
“You will not die of old age,” Orcus said, still hobbling with Julian, “and neither will your sister. Your wounds will heal as fast as they appear. You will be faster than an arrow. Your enemies will fall before you like wheat to a scythe.”
“And what is this gift going to cost me?”
“Does it matter?” Orcus asked. “Is there any price you wouldn’t pay to get Jayna back? To avenge your father?”
Julian turned to look at Jayna again. Simon followed behind Julian and the demon lord on his horse, just out of earshot but close enough to charge within seconds.
“Would you give this dark gift to others?” Julian asked.
“No,” Orcus said. “This is not a power I bestow lightly.”
“What about my men?” Julian asked.
Orcus smiled to himself as he continued to limp sympathetically beside Julian.
“What about your men?” Orcus asked a few seconds later.
“I want them to live. I want them to serve me.”
Orcus laughed. “Yes. Of course. I will not harm them. If they die, it will not be by my hand. I leave their fates to you. While they live, they are yours. When they die, they are mine—as with all dead things.”
Julian nodded to Simon, signaling that everything was ok. Simon circled around and trotted his horse back to the men.
“OK,” Julian said, speaking more to himself than Orcus. “While they live, they are mine. When they are dead, they are yours.”
“Agreed,” Orcus said.
“What else?” Julian asked.
“You’ll be changed,” Orcus said. “You’ll be more feral. You’ll always be hungry, and you’ll need to eat constantly. Your regeneration will depend on it. Your speed and power will increase and replenish as you feed. The more you consume, the stronger and faster you will become.”
Julian shrugged. These costs didn’t seem too bad. He was a High Lord, after all, and food had always been plentiful in the south. Besides, what Surdel could not provide, he could always import from abroad through Fomsea.
“I can live with that,” Julian said.
Orcus grinned slightly. “Our time is running short. Your sister is nearing the point where she will rise of her own accord into undeath—another minion in my army. Like you, I want her by your side, but I cannot make your decision for you. Do you accept my dark gift? Do you want to save her?”
Julian stared at her for a few moments but not too long.
“Yes,” Julian said.
“In exchange for bringing Jayna back,” Orcus said, “do you agree to fight by my side? Will you use my dark gift against my enemies?”
Julian exhaled. He didn’t know if he really had a choice. Orcus had already threatened to kill him and raise
his sister as an undead fiend. If Julian said no, he knew the demon lord would follow through. If he said yes, he knew Orcus would revive her. His father had always taught him to negotiate strongly and never accept an initial deal, but these were the only options on the table.
“I accept your gift,” Julian said. “If you return my sister to me as you have promised, I will fight by your side. I will lead my people against your enemies. I will serve you.”
Orcus smiled widely. “Good.”
“Good,” Julian agreed. “It’s done?”
“It’s done,” Orcus said.
Julian turned to walk back toward Jayna. He waved at Simon, who returned the gesture from horseback.
And then he felt a pressure against his throat that buckled his knees and forced him to the ground. He tried to turn his head, but a hand pushed against his jaw. The Lord of the Undead was biting his neck.
“What are you doing?!” Julian screamed. “Stop!”
Simon charged on his gray mount.
“Wait!” Julian said. “Wait!”
He tried to push Orcus away, but he did nothing but paw at the air. Orcus had already left him.
Orcus dropped his staff and side-stepped Simon’s charge. He ran his shoulder into the horse and toppled it like it was a house of playing cards. Simon tumbled aside and retrieved his sword from the ground. He held it at the ready, advancing on Orcus.
“You must feed,” Orcus told Julian.
Julian’s muscles contracted and pain wracked his entire body. His bones hurt. His teeth became sensitive, and his canines grew a half-inch longer. He grunted as his bones became more elastic and his muscles tightened further. He wanted to rip his skin off from the pain.
“My Lord!” Simon said. “Are you OK?”
Julian felt at his neck, expecting to find teeth marks but there was only a raw area of skin. He felt himself healing—repairing the damage from the carriage crash. The smells around him became different. He could smell Simon’s body odor from twenty paces away. One of the runaway carriage horses defecated as it ran into a far-away tree line. He noticed aphids hiding under blades of grass. He smelled the underlying death and decay of Orcus, like a corpse freshly unearthed. The sunlight pounded down on Julian like he had a migraine. Every sense was overwhelmed.