whose essence was part of the Void itself, not unless master sorcery was at work. Even then, he should have been able to free himself simply by truly becoming a shadow. To his dismay, however, Darkhorse found that the transformation was beyond him. The same sorcery that had been used to create his attackers’ weapons also prevented him from utilizing his own abilities. Someone had planned well, though they could have hardly done so with him in mind. It was only unfortunate coincidence that he had fallen prey.
A final, jagged tentacle darted from one of the lesser caverns and snared his remaining leg. Each limb was pulled in a different direction, making movement impossible. The noose around his neck kept him from using more primitive methods to escape, such as biting his bonds in two.
“Hurry, you foolssss! Bind him quickly!”
Slowly, so as not to lose the hold each had, the ebony stallion’s attackers abandoned their hiding places and moved toward him. Their identities did not surprise him, not after hearing the hissing voice that commanded them. So engrossed had he become in his search that he had not noticed the spells that must have masked their presence, spells which he, more sensitive to sorcery than most, should have at least felt, regardless.
Despite his predicament, Darkhorse responded to his captors presence with disdain. “Drakes! I might have known your kind would be slithering about these holes in the ground!”
The crimson light poured over the newcomers, giving them the appearance of walking dead risen from some terrible battle. Each stood a little taller than a man and, outwardly, resembled savage warriors clad in masterly crafted scale armor that covered all but their heads. The heads themselves were mostly obscured by great dragonhelms that made the humanoid figures seem even taller. Within those helms, eyes the color of fire blazed and mouths full of sharp, predatory teeth opened wide in triumphant smiles. Their noses were little more than slits and, if one was so foolish as to get close enough to see, their skin was scaled, like a reptile.
Darkhorse knew far better than most that the armor was illusion. The scales were real, as real as those on the drakes’ faces. It was not true clothing they wore, but their own skins transformed by the drakes’ own innate sorcery. Even the mighty helms were false in nature, the intricate dragon crests being the true faces of the creature and not some craftsman’s design. The shadow steed had seen drakes revert to their dragon forms, and watched as the fierce dragon head slid down and stretched, becoming animated with life. It was a sight none could ever forget-provided they survived the encounter.
Dragons who preferred the forms of men, that was the drake race. With each generation, there were more and more of those who could better copy the human form. The females were already adept-too adept, some human women said-but they sacrificed much of their power for that perfection.
The drake holding the noose wrapped around Darkhorse’s neck gave it a tug. Pain burned the eternal where the metallic bonds touched his form, and all thought of drakes and their odd ways vanished as anger resurfaced stronger than ever before.
“Thisss isss our domain, demon,” the apparent leader hissed with gusto. “To enter here meansss to sssacrifice your life!”
Darkhorse chuckled. “You sound like your cousin the serpent, reptile! Is proper speech beyond you?”
The leader hissed, revealing a long, forked tongue. A throwback, the shadow steed noted in one part of his mind. A drake whose ties to the dragon form of his birth were stronger than those of his brethren, those ties manifesting themselves in such things as the split tongue, jagged teeth designed to tear flesh, and a savage manner that made them the deadliest of their race.
“Your death will be mossst-most enjoyable, demon! Our lord will gain great pleasure from watching you perish slowly! Too many of our race have suffered the unspeakable at your hands!”
“Hooves, dear lizard, hooves! Those things at the end of your arms are hands-more or less! Tell me; can you really hold a sword with those gnarled appendages-or do you scratch and bite your opponents like a riding drake?”
Riding drakes were huge, swift, wingless dragons of an intelligence just below that of horses. That such mindless beasts were as much a part of the drake race as these warriors before him amused Darkhorse. It did not amuse the leader-as the ebony stallion had hoped. “It might prove interesting to see if a sword could cut you now that you are forced to remain in the form of a beast of burden, demon horse! I will have to make such a suggestion to our lord when we have dragged you before him!”
Darkhorse looked scandalized. “Drag me before him? Did I say that I would be party to such a thing?”
The drakes grew nervous. A few touched their swords, forgetting the type of creature they were dealing with. The sword was the most useless of their weapons.
“You have no say in the matter.”
“Oh, my dear friend, but I do!” Darkhorse retorted. He began to laugh, taunting his captors with the very madness of his act. The sorcerous bonds burned into his solidified form, but he turned the agony, around, adding its strength to his mocking reply. In the vast maze of caverns, the sound of his voice echoed and echoed, but nowhere with more intensity than in the throne room. The more the pain sought to defeat him, the louder he roared.
One by one, his captors lost control as the laughter battered their ears. The drake keeping his right foreleg in check lost his grip on his weapon as he reached up and buried his head in his hands, trying without success to block out the noise. Darkhorse shook the coil loose and used the one leg to pull himself forward. The drakes behind him, barely able to even stand, could not maintain their grips. Freed, the shadow steed whirled and struck at the drake who controlled the coil around his left foreleg. The kick sent the warrior flying into one of the statues that still stood. Though he wrapped around it like a ribbon, the drake never felt his back break; Darkhorse’s blow had killed him.
The noose around his throat still burned. Darkhorse, no longer laughing, turned to the source of his pain, the leader of his attackers. The drake was on one knee and slowly recovering as the agonizing sound died away. Throughout all of it, he had maintained a tight grip. One coil, however, was not enough to hold the shadow steed, not now. Darkhorse prodded two of the other coils before him and, as the drake rose, kicked them expertly toward his adversary. The reptilian warrior had just enough time to realize his danger when both deadly toys dropped on him.
He screamed-almost. The power needed to contain an eternal such as Darkhorse was more than enough to consume the drake completely. There was not even a trace of ash.
Desperate, one of the remaining attackers leaped at the shadow steed, beginning the transformation to dragon form midway through the air. Darkhorse made no move to stop him. To what would forever be his dismay, the drake found no solid flesh to rend. He did not land upon Darkhorse but rather within him. The now-completely transformed dragon sank into the emptiness that was the jet-black stallion. Smaller and smaller the unfortunate attacker became, dwindling the way a figure falling forever and ever gradually diminished-until there was nothing to see. He would continue falling in that abyss, as still did so many before him, until everything-the multiverse, chaos, and even the Void-ceased to be.
“I am the demon to demons. I am the traveller who defies the Final Path. I am the Void incarnate. I am Darkhorse.” The eternal fixed his chilling stare on the remaining drake warriors as he whispered.
The drakes fled, disappearing in all-out panic into one of the caverns. Darkhorse watched them escape, all the while chuckling in morbid amusement.
Lead me to your master, drakes! Though the cursed light that only Shade could have left behind colors you scarlet, I think that silver is more to your lord’s taste! Darkhorse began trotting after the vanished drakes, his hooves making no sound despite seeming to strike the stone floor with enough strength to shatter it. This time, the advantage would be his.
Lead me to your master, brave ones, for I think that there might be a warlock I am seeking with him as well-and I will fight all the clans of your kind if that is what it takes to finally face him!
Faces vaguely recalled. Names only beginning to resurface. Images of the ancient dead walking the earth once more.
Shade could not say what urge had suddenly driven him to this subcavern far, far below the throne room. Not exactly a memory, but something more. Something to do with the insignia carved in raw marble and embedded in the wall he now stood before. An insignia he remembered seeing on the Gryphon’s tapestry and which he now traced in an abstract manner with his left hand. A militaristic banner with the stylized image of a fighting dragon.
The banner of his clan. The banner of his father.
“What memories do you hold?” Shade whispered, not knowing whether he spoke to the relief on the wall or
