The Dark Paladin Read online

  “What are you doing?” he whispered.

  “What do you want me to do?” she asked.

  He couldn’t speak. Even though he could see her, he felt like his mind’s eye had closed.

  “This world needs you,” she said, “not him. His time is over. The King’s time is done. The world, as you know it, is changing. Orcus is on his way. Surdel will burn without your help.”

  “The paladin,” Ashton whispered, still reeling from the warm hands on his body. There were definitely at least two hands on him, and they were everywhere.

  “The paladins cannot smite a demon lord,” she said. “Not with their powers. They can only strike down minions.”

  The dark room grew lighter, and the hands ceased to exist. A battlefield projected around him. Undead crashed against shields. Demons clawed through trees and broke through the palisades around Foxbro. They devoured women and children in their beds. Ashton tried to cover his eyes with his hands, but they were transparent. He was dreaming, after all.

  “Is this really happening?” he yelled, as he tried not to watch a demon savagely thrashing a small girl within its jaws like a dog might play with a bone.

  Ashton flew higher above the battlefield and east. Emerging from the ancient elven city of Xhonia was a deep blackness. A large avalanche caved in much of Mount Godun as the evil creature shook itself free from the rock.

  The scene stopped and darkness reclaimed what had been light in his dream.

  “This is what will come to pass if you do nothing,” she said. “There are only four forces on this world that can stop Orcus. Demogorgon is one, and you really don’t want him above ground. One look from him and you’d cut your own mother from stem to stern. You might be a second option, given the proper weapons. Or someone else I might choose: a husband, perhaps.”

  “That’s three forces,” Ashton said. “Demogorgon, myself or a dark elf. What’s the fourth?”

  She smiled. “A dark elf? Someone’s been talking. Bragging, perhaps. I love it when people talk about me. Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Jayden fights me, just as you do. Neither of you know why. Neither of you are prepared to make the sacrifices yet. You will… or your world will perish. You think you’ve seen torment? These children in Foxbro will be the least of your worries. Orcus is the weakest of the three demon lords on this planet. He’s never beaten Demogorgon—not once.”

  She knelt down a few paces in from him. The tight black outfit bunched in revealing ways. Ashton’s eyes ventured there, as she wanted him to.

  “But he can do damage,” she said and the invisible warm fingers began walking up his legs, “to people… to places…. to things.”

  “Let me break your chains,” She said, dropping to her knees and crawling toward him. “Pledge yourself to me, and we will retrieve your weapons.”

  “Where are they?” he asked.

  “One is here in the castle,” she said. “It is so very close.”

  “You said there were four forces that could defeat Orcus,” he said. “What’s the fourth force?”

  The two hands up his legs became four and then eight. Some pressed strongly against his skin and others just brushed him with fingertips. And then her real hand reached for his cheek. A long black fingernail scratched from his cheekbone to his upper lip. She watched her own finger move.

  “Light,” she said. “Demons are susceptible to it. If it were to be properly motivated… harnessed… no armor in existence could stop it. Not thick hide. Not Dark. It would scatter before the Light. Orcus would flee to the Abyss just to hide his face from it. Light is the fourth force.”

  She kissed him on the lips, and Ashton woke up in the ice room. There were no more warm hands, not even his own. Godfrey and Jeremy were gone. The door was locked from the outside. He was alone with another corpse on a table. He pulled his hood up over his head and slid down to the cold, stone floor along the door.

  11

  Family Reunion

  Jeremy Vossen knocked on a door that a servant in the King’s Palace had pointed him to. He waited outside next to a fiery sconce. The heat was much appreciated after watching Lord General Godfrey Ross lose his mind in the icy room that held his son. Jeremy imagined he would receive much worse than Ashton if Godfrey ever found out that Jeremy was the man who killed Freddie.

  “Come in,” a familiar voice said.

  Jeremy pushed the iron handle, and the door swung inward.

  “Hello, Father,” Jeremy said.

  His father wore a fine silken robe imported from Nylelthalas in the elven Nomintaur forest. The garment was dyed in their house colors of white with blue trim. Edward Vossen rubbed his bald head and sighed. Jeremy had heard that disappointed noise more times than he could count.

  “I could smell you before you even came in,” Edward said. “Have you taken a bath once this week, Jeremy? You stink, son.”

  “I’ve ridden hard with Lord General Ross,” Jeremy explained.

  He crossed his arms across his waist and cast his eyes downward in prostration.

  “What happened?” Edward asked. “Why did you leave the bandits to their own devices? Do you know what they did?”

  “I lost control over them before they even reached Perketh,” Jeremy said. “They just scattered everywhere. I spent days wrangling them in, and every time I caught ten stragglers, a hundred had moved on to rape and burn whatever and whoever they could find. When I reached Perketh, it was already smoldering. I was standing there… just watching it… aghast. Sick to myself. Sick of my failure…”

  “That’s life, son,” Edward said. “Nothing goes as you plan. You just have to—”

  “And then Freddie was there,” Jeremy said, staring hard at the floor. His eyes began to water. “He came up to me…”

  “What are you saying?” his father asked. “Are you saying it was you?”

  Jeremy bit his bottom lip, but his whole body quivered as he recalled holding his dying friend—the scene from his nightmares. He remembered the blood spurting along the knife blade in his hand and the splashing against his clothes. “You said… I didn’t have a choice…”

  His father shuffled across the stone floor. He put his hand on Jeremy’s shoulder. Jeremy knocked it off.

  “He was so happy to see me,” Jeremy said, crying openly without sniffling, “and I was petrified. Scared of being caught. Scared of what you might think. Of what he might say… how he might tell the King…”

  He didn’t try to wipe at his eyes. He just cried. He felt empty. He was not a man. He was a hole—a dark pit that somehow leaked water onto the floor.

  “I’ve broken Godfrey Ross,” Jeremy said. “He holds The Necromancer in the King’s Guard Tower. He’s going to torture him until he brings back Freddie.”

  “He can’t do that,” Edward said.

  “I think he can,” Jeremy said, “but Ashton says what comes back would—”

  “Even if he succeeds,” Edward said, putting his hand back on Jeremy’s shoulder and looking at him compassionately, “do you think Freddie won’t remember? If Freddie comes back, the world will know the truth about the Red Army. The murder of the crown prince will be laid at our feet.”

  “Do you—?” Jeremy asked, shaking his head and pushing his father’s hand away again. “Do you think I did the right thing?”

  He felt disgusting. He felt like he might throw up and wallow in it to make himself look and smell like he felt inside.

  “Sometimes,” Edward said, “there is no right thing or wrong thing. There’s simply what you must do, or what will get you killed.”

  “Dad,” Jeremy said, looking into his father’s eyes sincerely. “I’m not worth a Freddie. I’m not even worth half a Freddie.”

  “You’re worth a million Freddies to me, boy,” Edward said.

  Jeremy broke down into sobs. He collapsed to the wall and then down to the floor. He looked up at his dad, who struggled to kneel to Jeremy’s level. They sat down together, arms wrapped around each ot
her’s shoulder.

  “The new Mallory has risen,” Edward said. “My spies say he’s sleeping with his sister. He’ll probably marry her… And you think you have problems?”

  Jeremy chuckled once, as he thought about the proud new High Lord who had approached him in the market earlier that day. A few moments later, Jeremy laughed harder. He wiped the tears from his cheeks, as Edward looked at him curiously, letting his son internalize what was going on.

  “I don’t think we’re ones to talk,” Jeremy said, “all things considered…”

  “Ha!” Edward exclaimed before cackling briefly.

  “Everyone has skeletons, I guess,” Edward said, affectionately smiling at his son. “Perhaps, it’s time to bury this vendetta with Julian’s father, where it belongs. Better the Mallories on the orcish boundary than us, anyway.”

  Jeremy felt a small part of himself fill the hole that had been devouring his soul. Perhaps, something still existed inside of him. Perhaps he wasn’t irredeemable after all. He nodded.

  Then, he began thinking about the meeting in the market again. The looks that the knight had given him. The tone the knight had used.

  “Julian might still be a problem,” Jeremy said.

  “How so?”

  “There’s a knight,” Jeremy said. “A man named Simon, under Julian’s employment. He said things in the market to me today. I think he was there at Perketh. I think he watched me kill Freddie. He saw me load Freddie’s lifeless body onto a cart and heard me promise to not leave him there in an unmarked grave.”

  “You let him see you?” Edward asked.

  “I thought I was alone.”

  Edward nodded and squeezed his son with the arm that was still around him.

  “Whatever comes,” Edward said, “we’ll deal with it. If this Simon character wants to stay alive, he’ll keep his mouth shut, or we’ll shut it for him.”

  Jeremy sighed. He didn’t want another good man’s death on his hands. But if he could kill a longtime friend and champion of the people like Freddie, then he could certainly do the same to a man he’d never heard of before the meeting at the market. Simon would do best to avoid him and forget. Jeremy might have felt a small piece of him return with his father’s acceptance, but his soul could not be washed clean like linens in a creek. There was still foulness there, and Jeremy grew less afraid of it every minute.

  “Now,” Edward said, pushing himself from the floor. “Get yourself a bath in one of the pools before your smell alone wakes Freddie instead of the Necromancer!”

  12

  Orcus Emerges

  Orcus, the Demon Lord of the Undead, stared at the center of a large room where a silver device had previously exploded an ice barrier under Xhonia over 500 years ago. The chamber barely contained him. His leathery, twenty-foot wings folded behind him, scraping the still damp floor of the ceremonial room. At over fifteen-feet tall, he had to crouch as he moved around.

  Orcus was the champion of the undead. He appreciated their silent company and often took on their appearance. His head was covered in a bony plate in the shape of a goat skull, grafted together from creatures he had murdered in other planes. His skin decayed like his brethren and minions, but he was not dying. He chose the look. He was simply proud of who and what he championed.

  His fire-infused body illuminated the surroundings with pale red light. He walked around the room, inspecting the remains of artifacts, soggy scrolls, and bones so crushed and old that they crumbled into dust at the slightest breeze. His next army could not come from these elves—they were too pulverized to reanimate. Any spirit would have just dissipated into the air and drifted back into the Abyss.

  But he needed another army badly.

  He had been fighting under the surface of this planet for over 10,000 years, after piggybacking on Mekadesh’s portal system to the planet. He had been certain this would be a quick victory. He took Mekadesh by surprise, knowing that she hadn’t planned on holding this plane. He thought she would flee before him and move on, but she stayed, looking for something. Then, Demogorgon appeared, absorbing Orcus’ naurun demons with his damned gaze and destroying Orcus’ undead armies at every turn. Even the reanimated dark elves with their magical gifts were no match for the deathknights and naurun.

  After falling through the Abyss for a thousand years, these creatures were willing to try though. Anything to stop the plunge into the Void. The enemy was just as motivated but more naturally gifted. Ice magics were reasonably effective against the naurun, but most of his resurrects had no knowledge of these cold arts. So, they fought, and they fell for 10,000 years.

  Orcus had fled. He had no choice. Demogorgon had never been beaten. He had the perfect skill set to fight against naurun, even higher-functioning flame demons like himself. The Prince of Demons was impervious to fire. He could turn a demon to his side with a look from one of his two heads, and he had four strong arms, each capable of wielding a weapon. It just wasn’t fair.

  All Orcus had wanted was a second plane to call his own. For millions of years, he had only held one—a beautiful dark underworld in a remote part of the universe. Demogorgon held dozens. Each time Orcus tried to gain another, Demogorgon was there. The Prince of Demons was relentless.

  In truth, Orcus was tired of waiting to die in these caverns and underworld. The undead might have been better company if they hadn’t been on the run for thousands of years. There’s only so much fleeing a demon lord could do before even he might lose hope. Orcus needed out of this mess. If he could return back to his own plane, he would.

  But Demogorgon controlled the portal now. Any mission back to it was a suicide, and Orcus would have no reinforcements. Demogorgon would just intercept and turn them at the portal or destroy them. Orcus’ war for the plane was lost. Demogorgon had won the underworld. He would win the above-world war too, if he were allowed to join it.

  So, in a last-ditch effort, Orcus had abandoned his army in a final charge through Demogorgon’s deathknights, naurun, and other miserable creatures. He had slipped through the line and made his way to Xhonia, where his undead minions had told him the device had been removed. There was supposedly a path to the surface—a path to freedom.

  The problem was that Orcus had no idea what he was emerging into. He had been sending minions up the caverns for weeks, and none had returned. No reports came back, which was unusual. At first, he worried that Demogorgon had beat him in escaping to the surface, but the longer he waited, the more he realized the Prince of Demons was still behind him, fighting with the remnants of Orcus’ undead army.

  He had no more minions around him, and he was all out of patience. Whatever might lurk above him, he could not stand another moment underground waiting for Demogorgon. He was a demon lord, one of the most powerful in existence. He longed for natural light from a star. He longed for new foes and armies to raise. He could feel the dead responding naturally to him along the surface of the planet, only thousands of feet away, in what felt like a forest. Fleet-footed undead creatures bounded above him somewhere, chasing something like elves, but with shorter ears and thick steel armor.

  He caught glimpses of their quarry through the eyes of his creatures. The elf-like creatures wielded Light-infused weapons, undoubtedly from Mekadesh. Bearded faces. Round eyes. Mostly white. Long hair. They retreated into the forest, and his new recruits gave chase. The Light-wielders headed deeper into the woods. The non-magical ones headed for an enclave of some sort. A walled town or city.

  He studied their features in his mind and began molding himself to these humans. He shrank to just over six feet tall. His bony skull retreated, and he grew long black hair from his scalp. He made his skin pale, like theirs. His muscles contracted, growing stronger in their compact form, like springs with the potential energy of suns waiting to unleash devastation. He grabbed an ancient, soaked, and holey black robe from along the wall of the room and put it on.

  And then he began walking.

  Each step more confident
and with a stride longer than the last. He bounded up stone stairways and punched through caved-in corridors. His excitement grew as a soft light reflected from the walls. The farther he ventured, the brighter it became, until he emerged from his crypt and into a courtyard.

  Green everywhere. Grass. Trees cracked the yielding marble, limestone, and monuments to a dying elven race. He closed his eyes and breathed the fresh air deeply. Life was everywhere, and Orcus hated it. Hated it but loved it at the same time. Out here there were fresh bodies. Out here, he stood a chance.

  He growled and smiled as he reopened his eyes. The sun set before him, and he found that fitting. The day was coming to a close here on Nirendia, just as the age of man was coming to a close.

  Soon, the dead would rise in earnest. Orcus would find a way to seal this gate to the underworld and trap his nemesis below. Demogorgon could keep the underworld. There was nothing else to really raise down there. Here on Nirendia, though, Orcus could feel the billions of creatures in the ground and decaying in the forests. These were his people. Some of them were just still alive. He’d have to fix that. That wouldn’t do at all.

  13

  The Orcs Move

  Chief Bloodhand chewed on a handful of grass as he sat and watched his children wrestle in the fields north of Zobogvug. He played with his command beads, a necklace of large round stones gathered from streams that symbolized the perfect harmony of his clan. As he toyed with the beads, he often stared at his odd crimson dominant hand, the source of his name at birth, and marveled at the way the birthmark ended at his wrist into the green that covered the rest of his body.

  Bloodhand was an enormous creature, even by orc standards. Seven feet tall. Blond hair. Muscles that bulged everywhere beneath his light-green, jade-like skin. The muscles rippled along his naked chest and arms as he laughed at his middle son Gorsgog, who was actively subduing his littlest one Drahgo.