The Dark Lord

Maxian's eyes blazed bright, the power of an entire Empire shining from his mouth, his skin, every pore. The Persian tried to turn away, seeing his destruction in the terrible brilliance. The prince pinned him, one knee cracking a weak arm against the stone floor. His fist opened, flames lashing the sorcerer's broken face and Maxian forced his fingers—spread wide—onto the Persian's forehead.

'You,' Maxian growled, savaged throat barely able to form the words, 'will never threaten my city again!'

Dahak screamed, a long, wailing, unending cry of torment, his body thrashing violently, every limb loose in abandoned, unhinged motion.

—|—

'Rome! Rome and victory!' Alexandros lunged forward, fighting his way through struggling men. The line of legionaries and Goths had broken open, letting the Persian Immortals pour into the gap. A giant of a man was in their midst, howling like a titan, laying about him with an impossibly huge sword. Even the ghostly centurions fell back before him and the Macedonian saw the heavily armored pushtigbahn widening the gap with brutal efficiency. 'With me, men of Rome!'

Alexandros loosened his grip on the shield in his left hand. Shouting wildly, he sprang in front of the giant, throwing a high cut at the man's head. The giant spun—so nimble for his great size!—and blocked effortlessly. The Macedonian tried to slip the blow, letting his sword bind on the longer, larger weapon, but so great was the other's strength the spatha was nearly torn from his hand. Alexandros scrambled back to avoid losing his head. The shield was held only by a single strap in his fingers.

The Persian champion rushed in, his blade flickering in tight, controlled slashes. Alexandros blocked hard, swiping sideways to catch the blurring tip and felt his arm rock with the blow. He threw the shield at the man's feet, all of his strength in the motion. The giant hacked down, catching the Macedonian's sword and driving the blade into the sand. Alexandros rolled away, suddenly weaponless, and the man shouted in pain. The flung shield had smashed into his trailing foot and he toppled, going down to his knees.

Heedless, Alexandros plowed into the Persian, slamming his armored hip into the man's face. The golden mask crunched, skewing to one side. The Macedonian followed with a kick to the giant's throat, then gasped, his own foot snatched from the air by a blurring hand. He slammed down on the sand, breath punched from his breast. Alexandros rolled, sand spraying, and a massive fist smacked into the ground. The Macedonian twisted, cracking his vambrace-encased arm across the dented mask. The giant grunted, his tree-like neck barely moving with the blow.

Alexandros scrambled to his feet, sliding back. One of the Roman centurions pitched him another sword and the Macedonian caught the spinning blade from the air. In a single motion he grasped the hilt, flipped the scabbard away and fell into a guard stance.

The giant rose as well, wrenching the golden mask and helmet from his head. Enormous mustaches, dripping with sweat, jutted into the air, and keen, bright eyes looked down upon Alexandros. A huge grin split the man's face.

'A worthy foe, by Ormazd!' he shouted in a basso roar. 'The very likeness of the Greek devil Iskender!'

'I am the very Macedonian devil,' Alexandros snarled, feeling his muscles waking to the task. 'And you the greatest of the Persians, I wager?'

'I am,' Shahr-Baraz growled. One of his men threw him a spear, which smacked into his meaty palm. He spun the shaft end for end, settling the weapon's balance to his satisfaction. 'Then let the gods judge!'

—|—

Maxian's fingers dug into the sorcerer's neck, crushing muscles, tendons and veins. His other hand burned white-hot on the creature's forehead and Dahak struggled anew. Blood sprayed across the seats, dripping smoking hot from the prince's face.

Now I have you, Maxian raged, feeling the last of the Persian's defenses crumble. The world groaned around them, stone and brick shattering, the sky wavering with an aurora of brilliant, ghastly colors. Winds raged in the heavens, lashing the clouds into a maelstrom. The flesh on the inhuman face shriveled, burned down to a bony core. Fangs jutted from blackening gums, then splintered. You end, now!

Dahak twisted, still trying to break free, and found annihilation only a heartbeat away. Every atom in his body was in torment, spiked with lightning, dissolving in acid. Such an enormous pressure weighed on him, encompassing half the world, focused by the shattered walls of the amphitheater like a lens, he could see nothing but destruction before him. 'No!' he wailed, the last fragment of his power shredding in the energy storm whirling around the Roman prince. 'If I die... the world dies!'

Maxian's eyes darkened, hearing pure fear and terror in the creature's voice. 'Show me,' his voice boomed, ringing from the heavens, driving columns of smoke into twisting vortices. The fingers of his right hand, still burning white-hot, sank into the Persian's elongated skull. Dahak's scream soared beyond human hearing as bone and membrane parted.

The prince looked, and saw a portal of stone, massive granite cut from the heart of a mountain, etched with a thousand lines of prayers, glittering with every seal and potent sign. The door was shaking, blazing with sullen yellow light, a force building beyond the portal beyond human comprehension. Flakes of stone and dust rained down from a distant ceiling, the living rock shaking in time to a colossal heartbeat.

A fragile, frayed pattern bound the dying sorcerer to the stone door and Maxian perceived the slender thread arcing arrow-straight over the eastern horizon. His thoughts whirled to a halt, the light shuddering from his skin and face dying. The prince looked down on the dreadful, shattered face. 'Show me what lies beyond.' His voice was cold and emotionless.

Dahak quailed, but Maxian's fingers were deep in the gelid mass of his brain, rippling with power, keeping life in his ancient limbs, while the Persian's secret thoughts and every plan and strategem were peeled away, the cracked shells of countless eggs.

The prince looked, and saw a void of darkness, filled with bubbling chaos, a leviathan shape blotting out the stars, countless worlds rendered down to dust, the shrieking of nightgaunts haunting the black abyss, a lake of obsidian under a sky filled with so many stars it seemed day; a twisted, malefic tower looming over a city composed of a single, endless building.

'They are waiting,' Dahak croaked, torn lips fluttering, 'beyond the threshold. If they enter...'

Maxian rose up, looking down with a grim, implacable face. His eyes were black pits reflecting the horrors he had seen in the creature's eyes. Tiny motes of light drifted around his head, some shining bright, some bare gleams. 'You are the key in our deathless lock,' the prince grated, venom and scorn dripping in his voice. 'You stole from the gods and now they are rightly angry.' Black, fathomless eyes narrowed and Maxian withdrew glowing fingers from the serpent's skull. 'You will live.'

Dahak collapsed into the dust, shuddering with relief. He closed his eyes, translucent lids lowering one by one. The prince's face did not change, seeming cast from iron and plunged in blood to temper.

'Instead, you will serve.' His thumbs ground down on the fluted skull and Dahak stiffened, broken limbs taut, mouth gaping, eyes wild and open in horror. An intricate sign blazed on his forehead, among pebbled black scales, and then faded into the skin like the light dying on the sea at sunset.

'Rise,' snapped the prince, standing himself. His clothes—ripped and torn, burned by fires and scored by blasts of fury—shimmered, knitting anew around his lean body. Maxian looked to the south, ghosts whispering to him of battle and fury and men wading deep in slaughter.

The prince ascended, rising into the troubled sky, and the withered, broken body of the sorcerer followed. Together, they sped along the shore, the wind bowing before them, columns of smoke bending away from their passage and those few men left alive in the wreckage below stared up in awe.

—|—

Alexandros darted in, slashing with his sword at the haft of the oaken spear. The giant danced away, grinning like a madman, and the leaf-bladed tip whipped round at the Macedonian's head. Alexandros leaned to the side, feeling the breeze of metal passing, then reversed his stroke, steel belling on steel. Shahr-Baraz grunted, the blow knocking him back.

'Well struck!' he called, slashing at the Macedonian's legs. Alexandros leapt and spun, striking and parrying in a whirlwind of motion. They drew apart, panting, and the Macedonian began to grin himself. Here