Rise of the DarkWalker: The Chronicles of Carter Blake, Book II

Black and lime flames funneled around the body, causing the demon to leap backward. Azure fire rained from the sky, converging on the fallen Walker. The flame droplets merged over his body before swirling in a whirlpool and vanishing in a brilliant flash making the audience’s shadows leap away. His body rose like a puppet being lifted with jagged strings. His limbs flopped and jerked,

His brown hair lengthened to fall below Carter's shoulders and turned the purest sable. A silvery, poisonous purple green metal erupted from beneath his skin and enveloped his body. Scalloped edges grew along his forearms. Long, silvery blue claws replaced his hands. His face was the most horrible, though. The flesh seemingly melted and ran, leaving a barely fleshed skull with glowing electric blue eyes. Long, ram-like horns grew out from his temples. Glowing, electric blue eyes snapped open as a bellow like all the denizens of the Abyss screamed through him at once.

The crimson-skinned demon roared back in challenge.

The Creature blitzed over and gripped the demon by the lower jaw with its claws and ripped downward and out.

The demon choked a gurgle before the Creature slammed the torn off mandible through its skull.

Silence fell across the audience.

A blink later and the Creature appeared among them and set about ripping, clawing and biting through the massed demons.

Some tried to fight back. They died first.

Others tried to run. Those died tired.

Haavastaad stood watching with her arms folded. She towered over the Creature standing before her. “What are you?”

The Creature leaped up, gripped her face and flung her into the arena floor. The demon lord’s body hit, sending up an eruption of dirt, dust and rock.

She pushed herself up to a knee and glanced at her ripped tunic. She tore it the rest of the way off, revealing shining bronze skin. The demon lord looked up at the standing creature. “Your throw was impressive in its unexpectedness.”

The Creature tilted its head to the left.

“You won’t catch me off guard like that again.”

It vanished from sight. Haavastaad spun around, searching for it. She found it standing behind her.

It backhanded the demon lord across her cheek, sending her flying across the arena and into a wall. Dust and rocks exploded outward from her impact point.

She climbed out of the crater and spotted the Creature holding a massive chunk of arena wall over its head with one hand.

“What the—?”

The boulder flew at her with incredible speed. ‘My only chance is to destroy it.’ She thrust her fist out, intercepting the piece of wall and shattering it.

Before she could clear the cloud of debris from her eyes, another blow sent her back to her throne and through it.

She staggered to her feet, bronze skin cracked. A dirty greenish ichor flowed from the cracks, her mouth and nose. “I’ll kill you!” Her voice was so strident chips flew off the damaged brick walls around them. “How da—?”

The Creature cut off her words with its clawed hand covering her whole face as it leaped high into the air.

At the apex of its leap, it hurled Haavastaad down into the ground before it flipped over and dove after her.

She rolled to her feet and threw a fireball at it.

The Creature dodged to the side and hit the ground feet first, barely missing the Demon Lord who cartwheeled to the side, grabbing a sword as she came back to her feet.

It shoved its claw into the air and pulled a pure white blade from seeming nowhere.

“That can’t be,” Haavastaad said.

The Creature vanished from her sight.

She cast her gaze around and it appeared right in front of her slicing her from abdomen to left shoulder.

As she collapsed, she named her killer.

“DarkWalker.”

***

Delena glanced over to Robilar. “He has been gone a long time, right? I’m not imagining it?”

The Chronomancer shook his head. “You’re not imagining it.” He turned his attention to the door where their friend had disappeared about an hour before. “Can you feel anything in there?”

“Efil.”

The spell radiated out from her and passed through the walls, ceilings and floors of the keep, showing her the locations of the guards, mice, a couple of dogs and even a cluster of roaches in the wall being stalked by a couple spiders. It bounced off the room the Walker had entered and ended.

“Whoa.”

Robilar refocused on her. “What?”

She raised her index finger, signaling for him to wait. “Why do you think your commander would have his office warded against a Detect Life spell?” She leaned closer to the guard.

“He likes his privacy?” The guard shrugged.

Delena narrowed her eyes. “The spell only reveals the living and dead, no other information.”

Another shrug. “I don’t know much about magic.”

Robilar scowled. “Aren’t you a paladin?”

“No. I’m unable to touch magic.”

He turned to look at Delena and saw she’d done the same.

“How are you with Keldur’s paladins if you can’t touch magic?” Robilar said.

“I am the best lancer in Bisquine,” the guard answered, pride evident in his voice.

“His sister is one of Keldur’s favorites.” The other guard said with a snort.

“Hey, Thom, that’s not why I’m here.” The first guard had a whine in his voice.

“Whining does not befit a Bisquine guard, Manuel.”

A woman in shining silvery armor shoved the doors open behind Delena and Robilar. An ornate helm sat on her head. A flanged mace hung at her waist and a round shield hugged her back.

“I need to speak with the commander.” Her voice was rough and scratchy as if she spent a lot of time bellowing.

The guards stiffened to attention.

“He is in a meeting, Captain Giada.”

“They will want to hear this.”

“What’s going on, Captain?” Delena stepped forward. “Our friend Lavitz is in there with the commander.”

Giada’s black eyebrows rose. “The Patchwork Knight?”

“Yes,” Robilar said.

“Keldur’s Heart.” Giada pulled her shield and mace. “He’s in grave danger.”

“Why?”

“The commander is a demon.”

“Hey, wait.” Thom shouted, gripping the haft of his weapon with white knuckles. “You can’t make accusations like that without proof.”

Manuel lowered his pike. Giada raised her shield to intercept it. Just before they clashed, Manuel and Thom froze. The captain caster her gaze back and forth between them.

“You don’t have to worry,” Robilar said, stepping past her. “They’re in Temporal Stasis.”

“What?”

“Time Magic,” Delena said. “He’s really good at what he does.”

Giada grimaced. “Um. Uh.”

Robilar seemed to reach into the wall like it was a cabinet and withdrew a blue crystalline sword after rummaging around for a few seconds. “Ah. Here it is. I knew I will put that in here next week.” He cast a grin to the women. “I’ll have need of it in there, and I almost forgot that.”

Giada stood straighter. “I-uh. Wha—?”

Delena patted her back. “Don’t worry. You’ll probably not get used to it. I still haven’t.”

Giada stared at Delena.

Robilar came over and patted her shoulder. “Come on. Didn’t you want to see your commander?”

She shook herself as if refocusing. “Yes. It’s imperative we do.” She took a deep breath. “This city depends on it.”

“Why is that?” Delena said.

“You’ll see shortly.” The head of her mace ignited in a silvery flame as she headed to the closed doors. “Tsrub.”

The doors exploded inward. The bearded, white-haired old man in ornate plate mail leaped to his feet.

“What is the meaning of this?” His outrage seemed to make his voice almost a growl.

“In the Name of Keldur, I command you reveal yourself!” Giada shouted, voice filled with power.

The old man’s visage shimmered and bubbled before a shining silvery light shot from her hand and engulfed him. A second later, the light vanished, and a demon stood before them.

The hulking fiend resembled a powerfully muscled orangutan, with a cruelty that burned in its rheumy red eyes signaling its hateful intelligence. Its visage was dominated by a pair of oversized fangs jutting from its lower jaw. Rusty red fur was matted with filth.

“Alors, tu m'as découvert. Comment penses-tu que cela va se terminer pour toi ?”

“With you dead, or banished back to the Abyss.”

Delena gasped as her hand flew up and her fingers touched her lips. “Tha-Tha-that’s a demon.”

“It is,” Robilar said. “Are you okay?”

Before she could respond, the demon attacked.

Giada launched a spell blowing the demon through the wall in an explosion of silvery light and clouds of dust and brick.

It thrust a clawed hand into the tiles of the roof it found itself on, causing some to rip up and cascade to the edge. It raised its head to see the dust clearing and the trio step through the shattered wall.

The demon rose to its feet, laced its claws together and pushed them forward, making its knuckles crackle.

They raced forward, Delena drawing a short sword.

The smaller woman pulled ahead and the demon smashed its claws downward.

She was knocked to the side.

Before it could follow through, it had to deflect Robilar’s sword swipe, causing him to spin around.

Giada thrust her mace at the demon’s unprotected ribs, but it managed to knock her weapon to the side.

Robilar continued his spin, bringing his blade around to decapitate the demon.

It ducked.

Delena brought her sword chopping down at its head.

The demon spun around her attack, and brought down its fist against Giada’s mace.

She kept it from slamming into her face, but was knocked flat on the tiled roof.

The demon continued its motion around, intercepting Robilar’s blade and shoving it to the roof before thrusting its elbow into his jaw.

Delena charged from behind, but the demon continued around and intercepted her blade with its claws, sliding it around and throwing her to the edge of the roof.

Ceramic tiles scattered before her body as she skidded along and went over.

Giada caught her hand. “Hold on!”

“Trying!”

Giada’s legs spread out, slowing them both, but gravity had a good hold on them.

Robilar chopped at the demon, but it managed to knock his sword into the roof again.

He let his left hand go, and looped it around and downward, catching the demon in the side of its head.

The mighty blow spun the demon, and it reached out a hand to catch itself on the roof.

Robilar swung his sword with his right hand, trying to chop into the demon.

It caught the blade in its other claw and shoved up, managing to ram its skull into Robilar’s jaw.

He fell back, vision blurry. Out the corner of his eye, he spotted a silvery rope like spell latch onto the side of a window.

Giada used her spell to pull both of them back to the middle of the roof.

Delena used the momentum of Giada’s titanic pull to fly through the air and swing at the demon’s throat.

The demon deflected her strike, spun around to block Giada’s and duck under Robilar’s.

It thrust its shoulder into Robilar’s chest, knocking him back to crash into a window.

Glass shattered around his body and rained to the roof in a sparking rainbow of light.

Giada struck again as the demon spun back from its shoulder check, but it overpowered her slice.

The demon continued around to chop down at Delena’s sword.

She caught his strike and twirled back, guiding its claws down to the roof.

Robilar swung to cut off the demon’s head, but it managed to bring its claws up to deflect the attack.

The Chronomancer simply brought his crystalline blade back around in the other direction.

The abruptness of the change in direction caught the demon off guard and it was knocked back.

It managed to bring both claws around to attack him, but he managed to duck and spin towards the demon’s back.

It struck once more, causing Robilar to bring his blade up to intercept the claws.

The demon’s ferocity sent him flying back and face first onto the roof. His sword skittered away.

It strode forward to continue its assault, but Delena got in its way.

She launched an attack at its neck, but the demon grabbed her hands in a large paw, shoved them down to the roof, jabbed its fist into her ribs, cracking a few and then launched a haymaker at the side of her head, knocking her to the rooftop.

As she crashed to the ground, Giada thrust her hands forward and a silvery beam of light blasted into the demon’s torso, making it slam into the wall of a bell tower.

The bell rang out from the impact.

The demon rose, legs shaking.

Robilar charged in with a roar and slammed the demon back into the wall with a tackle.

The top of his head smashed into the wall, sending him to his knees.

The demon rammed its elbow down into the back of Robilar’s head, knocking him flat.

Giada leaped in with a silvery light around her fist.

The demon caught her hand as she released the spell and both flew back in opposite directions.

She flew through the air and through a window.

Robilar, bloody streaming from his nose and a cut above his right eye, rose to his feet and slammed a fist into the demon’s face, breaking its nose.

The demon howled and backhanded Robilar.

He flew back and landed next to his sword which hand been knocked from his hand.

As he wrapped his hands around the hilt, he glimpsed Delena attacking the demon once more.

She attacked the demon with a forehand slash, it deflected the blade away, so she reversed her grip on the hilt and swung back on the same plane.

The demon caught her sword in its grip and lifted her in the air.

She rocked her body forward, kicked the demon in the face and pushed off, back flipping out of range.

She landed on her feet and charged, sword overhead.

The demon caught her by the throat and lifted her before carrying her towards the edge of the roof.

Giada flung out her hands and silvery ropes wrapped around the demon, causing it to drop Delena near the end of the parapet.

As the demon struggled against the spell, Robilar hurried over and pulled Delena back. He called the crystalline sword to his hand as the demon broke free of the bindings, causing Giada to fall back.

The demon stalked forward, but Robilar caught it by the shoulder and spun it to face him.

With a grunt of effort, Robilar plunged his blade into the demon’s chest.

It roared in pain and then punched him.

Robilar landed flat on his back.

Using both hands, the demon pulled the sword out and planted its point in the tiles beside it.

Slowly, the demon rose once more. It stepped to the fallen Chronomancer, clawed hand over its wound.

Delena took advantage of its distraction and slashed the back of its knee.

The demon collapsed and Giada struck, casting her binding spell around the bell tower’s top and pulling with all her strength.

“Keldur, please, lend me your strength.”

Power flooded through her muscles as her deity answered her prayer.

Her celestially enhanced strength allowed her to topple the bell tower over onto the demon.

The weight smashed the demon through the keep and into the basement.

The trio carefully approached the hole and stared down.

“Why didn’t you do that earlier?” Robilar said.

“Why didn’t you put the demon in temporal stasis?” Giada retorted.

He shrugged. “We wouldn’t have been able to affect him, then.”

“Seems the noise got the attention of the others in the Fist,” Delena said.

Robilar nodded. “Indeed. Let’s go fill them in, and maybe learn what happened to Lavitz.”