by Dan Allen
“See how the darkness gives you strength!”
“I am the daughter of King Jasper III,” Ruby said. “These friends serve me, and I protect them. The tonnerians are our allies.”
The demon’s gaze turned from Ruby to the tonnerians. “You chimera were born of the darkness. I, The Destroyer, call you now. The armies of darkness have become weak—they seek aid from humans. Mere Humans!”
“And dwarves,” Gork said casually. The Destroyer turned its head to see Gork standing beside Ruby and chose to ignore him, gazing instead at the princess.
“Such weakness. Such decay.” Its sibilant voice made everything tremble, from the portal to the fur on the tonnerians’ necks. “How is it that the Dark Consul’s chosen—his precious Midnight Queen—cannot even destroy such a weak thing as this?” Its fang-laden jaw shook with laughter. “No matter. I will slay you, and when the chimera of Crystalia have no one to protect them, they will turn to me. I will rule this realm. I will gather all darkness!
“Obey me!” The Destroyer sucked in a great breath that pulled the tonnerians to their knees. Somehow their will had been enslaved to the demon that called itself The Destroyer. “Now, slay her.”
Dozens of the red tonnerian eyes turned on Ruby.
“Stop!” A small figure jumped between the tonnerians and Ruby. It was Nyan-Nyan. “Don’t listen to it.” She began to purr, summoning her mystical deep tones, drawing the tonnerians’ focus away from the demon. The tonnerians echoed with their own purrs, the chorus growing as more and more of them broke free of the demon’s enchanting.
“Disobey and die!” the demon roared. It raised its huge sword and surged forward at a speed Gork would never have thought possible for something that size. The massive blade cut down six warriors in one stroke.
“Fall back!” Torbin cried. “We cannot fight this battle. Fall back!”
Tonnerians bounded for the exit. The Destroyer lunged after them and fell on its face. Stranglethorn had tied its legs. More vines lashed out of the ground, binding the demon. Others erupted from Terras’s wrists.
Nyan-Nyan leapt to a boulder near the exit of the cavern and called to the fleeing tonnerians. “Stop! We can’t leave the princess alone. And we can’t let this demon escape. It will destroy Arcadia just as Cernonos and the Ravager orcs have done in the Frostbyte Reach.”
“Then we will flee,” Torbin said. “There are places known to us where we may hide forever, safe and free.”
“To be alone is not freedom,” Nyan-Nyan said. “It is slavery to fear.”
Behind her, the demon struggled against its bonds.
“All my life, I believed being independent was all that mattered. I was wrong. This is what matters.” She pointed to Ruby. “Now I am part of something greater than myself. I fight not for myself, but for all of Crystalia, for every child that hides from the darkness and cries out for help. I will no longer flee. I will no longer run. I am not alone. And I am not a slave to fear any longer.”
Meeraz stepped forward. “Neither am I. I side with the freyjan. I stand and fight. Together we can stop this monster. We are tonnerians!” He raised his forearm shield as its mounted sword point slid from its concealed sheath and locked into place. “We are no longer the scaredy-cats who hide in the desert. We are the lions of Arcadia. We have conquered the darkness in our own hearts. There is no greater darkness to face. We wield the light.”
“Attack!” Nyan-Nyan cried. She thrust her gauntlet forward and charged the fallen demon. Meeraz raced by her side in formation.
They charged alone for only a breath. Then, as one, the tonnerian pride turned on the demon who had already slain a tenth of their number.
Nyan-Nyan was the first to deliver a blow. Her fist collided with the demon’s skull, crushing a bone spine from its temple. Meeraz slashed with his sword stabbing for the vital part of its neck.
But the demon’s spiked tail sliced free of the vines and descended on the pair of tonnerians. Tonnerians charging at the demon split into two groups as the tail smashed down. Slashing with its tail, The Destroyer sheared the binding vines, releasing its limbs. Terras fell back as The Destroyer leapt to its feet. In rage, its limbs surged with even more heat, the armor of its arms and legs turning to red-hot molten lava. It charged after him.
“Drink your vial,” Gork called to Ruby. “Seal the portal.” He left the Dark Consul’s sword in Ruby’s hand, drew his ax, and ran to Terras’s aid.
The Destroyer swept its dark blade down, aiming for the Druid trapped in the corner of the cavern. Gork slid under the sweeping sword, hooking it with his ax as it swung past. The force of the heavy dwarf’s weight twisted the blade. The flat side of the demon’s sword collided with Terras, rather than the deadly serrated edge.
The blunted blow sent Terras pinwheeling over the ground. He rose to his feet, dazed but unharmed. Gork leapt to his feet to face the demon, but it had already turned to unleash its fury on the tonnerians. A second slash of the blade sent tonnerians diving for cover. The blade swung again, this time for Gork.
Gork raised the ax to parry the strike. His iron grip held fast, but the handle of the ax could not withstand the force of the blow from the great sword. It broke in his grip, allowing the knife edge of the gleaming black blade to slash across his side.
Pain erupted as if the blade had lit a fire in his flesh. Wet blood ran out through the tear in his leather armor.
Gork fell to his knees. His strength ran out in one breath.
He looked up and saw Ruby drain her vial.
Close it. Seal the portal.
Gork fell to the ground. His vision narrowed to a single point. His heart’s last beat gave voice to a final throb of emotion.
I love you, Ruby.
. . . I’m sorry.
Chapter 18: The Midnight Queen
The first sensation that passed through Gork was one of intense pleasure, a feeling he had waited for and never experienced.
His lips tingled. Then his whole body filled with the most wonderful sensation of being alive.
Once before, he had felt something like it, beside the princess in the desert, but this joy was far beyond that brief touch of the light.
Again, the sensation pressed against his lips, and Gork sucked in a breath of surprise. His eyes opened and saw hers.
“Ruby?”
“Gork!” She grinned and gave him another kiss, which Gork did not protest.
With a jolt of panic, he sat up.
The portal was still open. The Destroyer was still in the cavern, battling tonnerians who pounced and slashed at its impervious armor as it swung a chipped sword down and across.
“You . . . didn’t close it.”
“I couldn’t,” Ruby whispered. “I had only enough magic to save you.”
“But the demon,” Gork said, “what are we going to do?”
Ruby shook her head. “I don’t know.”
“Enough!” The Destroyer roared, and its armor melted with its rage, turning its chest and arms to glowing lava. The tail swung, downing two tonnerians in one swipe.
The fighting partners did not rise.
“It must have a weakness,” Ruby said as Gork rose to his feet. He inspected the wound on his side. It was all but gone, merely a pink scar. Not a trace of blood remained. All had somehow returned to him with the kiss of the princess laced by the light of the Goddess. He felt his ribs. None were broken.
Gork had to join the fight, but he dared not leave Ruby’s side.
“We have to retreat,” Gork said.
“No. We won’t get this chance again,” Ruby said. “There must be another way to close the portal . . . if only the Hyrian mages weren’t bound to the will of the spell, they could help us close it.”
Gork looked around the room, and his dwarf eyes, honed to spot the slightest glimmer of beauty in the depths of the earth, caught the sparkle of a gem—one of the Hyrian mages. “The rubies—we can power them!”
R
uby shook her head. “No. I can’t risk losing you that way. You can’t withstand the evil bound within those amulets.”
“There is enough strength if we all join,” Gork said. “The tonnerians are chimera—creations of the darkness and the light. They can wear the amulets.”
Ruby gave a reluctant nod. “Very well.”
“Gather the gems!” Gork cried. “Give your strength to the princess!”
Gork ran for the nearest ruby. He lifted it from the head of the Hyrian mage and felt the tremendous load instantly as the spell bound him to the portal.
He faltered as the mere touch of the gem drained almost all of his newly recovered strength.
The eyes of the chained prisoner rose for a brief moment, staring into him. The prisoner clasped his hands before a breath of wind carried the figure away, its ghostlike body vanishing into the fog.
“Quickly,” Ruby said. “Free the others!”
Gork’s strength ran out like water from the broken vessel, but before his knee hit the ground, Nyan-Nyan picked up a gem. The weight pulling on Gork’s essence lessened as more tonnerians gathered the fallen gems and the remaining Hyrian prisoners vanished into the fog.
“It’s working!” Ruby cheered. The red gem at the base of her sword began to glow.
Half of the remaining tonnerians surrounded the demon, just out of reach of its sword and tail as the others held the gems in their paws. Their faces, grim with determination as the master ruby in the Dark Consul’s sword drew strength.
Ruby raised the sword in both hands and swiveled it in her grip, aiming the pommel at the portal. Once the gateway was closed, the demon would be cut off from the source of its dark power.
There was a chance.
“Mere human!” The Destroyer roared. “You dare challenge me? So be it.”
The demon charged forward as Ruby bravely held the pommel of the sword at the portal. Inch by inch, the slashes in space and time began to close.
Tonnerians leapt in front of The Destroyer, slashing at its legs only to have their sword-tipped forearm shields melt to slag against the demon’s magma armor. Terras lashed out with vines, which burned to ash on contact with The Destroyer’s blazing arms and chest.
In a moment of helpless horror, Gork realized he had no strength remaining to come to the princess’s aid.
The Destroyer slashed down with his sword, cutting across the chest of the princess. Her scream was cut short before she hit the ground, limp and unmoving. Gork ran forward.
The Destroyer reared back and laughed.
It laughed!
“No. No. Please.” Gork knelt by the side of the princess and turned over her limp body, but the sight of the gash through her chest stole all valor. He let go of the princess and her body collapsed on the ground.
Not even a potion could revive her, Gork knew. The Destroyer had slashed through her heart.
Ruby was dead.
A tornado of emotion ripped through Gork. He felt as if his soul were being ripped in two. His breath caught in his throat. His eyes welled with instant tears, and he felt as though he were suddenly at the bottom of a bottomless pit from which his heart could never escape.
Ruby was dead.
“Aaaggh!” Gork shouted in rage and grief as The Destroyer’s laughs drowned out his cries.
“The prophecy is undone,” cried the demon. “I am The Destroyer! Crystalia is mine!”
“Dead?” Terras came to the side of the fallen princess. His face bore a look of disbelief. Nyan-Nyan looked down and then scurried away, hiding her eyes behind her gauntlet.
Rage for revenge consumed Gork, turning to madness. He felt his arms lift the Dark Consul’s sword. His legs pushed him to his feet. He readied to charge the demon, but somewhere in the back of his mind he felt the calmness that once spread through him when Ruby had channeled magic in the desert.
He fought through the all-consuming grief. The demon was far too strong for one man to fight. Long ago, Gamfir’s entire army, combined with the freyjan, had finally banished The Destroyer, with the advantage of a mountainside full of catapults crushing it, and the chilling force of an icy Frostbyte river.
The Destroyer was simply too strong, and without a way to drain its strength—
Gork’s eyes widened. The solution was positively childish. Gork scrambled to where a slain tonnerian warrior lay on the stone floor. Beside her was a Hyrian amulet that channeled strength into the Dark Consul’s sword.
The Destroyer loomed behind him, roaring an exultant shout. The demon’s searing heat choked Gork’s breath.
In one swift motion, Gork grabbed the cursed ruby gemstone, turned, and hurled it into The Destroyer’s gaping mouth.
The ruby disappeared down The Destroyer’s throat.
The Destroyer gasped a choked cry as the cursed gemstone feasted on its essence.
Instantly the pommel of the Dark Consul’s sword began to pulse in Gork’s hand, throbbing with an intense red glow.
Its essence waning, The Destroyer’s molten body cooled to a solid black. It reached for Gork, but fell to its knees, its strength undone by the ancient, magic-sapping sword in Gork’s hands.
The moment the demon’s flames extinguished, thorned vines erupted from the ground, lashing its trembling limbs.
The croc-faced demon made a gagging sound, trying to expel the ruby in its throat as cracks and seams began to stretch over its armored body.
Tonnerians surged forward, driving their forearm blades into seams. But the creature still struggled, breaking vines and sending fighters soaring backward with its massive fists.
I have to stop it once and for all . . . for Ruby.
But the tonnerian’s stabbing swords were having no effect on the creature. Its armor was too thick. And the only thing long enough and strong enough to reach through The Destroyer’s armor, Gork thought, is on The Destroyer!
Gork ran toward The Destroyer’s tail, where Terras’s tenacious vines were thickest. The Druid was not going to risk that spiked tail getting loose again.
The longest spikes towered over Gork as he raised the Dark Consul’s sword and swung with all his strength. His diagonal slice with the glowing sword only chipped the bony spike. He swung again and again, hacking away until the sword finally cut through, sending the seven-foot-long spike crashing to the ground.
Gork dropped the sword, hoisted the severed tail spike and ran to the side of The Destroyer.
“Now that’s an idea!” Terras cried.
“The vines on the opposite side,” Gork started. “You have to—”
“I know.” Terras closed his eyes and a moment later the vines along The Destroyer’s right side hardened and then snapped, cracking away like whips under their tremendous load—now an unbalanced load.
The sudden release sent The Destroyer toppling to its left, right onto its severed tail spike.
Gork leapt back at the last moment. The spike disappeared in the crush of dust and demon.
Before Gork had climbed to his feet, another roar filled the cavern—the roar of the lions of Tonneria.
As Gork climbed to his feet, he found he could hardly bear to look at the expiring creature. It only reminded him of that savage attack that had slain Ruby. With each feeble breath the impaled Destroyer took, the Stranglethorn vines closed more tightly on its chest until finally the flicker of flame in its eyes went out and the fleshy demon went grey, turning to solid stone.
Gork turned away slowly and saw again the thing he wished he never had. Ruby’s broken body lay in the cavern only a few feet from the slain Destroyer. He closed his eyes, feeling anew the tear in his heart that revenge had only eclipsed. His heart pounded within him as if it were about to break.
The sound grew louder, and Gork realized only too late it was the pounding of numberless feet.
“They’re coming through!” Nyan-Nyan called, leaping aside and darting toward the back of the cavern as the remaining tonnerians
fell back into defensive positions.
Dark figures erupted from the portal to the Dark Realm, taking shape instantly as they emerged, arrows drawn back, and fire-blackened blades at the ready.
Nether Elves!
As fleet as the freyjan, the elves taken by darkness fanned out in front of the portal, drawing swords, spears, and bows. Tonnerians took cover at the edge of the cavern.
The Nether Elves were the trusted minions of none other than the Midnight Queen.
The portal rippled, and a great figure emerged. This was made of smooth clay and had a single gem in its forehead.
“A Clockmaker’s Golem?” Terras’s voice both intrigued and confused. “—that’s Daemonus! That’s the golem that took Amethyst.”
“She comes,” hissed a Nether Elf as it drew its bow taut and sighted a crouched tonnerian. The tip of its arrow swarmed with black fog.
Gork had heard enough of the Nether Elves to know one touch of that arrow was death.
Again, the portal rippled, this time revealing the figure of a sorceress with a billowing black cloak tied at a narrow waist by a gold thread. In her hand she held a twisted black staff topped by a clear crystal.
“Kneel before the Midnight Queen!” cried the dissonant high-pitched voice of the Nether Elf.
The face of the sorceress could not be seen under the cloak’s hood, but Gork had a sense that this sorceress was human.
Traitor. So she’s the one who took Amethyst.
The Dark Consul had allies. All knew that. But which sorceress had joined him? An oracle? An Ember Mage? A mystic from the Dragonback Peaks?
“The Destroyer defied you, my queen,” said a Nether Elf, gesturing to the petrified fire demon. The twisted elf wrung its hands as it hissed in her ear. “It came through the portal.”
“Who widened the portal?” said the voice of the sorceress known to the elves as the Midnight Queen. “It wasn’t large enough before.”
Gork could barely concern himself with the new dangers: the eight-foot-tall golem, the horde of Nether Elves, and the rumored commander behind the coordinated attacks in the Frostbyte Reach—the Midnight Queen. Drowning in grief, he only tried to remember the kiss.
