Chapter Four

Chapter Four

“Ash za gâza?” wondered Legion.

What is this?

The leader of the Nil'Ganash eyed the tornado of fire for a moment, and then gave an order to Styxx, flying beside him.

“Kurash id ara.”

Extinguish that fire.

Styxx gestured with the wand of Water and sent fresh torrents of rain down upon the burning whirlwind that was clearing a path for the Illuminar through the forest. It was useless. The flames seemed to lick upward to defy the downpour. The fire could not be quenched. With another wave of his wand, Styxx sent still more torrents at the firestorm, but with a hiss they vaporized into clouds of steam.

What is the source of this fire, Legion wondered? He watched Styxx work, concerned because the flames seemed to work against the wand of Water. That could only happen the Illuminar were controlling the flames with Arazor, using it to fight off the other wand’s magic. But that was impossible! The Nil'Ganash were in possession of all four of the Zori. Or were they? Zirnach and Grawl were down, but surely they held their own against the puny Illuminar! Still, Hood should have reported back with the status of those two by now.

“Where in Shaitan’s breath is Hood?” Legion shouted in the common tongue, suddenly much more alarmed. Looking over the few remaining Nil'Ganash that flew above the Demon Lord’s army, his concern grew. He’d not only lost Zirnach and Grawl, but now Hood was also missing, and Hood was in command of Arazor, the wand of Fire!

Frustrated, Legion ordered Styxx to keep trying to quench the fire, and then he flew down to the rear of his battle lines and landed near a squad of gargoyles replenishing their arrows. Towering over them, he looked like evil incarnate, his violet skin and black hair dripping onto his long black cloak. He flashed his yellow fangs in a snarl. “Bring me a wounded body of the enemy,” he ordered. “Alive!” Animating their wings of stone, the large group took off in flight, glad to be able to depart from the angry presence of their captain.

Legion pulled his black cape over folded wings and knelt in the muddy turf. He looked up angrily into the cloudy sky drenching him with rain. “Curse that fool Styxx. Must he send the rain upon our side of the battle as well?” Throwing his dripping locks back from his face, he drew forth from a black scabbard a long serpentine sword and traced a large pentagram in the mud. The group of gargoyles returned as he finished, landing near, grasping a badly wounded Illuminar soldier in their clutches. The soldier was bleeding from dozens of deep wounds and gashes, but the rain was washing the blood away as quickly as it appeared. Legion motioned, and the gargoyles dragged the soldier to the center of the pentagram.

While the gargoyles held the Illuminar before him, Legion watched as the soldier’s wounds closed up and healed. “The Illuminar’s regenerative power,” he muttered under his breath, and then barked out a jealous curse. That skill, perhaps above all others, was why the Nil'Ganash hated their opposites. The Demon Lord had created Legion and his kin with no such ability.

Legion spat in the immortal’s face. “Feel the cold chill of a Nil'Ganash blade in your belly,” he snarled in the common tongue, and with a sudden thrust of the serpentine sword, stabbed the warrior clean through.

The Illuminar winced for a long moment, and then looked up and met Legion’s smiling gaze. His blue eyes revealed the pain he endured, but showed no hint of fear toward his mortal enemy. The held each others gaze for a long moment.

Legion’s smile vanished.

The soldier clenched his lips in a tight line when Legion withdrew the blade, and then the Illuminar closed his eyes, as if summoning a power from within. Though it took slightly longer because of the Nil’Ganash’s poisoned blade, in a matter of seconds, the stab wound sealed itself and healed completely. The warrior opened his eyes and spoke to Legion in his own tongue, something Illuminar almost never did.

“Ni huish lamat na, Shaitanazh.”

I do not fear you, Nil'Ganash.

Legion only smiled.

“I do not fear you,” the warrior said again, “not even should you threaten to sever my head from my shoulders.”

“Who are you, immortal one?” Legion asked mockingly, answering in the common tongue. “Tell me your name.”

“I am Bellanar, herald of the king.”

“Your king is dead.”

Bellanar looked at Legion, the light in his clear blue eyes undimmed. “The Illuminar live on.”

“You will not,” Legion said idly as he looked away. Then, with a sudden swipe of his blade, Legion decapitated the Illuminar, along with the heads of two of the gargoyles that held him. The gargoyles holding the prisoner had unfortunately been too close to the warrior, but Legion hadn’t cared, even though he knew his enchanted blade would cut through their stone necks as easily as the neck of the Illuminar.

The other gargoyles released the warrior and recoiled from their leader, fearful of losing their own heads in the wrath of his anger. Legion ignored them, showing no remorse whatsoever as three heads and bodies tumbled to the ground in the center of the pentagram. The gargoyle bodies dissolved into piles of powdery stone. Only the warrior’s corpse remained. Legion watched as the blue fire in the warrior’s eyes dimmed and finally went out. Kneeling, he reached down and touched the soldier’s blood as it pooled on the ground. He licked his fingers. The blood tasted salty, but Legion also felt a sudden surge of power course through him for an instant before fading.

“Ah, I have ever loved the taste of immortality.”

The body of the Illuminar warrior bled out on the wet ground, and the power imbued by the Creator to the most ancient of races was absorbed into the earth.

That power had given the Illuminar, alone among all living things, immunity against both disease and old age. Though the passing of centuries might wear down the stone-walled gardens of their halls, their bright upturned faces had welcomed the light of each new day with a look unchanged from the day before. That power had kept them young and in the prime of life, had kept them exactly like the day they had reached adulthood. Though years passed, that power kept their laughter full of the joy of youth, their skin smooth and unwrinkled, and their tall frames toned and sculpted. Only in their eyes was their gift of immortality revealed, for in those deep pools of brilliant blue, alongside the bright innocence of youth, a piercing gaze revealing thousands of years of wisdom and knowledge was seen.

Since the dawn of time, the Illuminar had stayed ageless because of their miraculous regenerative power. A broken bone from a fall, a serious gash from a wild animal, these injuries healed within minutes, demonstrating what was most assuredly the greatest of all the gifts received from the Creator. Indeed, the Illuminar had not known death until the Avanyar, the race of men, went against their counsel and opened the gates of the Demon Lord’s realm, releasing evil into the world. Even the power of the Illuminar could not withstand the cruelty of the Demon Lord.

Legion savored the blood of the dead warrior. It would provide the power to summon the Demon Lord, but the Nil'Ganash took a few moments to feed on the excess. Blood was the essence that sustained his race. His eyes glowed eerily as he grew drunk from the power of the blood. For a moment, he descended back into the bestial savagery of his demonic origin.

A huge troll, wearing dirty leather armor, approached. It was a commander of the wolf-riders.

“Master, the enemy is getting away through the trees!” it said, its frog-like mouth spitting out the words through crooked teeth. “They retreat like the wind, following a trail opened up by that wretched pillar of flame. Their rearguard fight like no Illuminar we have ever faced. One named Brinn leads them.” It subconsciously brushed away the wolf hair that littered its arms and torso. “We are losing ground on the narrow pathway they make in the forest, and the trees are re-growing, slowing us even more!” The goblin’s yellow eyes flared. “We cannot bring our superior numbers to bear—”

The eerie light in Legion’s eyes faded as intelligence returned. “Silence, fool!” he said as he licked the last drops of blood from his fingers. “All that is about to change.”

Standing over the fallen Illuminar body in the pentagram, Legion held his arms out from his sides and began to chant in the hell-speech of his kind. Above the pelting of the rain, his guttural growls echoed in the grey light of afternoon.

“Shaitan, neg Lach, Ni halla nil Lazn ach cor panazh … Shaitan, neg Lach, Ni halla nil Lazn ach cor panazh … Shaitan, neg Lach, Ni halla nil Lazn ach cor panazh.”

Lucifer, Lord of darkness, I call upon my master with an offering of blood, he said, over and over again.

The chant droned on. The wolf-rider backed away in fear at the display of awesome power, then turned and fled. Legion stepped out of the pentagram that ran red from the fallen Illuminar and watched above it as a black mist began to form.

“Anh shûannich ne hu na?”

Why do you interrupt me?

The voice came from the black mist that coalesced before Legion. The voice was calm, but edged with malice and cruelty. Red eyes appeared within the mist, and they looked over the Nil’Ganash as they addressed him. “I have many souls yet to gather from the slaughter of my enemy. Is there something you wish to report?”

Legion bowed his head and dropped his arms slightly, palms turned outward in a display of reverence. He answered the Demon Lord but dared not meet his gaze. “Master, the Illuminar have a new weapon: a pillar of fire that consumes the trees made to block their escape. We are hard pressed to continue our pursuit—”

“You fool!”

Silenced, the Nil'Ganash winced at the venom in his master’s words. He feared for a moment that he would be reduced to ashes where he stood.

“You had them trapped,” the black mist noted. “They were on the verge of annihilation. How could you let them get away?”

“We—”

“Silence!”

The black cloud of mist seethed and boiled. “What of the four wands of Power? Do they not aid you in the annihilation of the Gathâni? I created them for just such an occasion as this. Do your minions not use them well? Speak, slave.”

The answer to the Demon Lord’s question was something Legion was reluctant to give, especially because he guessed the Demon Lord already knew the answer. But failure to respond to the Demon Lord’s question would mean sudden death.

“Zor-Nîm, the wand of Water, is there,” Legion answered, pointing westward at a Nil'Ganash above the battlefield. “Styxx wields it and commands a torrential rain to hamper the enemy’s retreat.

“And Maladzor, the wand of Air?”

There was silence.

“Illinzor?”

Again, silence.

The voice grew more intense, and thunder rumbled as it spoke.

“Arazor?”

Legion said nothing. He decided he was going to die anyway.

“Speak, Nil'Ganash, or feel my wrath.” The mist took on a sharper edge, and the red eyes burned through Legion as he cowered before the Demon Lord.

“I, I fear, Lord,” Legion stammered, “that several of the Zori have been lost. The fool Grawl flew too low attempting to hinder the retreat of the Gathâni. I sent Zirnach to retrieve him, but I fear he and Grawl both fell to the arrows of the Enemy. Hood was sent to learn their fate. He has not been seen since, and I fear he, too, is dead.”

“What proof do you have that the wielder of Arazor, my most powerful wand, has been slain?” The mist seethed. The smell of brimstone and scorched flesh lingered on the wind.

“The Gathâni have broken through the forest barrier that Grawl created to block their escape,” Legion finally answered. They now move westward behind a tornado of fire which rebuffs our attempts to snuff it out. The whirling flame acts as if it were something deliberately created by the Gathâni. It aids them by attacking the magic of the other wands. I fear the Gathâni wield Arazor.”

“The enemy has taken Arazor from you?”

“Not from me Lord! Hood lost it, and probably paid with his life. But now I think it is being used to defeat our snares–”

“Witless demon-spawn!” the Demon Lord retorted.

Legion closed his eyes and waited for the blast of fire that would end his life. It didn’t come.

“You fool.” The mist ceased to rage. “You let a little tornado of fire turn the tide? No matter if they wield Arazor; it will avail them not. Child of darkness, you forget that fire is my domain.”

A finger of flame licked outward from the black mist and scorched the violet skin of the Nil’Ganash. Legion’s eyes burned with hatred toward the Demon Lord, their lavender glow lighting up the Nil’Ganash’s face. But he remained silent and powerless. He was a servant, and this was his master.

“They cannot wield my wands of Power,” the black mist surmised as if speaking to itself. “If they try, they will fail. They will find that they cannot direct and control such power. In their hands, each wand’s power acts only against the others. The Immortals are doomed. Such is the fate of fools who try to control the elements of this world without worshipping the lord who rules those very elements!”

The ground began to tremble as the mist roared. “I am ruler over the things of this world!”

The red eyes turned back to Legion. “Continue your pursuit of the Gathâni. They evade you but for a little while longer. Soon they will encounter an obstacle that even their tornado of fire will be useless against. They are approaching the cliffs that overlook the western ocean. Drive them over those cliffs and let them plummet to their deaths.” The mist laughed softly, though Legion heard only pain. “I have souls to gather,” it said abruptly, and began to dissipate. “Call me when you have them trapped; when their doom is nigh. I wish to be present so that I may enjoy that moment.” The darkness faded, the red eyes last to disappear.