When Angels Fall (Demon Lord) (25 page)

Returning his attention to the task at hand, h
e pointed at a spot a hundred yards ahead of him and commanded the dark power. A sheet of shadow some two hundred paces long shot up, red sparkles glinting within it. It was the sort he employed as shields, but it had other uses. Turning, he motioned to an area adjoining the first, and a second dark sheet rose, at an angle to the first. He repeated the procedure three more times, until a pentagon of black shields surrounded him. Although he had never raised a dark ward before, it seemed like a simple enough process. Bane wrote five runes in the air with the shadows that trickled from his fingers and spoke their guttural names, then hammered them into the ground, where they formed smoking sigils in the sandy soil and the bedrock beneath it.

Lowering his hands, he commanded the sheets of shadow,
which sank, turning the ground molten. Lava bubbled from the pentagon’s sides as he sent the shields slicing deep into the earth in dead straight lines. When the shadows had penetrated several hundred yards down, he closed his eyes and spread his hands towards the earth. It trembled, and a rumble emanated from deep underground as Bane clenched his hands. With a dull, gritty grinding, the five-sided ward rose. He raised his hands, holding the invisible reins of power that guided the rising monolith upon which he stood. Although he could not see them from his vantage, he knew the megalith’s sides glowed red hot, perfectly smooth and streaked with bright lava.

The ward rose to three hundred feet tall,
then four hundred. Bane intended that this seventh ward would be impressive, indestructible and immensely powerful. No one would ever be able to free those he imprisoned in the underworld on this day. They would languish below until this domain was destroyed. The land around the rising ward cracked and crumbled, fissures snaking across it as the bedrock tore. The deep rumble rolled away across the plains, echoed off distant mountains and reverberated like thunder.

As the ward rose to seven hundred feet tall, then eight hundred, he lowered his hands, slowing its
ascent as it neared one thousand feet. It reached the required height, and Bane opened his hands, released the reins of power and allowed the shadows to settle in a gentle fall. The ward stopped, and a shudder passed through it as the bedrock far below clamped onto its sides, supporting it. He gazed across the desolate expanse. The view was pleasant, if a little monotonous. Nothing but dry, frost-whitened grass and hazy mountains as far as the eye could see, save in the direction of the silver sea. Knowing the people of this domain, they would want to build an eatery atop the monolith, with a gift shop, but the black ward would deter them.

Bane described a shadow pentagram in the air and flicked it into the stone at his feet. A deep, gong-like
chime rang out as lines of power hissed from the ward’s base, forming a web just under the ground, a barrier through which no spirit god could pass. The black pentagram hovered two feet above the stone, surrounding Bane. He walked through it, went to the edge and stepped off. He floated down on a column of black fire and turned to admire his handiwork. The wind swept away the dust the ward’s rising had raised, and the glowing rock dulled as it cooled. The ward’s mirror-smooth granite sides glinted, obviously unnatural and born of immense power. Doubtless his wards would puzzle men for ages to come. He wondered if they would ever solve the mystery, or be forever stymied, as they were by the realm gate. Being the architect of an enigma pleased him. A single black ward was more powerful than seven blue ones, but ward magic was supposed to be blue, so seven were required to seal the demons and demonic beasts below.

Bane Moved to a busy city street
lined with blocky buildings and glass-paned towers under a pale grey sky. Streams of traffic passed overhead, and people thronged the pavements, a smattering of droges and demons amongst them. Many buildings had cracked walls and broken windows from the quakes his summoning had caused, and workmen already repaired the damage. Disguising himself, he sauntered along the street in search of a building with an empty cellar or storeroom. Black wards only needed to be simple shadow pentagrams with a solid pentagram to support them. He had made the seventh ward formidable to distract the humans while he created the rest. He did not need them trying to interfere. He pushed through the crowd, cursing this domain’s overpopulation and wondering if he should not have done this at night when fewer people were abroad.

Bane
came to a museum entrance, strolled in and paused to view the variety of ancient artefacts. Apparently this was a sentimental race. A few people wandered about, so he became invisible as he went to a lift at the back. The mirrors that lined it remained intact, since he had no reflection. He pressed the lowest button, and the lift descended.

Bane stepped out into a dark room piled with dusty boxes and lined with shelves of old bric-a-brac. The farthest wall was a slab of concrete
, and he described a pentagram on it, the stone turning to dust at his touch. He wrote the shadow runes, then described the second dark pentagram in the air and flicked it into the wall. A deep gong drone rang out as the ward lines sprang into existence. He wondered what these people would make of it if they ever found it.

Bane Moved to an area where cylindrical towers discharged noxious vapour and smoke. Locating a suitable wall in a warehouse, he created the fifth ward.

Colonel Maynart
halted in front of President
Randoman’s
desk and saluted. Randoman’s office had been repaired, for the most part, since the quakes, but many of his ornaments had been smashed and the broken window was still taped. A few fine cracks snaked up the walls, and the city view now lacked several buildings. Much of the rubble had been cleared from the streets and the damaged structures had been taped off. Life had regained a semblance of normality, but it would take years to repair all the damage. The death toll had reached seventeen thousand, the morgues and hospitals were jammed with the dead and injured, and emergency services were stretched to their limit. The news reports covered all aspects of the disaster. Every day, more bodies were found in the rubble, and occasionally a survivor was pulled from it.

The president
put down his pen and sat back. “What is it, Maynart?”

“Sir, we’ve had a disturbing report from Vardon, in Vockroy. It’s all over the news.”

Randoman picked up the remote control and switched on the wall screen. The female reporter who had been covering the story about the gate from the beginning appeared a little the worse for wear, her makeup slipshod and bags under her eyes.

“…A military patrol ship has reported discovering a massive monolith on the Vardon Plains, close to the Sea of Storms. Investigators have been dispatched to find out how it appeared and what purpose it might serve. We have the footage they shot.”

The image changed to a towering block of stone on an expanse of tundra, a number of military ships and press vehicles parked around it and groups of people gathered at its base. A close-up view of the top of the megalith showed a pentagram of smoke or shadows above a deeply engraved pentagram in the stone, with several strange sigils within its lines.

The reporter said, “Scientists are baffled by the shadowy pentagram, but an initial analysis indicates that it’s made from black fire, the same power used by dra’voren, many of which our intrepid stealth ships have destroyed in the Wastes…”

Randoman muted the sound and steepled his fingers, frowning. “When did this happen?”

“The patrol found it about an hour ago, sir, and since then some workers have found another pentagram on a warehouse wall in an industrial district, several thousand leagues away.”

“And the experts have no idea what these… pentagrams do?”

“No, sir, but, considering the power they’re made from, we can only surmise that they’re weapons.” Maynart hesitated. “Also, traditionally
, pentagrams are evil symbols.”

“So you believe they’re intended to… what, destroy the world? Corrupt people?”

“We only have conjecture at this stage, sir. No one’s prepared to draw any conclusions, and even if they did, it would be pure guesswork. The only way to find out for certain is to ask the dra’voren who created them.”

Randoman sighed.
“And we have no stealth ships.”

“
Well, technically we have two, but we don’t know where Retribution is now, and, of course, Miraculous... There’s one ship still out in the Wastes, but they’re cut off now that the Great Gate is closed. Governor Predoran said he recalled it before he abandoned the city, but it didn’t return in time. Even if we had stealth ships, the dra’voren created these two pentagrams within an hour, so he’s moving fast, and we have no idea where he’ll go next.”

The president nodded. “Get our best brains on this and search for more pentagrams. Maybe there’s a pattern to them, and we can work out where he’s going next.
Since this dra’voren is mortal, perhaps we can kill him with conventional weapons. In the meantime, destroy the pentagrams. Explore any possible option. We have to find a way to stop this evil bastard.”

“Yes, sir.” The colonel
shifted. “There is another matter, sir. There’s been a huge increase in the number of disappearances and murders, and a lot of people have reported seeing apparitions. It started after President Parsimon’s disappearance, and the premier of Braamon, Grath Deglan, is missing too.”

“So, you’re saying it’s all linked to this dra’voren?”

“That’s the general consensus of opinion, sir. Perhaps he’s using these occult symbols to cause the murders and visions.”

Randoman snorted. “A dra’voren doesn’t need occult symbols to cause this kind of thing.
It must be the fiends we now know are rife in Bayona, and probably exist all over the world. I’ve offered a generous grant to anyone who can come up with a way to destroy them.”

Bane studied the image in his Eye. The site of the third ward was a
mountain range in a remote region of Bayona. He sat on his couch in Retribution’s mess hall, Drevarin on his own couch beside him. Kayos and Sherinias were in the gazebo, but Bane preferred to be close to Mirra and the rest of his friends and family.

Nikira had agreed to provide transport on their journey to Ashynaria’s domain, and most of her crew had volunteered to go along. Sarjan’s surviving crewmembers had joined Nikira’s ship. Retribution was the only ship in the gardens now. Drevarin had repaired Miraculous and hidden it
in a forest just outside Darjahan. Sarjan intended to use it to hunt demons after they left, without revealing the ship’s presence, so they would not try to find it.

Bane had taken a break to eat and rest after the fourth ward, and now he refocused the Eye to scan the area. Several dull grey warships were parked some distance from the site.

Drevarin asked, “Is it not odd that there are no demons waiting for you?”

“No. They will not fight me. They know they have no hope. The humans, on the other hand, have no such wisdom.”

Mirra sat with Ethra and Sarrin, while Mithran, Artan and Grem occupied another table. Bane rose and went over to embrace his wife. She stepped back when he released her and forced a smile, then returned to her seat beside Sarrin, who placed an arm around her. He knew she feared something terrible would happen to him every time he left her side now, and intended to ensure nothing did, for a while, at any rate. She deserved a break from worry.

Bane Moved to the windswept mountainside. Grey peaks brushed the clouds to his right and grassland stretched away on his left.
He savoured the peace and quiet for several moments, and then a black ring crisped the grass to ash a few feet away. A writhing mud form rose from it, developed limbs and a head and clothed itself in a green shirt and black leather jacket and trousers. The demon formed a broad, bluff countenance with short dark brown hair and a well-trimmed beard.

He
bowed. “Demon Lord. I am Doyanar.”

“What do you want?”

“To tell you that all of my kind are in the mid realm; therefore, it is pointless to create this ward, since it will not bind any of us below.”

“These people are clever,” Bane said. “
They will hunt your kind. You will not enjoy being defeated so many times, and forced to regain your power from what little exists in the mid realm. It will be tiresome, I think.”

“We will destroy their ships.”

“That will be quite a feat, since they are invisible.”

“
There is only one at the moment, which you have hidden. We will destroy any others even before they are built.”

“If you return to the
underworld, you will have plenty of condemned souls to torment.”

Doyanar shook his head. “The humans will not prevail, and you will not hunt us down one by one. You would be here for the rest of your mortal existence. We will slaughter the humans until they stop hunting us. Rest assured, we will continue to rule this domain.”

“You never ruled this world. You only hold dominion now because I cast down the dark gods who were your masters.”

“For which we are most grateful. You did us a great favour.”

Bane stepped towards the demon, which retreated, his sly smile fading. “You begin to annoy me, Doyanar. Beware that I do not banish and summon you, and force you to fight your brethren to protect humans. That will keep you busy, will it not?”