Diablo #1: Legacy of Blood

by Richard A. Knaak

  Understanding human emotions, Augustus Malevolyn predicted that they would choose the latter.

  “All ranks into line formation!”

  The hellish horde spread out, gradually creating two larger, imposing rows. To the commanders in Lut Gholein, it would be clear that the invaders sought to make their force look more impressive. Yet, those same commanders would also think how foolish the newcomers had to be to try such an apparent trick.

  Lut Gholein would also wait to see if a second force followed after the first. They would judge the possibility of that by how near to the walls Malevolyn dared lead his troops. The commanders would then decide whether the risk was worth it to crush the first wave, then retreat back inside before any aid might arrive.

  The demons began to lose some of the order in their ranks, but for the most part they held as they should. Their new warlord had promised them much blood, much mayhem, and that alone kept them in control. They had but one order to obey once the walls of the city had been breached; the man clad in the crimson armor had to be brought to Malevolyn immediately.

  All others they could deal with as they desired.

  As he and his force reached the point midway between the mangled bodies of the unfortunate patrol and the very gates of the fabled realm, a long row of turbaned figures with bows suddenly arose at the battlements. In quick fashion, they loosed a storm of arrows, all arced perfectly to wipe out the first line of attackers—including the general himself.

  However, as each shaft neared Malevolyn, a brief flash of light erupted around every single one . . . obliterating them before they could touch even his horse. More than a score of arrows vanished in such a way, the archers evidently determined to slay the enemy’s leader quickly if they could.

  Yet, around him, his warriors fell one after another, shafts sticking out of throats, in sides, even in heads. One by one, the rain of arrows whittled down the first row and even many in the second, leaving the would-be warlord with visible losses of nearly half his followers.

  Lightning played above Lut Gholein as if marking the next phase of the defenders’ intended vengeance. The gates opened, a vast legion of hardened, bitter fighters on both horseback and foot charging in perfect order toward what remained of the murderous invaders. The turbaned warriors spread out, creating a series of rows not only longer than Malevolyn’s but also several times thicker. As he had surmised, defending from the battlements had not been satisfying to his adversaries. They would make him and his pay for the butchered riders at the same time garnering some glory for themselves.

  “Fools,” he muttered, trying hard to hold back a smile. “Impetuous fools!”

  General Malevolyn made no move to retreat. In normal combat conditions that would have proven even more costly than his suicidal advance. At least his men could die knowing that they took more of the enemy with them—or so Lut Gholein’s commanders must also be thinking.

  And as the opposing sides converged, he signaled to one of the few surviving warriors next to him, the one to which had been given the battle horn.

  The hellish soldier raised the horn to his lips and blew, sending out a mournful cry throughout the field of combat.

  From the sand arose the supposed dead, General Augustus Malevolyn’s demons charging forward regardless of the wounds the arrows had inflicted. Armored figures with shafts sticking out of their throats or their eyes moved to meet the stunned defenders, some of whom let out horrified cries and tried to back away only to collide with those advancing behind them. The turbaned lines slowed, faltered, as the horrific sight registered with each man in front.

  In a voice that smothered the thunder, Malevolyn roared, “Slay them! Slay them all!”

  The demons roared and fell upon their more numerous but merely mortal foes.

  They tore into the humans, with their hellish strength completely severing limbs and even heads from those nearest. The foremost of Lut Gholein’s defenders perished horribly, several split open completely by swords, others ripped apart by hand while they screamed. Swords and lances had little effect on the general’s troops, although occasionally a demon would indeed fall. Yet, despite these one or two losses, the balance of the battle clearly had begun to turn. The bodies of the defenders began to pile up as those in back, still somewhat ignorant of the terrible truth, forced their comrades into the unyielding maw of death.

  A horn within the walls sounded and suddenly a new rain of arrows fell upon the invaders. Unfortunately, the new volley had little hope of success and even contributed to the continual slaughter of the defenders on the ground, many of them now falling victim to their own archers. Almost immediately after the first wave of shafts, the horn sounded again, but by that point scores more had perished.

  Out among the demons, Malevolyn fought as possessed as the rest of his infernal legion. The ebony blade cut a bloody swathe through his foes, neither armor nor bone slowing it in any fashion. Soon, even his monstrous horde gave him room, the general’s viciousness approaching their limits. Malevolyn’s black armor had been stained from head to foot in crimson, but, if anything, it spurred him on to harsher, more brutal acts.

  The ground around him abruptly exploded. His horse fell hard, dying instantly. More fortunate, General Malevolyn landed a few yards away. The explosion, which would have killed any normal man, did little more than stun him for a few seconds.

  Rising, he looked up at the walls to see a pair of robed figures, Vizjerei no doubt in the service of the young sultan. Malevolyn had expected Lut Gholein to throw sorcery at him, but had become so caught up in the massacre that he had forgotten.

  A fury such as he had never experienced took hold of him. He recalled Viz-jun, recalled how Horazon and the others had tricked him, led his hellish horde into a trap . . .

  “Not this time!” Augustus Malevolyn held up a fist, shouted words he had never known before. Above him, the heavens appeared ready to explode.

  A fierce wind struck the battlements, but only where the sorcerers stood. Those who watched saw the pair pulled high into the air, where they helplessly flailed about, no doubt trying to cast counterspells.

  The warlord brought his fist down hard.

  With wild shrieks the two Vizjerei plummeted to the ground as if shot from great bows.

  When the sorcerers hit, even the demons backed away, so startled were they by the terrible force with which the pair hit. Only Malevolyn watched with great satisfaction, his first step toward avenging his loss at Viz-jun now taken. That his memories had so mingled with Bartuc’s that he could no longer tell them apart did not even occur to him any more. There could be only one Warlord of Blood—and he stood nearly at the gates of this trembling city.

  His quick eyes caught sight of one among the failing defenders, an officer of high rank. A demon stood before the bearded warrior, the black-clad creature forcing the enemy commander to his knees.

  General Malevolyn acted swiftly, summoning the magical sword and driving it through the back of the stunned demon. The monstrous warrior shrieked and the body within the black armor shriveled until nothing remained but a thin, papery layer of dried flesh over bone. A wisp of green smoke rose from the collapsing corpse, smoke that dissipated in the wind.

  Stepping over the pile of bones and metal, Malevolyn headed for the officer he had just saved. The general had known that the demon would not have paused in time and the loss of one of his minions meant little to him. After Lut Gholein, he would be able to summon every beast in Hell.

  The weakened officer tried to fight him, but with a gesture of his hand, Malevolyn sent the man’s own weapon flying—into the throat of one of the other defenders.

  He seized the hapless officer by the throat, dragging him up to a standing position. “Hear me and you may live, fool!”

  “You might as well slay me now—”

  Tightening his grip, Malevolyn held on until the fighter nearly suffocated. At the last, he loosened his fingers slightly, allowing the man to breathe again. �
�Your life—the life of everyone in Lut Gholein, is mine! Only one thing will save you for the time being! One thing!”

  “W-what?” his prisoner gasped, now much more sensible.

  “There is a stranger in the city! Aman dressed in armor the color of the blood that covers both of us and that you might yet keep running through your veins! Bring him to me! Bring him out through the gates and send him to me!”

  He could see the commander calculating the advantages and disadvantages. “You’ll—you’ll put an end to this battle?”

  “I’ll put an end to it when I have what I want . . . and until I see him, Lut Gholein will know no peace! Think well on this, for you can already see that your walls will be of little good against me!”

  It did not take the man long. “I—I will do it!”

  “Then go!” General Malevolyn contemptuously threw the officer back, waving away a pair of demonic soldiers ready to strike the man down. To the enemy commander, he added, “Call a retreat! Any who pass through the gates will not be slaughtered! Any who fail to follow quick enough will serve as fine food for the carrion crows! This is all I grant you—be grateful you get this much!”

  The officer fled from him, stumbling in the direction of Lut Gholein. Malevolyn watched him signal to someone up on the walls. A few moments later, a pitiful wail went up from one of the war horns in the city.

  An armored figure with eyes that matched the blood on Augustus Malevolyn’s armor came up to him. The face had once belonged to Zako. “Let them go, warlord?”

  “Of course not. Beat them to the ground, let none survive who do not make it to the gates. Any who do, though, you do not touch and none of you are to enter the city!” He glanced in the direction of the enemy commander, who had not bothered much to wait for his men. “And make sure that he survives! He’ll have much to tell them.”

  “Yes, warlord . . .” The Zako demon bowed once, then hesitated. “Not to enter the city? We leave Lut Gholein alone?”

  “I want the armor! We will harass them, even do what we can to damage their defenses, but until I have the armor and the head of the one who dared keep it from me, the city will not be touched!” General Malevolyn— Warlord Malevolyn—smiled grimly. “I promised them an end to the battle, that Lut Gholein would not know peace until I had the armor. Once I have it, I will give to them exactly what I promised. A final end to the battle . . . and the peace of the grave .”

  Seventeen

  “What’s that sound?” Norrec asked, looking up from the pattern he had drawn in the sand.

  Close to his side, Galeona shook her head. “I hear only thunder, my knight.”

  He rose, listening again. “Sounds like battle . . . from the direction of the city.”

  “Perhaps a celebration. Maybe it’s the sultan’s birthday.”

  Norrec frowned to himself, suspicious of her continual denial of what he certainly recognized. Although his memories and those of Bartuc had intermingled to the point where it had become hard to tell one from the other, both sets of memories now aided him in determining that he heard correctly. The clatter, the shouts . . . they all spoke of violence, of bloodshed . . .

  A part of him felt tempted to join in.

  No . . . he had more important things to do. Horazon’s tomb, what the beguiling witch evidently called the Arcane Sanctuary, had to lie somewhere near, perhaps even beneath where he presently stood.

  He knelt down again, ignoring Galeona’s momentary look of relief. Something about the pattern he had drawn—an upside-down triangle with circles around each corner and three crescents beneath—did not look right. That the fighter should not have even known of such spells no longer bothered him. Bartuc had known them; therefore, Norrec Vizharan did.

  “What’s missing?”

  The witch hesitated. “One of two things. To search for a person, you would need a pentagram in the middle of the triangle. To search for a place, you would need a larger pentagram surrounding all the rest.”

  She made perfect sense to him. Norrec grimaced at having forgotten something so simple. He rewarded her with a smile. “Very good.”

  Despite the fact that her magical skills augmented his own growing abilities and her physical charms enticed his baser nature, not for a minute did the veteran soldier trust his new companion. She told half-truths and hid much from him. He could sense her ambition. The enchantress saw him as useful to her own ends, just as he saw the same where she was concerned. So long as she aided his efforts, Norrec had no trouble accepting her lies. However, if she tried to betray him later on, he had no compunction about dealing with her as he would have any traitor.

  Some part within him still did battle with what he had become. Even now, Norrec sensed that such thoughts as he had just had about Galeona went against what the veteran had believed in most of his life. Yet, it seemed so easy to accept those thoughts now.

  His mind shifted back to his task. He had to find Horazon’s tomb, although why still remained a mystery to him. Perhaps when he did discover its whereabouts, then the reason for the quest would finally become clear.

  He drew the larger pentagram, choosing to try to find the sanctuary rather than the man. Horazon would be little more than bones, making it somewhat more difficult to fix upon him. The edifice itself represented a larger, more distinct target for the spell.

  “Have you cast anything such as this before?”

  Galeona gave him a proud look. “Of course, I have!” Her look faltered slightly. “But I’ve never seen the Arcane Sanctuary nor do I have anything from it.”

  “That’ll be no problem.” Norrec already had a plan in mind. He felt certain that he could have both uttered the necessary incantation and focused on the location, but that would have forced him to spread his thoughts and will too much, likely increasing his chance for failure. The Arcane Sanctuary had already appeared to be a place quite unwilling to reveal itself. Even after the armor had fought off Drognan, some other force had pushed Norrec away from his goal. As with Bartuc’s own tomb, Horazon’s resting place had probably been built with much security in mind. The creators had obviously not wanted it defiled or ransacked and had cast powerful protective measures such as those the soldier had encountered in Drognan’s chamber.

  But with Galeona casting the spell, Norrec could focus fully on their destination. Surely that would work. If not . . .

  He explained it to the witch, who nodded. “It can be done, I think. We must be of one mind, though, or else our own thoughts might work against us.”

  She reached out her hands. Norrec placed his own in hers. Galeona smiled at him, but something about that smile repelled the veteran rather than attracted him. Again he saw raw ambition in her eyes. The sorceress thought that by proving her usefulness to her companion, she could eventually control him. That, in turn, brought more dark thoughts of his own, thoughts of what he would do to any who believed that they could do such. There could be only one master—and that had to be Norrec.

  “Picture it,” she muttered. “Picture where you want us to go . . .”

  In his mind, Norrec imagined the tomb as he had seen it the first time. He felt certain that the initial vision had been the true one, that the force trying to keep him from the sanctuary had afterward attempted to confuse his memory. The robed skeletons, the stone coffin with the symbol of the dragon over the crescent moon . . . these surely had to be the true images of the tomb.

  Holding tight, Galeona leaned back, her eyes closed and her face toward the sky. She swayed as she muttered the incantation, pulling at her companion’s gauntleted hands.

  Norrec shut his own eyes, the better not to be distracted by the witch’s body while he pictured Horazon’s resting place. An eagerness swelled within him. This would work. He would be transported to the Arcane Sanctuary.

  And then what?

  Norrec had no time to divine an answer to that question, for suddenly he felt his entire body lighten, as if he had become more spirit than flesh. The only tug of weig
ht he felt at all came from his hands, where the sorceress still gripped him tight.

  “Nezarios Aero!” cried Galeona. “Aerona Jy!”

  The fighter’s body crackled with pure energy.

  “Aerona Jy!”

  A great sense of displacement shook Norrec—

  —and in the next moment, his feet landed on hard stone .

  Eyes immediately opening wide, Norrec Vizharan looked around. Web-enshrouded walls greeted his gaze and within those walls he saw a line of statues, each distinct in face and form, staring back. Not all of them had names that he could recall, but among them he spotted more than one who had known him well—and known his brother, Horazon, too.

  But no—Horazon was not his brother! Why did he keep thinking that?

  “We’ve done it!” Galeona cried, having at last registered their surroundings. She flung herself on him, kissed him with a fury that could almost not be denied—yet, Norrec desired nothing more than to push her away.

  “Yes, this is it,” he replied, once he had managed to peel her tentacles from his body.

  “There is nothing we can’t accomplish together,” she cooed. “No one who could stand in our way . . .”

  Yes, Galeona definitely sought to seal their alliance. The seductive witch understood full well the power he wielded, the power the suit had at last given to him. If she could have, Norrec had no doubts that she would have tried to wear the armor herself—and thereby cut out any need for a partner. The sooner he rid himself of her, the better.

  Turning from the devilish woman, Norrec looked down the ancient, musty corridor. A peculiar, yellowish light illuminated the abandoned edifice, a light seemingly without source. He could not recall it from his first incursion into this dark realm, but since everything else looked as it should, Norrec paid the one difference little attention. His goal was at hand.