“What’s up?” Gastropé asked.
“You’ll see. What I’m showing everyone will speak for itself; I’ll answer what questions I can afterwards.”
Damien led the three to a mid-sized auditorium, where the rest of the council was arriving. They took seats and Damien pointed out various council members as they arrived. “I believe you have met Lord Gandros?” They nodded. “Beside him is Alexandros Mien.” Gastropé sucked in his breath, impressed by the legend. “The gentlemen near them are various associates of theirs.”
Damien pointed a little ways over. “Obviously, you know Lenamare, Jehenna and Zilquar and their associates,” he said as he gestured at Hortwell, Elrose and Zilquar’s people. There was no sign of Master Trisfelt.
“That is Sier Bavron of Yorkton and his closest advisors. Next is Tureledor, Archimage of Tureledor.”
Jenn looked askance at Damien. “His given name is the same as his title name?”
Damien grinned. “Hereditary tradition. I don’t know how fathers and sons refer to each other.” He pointed down further and went on, “Davron of Markforton with two of his people, and now entering the room is Randolf of Turelane, with whom you are probably both familiar.” Gastropé nodded. Jenn shrugged; she had heard of him. Exador theoretically worked for him.
“And behind him and his two aides is Trevin D’Vils, Enchantress of the Grove, and her maidens.” Jenn frowned; the woman was way too old to be wearing that sort of outfit.
Randolf spoke to Lord Gandros, but did so in such a loud voice that everyone could hear. “I fear, my Chancellor Arcane, Councilor Exador is indisposed at the moment and won’t be able to attend.” There were a number of murmurs at this.
Sir Bastion, the Lord Chairman of the Council of Magistrates, who was there on behalf of the magistrates, spoke up. “This is a very critical meeting, My Lord Archimage; we have requested all to attend.”
Randolf nodded, acknowledging the point. “Unfortunately, he’s been called off to handle some issues for me in Turelane.”
“I thought you said he was indisposed,” Trevin D’Vils snapped as she seated herself.
Randolf turned gingerly to face her and sort of grimaced or simpered or something at her. “My apologies, Enchantress... a poor word choice on my behalf. I had hoped to avoid bringing up my issues at home and so chose words that added to the confusion. My sincerest apologies.”
Jenn whispered into Gastropé’s ear, “Is it just me, or is he slimy?”
Gastropé shook his head and whispered back, “No, he’s very slimy. I think he is actually a toad that Exador turned into an Archimage. He’s done the reverse often enough, so why not?”
Jenn giggled softly to herself. Damien overheard them and gave them a rueful grin.
Gandros stood to address the gathering. “Very well, then, I think we are all here. Due to its sensitivity and arcane nature, Lord Chairman Bastion is going to view this on behalf of the Council of Magistrates and will decide whether to show it to them. What you are about to see is, well, rather disturbing.”
He gestured to Damien, who stood up. “Damien ventured out today after the purge to reopen discussions with the Oorstemothians and the Rod, and to ascertain the state of affairs after we dumped a demon horde on them,” Lord Gandros explained.
Lenamare spoke up. “I do hope you know we appreciate your fortitude in your willingness to deal with these groups.” He made a small shudder.
Jenn raised her eyebrow; that statement seemed very uncharacteristic of Lenamare. However, he was probably feeling very magnanimous after having pulled off a rather unthinkable level of wizardry, of which everyone in the room was aware.
“Thank you, Councilor.” Damien bowed his head to Lenamare. Damien proceeded down the steps to a pedestal at the base of the auditorium, lifting a small bag from his waist. “Before I go into too much detail, I want to show you a balling[7] that was made for distribution by the Oorstemothians. This,” he held up a crystal ball from the small bag, “contains a copy of a Viewing recorded by Wing Arms Master Heron’s personal sorcerer.” He set the ball down on a mount in the pedestal.
“Now, first, some background. Lord Alexandros ventured out yesterday to negotiate us more time and to alert the Rod and the Sky Fleet of our plans. They devised a scheme to deal with the demons fleeing the city.”
“You mean kill or dispose of them,” Davron interjected.
Damien shook his head. “As best they could.”
“Better than them heading down the road to our cities,” Sier Barvon of Yorktown stated emphatically.
“Indeed,” Damien concurred.
“As we know, we were inadvertently playing host to several archdemons and likely a few greater demons.” There were a few gasps from around the room from those who hadn’t realized how severe the problem had been.
“Did we drive out the archdemons?” Trevin asked.
“We believe so; but that’s complicated.”
“Can’t Talarius fly over and look again?” Tureledor asked. “That’s what he did before, right?”
“I think it best if we watch the ball, and then I’ll tell you what else I know.” Damien gestured and the room lights went down. He waved his hand over the ball and the air above it lit up with a frozen vision of the Rod’s encampment.
“As I said, this was taken by Heron’s personal sorcerer. Given what we all know of the Oorstemothians, I have no doubts as to its authenticity.” Damien made some gestures to zoom in on the scene.
“My demon!” Lenamare exclaimed, nearly standing up and pointing to the demon currently frozen in the air.
“What’s with that miniature version of him over there?” Jehenna wondered.
“Isn’t that your demon, Damien?” Bastion asked Damien, referring to the smallest demon.
“I’m afraid so. As you see, this affects many of us in the room personally.”
“Gastropé!” Jehenna suddenly spoke up. “Isn’t that your ugly demon there as well?”
“Apparently,” said Gastropé, looking extra-pale in the dark of the room.
“As I said, let’s proceed; we can go back and watch it over again as much as needed afterward, but I think we want to get the full event shown first,” Damien said.
“Very well, proceed,” Gandros ordered. Damien waved his hand. The knight Talarius was speaking to the smaller version of Lenamare’s demon. Jenn had no idea where the small demon had come from. She had wondered where that Tom demon had been; apparently he was in the palace all along.
As the video started, the smaller demon was saying, “...I’ll be able to put up a fight.”
“I don’t think it will be that much of a fight; I’ve taken your measure once before, demon,” Talarius told the smaller demon.
Lenamare’s greater demon came in for a landing. He still gave Jenn a queasy feeling. “Well then,” the big demon boomed, “How about fighting an adult? Man to man, rather than slaughtering children for sport?” There was some consternation in the room; it sounded like others found this statement as disturbing as Jenn.
Transcript of Greater Demon vs. Knight Rampant of Tiernon[8]
Jenn soon ceased to think or question; all she could do was watch in horrified fascination along with the rest of the room as the scene played out as it had that morning. As the events unfolded, there were various gasps and an occasional cheer, but mostly ahhhs and indrawn breaths, particularly towards the end.
The viewing ended and everyone sat there in silence. It was beyond shocking; Jenn wondered if the entire Council of Wizardry had ever been rendered speechless before.
“So, Lenamare,” Davron spoke up. “How sure are you that you summoned a type IV demon?”
A short (adult human-size) demon rises to its full height and moves into a fighting stance. “At least this time I’ll be able to put up a fight,” he answers bravely to a question posed by the Knight Rampant, Talarius.
“I don’t think it will be that much of a fight; I’ve taken your measure once before, demon,” Talarius responds very seriously.
“Well, then,” a voice booms down from above as a demon identical to the one on the ground, but easily twice as large, comes in for a landing between the knight and the smaller demon. “How about fighting an adult? Man to man, rather than slaughtering children for sport?”
Talarius steps back in surprise and shock as the twelve-foot tall demon lands. The entire circle of priests steps back, giving them more room, the priests behind the front row getting shoved violently back.
“What lies are you spewing, demon?” Talarius asks the greater demon.
“First, I thought you were a holy man, sworn to goodness? You sounded a bit smug and egotistical talking to the . You know what they say: Pride goeth before the fall? Vanity is the root of all evil? And so on.”
One can see the knight’s eyes twitch within his helmet; the demon has hit a nerve.
“Second, is just a child. I don’t think it’s very honorable for a great and glorious knight to go around killing children for sport, do you?”
“That is no child, it’s a demon,” Talarius tells the greater demon sternly, “and removing evil from this world is not a sport, it’s a duty. A solemn duty.”
The greater demon shakes his head as if in exasperation. “What, you think demons don’t have children? You’ve seen his human form. That is what he really looks like; that is who he really is. And you killed him, in your own tent, for no reason other than he’d been flying overhead the night before.”
“Lies, lies! He came with you through a portal to take over the world!” A high priest pushes his way forward to yell at the greater demon.
The greater demon looks with pity at the priest. “Verigas, you were meddling where you shouldn’t have been. I needed a doorway to get my human charges back to Astlan; you simply provided that gateway. No one harmed you. We even arranged for you to escape. If we meant you harm, you wouldn’t be here now.”
“Liar! All demons lie. You seek to confuse us with your lies!” Verigas shouted.
“You are as crazy as those damn wizards, blinded by your own paranoia and fear. You can’t even see the truth when it’s presented to you because you are too wrapped up in silly superstitions and prejudices,” the greater demon retorts.
“Enough chatter, demon!” Talarius shouts. “You simply seek to delay us so that your compatriots can destroy us!”
“Destroy you?” The giant demon waves his arms around. “We — my compatriots as you call them and I — aren’t the ones who were lying in ambush outside the city waiting for us to be driven out against our will where you could begin slaughtering us!” He raises his arms above his head in frustration. “You have seriously got to be kidding me. It is you who seek to destroy us; we are simply trying to get out of Freehold, thanks to a spell cast by wizards. The only people getting killed are demons! Look around!” He waves his arms more vigorously.
“Your words are ever so cunning. Greater demons are ‘greater’ not just for their size but for their cunning and deceptiveness.”
“Dude,” the demon says, “— and I say that in most laid back way I can — you are seriously tripping! I don’t have to be cunning or deceptive; you guys are falling all over yourselves with your own paranoia and self-deceptions.”
“Why do you prevaricate? Let’s have this out,” Talarius demands.
The demon sighs. “So you want to fight me?” The knight tilts his head in agreement. “Very welclass="underline" here’s the deal. We fight, just you and me, no one else. If you win, you guys get to continue on with what you were doing before I arrived. If I win, you and the Rod stop attacking the demons and let them go their own way in peace. Agreed?”
Talarius’s eyes narrow in calculation for a moment and then he finally nods and says, “Agreed.”
The greater demon nods and gestures for everyone to step back. The priests surrounding them do so, as do the three demons standing behind him. The demon looks around the circle as if judging whether or not they can be trusted to keep their word. He blinks staring at the surrounding army, almost as if puzzled and distracted by something.
The demon turns his attention back to the knight just as his sword comes slashing towards him. The demon blocks it with his hand and curses as the blade bites deeply into his hand. He turns his hand to flame and then re-forms it.
The knight is winding up for another huge slash, so the demon quickly spins and gives the knight a standing back kick in the gut at full strength, grimacing on impact.
The knight goes flying backwards, smashing to the ground on his buttocks. He springs back up like a gymnast, almost as if he wasn’t covered head to toe in heavy metal.
Talarius advances, this time with shield ready to deflect a kick. The demon changes fighting stances. The knight’s left side is protected by the shield while the right hand holds the sword. As the knight moves in, raising his arm to slash, the demon moves quickly to the knight’s right side and performs a whirling back kick to the knight’s right flank, roaring loudly. A brilliant flash of red light strikes the knight along with the demon’s hoof.
Talarius goes flying forward and to the left, off balance, taken by surprise. His sword coincidentally slashes the demon’s forearm, slicing deeply, but the demon flash-heals it almost without a thought. The knight regains his balance quickly, clearly breathing harder.
The knight moves in again, whirls and slides down low under the demon’s legs, twisting somehow to bring his very pointy spiked boot right up into the demon’s monstrously oversized testicles. The demon howls in agony; his tail slashes down like a razor, raking with a nasty shriek across the knight’s armor.
As the sharp spade squeals across the armor, lightning coruscates over the surface of the armor, released from the demon’s tail spade. The demon completes his action, pulling away from the knight and crouching, protecting his testicles. In doing so, his tail leaves the knight and the electricity stopped.
“That was rather a low blow, knight!” the demon growls at Talarius.
“It pays to protect the family jewels, fiend!” Talarius glares back at him.
The knight moves in for another slice; the demon blocks with his arm and tries a forward kick. The blade slams tightly into his forearm, lodging in the bone. The demon’s kick bounces off the knight’s shield.
The demon flashes to fire, releasing the sword, and starts a new spinning back kick between sword and shield while in fire mode, solidifying as his foot slides through the opening.
The knight struggles to curl himself together and eject the demon. The demon, whose left hand is drawn back, brings it forward in an open-handed thrust at the shoulder joint of the knight, a region protected only by chain mail.
This time the demon strikes home, hard. His nails cannot quite seem to pierce the chainmail, but the blunt force causes a cracking noise and a screech from Talarius. The knight’s sword flashes through the air, slicing through the demon’s wing. The demon screams in anger and pain and flashes to flame.
During the few seconds it takes to do that, the knight dives through the demon’s flame form and regains his feet. Once solid, the demon starts to rise and Talarius takes the opportunity to slice the demon’s tail off. It falls flat on the ground, twitching. The demon flashes to flame again and then back.
While this has been happening, the priests of Tiernon have begun chanting in unison, and a gold circle forms around the greater demon and, in fact, the entire area of combat.
The demon begins repositioning itself as Talarius removes his hand from his shoulder, where he apparently had been using a healing ritual to fix his most recent wounds.
The knight gets back into fighting position, as does the demon. The knight thrusts forward suddenly; however, the demon was prepared and side steps, grabbing the knight’s sword arm with both hands and lifting. The knight is over six feet tall, but the demon nearly twelve, so in many ways it is like an adult battling a child. The demon lifts the knight up and over his own shoulder, spinning and then slamming the knight as hard as he can into the ground.
The knight had managed to slash the demon’s side deeply with his sword during this, and his shield had smashed the demon’s head, but the knight seems to have gotten the worst of the deal.
The knight is on the ground, winded and wounded. For some odd reason, the demon steps back and waits for the knight to slowly climb to his feet. As the knight stands, one can hear him chanting something and suddenly golden light washes over the knight. Now his armor seems to glow more brightly, and he stands straighter.
The knight tilts his head forward, glaring at the demon in anger. He shouts something in a strange language and charges, point first. The demon steps aside, apparently intending to repeat his last maneuver, but suddenly the knight stops, spins and seems to shimmer. His blade whisks around, seeming to turn to pure light and extending beyond its normal reach to slice through both the demon’s thighs! The demon screams as it crashes to the ground, its bat-like wings fluttering frantically but unable to catch him before he falls. He bursts into flame again and swats the knight hard with his flaming hand. Talarius ducks, but is still grazed by the fire.
The demon assumes a fighting stance and begins fist-punching the air, pointing at Talarius. As his hand reaches out, blasts of fire leap from the demon’s fist to strike the knight. The knight deflects the blasts with his shield. The demon rises into the air and fires straight down; still the knight deflects the blasts. Fireballs ricochet into the surrounding priests to loud howls of pain, and the priest quickly begin patting the flames out on their compatriots.
The demon moves in closer and the knight slashes at him. The sword moves through the flames slowly and jerkily and the demon roars in pain, clearly surprised that the knight can wound him.
The demon lands and suddenly launches a solid, continuous blast of flame at the knight, as if unleashing a portal to the Plane of Fire. Instead of raising his shield to defend, the knight simply brings his sword forward, clasping it with both hands, the shield hanging unused on his left forearm.
The flames are being parted by the sword; parted and swept aside like water before the bow of a ship. The blasts are redirected to the surrounding crowd, scorching several before they are able to raise magic shields to protect themselves.
Suddenly the demon’s flame turned a mixture of white with blue streaks of lightning. The knight shuddered under the new assault and began mouthing some ritual. The cold fire began to close in on the knight. The demon’s body was now cold fire with blasts of lightning from it. However, there is a steady seepage of flame from the demon to the ring surrounding the combat. It appears that the priests are siphoning off the demon’s energy.
The demon suddenly seems to realize what is happening and becomes even angrier, but it does him no good, for suddenly archers of the Rod begin shooting magical arrows at him. As each arrow strikes the demon, a burst of golden yellow light, like a tiny star, appears for a few seconds.
The demon’s flames begin to flicker. Suddenly the torrent of cold fire and electricity ceases as the icy demon leaps spinning into the air, materializing as he lands behind the knight. Immediately he grabs the knight’s legs and jerks them out from under him, pulling the knight upside down as the demon stands. The demon handles the knight as if he were but a rag doll, smashing him face first into the ground. He then pulls the knight’s legs apart and kicks him right in the crotch — payback from before.
The demon picks the knight up and smashes him into the ground again, the knight twisting feverishly to escape the demon’s grasp. The demon lifts and smashes the knight into the ground yet again, then he drives the edge of his hoof in between the knight’s thigh plates and calf plates until a crunching sound is heard. The demon pulls back, twisting and lifting the knight, bringing him up and over his own shoulders and head, and then smashing the knight down on his back.
The arrows had stopped after the demon had moved to the other side of the knight and materialized; at this point the Rod starts firing again. Several other priests had begun chanting loudly. As the demon begins picking the knight up for another smashing, a dark mist grows around the two of them, the knight’s armor suddenly turns white hot in appearance, and the demon begins sweating blood. The arrows continue to rain through the mist, and scorch marks are appearing on the demon’s hide wherever they strike.
The demon’s bloody palms have made the knight slippery and the demon loses his hold as Talarius scrambles free. As the knight regains his footing, he brings his sword around and slices through the demon’s left ankle, chopping his hoof off.
The demon teeters, trying to right himself with his wings, but is obviously getting tired. A priest hurries to Talarius’s side and begins casting healing spells. The demon launches itself into the air to fly over to the knight and priest, but a yellow glowing mist, different from before, envelops him, slowing his progress and dragging him back down towards the ground.
The knight climbs to his feet and slashes at the demon’s other leg, slicing through it at knee level. The demon is extremely wobbly and blinking furiously.
“Prepare for the final rites,” Talarius orders. “Have you got the others secured?” he asks his people even as he moves in for the kill, swinging his blade and lopping off the demon’s left arm. The demon wobbles in the air, looking as if it might crash at any moment. In the background, a glowing yellow magical net has engulfed the other demons with the greater demon.
“This will be the final death for all of them,” a priest shouts towards those casting the net.
Talarius moves in and slashes off one of the demon’s wings, bringing the demon to the ground. The demon’s one remaining arm waves uselessly in front of him, one moment clawing at the ground and the next waving feebly back and forth in the air. A sight that would have brought the bravest warrior to pity if this had been a fellow mortal.
Talarius ignores the demon writhing on the ground as one group of priests surrounds him to apply healing rituals and another group begins assembling the necessary implements for killing all the demons permanently.
The priests aiding Talarius are finished, and the knight stands and strides over to the pathetic, flailing demon on the ground. “So, demon. You are defeated, and now you and your immediate compatriots will face true death.”
“You cheated,” the demon croaks.
“There is no such thing as cheating when fighting Evil.” The knight takes his helmet off. He almost looks sad as he stares down at the demon.
“So you say. I disagree,” the greater demon says quite clearly. The demon is smoldering a bit now. He lets out a loud sigh and suddenly there is nothing but glowing ashes on the ground.
“Curses!” the knight yells. “He fled back to the Abyss!” He turns back to the group of priests who had been preparing the ritual. “How are the preparations going?”
“Are you sure you want to do this?” a man who appeared to be a general asked. “This is the sort of thing that can have unintended repercussions.”
The knight sighs. “I understand, Barabus, but these demons are clearly the root of the problem we and the Sky Fleet have been pursuing, and we need to deal with them once and for all.”
“Do you not want to question them?” Barabus asked.
“What good is questioning demons?” Talarius asked. “We’ll get better results from their human henchmen.” Barabus was nodding as a senior priest nearby suddenly threw up.
“Are you okay?” Barabus asks. The man is quite pale and shaking his head no, gasping and too weak to speak. Another high priest suddenly turns pale and falls on the ground, vomiting. Then another, and then a fourth high priest.
“What the hell is going on?” Talarius demands, looking around. “Verigas? What’s wrong?”
The high priest named Verigas, the whiny one from the beginning of the scene, is very rigid and silent, seemingly locked in some sort of internal struggle. After what seemed like an interminable time with everyone staring at the high priest, he seems to wake from his trance and turns to face Talarius.
“Well, knight, you said that in the battle with Evil, there is no such thing as cheating.”
Talarius looks at the priest strangely, clearing sensing something is not right.
“So I’ve decided to pull out all the stops,” the priest says.
“Verigas, what the hell are you talking about?” Barabus asks the high priest.
Verigas smiles a rather wicked-looking smile. “What makes you think I’m Verigas? Where are your paranoid conspiracy theories now, when you need them? You’ve really pissed me off, Talarius. You cheated. You have no honor, no integrity.”
“Oh, shit,” Talarius says, the blood draining from his face.
Suddenly the embers where the greater demon had fallen burst into flame. A whirlwind of embers and smoke rise into the air over the site of the fallen demon. Suddenly the smoke and embers join into flame, growing and growing. The knight and priests stare as the flames grow and meld themselves into a humanoid form — a large humanoid form.
The high priest Verigas lets out a shriek and falls to the ground, collapsing in a heap like a discarded marionette. No one moves to attend him.
The flames grow to twelve feet tall and then solidify in the form of the demon who had just been defeated.
“I’m afraid you won’t get rid of me that easy, Talarius.” The demon grins.
“So you’re back?” Talarius asks, putting his helmet back on.
“Yes, I am, and you cheated.” The demon shakes his head. “Seems to me that violates the Knight’s Code of Ethics?”
The knight winces slightly this time and sighs. “As I’ve said, there can be no mercy in fighting Evil.”
“I suppose, then, that it’s a matter of how, or who, you define as Evil,” the demon states. “Personally, I’m getting tired of being called Evil when there are plenty of other people around behaving far more dishonorably and despicably than me.”
The knight gets a steely look in his eyes. “Enough of your prevarication, demon. I’ve slain you once; I’ll do it again.”
“Not if I cheat first,” the demon said in a tired and resigned voice. “Fire!” He yells, and suddenly large numbers of archers among the Rod raise their bows and begin raining arrows upon Talarius.
Talarius falls to his knees, crouching and covering himself with his shield as best he can, trying to minimize the exposed parts of his body. Taking advantage of the knight’s embattled state, the demon rises into the air and flies over to the net where the other demons are contained. He quickly rips it to shreds, yelling something that is hard to hear over the shrieks of the terrified priests.
The demon returns to his position near the knight. The rain of arrows is receding as other members of the Rod managed to subdue their possessed compatriots. The possessed Rod members fight viciously, almost desperately.
The demon comes up behind the knight as he starts coming out of his crouch. The demon grabs him by the legs and begins thrashing him all over again, this time watching out for any priests that might try to help the knight.
He smashes the knight into the ground about a dozen times, kicking him as hard as he can in between turns of slamming him into the ground. Periodically he stops and jabs with his claws between the joints to try and do damage; then he smashes the knight a few more times. This goes on for several minutes as the disorganized Rod and priests fight amongst each other, and the other demons, holding a defensive ring, slash any priest or Rod member who comes near.
Eventually, after what must seem a merciless eternity to him, the knight calls out, “Enough! Stop, please.” The demon stops.
The knight crawls to his knees, then tosses his sword and shield away. He takes his helmet off and puts it under his arm. “I surrender; you have defeated me, demon!” he shouts. It certainly looks that way; the knight is black and blue all over his head, he has blood running out of his nose, several cracked teeth and various head injuries.
“Kill me now and be done with it, oh vile demon! Know that you have beaten Talarius,” the knight sobs, tears running down his cheeks. The demon shakes his head at the knight and then suddenly seems to shrink in on himself, even as his skin color fades from red to pink. An average-looking young man not much younger than Talarius suddenly stands where the demon had been.
The naked man walks toward the kneeling knight. “I don’t want to kill you, Talarius.” The young man looks almost sorrowful, as if he pities the knight. “I do not hate you, nor do I wish to destroy you. I only want to protect my friends and my people.” The man-demon stares down at the knight. “I am not different, nor are they” — he waves towards the other demons — “from any other man. All we want is to live our lives, the same as you.”
The knight looks at him suspiciously and skeptically.
“Killing you would only perpetuate this stupidity. It needs to end. This whole Astlan-demon thing needs to end. We have to start somewhere; why not here?”
The knight shakes his head. “I don’t know. You make no sense, demon.”
“Talarius, you don’t have to change your opinion now. I don’t expect that. I am going to simply spare your life today so that you might, possibly, start to think that not everything you’ve grown up believing is true.” The demon makes a questioning gesture with his hands. “Okay?”
The knight hangs his head. “Okay,” he whispers.
The naked man-demon smiles and puts his hand down on the knight’s shoulder. The knight lunges upward. A large, shiny, black metal blade suddenly appears in his hand, and he stabs into the side of the demon. The demon lets loose a scream of pain and then bends over.
“The Holy Dagger of Tiernon!” Talarius raises his arm, showing off a black metallic dagger on a switchblade mechanism on his forearm. “It is instant, permanent death for Evil!”
The demon bends over in agony, twitching. For some reason he is unable or unwilling to flash to fire to heal itself. In the man-demon’s abdomen, a large, almost glowing black wound can be seen with tendrils of inky blackness radiating from the wound.
The demon groans again; however, this time it is a very different groan than the moans of agony he’d been uttering. Suddenly a crystal-white sparkle of light appears in the middle of the wound and begins digging away and dissolving the inky black tendrils. The man-demon grabs the wound, tilting his head upward as if relishing the healing power of the light. The man-demon stands up straight, his clasped fingers no longer able to conceal the glowing golden whiteness within them.
“Talarius?” the man-demon says, smiling. The knight turns from receiving his cheers. His face goes cold when he sees the glowing white light at the man-demon’s midsection. The demon pulls his hands back to reveal the wound, glowing with brilliant white light and healing quickly. “Do you recognize the aura of that light? What magic it is that heals me?”
The knight is staring at the demon’s midsection in shock. The man-demon turns to face Barabus and the fancy priest beside him. They turn pale. He rotates back to face the still-shocked knight.
Trivially, the man-demon reaches out and snaps the dagger from the knight’s wrist. The knight just jerks in response, too shocked to react. The demon seems to stare at the dagger, and the inky-black color of the metal begins to fade to a solid grey and then to a silverfish color, and finally the blade is glowing with a pale white light.
The demon tosses it over towards the feet of Barabus and the other priest. Talarius stares at it dumbly.
The demon returns his gaze to the knight. “One question, Talarius. When I was blasting you with fire, you deflected it with your sword, but wasn’t the air super-hot? How did you stand that?”
The knight is still in shock. Seemingly without thinking, he mumbles, “The armor keeps me safe in any environment.”
“Good, that’s what I had hoped.” The demon looks over to his friends. “<
A spark of fire suddenly appears between Talarius’s feet, and then it is a flame. Before the knight has time to realize what is happening, the fire has turned into a ring that is expanding between his feet. A hole opens in the center of the ring, growing wider. There appears to be empty space below; well, empty except for a few balls of fire.
“Talarius?” The knight looks at the man-demon. “Time for a vacation! Off you go — into the Abyss!” With that, the hole widens and Talarius falls through it, screaming. The demon gestures to his friends. “Make sure he doesn’t hit the ground!” The miniature version of the greater demon laughs and dives head first through the hole; the others, grinning widely, follow. The demon begins rotating and waving his hands over the priests and Rod members, particularly in those regions where he had possessed the most.
He then turns to Barabus and the other high priest and says, “Don’t worry; I’ll try to keep him safe.”
The two priests seem to have no idea what he means; they simply stare at him in even greater shock. Getting no response from the two, the naked, human-looking demon grins and steps over the gaping hole to hell and lets himself fall through into the Abyss.
The hole shrinks and closes behind the demon, leaving the Rod members gaping. After a few moments of silence, the sound of battle can be heard as soldiers who had stopped to watch resume clearing the area of demons. The balling goes dark.
8
Appendix: Greater Demon vs. Knight Rampant of Tiernon; Freehold
A short (adult human-size) demon rises to its full height and moves into a fighting stance. “At least this time I’ll be able to put up a fight,” he answers bravely to a question posed by the Knight Rampant, Talarius.
“I don’t think it will be that much of a fight; I’ve taken your measure once before, demon,” Talarius responds very seriously.
“Well, then,” a voice booms down from above as a demon identical to the one on the ground, but easily twice as large, comes in for a landing between the knight and the smaller demon. “How about fighting an adult? Man to man, rather than slaughtering children for sport?”
Talarius steps back in surprise and shock as the twelve-foot tall demon lands. The entire circle of priests steps back, giving them more room, the priests behind the front row getting shoved violently back.
“What lies are you spewing, demon?” Talarius asks the greater demon.
“First, I thought you were a holy man, sworn to goodness? You sounded a bit smug and egotistical talking to the . You know what they say: Pride goeth before the fall? Vanity is the root of all evil? And so on.”
One can see the knight’s eyes twitch within his helmet; the demon has hit a nerve.
“Second, is just a child. I don’t think it’s very honorable for a great and glorious knight to go around killing children for sport, do you?”
“That is no child, it’s a demon,” Talarius tells the greater demon sternly, “and removing evil from this world is not a sport, it’s a duty. A solemn duty.”
The greater demon shakes his head as if in exasperation. “What, you think demons don’t have children? You’ve seen his human form. That is what he really looks like; that is who he really is. And you killed him, in your own tent, for no reason other than he’d been flying overhead the night before.”
“Lies, lies! He came with you through a portal to take over the world!” A high priest pushes his way forward to yell at the greater demon.
The greater demon looks with pity at the priest. “Verigas, you were meddling where you shouldn’t have been. I needed a doorway to get my human charges back to Astlan; you simply provided that gateway. No one harmed you. We even arranged for you to escape. If we meant you harm, you wouldn’t be here now.”
“Liar! All demons lie. You seek to confuse us with your lies!” Verigas shouted.
“You are as crazy as those damn wizards, blinded by your own paranoia and fear. You can’t even see the truth when it’s presented to you because you are too wrapped up in silly superstitions and prejudices,” the greater demon retorts.
“Enough chatter, demon!” Talarius shouts. “You simply seek to delay us so that your compatriots can destroy us!”
“Destroy you?” The giant demon waves his arms around. “We — my compatriots as you call them and I — aren’t the ones who were lying in ambush outside the city waiting for us to be driven out against our will where you could begin slaughtering us!” He raises his arms above his head in frustration. “You have seriously got to be kidding me. It is you who seek to destroy us; we are simply trying to get out of Freehold, thanks to a spell cast by wizards. The only people getting killed are demons! Look around!” He waves his arms more vigorously.
“Your words are ever so cunning. Greater demons are ‘greater’ not just for their size but for their cunning and deceptiveness.”
“Dude,” the demon says, “ — and I say that in most laid back way I can — you are seriously tripping! I don’t have to be cunning or deceptive; you guys are falling all over yourselves with your own paranoia and self-deceptions.”
“Why do you prevaricate? Let’s have this out,” Talarius demands.
The demon sighs. “So you want to fight me?” The knight tilts his head in agreement. “Very welclass="underline" here’s the deal. We fight, just you and me, no one else. If you win, you guys get to continue on with what you were doing before I arrived. If I win, you and the Rod stop attacking the demons and let them go their own way in peace. Agreed?”
Talarius’s eyes narrow in calculation for a moment and then he finally nods and says, “Agreed.”
The greater demon nods and gestures for everyone to step back. The priests surrounding them do so, as do the three demons standing behind him. The demon looks around the circle as if judging whether or not they can be trusted to keep their word. He blinks staring at the surrounding army, almost as if puzzled and distracted by something.
The demon turns his attention back to the knight just as his sword comes slashing towards him. The demon blocks it with his hand and curses as the blade bites deeply into his hand. He turns his hand to flame and then re-forms it.
The knight is winding up for another huge slash, so the demon quickly spins and gives the knight a standing back kick in the gut at full strength, grimacing on impact.
The knight goes flying backwards, smashing to the ground on his buttocks. He springs back up like a gymnast, almost as if he wasn’t covered head to toe in heavy metal.
Talarius advances, this time with shield ready to deflect a kick. The demon changes fighting stances. The knight’s left side is protected by the shield while the right hand holds the sword. As the knight moves in, raising his arm to slash, the demon moves quickly to the knight’s right side and performs a whirling back kick to the knight’s right flank, roaring loudly. A brilliant flash of red light strikes the knight along with the demon’s hoof.
Talarius goes flying forward and to the left, off balance, taken by surprise. His sword coincidentally slashes the demon’s forearm, slicing deeply, but the demon flash-heals it almost without a thought. The knight regains his balance quickly, clearly breathing harder.
The knight moves in again, whirls and slides down low under the demon’s legs, twisting somehow to bring his very pointy spiked boot right up into the demon’s monstrously oversized testicles. The demon howls in agony; his tail slashes down like a razor, raking with a nasty shriek across the knight’s armor.
As the sharp spade squeals across the armor, lightning coruscates over the surface of the armor, released from the demon’s tail spade. The demon completes his action, pulling away from the knight and crouching, protecting his testicles. In doing so, his tail leaves the knight and the electricity stopped.
“That was rather a low blow, knight!” the demon growls at Talarius.
“It pays to protect the family jewels, fiend!” Talarius glares back at him.
The knight moves in for another slice; the demon blocks with his arm and tries a forward kick. The blade slams tightly into his forearm, lodging in the bone. The demon’s kick bounces off the knight’s shield.
The demon flashes to fire, releasing the sword, and starts a new spinning back kick between sword and shield while in fire mode, solidifying as his foot slides through the opening.
The knight struggles to curl himself together and eject the demon. The demon, whose left hand is drawn back, brings it forward in an open-handed thrust at the shoulder joint of the knight, a region protected only by chain mail.
This time the demon strikes home, hard. His nails cannot quite seem to pierce the chainmail, but the blunt force causes a cracking noise and a screech from Talarius. The knight’s sword flashes through the air, slicing through the demon’s wing. The demon screams in anger and pain and flashes to flame.
During the few seconds it takes to do that, the knight dives through the demon’s flame form and regains his feet. Once solid, the demon starts to rise and Talarius takes the opportunity to slice the demon’s tail off. It falls flat on the ground, twitching. The demon flashes to flame again and then back.
While this has been happening, the priests of Tiernon have begun chanting in unison, and a gold circle forms around the greater demon and, in fact, the entire area of combat.
The demon begins repositioning itself as Talarius removes his hand from his shoulder, where he apparently had been using a healing ritual to fix his most recent wounds.
The knight gets back into fighting position, as does the demon. The knight thrusts forward suddenly; however, the demon was prepared and side steps, grabbing the knight’s sword arm with both hands and lifting. The knight is over six feet tall, but the demon nearly twelve, so in many ways it is like an adult battling a child. The demon lifts the knight up and over his own shoulder, spinning and then slamming the knight as hard as he can into the ground.
The knight had managed to slash the demon’s side deeply with his sword during this, and his shield had smashed the demon’s head, but the knight seems to have gotten the worst of the deal.
The knight is on the ground, winded and wounded. For some odd reason, the demon steps back and waits for the knight to slowly climb to his feet. As the knight stands, one can hear him chanting something and suddenly golden light washes over the knight. Now his armor seems to glow more brightly, and he stands straighter.
The knight tilts his head forward, glaring at the demon in anger. He shouts something in a strange language and charges, point first. The demon steps aside, apparently intending to repeat his last maneuver, but suddenly the knight stops, spins and seems to shimmer. His blade whisks around, seeming to turn to pure light and extending beyond its normal reach to slice through both the demon’s thighs! The demon screams as it crashes to the ground, its bat-like wings fluttering frantically but unable to catch him before he falls. He bursts into flame again and swats the knight hard with his flaming hand. Talarius ducks, but is still grazed by the fire.
The demon assumes a fighting stance and begins fist-punching the air, pointing at Talarius. As his hand reaches out, blasts of fire leap from the demon’s fist to strike the knight. The knight deflects the blasts with his shield. The demon rises into the air and fires straight down; still the knight deflects the blasts. Fireballs ricochet into the surrounding priests to loud howls of pain, and the priest quickly begin patting the flames out on their compatriots.
The demon moves in closer and the knight slashes at him. The sword moves through the flames slowly and jerkily and the demon roars in pain, clearly surprised that the knight can wound him.
The demon lands and suddenly launches a solid, continuous blast of flame at the knight, as if unleashing a portal to the Plane of Fire. Instead of raising his shield to defend, the knight simply brings his sword forward, clasping it with both hands, the shield hanging unused on his left forearm.
The flames are being parted by the sword; parted and swept aside like water before the bow of a ship. The blasts are redirected to the surrounding crowd, scorching several before they are able to raise magic shields to protect themselves.
Suddenly the demon’s flame turned a mixture of white with blue streaks of lightning. The knight shuddered under the new assault and began mouthing some ritual. The cold fire began to close in on the knight. The demon’s body was now cold fire with blasts of lightning from it. However, there is a steady seepage of flame from the demon to the ring surrounding the combat. It appears that the priests are siphoning off the demon’s energy.
The demon suddenly seems to realize what is happening and becomes even angrier, but it does him no good, for suddenly archers of the Rod begin shooting magical arrows at him. As each arrow strikes the demon, a burst of golden yellow light, like a tiny star, appears for a few seconds.
The demon’s flames begin to flicker. Suddenly the torrent of cold fire and electricity ceases as the icy demon leaps spinning into the air, materializing as he lands behind the knight. Immediately he grabs the knight’s legs and jerks them out from under him, pulling the knight upside down as the demon stands. The demon handles the knight as if he were but a rag doll, smashing him face first into the ground. He then pulls the knight’s legs apart and kicks him right in the crotch — payback from before.
The demon picks the knight up and smashes him into the ground again, the knight twisting feverishly to escape the demon’s grasp. The demon lifts and smashes the knight into the ground yet again, then he drives the edge of his hoof in between the knight’s thigh plates and calf plates until a crunching sound is heard. The demon pulls back, twisting and lifting the knight, bringing him up and over his own shoulders and head, and then smashing the knight down on his back.
The arrows had stopped after the demon had moved to the other side of the knight and materialized; at this point the Rod starts firing again. Several other priests had begun chanting loudly. As the demon begins picking the knight up for another smashing, a dark mist grows around the two of them, the knight’s armor suddenly turns white hot in appearance, and the demon begins sweating blood. The arrows continue to rain through the mist, and scorch marks are appearing on the demon’s hide wherever they strike.
The demon’s bloody palms have made the knight slippery and the demon loses his hold as Talarius scrambles free. As the knight regains his footing, he brings his sword around and slices through the demon’s left ankle, chopping his hoof off.
The demon teeters, trying to right himself with his wings, but is obviously getting tired. A priest hurries to Talarius’s side and begins casting healing spells. The demon launches itself into the air to fly over to the knight and priest, but a yellow glowing mist, different from before, envelops him, slowing his progress and dragging him back down towards the ground.
The knight climbs to his feet and slashes at the demon’s other leg, slicing through it at knee level. The demon is extremely wobbly and blinking furiously.
“Prepare for the final rites,” Talarius orders. “Have you got the others secured?” he asks his people even as he moves in for the kill, swinging his blade and lopping off the demon’s left arm. The demon wobbles in the air, looking as if it might crash at any moment. In the background, a glowing yellow magical net has engulfed the other demons with the greater demon.
“This will be the final death for all of them,” a priest shouts towards those casting the net.
Talarius moves in and slashes off one of the demon’s wings, bringing the demon to the ground. The demon’s one remaining arm waves uselessly in front of him, one moment clawing at the ground and the next waving feebly back and forth in the air. A sight that would have brought the bravest warrior to pity if this had been a fellow mortal.
Talarius ignores the demon writhing on the ground as one group of priests surrounds him to apply healing rituals and another group begins assembling the necessary implements for killing all the demons permanently.
The priests aiding Talarius are finished, and the knight stands and strides over to the pathetic, flailing demon on the ground. “So, demon. You are defeated, and now you and your immediate compatriots will face true death.”
“You cheated,” the demon croaks.
“There is no such thing as cheating when fighting Evil.” The knight takes his helmet off. He almost looks sad as he stares down at the demon.
“So you say. I disagree,” the greater demon says quite clearly. The demon is smoldering a bit now. He lets out a loud sigh and suddenly there is nothing but glowing ashes on the ground.
“Curses!” the knight yells. “He fled back to the Abyss!” He turns back to the group of priests who had been preparing the ritual. “How are the preparations going?”
“Are you sure you want to do this?” a man who appeared to be a general asked. “This is the sort of thing that can have unintended repercussions.”
The knight sighs. “I understand, Barabus, but these demons are clearly the root of the problem we and the Sky Fleet have been pursuing, and we need to deal with them once and for all.”
“Do you not want to question them?” Barabus asked.
“What good is questioning demons?” Talarius asked. “We’ll get better results from their human henchmen.” Barabus was nodding as a senior priest nearby suddenly threw up.
“Are you okay?” Barabus asks. The man is quite pale and shaking his head no, gasping and too weak to speak. Another high priest suddenly turns pale and falls on the ground, vomiting. Then another, and then a fourth high priest.
“What the hell is going on?” Talarius demands, looking around. “Verigas? What’s wrong?”
The high priest named Verigas, the whiny one from the beginning of the scene, is very rigid and silent, seemingly locked in some sort of internal struggle. After what seemed like an interminable time with everyone staring at the high priest, he seems to wake from his trance and turns to face Talarius.
“Well, knight, you said that in the battle with Evil, there is no such thing as cheating.”
Talarius looks at the priest strangely, clearing sensing something is not right.
“So I’ve decided to pull out all the stops,” the priest says.
“Verigas, what the hell are you talking about?” Barabus asks the high priest.
Verigas smiles a rather wicked-looking smile. “What makes you think I’m Verigas? Where are your paranoid conspiracy theories now, when you need them? You’ve really pissed me off, Talarius. You cheated. You have no honor, no integrity.”
“Oh, shit,” Talarius says, the blood draining from his face.
Suddenly the embers where the greater demon had fallen burst into flame. A whirlwind of embers and smoke rise into the air over the site of the fallen demon. Suddenly the smoke and embers join into flame, growing and growing. The knight and priests stare as the flames grow and meld themselves into a humanoid form — a large humanoid form.
The high priest Verigas lets out a shriek and falls to the ground, collapsing in a heap like a discarded marionette. No one moves to attend him.
The flames grow to twelve feet tall and then solidify in the form of the demon who had just been defeated.
“I’m afraid you won’t get rid of me that easy, Talarius.” The demon grins.
“So you’re back?” Talarius asks, putting his helmet back on.
“Yes, I am, and you cheated.” The demon shakes his head. “Seems to me that violates the Knight’s Code of Ethics?”
The knight winces slightly this time and sighs. “As I’ve said, there can be no mercy in fighting Evil.”
“I suppose, then, that it’s a matter of how, or who, you define as Evil,” the demon states. “Personally, I’m getting tired of being called Evil when there are plenty of other people around behaving far more dishonorably and despicably than me.”
The knight gets a steely look in his eyes. “Enough of your prevarication, demon. I’ve slain you once; I’ll do it again.”
“Not if I cheat first,” the demon said in a tired and resigned voice. “Fire!” He yells, and suddenly large numbers of archers among the Rod raise their bows and begin raining arrows upon Talarius.
Talarius falls to his knees, crouching and covering himself with his shield as best he can, trying to minimize the exposed parts of his body. Taking advantage of the knight’s embattled state, the demon rises into the air and flies over to the net where the other demons are contained. He quickly rips it to shreds, yelling something that is hard to hear over the shrieks of the terrified priests.
The demon returns to his position near the knight. The rain of arrows is receding as other members of the Rod managed to subdue their possessed compatriots. The possessed Rod members fight viciously, almost desperately.
The demon comes up behind the knight as he starts coming out of his crouch. The demon grabs him by the legs and begins thrashing him all over again, this time watching out for any priests that might try to help the knight.
He smashes the knight into the ground about a dozen times, kicking him as hard as he can in between turns of slamming him into the ground. Periodically he stops and jabs with his claws between the joints to try and do damage; then he smashes the knight a few more times. This goes on for several minutes as the disorganized Rod and priests fight amongst each other, and the other demons, holding a defensive ring, slash any priest or Rod member who comes near.
Eventually, after what must seem a merciless eternity to him, the knight calls out, “Enough! Stop, please.” The demon stops.
The knight crawls to his knees, then tosses his sword and shield away. He takes his helmet off and puts it under his arm. “I surrender; you have defeated me, demon!” he shouts. It certainly looks that way; the knight is black and blue all over his head, he has blood running out of his nose, several cracked teeth and various head injuries.
“Kill me now and be done with it, oh vile demon! Know that you have beaten Talarius,” the knight sobs, tears running down his cheeks. The demon shakes his head at the knight and then suddenly seems to shrink in on himself, even as his skin color fades from red to pink. An average-looking young man not much younger than Talarius suddenly stands where the demon had been.
The naked man walks toward the kneeling knight. “I don’t want to kill you, Talarius.” The young man looks almost sorrowful, as if he pities the knight. “I do not hate you, nor do I wish to destroy you. I only want to protect my friends and my people.” The man-demon stares down at the knight. “I am not different, nor are they” — he waves towards the other demons — “from any other man. All we want is to live our lives, the same as you.”
The knight looks at him suspiciously and skeptically.
“Killing you would only perpetuate this stupidity. It needs to end. This whole Astlan-demon thing needs to end. We have to start somewhere; why not here?”
The knight shakes his head. “I don’t know. You make no sense, demon.”
“Talarius, you don’t have to change your opinion now. I don’t expect that. I am going to simply spare your life today so that you might, possibly, start to think that not everything you’ve grown up believing is true.” The demon makes a questioning gesture with his hands. “Okay?”
The knight hangs his head. “Okay,” he whispers.
The naked man-demon smiles and puts his hand down on the knight’s shoulder. The knight lunges upward. A large, shiny, black metal blade suddenly appears in his hand, and he stabs into the side of the demon. The demon lets loose a scream of pain and then bends over.
“The Holy Dagger of Tiernon!” Talarius raises his arm, showing off a black metallic dagger on a switchblade mechanism on his forearm. “It is instant, permanent death for Evil!”
The demon bends over in agony, twitching. For some reason he is unable or unwilling to flash to fire to heal itself. In the man-demon’s abdomen, a large, almost glowing black wound can be seen with tendrils of inky blackness radiating from the wound.
The demon groans again; however, this time it is a very different groan than the moans of agony he’d been uttering. Suddenly a crystal-white sparkle of light appears in the middle of the wound and begins digging away and dissolving the inky black tendrils. The man-demon grabs the wound, tilting his head upward as if relishing the healing power of the light. The man-demon stands up straight, his clasped fingers no longer able to conceal the glowing golden whiteness within them.
“Talarius?” the man-demon says, smiling. The knight turns from receiving his cheers. His face goes cold when he sees the glowing white light at the man-demon’s midsection. The demon pulls his hands back to reveal the wound, glowing with brilliant white light and healing quickly. “Do you recognize the aura of that light? What magic it is that heals me?”
The knight is staring at the demon’s midsection in shock. The man-demon turns to face Barabus and the fancy priest beside him. They turn pale. He rotates back to face the still-shocked knight.
Trivially, the man-demon reaches out and snaps the dagger from the knight’s wrist. The knight just jerks in response, too shocked to react. The demon seems to stare at the dagger, and the inky-black color of the metal begins to fade to a solid grey and then to a silverfish color, and finally the blade is glowing with a pale white light.
The demon tosses it over towards the feet of Barabus and the other priest. Talarius stares at it dumbly.
The demon returns his gaze to the knight. “One question, Talarius. When I was blasting you with fire, you deflected it with your sword, but wasn’t the air super-hot? How did you stand that?”
The knight is still in shock. Seemingly without thinking, he mumbles, “The armor keeps me safe in any environment.”
“Good, that’s what I had hoped.” The demon looks over to his friends. “<
A spark of fire suddenly appears between Talarius’s feet, and then it is a flame. Before the knight has time to realize what is happening, the fire has turned into a ring that is expanding between his feet. A hole opens in the center of the ring, growing wider. There appears to be empty space below; well, empty except for a few balls of fire.
“Talarius?” The knight looks at the man-demon. “Time for a vacation! Off you go — into the Abyss!” With that, the hole widens and Talarius falls through it, screaming. The demon gestures to his friends. “Make sure he doesn’t hit the ground!” The miniature version of the greater demon laughs and dives head first through the hole; the others, grinning widely, follow. The demon begins rotating and waving his hands over the priests and Rod members, particularly in those regions where he had possessed the most.
He then turns to Barabus and the other high priest and says, “Don’t worry; I’ll try to keep him safe.”
The two priests seem to have no idea what he means; they simply stare at him in even greater shock. Getting no response from the two, the naked, human-looking demon grins and steps over the gaping hole to hell and lets himself fall through into the Abyss.
The hole shrinks and closes behind the demon, leaving the Rod members gaping. After a few moments of silence, the sound of battle can be heard as soldiers who had stopped to watch resume clearing the area of demons. The balling goes dark.