Demon Lord

Ellese watched the girls from her study window, which overlooked the garden in the centre of the abbey. Her eyes stung as Mirra crowned her friend with the daisy chain. Girlish giggles wafted in through the open window on the warm summer air. How she wished things were different.

  The Black Lord’s human weapon, Bane, had emerged from the Underworld two years ago, and those unfortunate enough to have seen him had said that he was now about twenty years old, an estimate she knew to be accurate. The moment he had set foot above ground, an army had gathered around him. First to join were the dark creatures that inhabited the entrance to the Underworld, through which Bane had emerged.

  The enormous cave, fanged with pillars of rock, gaped at the blasted lands around it from the side of a solitary crag rising unnaturally out of a plain far to the north. The cavern was large enough to accommodate two cities within its bounds, and its denizens had built a metropolis of mud and stone that filled almost half of it. Within its dim confines, generations of grims, wights, night crawlers and vampires had lived and died, awaiting the Black Lord’s rising.

  The dark power that emanated from the Underworld in a foetid exhalation had killed all life for leagues around, and only petrified forests stood sentinel on the barren plains. Any human who had ever dared to set foot in the cavern had been torn apart and devoured. The dark creatures ventured out only at night to hunt, preying on the animals that dwelt beyond the dark power’s influence. No human lived within a hundred leagues of the cave, for to do so was certain death.

  The monsters had braved the sunlight to leave their sanctuary and follow Bane. As he had moved away from the cavern, hordes of goblins, trolls, rock howlers and gnomes had rallied to him, all the Black Lord’s worshippers. They had emerged from their underground warrens and mountain caves in droves to enlist, armed with their simple, brutish weapons. Finally, humans had joined his foul mob, swelling its ranks to thousands. Every criminal, vagrant, bandit, mercenary and outcast had flocked to his banner, drawn by the promise of riches and conquest. His army had already conquered several fiefdoms, and, as it did, more joined, some from fear, others from greed, until a huge horde of rabble now marched behind him.

  With this, he swept across the Overworld in an unstoppable tide, slaughtering all in his path. Armies fell before his advance like wheat before a scythe, and those that fled were hunted down without mercy. Tales of torture, rape, mutilations and wanton atrocities preceded him; descriptions of his cruelty sickened all who heard them. The stories told of his complete lack of mercy, or any other human emotion. Apparently he revelled in death and destruction and laughed at his hapless victims’ suffering. Ruined towns and fields of rotting dead lay strewn in his wake, breeding dread diseases that afflicted the few survivors, who then spread it throughout the land. Whole towns had died without ever seeing the Black Lord’s army, defeated by the sickness Bane had unleashed.

  King Margorah, ruler of the largest kingdom in the Overworld, had fought Bane’s army to a bloody standstill in a three-day battle that had laid waste to vast tracts of land and two towns. When at last Margorah had realised he faced defeat, countless dead had paved his retreating army’s path as the dark creatures hunted within his camp each night until he had reached his citadel. There, the dead had gathered in mounds at the foot of his walls, yet still he had refused to accept defeat, determined to fight to the last man. After five days, Bane had grown bored and razed the fortress with black fire, killing all within it with a single stroke of power.

  Lesser rulers, barons and lords, had fallen to the rag-tag horde in a few hours, overrun by sheer numbers. Although Bane’s army had dwindled with each encounter, it had soon swelled again with fresh worshippers and fortune-seekers. Towns in his path had been abandoned as their residents fled in a desperate bid to save themselves. All mankind feared the coming of Bane, whose name was whispered with deep loathing and dread.

  For three weeks, the roads past the abbey had been clogged with fleeing people carrying bundles on their backs and children on their hips, driving their few livestock before them. More affluent people rode in wagons or carriages; mostly wealthy ladies whose husbands had sent them away to doubtful safety, servants and flunkies dancing attendance. Their lordly spouses remained to gird their armies for futile war, grist to Bane’s mill of unending bloodlust. All would flee until they reached the sea, then there would be nowhere to go. As they huddled in the coastal towns, the Underworld’s army marched closer, bringing with it the death their flight had only delayed. Doom had settled over the land like a dull miasma, belying the bright spring days that should have been joyous.

  Bane’s army was just a hundred miles from the abbey now, and Ellese knew the time had come for Mirra to fulfil her destiny. She had been raised within the abbey’s protection, and knew nothing of Bane. Sheltered from the world’s wickedness and taught only of its beauties, she had grown up a happy, laughing child, innocent in a profound manner that sometimes made her seem simple, until a person gazed deep into her eyes and found the utter serenity there.

  Ellese watched Tallis present Mirra with a lopsided garland, then they jumped up and ran into the abbey, trailing giggles. She turned away, sighing. She had never doubted Larris’ vision, but, as the tales of horror reached her, she worried. Still, she could not put it off any longer. Tomorrow; it had to be done tomorrow.