The Dark Paladin Read online

  Jayden shook his head. “They smell older… they smell like Ul Tyrion… Phiol…”

  In the darkness of the thick forest, green orbs popped up amongst the trees in the distance.

  Jayden squeezed on the handle of the black whip, and it lit up in fiery red and orange. It singed the ground as it slithered like a snake. It coiled and tittered amongst the grass and weeds like a great serpent of flaming death.

  “What’s that?” Cedric asked.

  “Aikanaro,” Jayden said. “Draw your hammer. These are not Ashton’s creatures. These are the damned.”

  “Lord Orcus?” Cedric asked as he dropped his glowing spear to the ground at Jayden’s feet and unfastened his hammer.

  The hammer glowed white and hot, illuminating all in its Light. Undead forest creatures scattered in the bushes, and Cedric pursued. He smashed through the skull of a struggling long-dead deer, and then trampled small furry creatures as they scampered in front of him. A foul-smelling man clawed at his horse’s armored face and received a thundering blow from Cedric’s war hammer that snapped and collapsed the undead’s neck and shoulders.

  Cedric circled around to charge back toward his companion, who was now far in the distance, a red searing whip making arcs of death through bushes and even felling trees and lighting them afire.

  A putrid panther and bear were circling Jayden, leaping behind trees and dodging the whip-like weapon. Cedric charged at the panther, which sidestepped his horse and clawed at the light armor plating along his mount’s neck. Cedric realized the futility of trying to catch a cat on horseback, even an undead panther that was obviously hobbled a bit by the state of its body.

  He drew in his reins, dropped from his horse and led the panicking animal back to Jayden, who had scored the eight-foot bear with multiple lacerations across its chest. Its fur was on fire, and it howled in frustration and anger.

  The panther followed as Cedric patted his horse on the rear, sending it on a short gallop toward Jayden. It neighed nearby, safely out of reach of Aikanaro. The cat snarled and hissed as Cedric retrieved his glowing spear and dropped his hammer. With an opponent this fast and agile, the long spear gave him more comfort than the heavy weight and four-foot reach of the hammer.

  “Are you OK?” Cedric asked.

  Around Jayden were eight or nine smoldering carcasses. The dark elf violently flicked his wrist and another lash bit into the large bear with a satisfying, loud crack and pop.

  Jayden grunted. “Did you have a nice stroll through the woods?”

  “I came back,” Cedric said, sighing as he set his feet and positioned himself so his back was protected by Jayden and his magical whip.

  The panther leapt and Cedric rewarded it with a sharp stab to its shoulder. It screeched and rolled away, cowering behind a large boulder and then peering from behind a tree.

  “Coward!” Cedric shouted.

  “It’s just a beast,” Jayden said. “Not a man.”

  “Stop playing with your cub and help me pin this thing down,” Cedric complained.

  He looked back in time to catch Jayden sprinting toward the bear, which charged. The fiery whip trailed along the ground for a moment, burning a black path through brush, dead wood and ferns. Then it was alive again, crackling through the air and encircling the bear’s throat. Cedric gasped as the bear reared on its hind legs and instinctively grabbed onto the searing line. Its paws burst into flames and it howled even louder and more panicked in its pain.

  The elven prince slid under and between the large bear’s legs. Cedric watched in a mixture of shock and awe as the fiery line melted through the bear’s fur. Even from here, Cedric could smell the foulness of its burning, putrid insides.

  The bear crumpled to the ground, twitching. Jayden smiled as he returned.

  “You were saying?”

  Cedric turned and found the cat had regained some of its courage as the paladin’s attention had been elsewhere. He readied his spear, and the panther panicked. It leapt again, this time from much closer. Cedric shouted defiantly as he put his foot against the bottom of the shaft, securing it into the ground.

  The panther’s gums parted and white fangs protruded into the grim darkness of the forest. The spearhead pierced the creature’s sternum, and Cedric put all of his weight and muscle into holding the spear upward so it would not break free and glance. He did not want the creature on top of him in its death throes.

  The panther flailed against the holy spear, searing its insides as its struggles slid it toward Cedric along the seven-foot shaft. By the time it reached its final position, some three paces from Cedric, it was thoroughly skewered through the torso and writhing no more. Cedric sighed in relief, rolled from under it, put his plated foot against the shoulder of the animal and after much effort, pulled his spear free.

  He felt a strange presence beside him and wheeled on it with his glowing, greasy spear at the ready. There was nothing there.

  “Champions,” a woman’s voice said, and his legs began to tremble.

  He looked at Jayden, whose eyes were wide. He too knew the voice.

  “Ride with haste to Xhonia,” the woman said. “Orcus has broken free. Your family is in danger. Your people are in danger.”

  “Allison!” Cedric said as he scrambled toward his horse.

  He leaned his spear against his faithful horse Isilme. He grabbed his war hammer and quickly fumbled with the leather fastenings along his back.

  “I’ll come with you,” Jayden said.

  “My thanks, Prince Jayden!” Cedric said.

  He mounted his white horse and tucked the long spear beneath his armpit. Wordlessly, he wheeled his horse toward the northeast. He knew these woods well. His wife Allison and his young children Sylas, Jonas, and Sarah were not more than ten miles away, along the base of Mount Godun, taking care of his hobbled father-in-law Jonas Shelby. Allison was a strong woman, one of the most aggressive and mightiest paladins in the Order. Still, anyone could be surprised, as he and Jayden almost had been in these forests that he had known since childhood.

  He dug his spurs into Isilme’s flanks, and the charger reared, pawing its hooves in the air. When it came down, mud and grass flung into the air. Hooves hammered into the earth as the beast snorted furiously and took off like an arrow. Cedric kept his visor down as he crouched in the saddle, daring any undead thing to wander into his path. Allison would not fall like his father did, not on Cedric’s watch.

  17

  Orcus Redirects

  Orcus emerged on top of a small hill a few hundred paces south of Foxbro. Hundreds of undead stared at him with unblinking, fiery green eyes. His long, perfectly-straight black beard swayed in the breeze, tickling the tattered, coal-colored robe that he had swiped from the frozen tomb of the dark elves at Xhonia. He closed his eyes, feeling outward toward Foxbro for the weaknesses in the town. Not the wooden walls. Inside the town, under the ground.

  He found three cemeteries. One of them was older, filled with bones that had no tendons or ligaments. No flesh. It might be possible to infuse them with something remote—a demon who might wear them as a coat. However, a demon under Demogorgon’s control would have just run rampant through his ranks, causing far more problems than the risk was worth. No, he needed a fresher grave. Something that could be more easily controlled.

  The southern part of the town had the shallowest graves, only a couple of feet down and without any kind of wooden boxes holding them. This was a poorer section of Foxbro. He found a dozen rotting bodies. Then a dozen more. He felt their fingers twitch and claw toward the surface. He could smell them through the ground, all of their pus and gore. He felt their claustrophobia and the pressure of the earth against them. He exulted with them as they emerged from the ground. Their brains had gelled and decayed to the point that only the most basic of functions remained. Unquestioning loyalty. Undeniably feral. Deadly, docile and hungry. Just the way he liked them.

  A patrolling guard was the first to be disemboweled, only a f
ew feet from the cemetery. The freshly undead swarmed the body, ripping out his throat first so his screams only came out as sputters and gasps. The poor thing writhed on the cobble streets for half a minute before his eyes glazed over. Orcus turned him quickly to his own side with a dark threat—serve or fall into the Abyss. He felt the man’s consciousness fall away to the back of his mind, and then there was only the swarm.

  A woman. A small child—always a delight because they were far more pitiful, merciless and easier to slip through defenses. An enemy often perceived them as poor, decrepit and in need of aid, whereas a hobbling adult was often seen as a loitering nuisance and suspicious. They came upon three men playing dice in an alley. Then two women washing clothes in an open well.

  He found the more affluent graves in the northwest of town and quickly turned them. He focused on the ones in open-air mausoleums, where the undead could break chains and slip out into the night. These dug open the other graves with their hands, lifting the coffin lids of any still putrid corpses. A few of them had stubborn owners. Most were simply vacant, willing hosts to his parasitic mind.

  He had almost a hundred ravenous fiends in the town now. The first real alarms went up. Fires lit along the walls. Archers rained down arrows on the surprise host within the walls, but someone had told them about what killed the undead. They knew about fire. That was surprising. Most worlds tried to fight hand-to-hand first.

  A struggle behind him broke his concentration. He looked back to find two of his minions holding a human.

  “What is the meaning of this?” Orcus demanded. “Just kill him.”

  The minions looked at each other but held the squirming man firmly in their rotting arms. Orcus started to say something else, but he faltered at the smell of the man. The thing was clean and reeked of strong flowers and soaps, but underneath that was something far more familiar. Death. Fresh, sweet death.

  “Why do you fight against my people?” Orcus asked.

  “I will resist anyone who attacks my town!” the man said.

  “Your town?” Orcus asked, puzzled. “Foxbro?”

  “No,” the man said, staring at his left captor like he might still try to kill him. “These cretins took me from Perketh.”

  “South,” Orcus mumbled, feeling the minions gaze toward where they had grabbed this creature. “And what lord do you serve?”

  “I serve my people!” the man said. “Lord Mallory is not my master!”

  “So, Lord Mallory brought you into being,” Orcus said, “but you deny him his rightful claim. How interesting… What do I call you?”

  The man was silent. Orcus’ two minions punched him in the face and sides until he finally coughed and told them to stop.

  “My name is Seth,” he said. “I am the Mayor of Perketh. My people will pay you whatever you want.”

  “Pay me?” Orcus asked. “Whatever would you pay me?”

  “Weapons,” Seth said. “Armor. Food. Our town has artisans. Craftsmen. One of the best smiths this side of the Small Sea.”

  “The Small Sea…” Orcus said, closing his eyes again.

  Some of his minions had ventured far south, but none so far as a sea. He dreamt of salt and sails. He could get used to freedom again.

  “You will tell your people that I am their master now,” Orcus said. “Where they served this Lord Mallory or Mayor Seth, they will now serve me.”

  “Or else what?” Seth demanded.

  “Or else I will fling you into the Abyss,” Orcus retorted indignantly. “Who do you think you are?”

  “I’m a free man,” Seth said, “democratically elected by a free people. They’ll never serve you. I’ll never serve you.”

  Orcus ground his molars together. “This is most vexing.”

  He turned toward one of the captors. “And the whole town is like this?”

  The slimy-skinned corpse nodded. “A few hundred, I think. We came upon it early in the day. They have crude weapons and fire. Strong though. Fresh bodies. Some are even healing, it seems.”

  “We will resist you to our last breath!” Seth declared.

  “Will you?”

  A dark anger boiled inside of Orcus. A snarl formed on his lips that almost turned into a growl. He slowly and menacingly stepped between a minion and Seth and bent low so that his eyes were only a couple paces from his prisoner’s.

  “Fine,” Orcus said. “Then, I’ll take that too.”

  Orcus pressed his lips against Seth’s and inhaled. Seth’s skin darkened, and Orcus felt the undead man’s veins and organs pop at the pressure. Seth gasped and spewed blackness, and then he struggled between his captors no more. They dropped him to the ground like a sack of potatoes.

  “A whole town?” Orcus asked.

  The minions nodded.

  “Who else resists us?”

  “There’s another larger town of undead to the southeast,” the minion said. “Dona, they call it.”

  “Another town?” Orcus asked in disbelief. “More? Whose creatures are these?”

  “And then there are the light warriors,” the minion said.

  “The light warriors…” Orcus said sourly. “Mekadesh… what are you up to?”

  “We avoid them for now,” the minion said, “but they kill us by the dozens.”

  “You avoid them?”

  “They wield the Light,” the minion said. “It scorches us. We swarm, and they fight us off. The weapons sear.”

  “How many have you killed?” Orcus asked. “How many are left?”

  The minions looked at each other uncomfortably. “None,” the more talkative minion said, “We know of none. They attack us mercilessly. They wear thick armor. We move toward the towns like you told us to. We kill the weak. We absorb their ranks.”

  “Where are they?” Orcus asked, searching out with his feelings, gauging the fears of his vastly spread horde. He felt an answer before his minions replied. Close by. Outside Xhonia where he had emerged but to the east.

  “Never mind,” he said.

  He turned briefly toward Foxbro and the chaos of undead fighting men within the wooden town walls. Fires were spreading. He couldn’t tell if he was winning or losing. Panic and confusion spread within the town. It felt like winning.

  He walked toward the southeast.

  “My Lord?” the minion asked. “Where are you going?”

  “To snuff out the Light,” he called back. “This town is filled with common men and to the south are just undead. I’m needed to the east.”

  “Do you need us to come with you?”

  “No,” Orcus said.

  “Won’t you need your army?”

  “I’m the Lord of the Undead,” Orcus said, “and this world is filled with corpses. My army is everywhere.”

  18

  A Paladin’s Last Stand

  Allison Arrington, the wife of lead paladin Cedric Arrington and a warrior of Light herself, shook her father in his bed in their shared home at the base of Mount Godun, just west of Xhonia. Outside of the house, all manner of undead creatures scurried across the porch and ran into the log exterior. At times, the cacophony of so many animals hitting the solid walls was deafening. Multiple birds slammed into the thick windows. Something large slammed into the front door again and again. Medium-sized critters climbed the walls and then onto the roof.

  Through it all, Jonas Shelby slept. Since his stroke following her initiation, waking him over the years had been difficult. In any other situation, she might have let him sleep, but she needed him mobile. Whether to fight or flee, she couldn’t leave her father in his bed.

  Her eldest son Sylas, named after her husband’s famous father, was sixteen. He dressed himself and his brother and sister in the western side of the house. Jonas Arrington, her middle child at fifteen years of age, had been named after her father, the man she kept trying to rouse. Allison’s youngest was Sarah. Though each had been trained in hand-to-hand fighting, as all paladin children were, Allison knew they weren’t ready for this
kind of battle. She wasn’t even sure she was prepared, and she had taken the oath and received and trained with her Light-filled swords The Twin Sisters.

  Her father might add another blessed hand, if he would just wake up.

  “Mom,” her eldest son Sylas said from the doorway. “They’re dressed in their war leathers.”

  “Both Jonas and Sarah?” she demanded in that motherly tone that clearly expressed doubt.

  Sylas nodded. He winced every time a new creature thudded against the window above Jonas Shelby. She turned briefly to look Sylas over. He was handsomely fitted into the initiation armor set that Cedric had commissioned for him. The paladin ceremony wouldn’t be for another two years, when Sylas came of age.

  Jonas was only a year younger. Cedric and Allison hadn’t been able to afford his set of armor yet. Besides the cost, she thought there would be more time. For now, her son Jonas the Younger would have to wear his leathers. Sarah idolized her brothers and mother and swore she would be the second female paladin after her mother. Allison tried to dissuade her, but the oath she had made seventeen years ago forbid her from expressing it directly. All she could do was name off the many professions, voyages or marriages Sarah might have done instead.

  And all Sarah did was fight her on it, just like Allison had done seventeen years ago with the man sleeping through the end of the world.

  “Make sure your straps are tightened,” Allison told Sylas, “and make sure your brother and sister are absolutely secured and ready to go. This isn’t a game, Sylas. We don’t get prizes for going through the motions. This is life and death. Make sure your brother and sister are ready. Their lives depend on it.”

  “I know, mom!” Sylas said defensively.

  “Papa,” Allison said, shaking Jonas the Elder again. “Papa, you have to get up. We have to leave.”

  “Mom,” Sylas said, pushing a straggling blond hair back into his shiny metal helmet. “I’ll take care of Grandpa. You have to get your own armor on.”