The Dark Paladin Page 4

  Her pose was confident, poised, and antagonistic. She scanned the room for anyone who might dare challenge her. No one stepped forward. Jonas hung limply in the other Council members’ hands.

  “Not all demons are your enemies,” she said. “Your weapons will falter against my agents, the durun. Your hands will quiver and shake if you ever raise your fists against me or my people. You have taken an oath, and this pact follows you to the deaths of you and your children. Do you understand?”

  Cedric struggled to understand, to come to terms, with the pact he had made. He had promised his dying father that he would rid the world of demons, and yet, his father and now he had pledged service to one. He looked at Allison, but she too was at a loss for words, for once.

  “We understand,” Allison said finally.

  Cedric didn’t say anything. He stared at the woman who had volunteered. Her strength gave him something bordering on resolve or maybe surrender. He grimly set his jaw and looked up at the demon lord he had vowed to serve.

  “Good,” Mekadesh said, “then let’s get to work.”

  4

  Thieves in the Night

  Seventeen years later, Cedric sat in a bar called The Sleeping Pony, running his fingers along the golden emblem of the Holy One rising from the ground on his painted-black breastplate. His wife had helped him paint the armor with egg yolks and charcoal. Every time he came home to the foot of Mount Godun, she helped him cover the scratches and scars of claws, fangs, and swords against the metal that shielded his organs and kept him coming back to her and his children. Metal that stopped his death so he might serve a demon lord in killing the fiery creatures serving other demon lords.

  He groaned and grumbled at the torturous revelation he had lived with every day since his initiation. Even nearly two decades later, he still felt like an idiot.

  The dark elven prince Jayden had just told the necromancer Ashton much of the truth of Nirendia and about the fight between the demon lords. Cedric had remained quiet due to his oath and obligations toward his own soul and that of all future family members he would ever sire. The Holy One had made him promise fealty. She had taken his soul, and she had followed through on her promises before. Every paladin knew about the vengeance she had exacted on Henry Sheridan after Xhonia. Henry had been summoned by the King after the paladin betrayal of the dark elves, and he had felt honor bound to reveal the pact.

  Henry, the leader of the paladins at the time, found his family of seven dead in his house, just before the King evicted all paladins from their lands. He went to his wife’s family and found them dead in their homes. As the legend went, this gruesome chain of discovery continued on for every distant relative he searched out. After two years, Henry took his own life, and the Holy One tossed him into the Abyss. That’s a story told amongst the paladins, nearly 500 years later, to drive home the point of fealty and duty to their demon lord Mekadesh.

  He had at least told Ashton that she was after his soul. He had taken some small, dangerous step forward. He hoped it wouldn’t provoke her—that she would overlook it as a leading, vague fact. The paladin oath was a constant source of fear, shame, and a shadow hanging over the people he loved most. His armor wasn’t the only dark thing about him. He wanted to look as dark as he felt, as dark as he was. There was no salvation for a man who served a demon lord.

  He watched the blond-haired Ashton run past him, smiling and joyous, heading toward the front door of the pub. Cedric envied him. Ashton too had run-ins with demons, but his soul remained untarnished. He had accidentally raised a demon into the body of his father, and that demon had killed good, highborn people. But Ashton hadn’t sold his soul to a demon lord. He had a chance to make things right. Cedric desperately hoped that one day, he’d have the chance to prove the King and the royal family wrong. He could be a good man, despite his oath to a demon lord.

  Ashton slammed the front door closed and yelled an apology. Cedric could hear it, faintly over the roar of the drinking and fighting men.

  Soon, the door slammed again, and an extremely drunk man began gyrating and waving his hands until shushes and commands to shut up reached the bar. Cedric felt an eerie premonition.

  “Oy!” the tipsy man screamed. He repeated until the bar quieted enough for others to hear him. “Oy! Oy! Oy!”

  “Someone’s being snatched!” the man said. “A muscular bloke is fighting ‘em off. I think it’s some of those red bastards!”

  “The Red Army?” Cedric yelled.

  The man nodded emphatically before leaning against a wall and retching.

  “Let’s get the cretins!” someone else yelled.

  People began filing out of the bar screaming varied threats and encouragements.

  Cedric slammed his close helm on, hoisted his hammer from the floor and into the sheath and fastening strap on his back. He looked for the dark elven prince Jayden. The prince was dressed in his leather armors and brown cloak, as well as his ornate, ancient white-handled, blue-and-red knives. He met Cedric’s eyes with a nod and a head jerk toward the door.

  Cedric forgot his cursed oath and depression. He leapt from his stool at the bar next to Harold, the bartender and owner of The Sleeping Pony. Harold cursed something about his tab increasing, but Cedric paid no attention.

  He shouldered his way through a crowd of drunks just in time to see a horse galloping through the encircling men into the darkness of the night with a rope pulling a heavy body behind it. The brown cloak told Cedric everything he needed to know. It wasn’t Clayton being dragged away. It was Ashton.

  Sure enough, Clayton stumbled far behind after his friend. A second man was being mobbed by some of the bar patrons. This man had a bushy, grayed beard, and his face was clearly visible. However, it wasn’t until he saw the perfect swing of a trained cavalryman, that Cedric recognized him.

  Lord General Godfrey Ross used the flat side of his blade to hurt and not maim his attackers. His warhorse barged through a line of three men, and they smartly dodged the oncoming charge despite their deep inebriation. Clayton made a clumsy grab at Lord Ross, but he missed.

  “Are you going to stop him?” Cedric asked Jayden as he caught up.

  “Are you?” Jayden answered.

  Jayden’s wide eyes told Cedric that he too recognized the man.

  “Our party’s getting famous,” Cedric said.

  “It’s probably the wanted posters for Ashton,” Jayden replied. “Big reward.”

  “One of them was posted by Lord General Ross,” Cedric replied.

  “Damn it,” one of the men nearby said. “You mean that lanky fellow might have been our meal ticket? The one who just got away?”

  Cedric jogged to the side of The Sleeping Pony where all of their horses were still tethered. Ashton’s gray gelding neighed and fidgeted.

  “The horse will be fine if left here,” Cedric said. “Harold will put the stabling on my tab.”

  “I’m not worried about the horse,” Jayden said as he gracefully leapt atop his simple saddle. “I’m worried about what we’re planning to do once we catch up to them. Am I killing a Lord General?”

  Cedric grunted an acknowledgment of the impossibility of their situation. He untied his reins and those of his elven companion. He then heaved himself and his heavy plate armor onto his beautiful white mare Isilme. He removed his spear from its harness, raised its point to allow him to tuck the shaft under his arm for a comfortable gallop hold, and then bent low so his face was alongside his horse’s.

  “I’m going to need you to hurry tonight, girl,” he whispered to her.

  He turned the horse by the bit, pointed her toward the fresh trail of Ashton’s dragged body, and dug his metal heels into her flanks.

  “Heeya!” He screamed into the night before Isilme accelerated to full gallop.

  5

  The First Offer

  The bouncing and skidding across dirt and grass lasted for thirty minutes and stopped halfway between Hell’s Edge and Corinth. Thankfully,
the ground his captor had covered was without rocks and the folds of his robe had cushioned the impacts somewhat. Still, Ashton’s bruised body hurt all over. As he had screamed for help, he remembered how his best friend Clayton had been dragged to death underneath a horse carriage in Perketh. When the painful galloping part of the ride ended, Ashton half-expected to be dead.

  Every inch of his arms and legs were scraped from flailing around outside of his cloak. His main injuries appeared to be wool burns on any piece of exposed skin. Blood was minor. He tried to sit up on his cloak as the horse trotted into the darkness.

  “Is this about the reward?” Ashton yelled. “You think I’m the Necromancer?”

  “I know you’re the Necromancer,” the man said as he urged the horse forward into a nearby grove of trees.

  Ashton saw large black shapes on the ground ahead and thought they might be sharp rocks.

  “Wait!” he pleaded, “At least go around—”

  But the man pulled at his reins and the horse halted. He dropped down and led his beast by the bit toward the dark lumps on the ground. Ashton rolled to his stomach and slowly pushed himself to his feet. He hunched over from the pain in his back and sides.

  “Are you taking me to be hanged?” Ashton asked.

  “Shut up!” the man said.

  “If you really think I’m the Necromancer,” Ashton said, “then you should know that these forests are probably teeming with undead men from the battle at Mallory Keep. If we stay here, then you’re likely to be ripped apart.”

  The man chuckled and paced around Ashton on his black horse.

  “I was at Mallory Keep,” the man said, picking up one of the large black shapes and unbundling it.

  Ashton heard the tell-tale sounds of armor plates clanking against each other.

  “So, you’re one of the knights?” Ashton asked. “One of the King’s Guard?”

  “No,” the man said, “and I told you to shut up.”

  “But the undead—”

  “The undead went back to Dona and Perketh,” the man said. “You’re many miles from your reinforcements.”

  Ashton kicked at the earth a bit and nodded. “Well, I guess that’s a good thing.”

  “Good thing?” the man asked.

  “I’m glad they’re back home,” Ashton said. “They’ve been through enough.”

  The man looked at Ashton queerly. “You’re strange.”

  The sound of horse hooves approached hard and fast. Ashton’s captor drew a sword. He seemed competent in wielding it as he moved between Ashton and the approacher.

  Ashton felt his heart race. He hoped it was Cedric or Jayden. He hoped he might be rescued.

  “Who goes there?” his captor hailed.

  “You know who I am, Vossen,” the man on the trotting mount said.

  “We’re using our own names now?” his captor Vossen said.

  “He has an outstanding warrant for his arrest and an execution order signed by the King himself,” the other man said. “Who would care? You’re more likely to be labeled a hero than anything else.”

  “So, you’re going to kill me then?” Ashton asked.

  “Executions are beneath me,” the older man with the gray in his beard said. “I’m bringing you to Kingarth.”

  “To have me stand trial for raising the undead?” Ashton asked.

  “More like for killing the crown prince,” the man named Vossen said.

  “Did you do it?” the older man asked.

  Ashton closed his eyes and put his head in his trembling hands. He had hoped against hope that the dark paladin and elven prince had caught up to him. His captor had been reinforced instead.

  He thought of Mallory Keep and the demon smashing fiery fists through the walls. In his mind’s eye, he saw Lord Mallory falling to his death from the top of the towers, a hundred feet up. He heard the sickening thud of his impact on the ground.

  “I summoned the undead and the creature,” Ashton said finally. “I don’t know how I did it, but it was me. I’m guilty.”

  “Good,” the older man said. “Very good.”

  “Good?” Ashton asked.

  “I’m going to need you to raise someone again,” the older man said as he jumped from his horse, unbundled the other stack of armor on the ground and put on a well-polished set of steel that glinted and shone in the moonlight.

  “Jeremy,” the older man said to the man named Vossen, “secure this man to your horse while I get dressed in something more appropriate.”

  One piece of the puzzle clicked into Ashton’s head. Jeremy Vossen was a name Ashton actually knew. A young lord from the west, and more than that: a tournament champion. If a tournament champion and lord was squiring for someone else, this older man must be even more famous and powerful.

  “Do you want me to drag you to the capital?” Jeremy asked Ashton. “Or are you going to behave?”

  “I’ll behave,” Ashton promised, shaking and brushing the layer of dirt from his brown cloak.

  Jeremy unhitched Ashton’s lasso from the horse and whistled sharply. A third horse joined them from the trees. Jeremy unwound the lasso knot and bound Ashton’s hands together using a series of square knots. He then held the ends of the rope together as he remounted.

  Jeremy motioned toward the rope, and Ashton realized that his captor’s trust in him was about as short as the rope length between them. Ashton nodded that he understood. He needed to keep the horse moving and close behind Jeremy, or he might be pulled off and dragged. The only thing he still didn’t know was the name of the older lord who was running the show.

  It was in Corinth that Ashton realized just how famous his escorts really were. The horses slowed down to a trot, and the three men carefully guided their horses through the packed crowd in the town square.

  The roofs were all thatch here. No tiles. The roads were dirt. There was an odd fascination with ravens. Within a matter of blocks, Ashton counted a dozen raven totems. Some of them were even made of metal and staked beside front doors. A child had decorated one with a bright green hat, making the wooden bird look like one of those colorful creatures from Visanth that the merchants in Fomsea tried to sell for seven-months-worth of honest pay. Ashton wondered if these quirky people burned necromancers in Corinth too. In his self-loathing, he wondered if the people might have brought ravens to scare away the undead and anyone dumb enough to raise them.

  Corinth was too close to the orc front to be truly prosperous. The Fomsea merchants would never think about traveling here in person. Orc raids were not common, but they happened often enough that the sellers knew to avoid the town unless the goods from Fomsea just couldn’t sell there or in safer areas toward the heart of the kingdom.

  These two men, Ashton’s captors, were well known in this town. No one commented on Ashton’s ropes. No one paid attention to him, which was a bit surprising to Ashton, since a description of him as the Necromancer had undoubtedly spread throughout the kingdom.

  “Praise Jarl Sven!” a man said, reaching up to the older man’s horse. “Lord General, it’s good to see you here!”

  “Sincerest condolences on the loss of your son,” a woman said.

  “Lord General?” Ashton asked. “As in Lord General Godfrey Ross?”

  Lord General Ross, father to Frederick Ross, the most famous tournament champion in the kingdom. Frederick’s mustached likeness had been nailed to posts in every square across the southern territories, for the games were the entertainment for anyone who could take the day off to travel to nearby Fomsea. The biggest games were in King’s Harbor to the far north, but Ashton had never been that far from home. He had been to Fomsea: the people’s capital of the South. Like King’s Harbor, it was under the control of the merchants and commerce, not lords and kings.

  Ashton had liked Fomsea immensely in the few times he had went there with Clayton. So, the thought of Frederick Ross was doubly depressing. First, it reminded him that his best friend was not there. He turned in his saddle a
nd secretly hoped to find him, but if he was there, he was lost in the crowd. Second, Clayton’s favorite tournament fighter Frederick Ross was dead.

  Clayton may be undead, but he still had feelings. When he found out that the mustached champion had died, Clayton would be devastated, and Ashton wouldn’t be there to comfort him. The revelation added more weight onto his shoulders.

  Even more disconcerting, these were not common men who had captured him. They were well-trained lords and fighters. If Ashton had any thought of fleeing these men, it stopped the moment he realized who they were.

  “Praise Jarl Sven!” a boy said, and echoes of the exultation rang out amongst the gathered crowd.

  “Who is Jarl Sven?” Ashton asked.

  “A local legend,” Jeremy Vossen said. “Rode on a giant raven. Killed men by the thousands. Healed the sick. Fed the poor. You know, that kind of thing.”

  “Old as time,” the Lord General said. “There are scrolls on Sven that go back more than 10,000 years. They say he came over the mountains from the northeast and settled around here.”

  “Right,” Ashton said. “The legends…”

  In truth, he had never heard of Jarl Sven, but he didn’t want to feel even more isolated and alone.

  The crowd continued to paw at the horses of the nobles. Some asked for information on the undead army. Some asked for aid against the orcs should they bypass Hell’s Edge.