However, a tendril of dark magic suddenly lifted Gannon up and away from Darius and Janus, showing that their invulnerability was fleeting. The seer cried out in pain once before stabbing the scepter into the tendril. The black magic shattered under the scepter's touch and the man landed in a heap on the floor.
"Gannon, are you all right?" Darius shouted as he hurled a bolt of lightning at the Emperor.
The seer picked himself up shakily, but answered, "Well enough, wizard." Turning he fired a bolt of light into the dark cloud, "I am Gannon Talisars of the first circle, visionary of my order. I do not need my powers to see that we will prevail, Dark One."
Suddenly a roar of power swept everyone back towards the walls. "I will not be cowed by such as you!" the Emperor said turning its eyes of fire on the men surrounding it. "You are in my lair and I am master here, as I will soon be master of all. It is time to end this!"
Bolts of darkness were propelled by powerful winds. Dante defended himself with his sword. The magic wielders used their powers to lessen the blows and scatter them. A cry from Dorvin startled Dante who was only a few feet from them.
The Dark One laughed once more, "You see that I have taken the measure of your armor, Dorvin. Your power is as useless against me as these others."
Dorvin lifted himself from the ground and pulled away from the wall. Stumbling over to Dante he pressed his shield, Soul's Edge, into the man's hand. "Look through the shield, Dante."
Confused by the request at such a desperate time, Dante hesitatingly did as he was asked. Holding it between his face and the mass of the Dark Emperor, the soldier found the sight through its surface showed not the massive cloud and fiery eyes, but rather a dark figure wrapped in robes standing before the fiery pit.
The sight was what the man needed. He handed the shield back to Dorvin who limped away towards the mages, but Dante was no longer looking at the dwarf. Instead, the dutiful soldier charged towards the pit. Darkness struck at him to slow his charge, but he ignored the bolts beyond the need to swipe them away. Staring only at the pit of fire, he leapt into the cloud with a stab of light flowing from Dark’s Bane.
Fire balls crashed into the darkness before him striking pit and stone alike. The pit reacted with a flare of power. A scream pierced the air as the cloud shrank back from the flaming pit.
"No!" the robed giant cried from just before Dante.
Fireballs and lightning struck the Emperor's raised shield. They hammered at his nearly unbreakable power, until Dante closed the gap and struck with all his might at the shield. Its thin shell cracked and shattered beneath the glowing blade. Dante stabbed the robed figure where its heart should have been and stepped back.
The figure screamed and slapped the man aside sending him flying into a dazed pile at the foot of the wall. He heard the others' cries and the thunder of magic being exchanged before losing consciousness.
Darius watched as Dante crashed into the far wall. He hammered at the exposed figure of the Dark One with every last ounce of his magical might as Janus leaped forward to attack the Emperor. Gannon cut him off as the elf rushed forward.
"Take this and use it with the ring," the Seer ordered. "Drakus and I figured that this scepter would be powerful enough to disable the Emperor."
Before he could respond, the robed Dark One cast a ball of ebony flame at the two men. Gannon shouldered the elf knight aside and screamed as the ball burst his chest in a mass of blood and bone.
Janus had no time to think upon his ally's fate as he rushed to close the last feet to strike the Dark One with the glowing scepter. Darius' last ball of fire struck just as the blow knocked the Emperor backwards.
"I bind you, Kolban, so that you may never strike at my people with your evil again!" Janus shouted before delivering another blow of green fire to the body of the Emperor. Gripping the robed creature in both arms, a portal formed of silver light sprung up just behind the Dark One. Janus shoved the creature into the portal, but remarkably the Emperor cast out both arms bracing against the air surrounding the portal.
"You can not take me from my world this time, Janus!" the creature cackled gleefully. "I am bound to my minions and the very land that they have conquered. Everything that is dark belongs to me. I am tied to them too strongly to release them so easily."
The elf stabbed into the robed one's chest with the green fire of the scepter. Again and again the holy knight frantically battered at the Dark One's frame. As he did so, Darius noticed a strange feel to the air. First, a wind seemed to appear from nowhere. He couldn’t feel actual wind, but it was there at least as a sound and of unseen movement.
The fire of the pit suddenly flared, but the flames’ colors were tainted with darkness.
The ground began to tremble violently then and the wind was now felt as if the very dirt and stone around them were being drawn towards the Emperor.
Darius grew worried.
"Darius get everyone as far away from here as you can!" Janus shouted over the increasing noise of the wind. He hammered again and again with the holy scepter even as the Emperor seemed to start growing rather than shrinking with the knight's attacks.
The wizard turned away to find Dante struggling to his feet once again. The soldier had been wounded enough to leave him still dazed. Darius rushed over to grab the man by the shoulders and lead him out of the chamber. Passing him into the arms of Bagheer and Electra, Darius turned to find Dorvin, but to his surprise, the dwarf king was moving towards Janus and the Dark One.
"Dorvin!" he cried out frantically and started to go back after the dwarf.
The dwarf heard him, however, and shouted back, "Go, I'll stay to help make sure that Janus finishes the job!"
The walls buckled in a convulsion of power sending pieces of the ceiling crashing to the floor. Knowing that he could not possibly get the dwarf out in time, Darius hurried the trio back the way that they had come.
"Hurry we need to find the others before it is too late!"
"What if they are already dead?" Electra asked worriedly.
As they ran up the first stairway, Darius replied, "Dante would never have come if they weren't still alive, or at least they were when he left."
As they found the next stairway, Dante suddenly shook off their help and said, "They were alive when I left. I told them to go back outside to the three wizards if they could. Let's hurry and see if they're still safe."
The lieutenant suddenly took the lead and pushed their pace ever quicker up the ramps and stairways. As they went a keening wail could be heard on the wind and swirls of black smoke began to sweep past them being drawn deeper into the fortress.
"What is going on?" Dante asked worriedly as the wails continued to strengthen and the smoke continued to thicken.
"I don't know," Darius replied equally worried.
They found the great hall and suddenly the four stopped short. The room was bare of bodies except for those that had fallen from their band. Darius and the others looked about briefly for a trace of the enemy before running onward.
Darius suddenly said as another convulsion finished shaking the fortress, "I think that I understand now. The smoke," he said gesturing to the thickening clouds about them, "isn't just smoke. The crying you hear are the voices of the Dark One's followers."
"What?" Dante cried in disbelief. "How can that be?"
"I think that the Dark One can't be cast into the portal until all the souls he has gathered are drawn back into him."
"The creature that I fought said that the Dark One had brought him back to life," Dante ventured.
The wizard nodded as he ran through yet another doorway. "Kolban must have tied himself to everything he controlled to prevent himself from being separated from this world again, but the scepter is calling all those souls back to their source." The fortress convulsed again as strong they had ever felt. "Hurry, if I'm right, then we need to be as far from here as possible or we may get sucked into the portal with him or simply be crushed by this fortress
falling on top of us."
They found the gateway empty of bodies except for Gibble's lifeless body where it lay off to one side. Outside they found no signs of the enemy except for the great clouds of smoke rushing into the fortress and the wailing.
Several minutes later, they found the stone hills where the survivors of their force quickly spotted them. They were all huddled near the three elven wizards who were preparing their magic to open a portal back to the army.
"Dante, you're all right," Valenia cried out in relief as she threw her arms around his neck. "We were about to leave, since the earthquakes and this strange smoke started. We were afraid that the Dark One had unleashed some new magic to kill us all."
Dante kissed her strongly and replied, "If Darius is right, when the smoke ends, the Emperor will be gone."
A portal of golden light appeared about ten feet beyond the elven wizards. Darius waved for everyone to move through quickly. The wounded were carried or helped along by the others and soon they were all through.
Dante and Darius stood as the last to leave.
Dante cast a last look at the ridges around them and said, "I don't know about you, brother, but I think that I'm ready to go home and try to forget all this."
The wizard nodded grimly and jumped through the warm golden light with the warrior at his side.
Chapter 56
Coming through the glowing portal, the strike force returned to a scene of unnatural quiet. Elves, dwarves, humans, and gnomes stood around in confusion as hundreds of gargoyles floated on lazy breezes searching for the remains of the enemy forces. The appearance of Darius and Dante in their midst startled the men out of their dazed states, and soon hundreds of soldiers were surrounding their party asking if they knew what had happened to the enemy and the Dark Emperor.
Dante quickly took charge of the men surrounding them. Shouting orders to bring the armies' healers for the wounded, he had most of the men start building up a campsite, while the remainder were sent to search for more wounded in the field. The men had nearly all forgotten their fallen comrades in their confusion, but, once reminded, they hurried with flushed cheeks to do as ordered.
As tents began to spring up all around them, Dante and Valenia did what they could to keep the army in order as Darius did his best to heal or direct healing. It wasn't the wizard's best abilities, but he tried his best while the healers were still being assembled.
It wasn't long before the entire army of the allies began to follow their suit. The encampment sprawled across the valley and occupied both shores of the river bank for miles. The threat of the enemy now over, the air seemed different from when they had left. Smiles were found easier and men were able to start thinking about their futures once again. There were still goblins and orcs and the like from nearly every source of creature that the dark armies had held, but their numbers were greatly reduced and those surrendered immediately. Darius and Dante knew these were creatures that had only served the Emperor out of fear and had never truly given themselves over to the darkness. These were those that had never surrendered to his dark magic, but would have been killed had their resistance been known.
It was less than an hour before the Grimnal arrived leading a delegation of generals and nobles. They too had to ask what had happened. There were rumors flying throughout the army that even these men had heard and the truth was hard to find in the varying stories.
Gerid Aramathea, known as the Grimnal, listened patiently to their explanations, but unfortunately he was the only one so composed. Elven leaders fought be heard above dwarves and they sought to be louder than the elves. The single generals of gnome and gargoyle held their peace without bothering to try voicing their questions in that crowd.
By the time they had managed to adequately answer the nobles, night was upon them though it seemed brighter without the Emperor’s evil in the world. The Lord Grimnal finally had to take it into his own hands to shoo the men away to give the strike force a break. He also reminded them of the men they should see to in their own armies.
By the light of a couple lanterns, Darius, Dante, and Gerid ate a meal and soon the lord and warrior had taken out their pipes and were sending small clouds puffing into the air. The Lord Grimnal seemed to be taking all the oddities of the day in stride and as the man spoke, he continued to convey his ease, "I still find what you say hard to believe, but, then again, I have seen some very odd things in my five hundred plus years of life. Of course, most men would say that seeing five hundred years is in itself mighty odd."
Darius chuckled, "That is true. You do have an unusual perspective that no one else has here, sir. Immortality isn't a gift often shared that's for sure."
Shaking his head as Valenia leaned against his shoulder, Dante added, "It seems to be getting more common lately, wouldn't you say?"
Gerid barked a quick laugh at the idea. "You may be right, Lieutenant. Until you three and the elves, I have never found any others as old or indestructible as I. Believe me, I have looked."
"We may find that we aren't actually immortal," Darius offered. "The Grimnal has lived for over five hundred years, true, but just because we heal like him doesn't mean that we'll also have his long life."
"But the opposite is true also," Valenia rebutted the wizard gently. "There are three of us from this generation and we are still well within a normal human life span. Only the future will tell us more."
Dante looked thoughtful as he glanced towards Darius with Electra beside him and mused, "Speaking of being immortal, do you think that the Emperor will ever find his way out of the void?"
"If I'm immortal, I hope that I never live to see that day," Darius replied with a grin. "I suppose that there must be a way, but if Janus managed to get rid of the ring from the void, then I couldn't begin to guess how."
Electra's eyes began to tear again. She had been unable to prevent her tears and the occasional sob at the mention of the holy knight's name. Darius patted her knee before hugging her gently to his chest.
Dante glanced at Valenia and knew that she felt as bad he did about their losses. "He will be missed," the soldier said quietly, "and Dorvin, also."
"Perhaps one day we'll find out that they survived," Electra sniffed.
Gerid shook his giant head and replied, "That would mean that they would have had to go into the void as well, my dear. I don't know if either one would have risked keeping the ring near enough for the Dark Emperor to get, but who knows, perhaps one day we'll see those brave men again."
"I hope that you're right," Dante nodded. He looked at Valenia again and wondered what the future held for the two of them as well. They were from two different kingdoms and two different armies. How could they resolve their individual duties without taking away from one another?
He would have to report to his general and king, of course, and she would have her reports to give as well. Dante took a deep breath before giving a quiet sigh. There were so many unknowns in the future, who knew where their fates actually lay.
"I'll have to warn the wizards' council about the possibility of his escape, I'm sure," Darius spoke up as if pondering his future as well. He looked at Electra still lying against him. "Do you think that your people will want to remain in Eirhden, Electra?"
The elf woman pulled back slightly. "Most will, I think. There is literally nothing left of our ancient homes now. Any land conquered by the Dark One will be little more than a wasteland thanks to his tying his darkness to every land he conquered. By now, most of my village probably already have their own homes in the forest anyway. If your rulers don't mind, I really do believe that most will wish to stay." She smiled at the wizard and added, "I know that I will anyway, my love."
"So another day will dawn, and we will return to our homes to ponder our futures." The Grimnal arose from his seat after the proclamation. "I bid you good night, my friends. We leave tonight for the North Continent and home. Remember my fellow immortals. I will always be there if you need me."
Dar
ius and Dante rose and clasped forearms with the legend. Valenia joined belatedly and added her pledge to theirs. It was like the proclamation of being family forever, and each knew that they would indeed remain that family.
"I miss Janus," Electra said quietly as Darius led her off to the tent that they would share.
Dante and Valenia simply looked at each other as they held each other with an arm. The question of the elf and dwarf's fate would haunt them for a long time, perhaps forever.
Dante sighed again and was joined by his lover. They would go home tomorrow as well in the next day of the wizards’ work of making portals for the allies return.
Silver light gleamed in the clearing for only a moment before winking out again. A crash of metal announced a new arrival to the night in Tolmona. A moan came soon after and then the creak of metal and leather.
Armor battered and looking to be covered in more dust than seemed physically possible, Dorvin hobbled towards the city walls of Darvus that he knew were less than a mile beyond the trees surrounding him. It was going to be a long journey for a dwarf as battered as he. Squaring his shoulders as best he could, the king of the dwarves began his trek towards home.
In the moonlight, the ring on his finger seemed to gleam with a dim, silver glow.
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Other books by Donald L Wigboldy Jr.:
From the Tales of Alus series:
Battle Mage: A Tale of Alus
Battle Mage: Winter’s Edge
Battle Mage: The Lost King
Battle Mage: Dragon Mage
The High King: A Tale of Alus
Modern Tales:
Voran the Night Guardian
The Mermaid’s Chest
Previews:
The High King: A Tale of Alus
Chapter 8- Black Sails
Simon awoke late in the morning to the sounds of the crew's excited voices and the quick thuds of running feet atop the deck. He pressed the sleep from his eyes and forced himself to get up and find out what was occurring. The pills had made him groggier than normal, so it was a struggle just to awaken.
The Emperor's Shadow War (Tales of Alus Book 2) Page 51
