Douglas Niles - The Puppet King

“Who are you? How dare you come here!” demanded Sergeant Major Fennalt. “Now you’ll taste a knight’s steel!”

“Fennalt! Fall back—we can’t fight that thing!” Gilthas clearly saw the futility of attack, realized that their weapons were useless against this horrible apparition. He shouted at the knight, urging him to flee.

But the burly sergeant would have none of it.

Instead, the knight raised his huge, two-handed sword and stalked forward, ready to face the fire-eyed horror that now stood atop the hill, in the center of the Hall of Audience. The elven figure paused, and then twisted and grew. Gilthas gaped, horror-stricken, as he saw an image of a leering giant, the bearded face distorted by the rot of death—and still marred by those hellish eyes. Then the monster changed again, growing into the visage of a draconic face and hulking, scale-covered body.

Fennalt paused for a moment, staring upward with his sword raised. Then he drew a deep breath, shouted a battle cry, and charged. He stabbed, but his sword bounced back from the scaly flesh.

And that monstrous being reached out with hands that had suddenly sprouted cruel claws. It reached for the human, tore his arms from his torso, then gored him with a single sweep of those horrible claws.

The sergeant of the Dark Knights perished in an instant, and by then the rest of Gilthas’s elves had raced for the streets of their city. Appalled, sickened, and horrified, the Speaker could only turn away and join in the flight.

Gilthas made his way to the Tower of the Sun. Everywhere he passed through streets filled with panicked elves, some crying out in fear, others angrily demanding explanations of the inexplicable events of which, finally, they were beginning to learn. But those who had seen the onslaught were too frightened to stop, too terrified and stunned to articulate what they had seen. Instead, they merely shrieked sounds of mindless terror, and fear swept through the city like an irresistible tide.

The sun remained high, baking the hapless metropolis, and in places Gilthas came upon truly bizarre scenes. He saw an elderly elven matron, utterly naked, run screaming from her house, crying that her nightmares had come to life. A few steps later, he saw a burly warrior, a large sword clutched in his hands, frantically dashing around his garden, slashing at the trees and bushes, wood chips and branches flying as he wailed aloud about the end of the world.

Finally the Speaker reached the base of the lofty tower, where he found a large crowd surging outside the doors to the great council chamber. He forced his way through the throng and saw that the golden doors were actually standing ajar. The chamber within was even more crowded than the street, but through sheer will and the considerable use of his elbows and fists, Gilthas managed to push his way farther and farther into the great, circular room.

“The world itself is aflame!” shouted one senator, his voice shrill with panic. “The knights have abandoned us. We have to flee!”

“Silence!” roared Rashas, his own visage pale, his mouth white-lipped and tense. He whirled to confront Gilthas, who was making his way toward the rostrum. “What have you seen? What’s going on out there?” he demanded harshly.

The Speaker climbed the steps and shook his head in a mute admission of ignorance. “I wish I could tell you,” he declared. “We’re attacked by forces unlike anything ever seen in this realm or, I suspect, any other.”

“It’s the Storms of Chaos—they break upon us!” shouted the agitated senator who had previously, and hysterically, given voice to his panic.

“Please try to be calm!” Gilthas pleaded. “Such fears accomplish nothing save to fan the fires of their own making!”

He still wore the ancient sword that he had first taken off the wall in his house a week before. Now the young elf drew and raised the weapon, brandishing silver steel over his head.

“Listen to me!” he cried. “We can’t let ourselves panic. We must try to understand what’s happening!”

The crowd grew silent as Gilthas tried to make sense of the chaotic attack that had ripped through his legion, killed his sergeant, and sent the elven troops fleeing in panic through the streets of their city. And though he had, for the most part, kept his wits about him, he couldn’t decide what had happened, nor could he make any guess as to the nature or homeland of the horrible attacker.

“What happened in the Hall of Audience?” Rashas asked. “We’ve heard reports of a fire-eyed warrior, a giant of unparalleled cruelty!”

The Speaker sighed and nodded grimly. “I saw the thing with my own eyes. It seemed to come from the city streets, walked right up the hill—though how it could have passed among us for long, I don’t know. But when the bravest man of my legion turned to fight the thing, it tore him apart as though he was a child’s toy.”

“And the knights and their dragons?” demanded another elf. “Where are our conquerors now?”

“Lord Salladac is still outside the city,” Gilthas snapped. “He told me his dragons had been summoned to Lord Ariakan, in preparation to face the threat that has now so savagely come upon us.”

“We need him here!” shouted an ashen-faced senator.

“I agree,” Gilthas said, the urgency of the situation overcoming his shame at seeking the human general’s help. “I need volunteers, swift runners to race to his camp and let him know what’s happening here!”

Six elves quickly offered to make the journey, and the crowd parted enough to allow them to leave the tower.

“Now, the rest of you... you need to go to your homes, arm yourselves and your families!” Gilthas ordered, even as he wondered what good weapons might be against the horror he had observed on the hilltop. “Gather everyone who can fight—sons, daughters, servants—everyone! And make haste!”

Some elves started to disperse to follow his bidding, but many members of the Thalas-Enthia milled around in the chamber, shouting at each other, demanding information and protection. Even when Rashas shouted his agreement with the Speaker’s orders, these panicked elders could only wring their hands and cry.

Through the chamber’s golden doors burst a panicked herald. “It’s coming!” he cried, gesticulating wildly. “The demon approaches, and it brings in its wake serpents of pure fire!”

Immediate pandemonium rocked the chamber as the senators scrambled for the main door. Shrieks arose from outside, and through the open portal, Gilthas caught a glimpse of the crowd streaming away. Some of the cries rose to expressions of pure horror, and the air glowed red, as if a fire was showering from the skies themselves.

At the door, the herald disappeared, and in his place was the fiery monster Gilthas remembered from the Hall of Audience. Now it was in the guise of a Dark Knight—resembling the bold Sergeant Major Fennalt, in fact—though the fiery eyes dispelled any appearance of normalcy. Throwing back its head, the creature emitted a laugh of rock-shaking power and strode into the chamber.

The flood of fleeing senators broke back upon itself, but now the chaotic warrior was among them, picking up esteemed members of the Thalas-Enthia and tossing them into the air like rag dolls. The monster pulled some of the elves apart, crushed others with blows from hammerlike fists. All the while it uttered that ghastly laugh, crowing like a fiend from the Abyss, exulting as it spread horror, panic, pain, and death.

Other senators turned toward the two small side entrances to the tower, pulling open the doors and spilling out as fast as they could force their way through the narrow openings. Fear filled the room with an acrid stench as the formerly dignified elves clawed over each other in desperate attempts to escape. Shouts and screams echoed from everywhere, and the esteemed members of the Thalas-Enthia punched and tackled each other, tore mindlessly at robes and hair.