Demon Lord IV - Lord of Shadows (4 page)

The prince ate
a little food before he began to work, which appeared to give him
some strength. Bane understood why the blue mages of the Overworld
had died creating their wards, and wondered if Tygon would survive
his. The mage filled the grooves of the solid ward with blue
powder, then moved beyond the cracks that he had created and
summoned his power. Unlike the dark power, there was no visible
manifestation of a blue Gather. It remained invisible until it was
concentrated and focused. Once he had established a flow from the
air, Tygon pointed at the cracks, and the blue fire poured from him
in a shining river, filling them until they glowed. He continued
until they blazed with blinding incandescence, forcing Bane to look
away.

As the
radiance grew so dazzling that it lighted the clouds with a strange
blue shimmer, a soft, grating crack came from deep within the
earth, and it shivered. With ponderous majesty, the mighty ward
began to rise, birthed from its aeons-old womb. Its edges grated
together with a deep, earth-shuddering rumble. It drifted upwards,
raised by the tremendous amount of blue power that Tygon poured
into it. The prince closed his eyes and tilted back his head as he
concentrated on his task, lines of strain bracketing his mouth and
eyes. The huge stone rose four feet above the ground, then five,
revealing fresh cut grey rock, raw from its earthen womb. Beads of
sweat formed on Tygon's brow and ran down his cheeks, dripping from
his chin. The chill wind had no effect on him now; his effort was
so intense that his body burnt as if with fever.

When the ward
towered fifty feet above him, Tygon slumped to the ground. The flow
of blue fire winked out, and the ward settled back about ten feet,
then stopped and rose slightly before becoming still. Bane went to
Tygon and knelt beside him, studying the mage's pinched, grey,
blue-spotted features. His eyes had dark circles of exhaustion
around them, and his lips were bloodless. The Demon Lord scooped
him up and carried him into the lee of the rock wall, laying him in
the hollow in which he slept. He considered trying to rouse him,
then decided against it, letting him rest. The prince was at the
end of his strength, and it would jeopardise the plan if he
perished before he had completed his task. Bane heated the stone
and settled down to sleep, watching the red glow fade from the
clouds as the sun sank.

When Bane
woke, a new dark day had dawned, and he stretched, prodding Tygon
awake. The prince groaned and rubbed his face with a shaking hand,
frowning as he looked around in confusion. Bane helped him to sit
up and handed him his flask of wine. He drank from it, gazing at
the massive ward sitting in its blazing rim of blue fire. Bane dug
in the pack and extracted a parcel of sticky confections, offering
them to the prince.

Tygon grimaced
and shook his head. "I am not hungry."

"Eat."

The prince met
his eyes. "I cannot."

"You will, or
I shall stuff it down you."

"You do have a
way with words."

"I do what I
must."

Tygon took a
sugary pastry. "I thought it was a novel privilege to be served by
a god, but now I feel more like a lamb being fattened for
slaughter."

"You have work
to do."

"I do not know
if I can do anything today."

"We have been
lucky so far. No warlock, hound or demon has stumbled upon us or
sensed your power, but that will not last. We cannot waste
time."

"I am not
trying to waste time," Tygon protested. "I do not have the strength
right now."

"That is why
you must eat."

Tygon waved
the pastry. "I am."

"Get on with
it then."

The prince
nibbled the pastry a little faster, and Bane watched him. The
waiting was getting on his nerves, and the risk of discovery
increased with each day that they remained in one place, using the
blue power. He could not force the prince to work any faster,
however, he was already at his limit.

A familiar
sensation tingled in the back of his mind. A voice cried his name
and begged his aid. Kimera. Jumping up, he found her location from
her prayer and Moved.

Bane
reappeared in a ruined arena, its weathered stones ancient and
crumbling. Parts of it had been broken by the trees that had
invaded it, and dead ferns poked from the tumbled stones of the
stepped stands. Desiccated vines crawled over them like black
snakes, and ash covered everything in a grey shroud. To one side
was a podium where once the winners of duels and games had stood to
receive the accolades of the crowd.

Kimera
crouched before it, her arms raised, a blue shield shimmering over
her. It wavered and warped under the attack of the black mage who
stood a few paces away, hurling bolts of shadow with vicious
gestures. The surge of dark power that accompanied Bane made the
warlock look around, and his eyes widened. Bane raised his hands,
and the mage tried to Move, but did not complete the first gesture.
The dark power engulfed him, blackened his skin and crisped his
hair, and he died with a choked howl.

Kimera let her
shields fall and slumped against the podium, sobbing. Bane walked
over to her.

"He is
dead."

Kimera nodded,
but continued to weep, covering her face. Bane studied the half
completed ward carved into the stone podium, lines of runes
circling it. He recognised some of them, and could decipher a
little of their meaning. Mostly they were for protection and
strength, adding to the ward's already considerable power. He
looked down at Kimera.

"I cannot stay
long. Are you unharmed?"

She wiped her
eyes and nodded again, then rose to her feet, her face pale with
shock. "Thank you for coming."

"I said that I
would." His eyes swept over her. "But you did not believe me."

"I did not
think that my life was worth your intervention."

"It is not,
but the ward is."

"Of course."
She clasped her hands to still their trembling.

Bane glanced
at the incomplete ward again, noticing the chisel and hammer that
lay beside it. "You use tools?"

"I am not a
stone master."

"How long
before it is finished?"

"A day,
perhaps two."

Bane nodded.
"Good."

"How fair the
others?"

"Well." He
turned and walked away. "I must go."

Kimera raised
her hand in a forlorn gesture of farewell which he did not see, and
after ten paces, he vanished, his power making her shiver. She
glanced at the body of the mage and shuddered, recalling how close
she had been to death herself before Bane had appeared.

Kayos
straightened when Bane vanished from the Eye, a slight frown
tugging at his brows, and Syrin rose to stand behind him and gaze
into it. Mirra tensed, and Mithran put a soothing hand on her
shoulder. Within moments, a new image formed as the Eye followed
Bane to the ruined arena in Rith Forest. After the brief
confrontation, Syrin returned to her seat on the bed, and Kayos
leant back in his chair once more.

The door burst
open, and the high priestess tottered in, clutching her chest. "A
hound!" she gasped. "Beyond the hallowed ground. Vorkon has found
you, My Lord."

Kayos stood
and dismissed the Eye. "Flee at once, high priestess."

"Yes, My
Lord."

As soon as she
had left, Kayos turned to Syrin. "I would prefer that you left this
domain."

She cast him a
coy smile. "You fear for me?"

"No, I fear
for those with whom you will meddle."

Her eyes
glinted. "Like the villagers I saved?"

"Bane saved
them, not you."

"I will not
leave." She pouted, then stepped into the air and vanished.

Kayos held out
his hands to the three people, who snatched up their possessions
and grasped them. They reappeared in a church that was as far away
from the one that he had just left as he could find. This time he
chose to remain invisible, not wishing to reveal his presence, even
to the priestesses. He disliked interacting with mortals, finding
it tedious at best, and tiresome when they clamoured for his
blessing. Besides, this was Drayshina's domain, and too many
sightings of him would gain him worshippers that he did not want.
Keeping his companions within the shroud of invisibility, he
wandered through the church until he found another empty cell to
settle in, where he sat once more and created an Eye.

Vorkon glared
down at the six black mages who knelt before him, then glanced
around at the demons and droges that attended him. He stood outside
the vast temple of black rock that he had raised around the Source
that he had created, deep within the kingdom of Daord. The mages
could not enter it, the dark power inside was too intense.

"You are
useless!" he shouted at the warlocks, who cowered. "Eleven of your
number he has already slain, and still you cannot find him. The
blue mages hide on hallowed ground, out of my reach, and the Grey
God eludes me as Drayshina did. What is the tar'merin doing? I must
know! I want him dead, so that I may destroy his soul. He is a
mortal. An arrow through the heart will kill him."

"Perhaps if
you torture the goddess, he will come to her aid," a mage
suggested.

"He will not,
you fool, he is not stupid. He is up to something, I can feel it.
You must find him!"

Vorkon turned
and marched back into the temple, leaving the mages to stare at his
retreating back with bleak expressions. For them, finding Bane was
a death sentence, and they knew it.

Vorkon walked
past the Source, enjoying the cool, refreshing touch of its power,
and continued towards the back of the temple, where a shallow pit
housed the flesh creature. Drayshina lay gripped in its many hands,
and several of its misshapen legs were chained to the floor,
anchoring it, and her.

Vorkon stopped
at the edge of the pit and stared down at her. Her serene
expression irritated him as she lay, apparently relaxed, her eyes
closed. A blue nimbus surrounded her, testament to the vast amounts
of dark power within the temple. He had taunted and tortured her,
but neither had brought him anything other than the satisfaction of
doing it, for she refused to speak. Her screams had been pleasant,
but the threat of the tar'merin had distracted him from his
enjoyment of them. The fact that his enemy still lived infuriated
him, and that he was hiding so successfully, blocking Vorkon's Eye,
annoyed him even more. The destruction of one of his armies and
several of his mages soured his mood further, and all in all, apart
from capturing Drayshina, things were not going well since the
tar'merin had appeared. That would change, however, as soon as one
of his mages, hounds or demons found him, of that, he was certain.
Then the upstart traitor would die, and his soul would be destroyed
forever.

Shevra
crouched in the gutter beside the road, shivers racking her in
gut-wrenching waves. Two days of walking had brought her to this
desolate spot, but then, everywhere was bleak. After she had left
her devastated home, the skies had darkened again, and she had
paused often to gaze back at the grey spot in the clouds behind
her. Eventually it had darkened, and she had trudged on, hungry and
tired. Pools of water in the gutter had provided her with something
to drink, although it was foul and muddy. She had dampened her
skirt and wiped the ash from her face and arms, brushing it out of
her hair to try to get rid of the stench of death that still clung
to her.

The nights
were terrifying, dark and cold, and the shadows had seeped into her
while she lay in the gutter. She woke often, shivering with terror
and cold, her stomach a tight knot. Now that she knew that the dark
creatures were real, and had seen their horrific forms, she dreaded
that they would find her and tear her apart. Without flint and iron
she could not make a fire; her talent did not include creating it.
She wondered at the wisdom of leaving her town, where there was
some shelter and perhaps even a little food. The survivors would
have to go to a city, and she could have gone with them. She
followed the road that the supply wagons used, which had to lead to
a city, and anyone else from her town would use the same track, yet
she had seen no one. Perhaps they were behind her, and if she
waited, they would catch up.

The sound of
voices made her stiffen in alarm, then raise her head to peer over
the edge of the gutter. A group of about a dozen ragged people
walked along the road towards her, but they were heading in the
direction from whence she had come. Even so, they were a welcome
sight, and she did not care where they were going. She crawled out
of the gutter, and the group hurried towards her with exclamations
of concern. A thin, bearded man crouched beside her and gave her
clean water from a flask, and a plump, motherly woman put a blanket
over her shoulders.

"Where do you
come from?" the man enquired.

"Abardon."

"It's
fallen?"

Shevra nodded,
pulling the blanket closer. "Gone. Destroyed."

The man
glanced at his fellows. "That's where we were going. No point now,
I suppose."

"No. Go to the
city."

He nodded, and
the plump woman thrust a chunk of journey bread into her hands. She
tore at it. "Thank you."

"Are you the
only survivor?"

"No, there
were others. They're probably a day behind me. We were saved by a
dark god."

The man
frowned. "A dark god."

"Yes."

"Saved
you?"

"Yes. He
destroyed the dark army."

"Vorkon?" The
man looked sceptical. "I think you've been through a grave trauma,
lass."

"I'm not mad,
and it wasn't Vorkon. He's called Bane, the Demon Lord."