Michael Mathias - Kings, Queens, Heroes, and Fools

“It’s King Jarrek,” he said. “They are trapped, southeast of Seareach by the black dragon and a winged demon.” The brown robed young man didn’t even stop to draw a breath as he went on. “Master Wizard Sholt said there isn’t much time. There aren’t enough of them left to mount a defense. If the Dakaneese troops that slipped out around them regroup they are… They are done… Uh…” he realized that he was speaking to the High King and his jaw fell open and hung there.

“Where are the dwarves?” Lord Gregory asked. “And the breed?”

“The breed?” Mikahl asked sharply.

Lord Gregory put up a hand to still Mikahl’s question. He nodded for Cresso to answer him.

“Some of the dwarves may have managed to get into the foothills,” Cresso repeated what he had been told. “Nothing was said of the breed giants.”

Mikahl’s sharp look told Lord Gregory that he needed to explain.

“A handful of the breed giants deserted the Dragon Queen and joined King Jarrek’s cause. I have to admit they have saved a lot of men and managed to put some serious thorns in Shaella’s side.” Lord Gregory didn’t tell Mikahl what King Jarrek had promised them in return for their service. Now wasn’t the time for that.

“I’m going,” said Mikahl, shaking his head in disbelief as he started out onto the balcony.

“By the gods, Mik,” the Lion Lord started after him. “We’re so close to being able to take O’Dakahn, and Westland too. Be careful.”

“Aye,” Mikahl said over his shoulder without slowing. “I will, but Jarrek fought beside me in Xwarda. I’ll not leave him stuck out.” With that he drew Ironspike and called forth the bright horse.

Hyden waited for the death blow to come. He heard it whooshing deeply through the air at him, but before Gerard’s dagger claws could tear into his flesh, the blackness of the Nethers exploded with lavender light. The kinetic blast of energy was so intense that it made Hyden’s hair stand on end. It was so bright, that it burned his eyes through his closed lids.

He had to squint under his arm to see what was happening. A ray of magical energy had seared into Gerard from above. As it died away, Hyden saw a spider-like body with what appeared to be two dragon’s heads connected to it. One of the heads hung limply, but the other was baring its teeth to attack. The creature was coming down hard and fast at Gerard. Hyden glanced back at where he thought the ring might be. As the afterglow of the magical attack faded, he saw the finger-long shadow it threw, but it was about twenty feet away.

Above him, a great roar, followed by an earsplitting scream, filled the darkness. The sound of tooth on bone, and wet, tearing flesh came next. A cerulean pulse flared between two large freakishly entangled bodies and the grunting of the battling creatures filled the darkness that followed.

Hyden crawled on his hands and knees toward the ring. Another lavender blast, this one shorter and more concussive, guided him to it. Once his hand closed around it, he somehow managed to get to his feet and started sprinting away from the horrific melee behind him. A glance back, at the same moment Gerard blasted forth a long streak of fire from his maw, revealed a ragged looking stump on the spidery beast, where a third head must have once been. The main bulbous bulk of its body had several wet glistening holes torn into it and Gerard was on its back now, making another. With short ripping claw strokes and searing gouts of fiery dragon’s breath, Gerrard attacked relentlessly. Just before Hyden turned away he saw a deep emerald beam shoot from the spidery demon’s eyes. It shot directly into Gerard’s chest. The rays cut right through Gerrard and he screamed out in agony as he went tumbling to the smooth stone floor.

The scream sounded so much like his little brother that Hyden’s heart clenched in his chest. He ran until a sudden breathlessness caused him to fall hard to the ground. Another racking fit of vomiting followed. He couldn’t swallow. He couldn’t get any air. When he coughed up a chunk of something the size of a quail’s egg, which tasted of infection, he realized that this fit wasn’t going to subside. The blackness around him began filling with tiny white star bursts and a loud roaring of rushing blood filled his ears. He fumbled with the ring again and found that it had been stretched to a size far too large for any of his fingers. He coughed again and nearly inhaled his tongue when air shot into his lungs.

He shoved two fingers through the hole in the ring and thought for a minute that he had dropped it because nothing happened. Then, the world exploded into bright blinding whiteness. If something other than death was happening, he couldn’t fathom it because the stark absolution of the brightness that he found himself in left him as blind as it did thoughtless. Strangely, after a few moments of utter nothingness, everything began to make clear and perfect sense.

Everything.

Gerard felt the emerald rays burn through his thick chest plates and sear him to the core. He felt the strange magical energy rapidly heating his guts, and then he felt it burst out of his back as it passed completely through him. He had to let go. The pain was excruciating. After his tormented scream died out, he rolled under Deezlxar and blasted out a white hot stream of dragon’s fire straight up into its underside. It might be bony underneath, but as Gerard just learned, even bones cook. Gerard sucked in air quickly and let out another blast. Deezlxar seemed not to notice at first, but then the heat worked its way up into the bottom of its body.

Like a crab skittering across sand, Deezlxar went left, then right, almost dancing on its many segmented legs. It spun around and leapt off of its foe, and then sent another searing emerald blast into the dragon-blooded demon-god that was Gerard. Gerard cast a spell of his own and this time an angry yellow bolt of lightning hit Deezlxar right in the base of its remaining neck. Deezlxar’s emerald rays burned into Gerard too, and both of them roared out in agony.

Somehow, the true Lord of Hell managed to get Gerard in his teeth again. It didn’t bite down as it had before. Instead, Deezlxar shook its dragon head violently about until the sound of splintering bone and tearing flesh could be heard. Then it let go, leaving Gerard spinning through the air, to come crashing down into a tumbled heap on the floor.

At once, Deezlxar pounced on the would-be-usurper. But Gerard wasn’t done. An explosive change, born from hatred, and anger, and the raw demonic power that both Kraw and Shokin afforded, came over him. He wasn’t going to die here in this endless blackened place, he told himself. He was going to eat the man who had killed his Shaella bite by bite, and he couldn’t do that if Deezlxar killed him. His dragon blood boiled, and his demonic essence swelled and morphed him. His devilish armor projected and exploded into a plethora of long sharp spear like projections. What Deezlxar landed on flared crimson and exploded into an orange and white bone-crunching blast. There was no escaping the power of it. The Master of Hell felt the projections shooting up through its under armor into its brain cavity and searing its life away. All the Dark One could do was use its bulk, and its last dying bit of magic, to try and destroy the thing that had just killed it. It let out a defiant death roar then turned itself to stone as it came down hard on top of Gerrard.

Gerard was pinned under the bone-crushing weight as it pressed on him. After the breath was driven from his lungs and the settled weight stopped snapping his twisted bones, all he could do was lay there and gasp. But then, as with all the other hell-born creatures he had killed and consumed, Deezlxar’s demonic essence, rushed in and filled him to the point of bursting. A darkness unimaginable reached up and enveloped him, and he was gone.