The Dark Paladin Read online

  “Even though they might kill you?” she asked.

  “I already told you,” he said. “I’m not afraid of dying.”

  “It’s not the dying you should fear. It’s the Abyss. Now that the demons are here, that’s all you have left.”

  “You don’t scare me,” he said.

  “That’s because you don’t know what I’m talking about,” she said. “You asked me what power thoughts have against demons. Maybe you’re right. Maybe I have no control over demons. But I might be able to help you understand why death is not something you want in a world tied to the Abyss.”

  She approached him like a cat again, like she might sniff at him and then pounce.

  “You think you can survive without my help,” she said, taking another step with each sentence. “You think these men are honorable, and that that matters. You won’t let me help you by killing them, and perhaps you’re right. Maybe that’s not the best way to help you—to help you understand why I’m here and why you need me.”

  She cupped his chin in his dream, and her fingers felt real against his skin.

  “Perhaps, I can aid you in this way instead,” she said. “To show you what you really should be afraid of.”

  The darkness got thicker, and the pillar of light disappeared. Her warm fingertips vanished, and she was gone. The floor stopped giving resistance, and he began to fall into the pitch blackness.

  “Wait!” he yelled.

  A sense of deep infinity pressed in from all around him. Wind whipped against his face and cloak. He looked down. There was no form, only darkness. He flailed around with his arms and legs but found no substance there.

  Gusts of odorless air brushed against his face and shirt, and then there was nothing. He tried to yell but the air was gone. Only darkness and stillness. No wind anymore. He floated there or fell there, unsure of if he was moving and in which direction.

  A sense of dread gripped him. He wondered if he was falling to his death. He wondered if he was suspended forever in a single spot. And for hours, he stayed in that state, dreaming of falling in a motionless chamber with no bottom and no sides.

  That was the Abyss, and it went on forever.

  6

  Danger on All Sides

  Henry Claymore sat on a stump outside of Xhonia, winded from a hard day’s work. His steel armor was dull and bloodied with charred remnants of his naurun and undead enemies. His great helm was dented and scorched. The gold highlights no longer gleamed. There was rust around some of the joints of his vambraces and pauldrons. He hadn’t had time to clean his armor in months, not since the demons began filtering out of Xhonia in great numbers.

  The twenty-five paladins who remained fight-ready in the world slept and fought in schedules outside Xhonia. Jonas Shelby had been bedridden after his stroke seventeen years ago. Ten paladins had died in the past five years while fighting the scourge that fled out of the caverns beneath the ancient, dead city.

  Allison Arrington and her two teenage boys and a thirteen-year-old daughter were coming with food and supplies from Alefast. Her boys had been begging to join the Order, just as his own had. The rules said they had to wait until eighteen, but men were dying. As soon as Cedric got back, he’d put it to a vote. As horrible as it was to deprive the kids of three more years of childhood, they’d experience much less if there weren’t enough paladins to keep the demons from escaping Xhonia and destroying the world.

  The forest had crept up on the ancient elven city and now extended all the way up to the cracked stone streets. The stump Henry sat on lay in the shadow of a marble statue. He looked up at the elven man’s upstretched arms, reaching toward the heavens.

  Perhaps the dark elves should have looked to the ground instead. Somehow, the device the elves had used had malfunctioned or been stolen. Or maybe the demons had found another way out of the underworld. Either way, their hordes were endless. Five years ago, they came out two to five a day. Now, there were that many every hour. Henry hadn’t really slept in a couple of days. He took multiple shifts. He couldn’t slumber while good men were dying.

  The opening to the tunnels was around 300 paces away, down a narrow corridor. Plenty of room to ready yourself. The demons were always timid when they first emerged from the darkness. The Light of the paladin weapons seemed to be overwhelming to the wicked. The demons frenzied when they saw them. All along the corridor were flakes of their charred brethren. Smote back to hell, just like any of these advancing bastards would be. But man, did they ever try anyway.

  For every paladin who fell, a hundred demons died. The only problem was that there had only been thirty-five paladins. Even at 100 to 1, there weren’t enough paladins to push back the hundreds of thousands that the Holy One claimed were waiting to escape the underworld. Humanity needed a miracle. Or a new army capable of killing demons.

  Henry nodded to Francis Jericho, the other member of the Council, who laid on a stone bench nearby. Francis hadn’t slept for a couple of days either. The other shift fighters were Fred Collinsworth and Allen Bigsby. Their armor looked worse. Fred was missing an arm.

  Thankfully, it was the left one, freshly seared off and cauterized that morning by a great fiery naurun captain. Allen helped him with an ointment and salve. Fred didn’t complain. He said he couldn’t feel anything. He just stared at the stump extending out to the middle of his bicep. Each had their own great helms on, much like his but a slightly different style. Fred’s visor opened sideways. Allen would have had to take his helm completely off, if wanting to reveal anything but his eyes. So, he kept it on as he applied the pain relief.

  Henry stared down the killing fields, but no demon had emerged since they had called a rest. He expected the men wouldn’t get more than a half hour before another wave came. He closed his eyes and took in the sound of birds chirping from nearby perches. An animal fumbled around in the trees. Limbs cracked far away and then close by.

  The nearness of it startled Henry.

  He opened his eyes to find a male deer staring at him from maybe fifty paces away. Henry chuckled at the animal for being so brave to venture near humans and the demons it must have certainly seen and heard in the many days before.

  The animal took another few steps forward, sniffing the air. Its eyes looked all wrong. Milky white. And there was something in the air that was disgusting. Foul. Death. The demons smelled like sulfur until they died. Then it was more ash and dirt. This stench was something more natural and common. Like a kill left in the field for a few days.

  The deer’s fur was matted with red on one side, and it looked like it was smiling. As it came closer, still sniffing, Henry realized that it was no smile at all. The animal’s flesh had rotted away, exposing its teeth.

  Henry yelled something incomprehensible as he lifted his long sword with the polished grip and the steel crossguard. The undead animal charged at him, but Henry was too fast. A fiery-white light poured out of the blade as it pierced through the rotted flesh and into brittle bone. The deer cried out with an unearthly screech.

  “What the—?” Allen Bigsby exclaimed as he dropped the salve.

  Fred picked up his spear with his good hand. Allen gripped his war hammer as he twisted toward the woods and then back to the killing fields down the corridor to the caverns. Francis Jericho rolled down the bench slowly, obviously exhausted. He heaved his hammer from the ground to his shoulder as every manner of critter imaginable emerged from the woods.

  A bear with empty eye sockets, likely pecked out by birds, growled at the paladins. Freshly-raised squirrels chattered warnings from nearby tree branches. A badger clawed at the dirt aggressively, and some type of leopard crawled over the squirrels and paced along limbs.

  “Fred,” Henry commanded, “keep watch over the corridor. Allen, form a line with me and Francis. We need to push through to the camp and hope the forest hasn’t consumed our resting comrades. I believe Lord Orcus is near.”

  Stanley Shiloh wandered in the woods south of Xhonia. His Red
Army had been crushed at Mallory Keep, and he had been on the run ever since. He traveled minimally because he had nothing. He hid in bushes and tree trunks. He slept in ditches and under empty houses. His friends, like his true enemies, were all dead now. He couldn’t return back to Lord Vossen—the balding old man would probably kill him to tie up loose ends. The only obligation Stanley really had left in this world was to his dead brother Sam.

  Over his shoulder, he carried a brown bag, a gift from Karl Jeraldson—the bastard who left Sam to die at Xhonia. Demons, Karl claimed, had come out of the caverns they had been sleeping in and eviscerated his brother. Stanley hadn’t believed a word of it; Karl had always been a liar.

  Stanley wasn’t so sure anymore. He saw the Necromancer raise an army of undead—people Stanley had personally killed days before. All across the countryside, people whispered that a demon had killed Lord Mallory. Stanley hadn’t seen that. He had left the battlefield long before that had happened. Still, too many coincidences were adding up. Perhaps Karl hadn’t lied after all.

  Sam was a good kid. He didn’t deserve the way he went out—demon or not. Stanley had found Sam a couple weeks after he had died. When Stanley came across him, his little brother lay on his back in a cave. Sam might have been sleeping, had it not been for the seared cavity in his chest. Critters had gotten to him and he didn’t smell so good, but Stanley knew his brother’s face.

  He buried Sam just south of Xhonia in a grave marked by a single board. He didn’t know how to spell. No one could possibly know who was buried there.

  Stanley visited the grave three or four times a year. He knew the path well. On most days, he might even be able to close his eyes and find his brother’s grave using nothing but the sounds of the forest. Not today. The forest was alive with noise. The closer he got to the grave, the more obnoxious and insulting the noises became to him. His brother deserved some respect, or at least some quiet.

  The worst of it came from the direction of Xhonia. Almost sounded like a battle but without the metal-on-metal contact. It was mostly grunts, moans, and war cries. The commotion was distant though—not near enough to register as dangerous to Stanley. He had no interest in seeking it out.

  Stanley had had enough of war. He had seen men gutted. He had done some of the cutting and maiming himself. Now that Karl was dead, he almost felt that his part in all the murdering was over. He didn’t really believe it, but there was a hopeful part of his brain that desperately tried to convince him that he might be a baker or a field hand.

  The truth was simpler. He was a man with a very limited set of skills and even fewer interests. He could shoot a man in the head with an arrow from a hundred paces away. He could stab a man to death in a single thrust; maybe two or three thrusts if he was especially drunk. Sure, he could chop some wood or till a farm, but the latter didn’t appeal to him. He’d been a mercenary, bandit and a scoundrel for as long as he could remember. He didn’t know anything else to be and didn’t care to be it, anyway.

  He found his brother Sam’s grave, and he knelt down next to it. He rolled back his hood and took off his dirty, ragged brown cap to show his respect. The grave had been shallow. He had buried Sam at night, and the woods that night were strange and eerie. Maybe a foot or two below the surface, his brother’s body decayed in the soil.

  “Hi, Sam,” Stanley said. “I know it’s been a while. I missed the last visit. I meant to come. I really did. I’ve just been busy. Maybe you’ve heard of me in the afterlife. I led an army of bandits to Mallory Keep. Gave them the what for, I did! I killed that bastard Karl Jeraldson.”

  He made stabbing motions in the air, remembering slipping his knife into Karl’s dead body each morning—just as he’d promised. He smiled as he thought of that coward’s death. Then, he remembered where he was and the solemn task at hand, of telling his brother what he’d been up to since last he visited.

  “I saw some things that very few people in this world have ever seen. For better or worse, I seen them. There’s an army out there of people that are dead… but not. I killed a whole bunch of ‘em. Thought I did, anyway… I think they’re coming after me now. I think I made their necromancer mad. Anyway, never mind that. I brought you something—something that Karl stole from you.”

  Stanley laid his satchel down on the mound and untied the strings that enclosed the silver box inside. Maybe twelve inches long and six deep and wide. Strange elven symbols inscribed all over it. In the ice, when they had dug it out of the heart of Xhonia, it had glowed like a beacon, inviting them further into the caves. Now, it was dull and dormant.

  Just because it no longer lit the night, didn’t mean it wasn’t special. The plan had been to sell it at a black market in Fomsea or King’s Harbor and split the profits between the adventurers.

  Adventurer, Stanley thought. That sounded a lot better than brigand or bandit.

  “What do you think, Sam?” Stanley asked. “Maybe I don’t have to be a farm hand or a bandit. Maybe I can be an adventurer, like you wanted to be. Dig in the old elven cities for treasure… Form another group…”

  He thought of the ten strong men who’d gone into the caverns. He remembered how Sam couldn’t shut up about finding gold or silver and how he’d spend it. Stanley thought of darker things—much less polished and shiny in the firelight. He had never intended to share the spoils with anyone other than his brother. He had planned on killing everyone else when he had returned to the camp, but when he got there, he only found bodies. Someone else had beaten him to the punch, and they had taken both pieces of valuable treasure. The silver box. The innocent boy who wanted nothing more than to spelunk in caves and dig for treasure.

  Stanley no longer wanted the fortune all to himself. Getting the device back had been his own personal crusade.

  “Like I told you,” Stanley said, pointing to the box. “I brought you something… Yeah, I know. Karl took it from you when he left you to die. I remember how you stared at it that night—the last time I saw you. You held it in your hand, and you talked about the future. You talked about how this thing was going to buy you and me our own tools… our own team… Well, he took it from you, but I got it back. It doesn’t shine anymore, not like it used to. Nothing a little spit and polish wouldn’t fix though. Anyway, it’s yours. No… not yours and mine. Yours. It’s yours forever.”

  Stanley patted the box as strange sounds came from the woods. Something big lumbered near him. Several big things, actually. Tree limbs snapped. The forest groaned and so did a man being carried by another nearby. Polished metal gleamed from the waning sunlight reflected through the leaves.

  Stanley pushed the device to the side, off the mound, and hugged the ground, trying to avoid being seen. The smell of decay gagged him, and he lamented having to bury his brother so shallow. Something in the forest was chasing metal-clad men from Xhonia.

  A deer passed by Stanley, just inches away. It didn’t notice him, and it smelled awful. All manner of critters stepped over his body and ran beside him, apparently tracking the men.

  “What the—?” Stanley whispered into the dirt.

  As if in response, a hand reached up from the mound and grabbed his throat. Stanley choked and struggled against the fist but it was unnaturally strong. The mound parted, and Sam’s decomposing body thrashed underneath Stanley.

  He coughed and wheezed as the hand crushed his windpipe. The eyelids in the decayed skull opened and two dim green lights peered out at him. Stanley struggled with all of his might, flailing his arms at Sam’s skull and neck, but his brother’s corpse was too strong. It sat up and wordlessly squeezed with both hands.

  Stanley felt his windpipe collapse. He gasped and spat in protest, but the grip became even tighter. He heard the snap of his neck, and then he heard and saw no more.

  Jeremy Vossen circled back on his horse and shook the Necromancer Ashton. Jeremy rattled him so hard that the young man almost fell off his saddle, but Ashton didn’t open his eyes. He just continued to scream.

/>   “There’s no end!” Ashton yelled. “There’s nothing at all!”

  “Snap out of it, you idiot!” Jeremy said.

  He slapped Ashton in the face but his detainee only yelled louder.

  “Have you gone mad, Jeremy?” Godfrey Ross asked from the front of their train. “Keep that man quiet! There’s no telling what bandits or hooligans camp in these woods.”

  “I think he’s having a nightmare,” Jeremy said. “I can’t seem to wake him.”

  “He’s probably just exhausted” Godfrey said. “We’re only about fifteen miles south of Foxbro. Maybe we should just stop there for the night. Perketh is at least sixty miles away, now. I think we’re safe from his minions.”

  A loud crack came from the nearest bushes, and the horses underneath Jeremy and Ashton spooked. Jeremy’s reared. Ashton’s just neighed and complained as it shifted toward the west. Godfrey yanked down his visor and readied his sword. His war charger sensed his rider’s tension and pawed at the earth.

  “Show yourself!” Jeremy announced, holding Ashton’s reins and shoulder tightly and ready to bolt.

  Ashton screamed again, squirming against Jeremy’s fingers. “The Void is endless!” He screamed like a panicked child.

  “Stop it!” Jeremy said through clenched teeth. “You’re going to get us all killed.”

  Something crashed through the bushes about fifty paces to Jeremy’s right and struggled to maintain its balance. Its fur was gray and red with blood. Its antlers were broken in multiple places and lopsided.

  “Is that an elk?” Godfrey asked.

  The creature continued to fall over itself. Its eyes glowed faintly green in the dying light. It struggled to produce sound with its vocal chords, but all that came out was a cough and then a wheeze. Its right front leg was mangled badly, but it kept trying to walk on it. The elk fell to the ground over and over again.

  “Cronos, be merciful,” Godfrey said. “It’s undead.”