Gemma rode hard through the countryside, the thunder of Sen’s hooves drowning out her roiling thoughts. There was no reason to believe that the Fury’s information hadn’t been true- the combined force of Zone of Truth and Ted’s compulsion magic made sure of that. There was no reason to believe that she was being led into a trap. Yet the knot in her stomach persisted. Gemma told herself that it was because she was going alone into the enemy’s camp. She knew the real reason.
Rumors had plagued reports of the Hellriders since they had first shown up in the farmlands of Rialdra. Stories flew claiming that they were all mounted on black unicorns, that they were demons come from the infernal plane to wreak havoc on the mortal world, that the leader of the mercenary band was seven feet tall with eyes of fire and a voice that boomed like thunder. Charged as she was by the kingdom with ridding the country of this plague, Gemma had had to sort through the conflicting rumors and legends in search of the truth. Only a few things were certain: the leaders of the band were known as “Furies,” and all of them seemed to be women. A slightly more dubious bit of information, but one that made Gemma’s bile rise whenever she thought about it, was the rumor that the Hellriders would take the hands of those who rose against them as grisly trophies.
At this moment, her party was preparing to ride against the Hellriders in the morning. They had learned the leader’s location, a place her party had camped once during the Panhead Wars, from the only Fury- a woman named Vilexi- they’d ever managed to capture. The woman had fought with a ferocity befitting her namesake, wounding both Gemma and Sap before they were able to incapacitate her. It had taken them days to weave enough magic around her to force her to give them even a scrap of evidence, and they had not even been able to get their leader’s name out of it. She resisted them with a level of fanaticism that Gemma had never seen in an enemy before. When they returned to her cell in the morning, she had opened her own wrists with her teeth. It seemed that to her, death was preferable to betraying her master’s trust. Gemma wondered at the kind of person who could inspire such loyalty in his followers, someone who people with their whole lives ahead of them would throw it all away for his sake. It only made sense that his other followers would be just as devoted, just as vicious, just as formidable as Vilexi had been. Challenging his camp alone would be suicide, and so her party had planned to gather themselves and make their strike in the morning. Gemma had agreed to the plan, agreed that it was sound strategy, and promised to be ready in the morning. Then she had made her way to the outskirts of town, summoned her divine mount, and begun riding. She knew it was irrational of her. She knew that she should be back with the others, preparing for their strike. But she also knew that she could not endanger anyone else.
There was one rumor that Gemma had never been able to get out of the back of her mind. It had no more substantiation than the others, and she wanted desperately for it to be wrong. She told herself over and over that it could be a coincidence, or that it was untrue, or that she had somehow misheard. But still the nagging thought persisted. Descriptions of the leader of the Hellriders were contradictory and shrouded in fear. Even so, some common threads persisted. He was said to be a tall man, wearing dark armor, an intimidating presence on the battlefield. Some claimed that fire came from his helm. Some claimed that he could not be killed. But none of these claims bothered her as much as the one rumor that she had heard only a handful of times. There were some who whispered of the name of the dark warrior. That name was chillingly familiar to Gemma, and try as she might, she could think of no reason it could not be true. That name was Valdreth.
It was because of that name that she rode alone tonight. If she was wrong, then she told herself that she would turn around, let her party take care of it as they had taken care of so many other threats in the past. But if she was right….. She could not bear to be right. She could not bear the thought of their faces, crushed with betrayal at the sight of their former friend. And she could not bear the possibility that this was a man that she knew, that she could have helped and even changed, that she had instead failed. But there was no reason to believe those rumors. There was such a vanishing likelihood that this mysterious figure was anyone she had ever met. Far more likely that it was a new enemy, perhaps from the aggressor kingdom, than someone she had fought with and trusted with her life. She told herself, as her mount thundered along the dark path, that she was only doing reconnaissance. That there was no way it was him. But the knot in her stomach persisted.
The bleached-white stone of the abandoned fortress of Kolgoth loomed before her, like a broken bone jutting out of an arm. She could see no guards posted outside, no soldiers patrolling its walls. This did nothing to lessen the fear in her heart, even though any guard would have been able to see her platinum armor shining in even the meager amount of moonlight that lit the secluded spot. Clutching her sword a little tighter, she walked forward onto the grass-choked flagstones of the outer courtyard. Her boots rang out on the stone. The silence was oppressive compared to the comforting sound of the ride, and it was almost a relief when two skeletons armed with spears jumped out at her. Almost without thinking about it, her blade cut through them, shining with divine light. It wasn’t after the skeletons were piles of dust on the ground that her thoughts came rushing back. This wasn’t a dungeon, with cursed guardians bound to walk its halls in skeletal form. This was an abandoned fortress from a long-forgotten war that had been perfectly clear the last time she had been there. Someone had to have summoned these recently, and Gemma hadn’t heard any reports of rogue necromancers.
A zombie popped out at her, and she cleaved its head from its shoulders without blinking. She nudged the still-snapping head with her boot, pondering. Not for the first time that night, a treacherous part of her mind wished that she had brought the others with her. This fight was no threat to her- as she continued forward, the undead advanced on her, but she wasn’t even breaking a sweat as she mowed them down- but it would have been nice to have some distraction from the thoughts tearing at her mind. Even the easy familiarity of battle (and gods, wasn’t that a terrifying thought, that battle had become so reflexive to her) no longer distracted her as she got closer and closer to the inner sanctum of the fortress. Lost in her thoughts, Gemma almost didn’t notice when she reached the inner sanctum.
First, she realized that there were no further undead to slay, her greatsword coming to a rest at her side. Then, as her mind returned to her surroundings, she saw a skull roll to a stop against a door with a sliver of light seeping under it. It seemed that the whole fortress was holding its breath. The silence around her was absolute. She reached for the door, but hesitated before her fingers could brush its wood. There was still time to turn around. To go back, leave the fortress, summon Sen and ride away. She could still return to the warm firelight of their base. She didn’t have to face this by herself.
But she did. She couldn’t force anyone else to bear this, the possibility of- it was almost impossible to think about, but she had to be ready for what she had to do. If she was right, she would have to bear this burden alone. She would have to stop Darius. She would have to kill him. She tightened her grip on her sword, squared her shoulders, and opened the door.
The room before her was simple- stone walls with a few torches on them, scattered chairs, a large central table with a map unfurled on it. Above the table on the back wall was a large banner bearing the unholy symbol of Moloch. The map seemed to depict the area that the Hellriders had been terrorizing. All of these details registered in some far-away part of Gemma’s mind as she stood, frozen in the doorway, looking at the man who was standing before the symbol of Hell’s general. He was looking down at the map, dark hair falling in his face. The torchlight played over his armor, which glowed with infernal runes, and his face was cast into shadow. A wave of nausea hit her, a pit yawning in her stomach, as she stared in horror at him. There was an aura of unease and despair surrounding him, a feeling that Gemma had only ever sensed in the vilest of undead enemies. Her grip on her sword was white-knuckled as he looked up at her and smiled, as open and genial as he had smiled on the day they met.
“Ah! Hello, Gemma. I wasn’t expecting you,” boomed the hollow, muted, but unmistakable voice of her friend, Darius Valdreth.
Gemma stood, dumbstruck, in the doorway, one hand still on the door, the other shaking on her sword’s hilt. The man before her- she could hardly call him a man. There was a hollowness to his cheeks, a tightness to his waxy skin, that spoke of decomposition held at bay by powerful magic. The same smile as always stretched his lips, but there was more of the rictus-grin of a skeleton to it than before. His eyes- gods above, his eyes glowed red with the endless malice of the infernal plane, and for a moment Gemma felt her knees buckle before the sight of her friend so transformed. The Armor of the Platinum Scale held her fast, though, and she swallowed around the thick blockage that had risen in her throat.
“Darius,” she croaked, still wanting to be wrong.
“The one and only!” He stood to bow to her, a horrific parody of human movement, and she was struck by a memory like a crossbow bolt, of the time they had all attended the Grand Ball, and Sap had fallen into that batch of honey cakes, and Darius had come up to her and bowed and asked her to dance, and she had laughed, and-
She shook the memory off and squared her shoulders. This had to be done, and she could not afford to dwell on the past. “What… what happened to you? What are you?”
“Your first question is a bit of a long story, but the answer to your second is simpler.” Darius spread his arms wide as if presenting himself to an adoring crowd, and the torchlight shone off the red eye hand-painted on his breastplate. “I have at last become the very avatar of War!”
Gemma felt sick to her stomach, each triumphant word another blow to her heart. Her friend, a man she had trusted with her life, who she had lived with and laughed with and cared for as she cared for her closest friends- he had become this. ”You…. wanted this? This was why you left us years ago?” She had wanted so badly to be wrong, and she wanted it still, for him to tell her that he had been captured by evildoers, coerced into his actions, forced into this tainted form- anything, anything that would keep her from the horrible idea that Darius entered into this hellish compact willingly, even enthusiastically. “To become a slave to evil, to harm everything we worked so hard to create-” -together stuck in her throat, and she could not get any more out.
Darius laughed, the huge full-bodied laugh that she had grown so used to hearing around the campfire, the laugh that shook the rafters of taverns and rang out over the battlefield. The laugh she’d heard a hundred thousand times, when Ted would make one of his awful jokes, when Sap would get caught stealing Rhus’ food, when she had asked him if he wouldn’t consider staying with them-
“Gemma, you haven’t changed a bit. I’m no more a slave than you are! We both serve our respective gods, and we are both rewarded for our services. As for why I’m currently trying to raze parts of Rialdra, well, the other kingdoms were looking to hire talent and the Hellriders need to make a living.” He grinned at her, an awful rictus grin that tightened his pale flesh over his cheeks. She could feel bile rising in her throat.
“You-” In the name of her god she had sworn to strike down those who would seek to do evil. In the name of her family she had sworn to bring justice to the land that she so loved. In the name of her friends she had sworn to protect those who could not protect themselves. She was bound to do this. She had no other choice. “Do you know why I am here?”
“Well, I assume it’s not to catch up on old times, although if you’ve got a moment…” Darius trailed off, trying to catch her eye as she stared resolutely at some point in space that didn’t make her stomach tie itself in knots like the sight of his warped face did. “But no, I know what happens when the champion of justice rides alone to the stronghold of evil. I already prepared the courtyard for you!” He walked around the table, and as he got closer the thick miasma of evil that hung around him lay heavy on her senses. “It’ll be just like old times. Surely you remember how we used to spar?”
She did. It was a fond memory for her, testing her strength and strategy against a friend. Darius would sidle up to her after they had made camp, usually while Felix was making dinner, and he’d pester her until she gave in, laughing at his boasts. They were very evenly matched, and the sparring ended just as often with her at the point of his zweihander as with him flat on his back in the dust. She had cherished those moments after he left, keeping them in the same place in her heart as she did all fond recollections of a friend. Now she was following him down the echoing halls of a dark fortress to a sick reflection of those memories.
Gemma followed Darius into the bright moonlight shining in the courtyard. Grass and ivy had overtaken the place long ago, and their footfalls were strangely muffled as they entered. Gemma had expected some level of showboating- although she did not know how Darius had anticipated her, given that she had only made the decision to seek him out a few hours ago- but she had not anticipated an audience. Arranged around the courtyard, all standing almost perfectly still, were women who Gemma could only assume were the Furies. Gemma saw humans, elves, even a dwarf, all clothed head to toe in black armor. One of them, a human woman with a greatsword strapped to her side, made a movement towards her weapon when Gemma came close, but a wave from Darius stilled her hand. She snarled at Gemma when she passed.
Darius led her to the center of the yard. He snapped his fingers and the darkness coalesced around him, covering his face with black metal and wreathing him in a cape that coiled and frayed at the edges like smoke. His zweihander, glowing with the power of Moloch, was now in his grasp, summoned with whatever dark power he had bargained for. He took his stance before her and she shuddered.
“It does not have to end like this. Please, Darius, we can still do something about this. Do not make me strike you down.”
He threw his head back and laughed, the sound echoing hollowly from his helmet. “And what makes you think I’m going to let you do that? I know I have no intention of dying this night!”
“And if you do? Will your Furies take their revenge?” The women ranged around the courtyard were still, but it was the stillness of a predator about to strike, and if they were all as devoted and skilled as Vilexi had been then Gemma had no illusions about fighting her way through.
“Don’t worry about them. This is between you and I, after all! And they know better than to interfere.” He spread his arms mockingly. “Come on, Gemma! For old time’s sake!”
In response, Gemma took a deep, shuddering breath and readied her sword.
In stories about grand rivalries, there is always the first clash. This battle is mythologized, full of tension and betrayal and high struggle. In the older myths, these fights can last for days, the hero pursuing their quarry over entire kingdoms, trading blows and repartee as they go. The stakes are set up, threats are made, foreshadowing is established. In the end, either the hero stands victorious, the enemy slinking off to lick their wounds and vow revenge, or the hero is unable to surmount their foe, who leaves them alive out of arrogance, not anticipating that one day it would be their undoing. In every story, the payoff must be satisfying. The enemy justly defeated, or the hero filled with new resolve. In every story, it has to make sense.
As Gemma drew the sword from her friend’s neck, nothing made sense.
Darius toppled to the flagstones, silent, unmoving. Not even a last gasp of breath through a windpipe burned by holy fire. Gemma stepped back, horrified, sword falling from her hand with a loud clatter in the silent courtyard. A wind began to blow, rustling Darius’ cape and briefly animating his limp hand, twitching it toward her in a horrible parody of life, and it was too much, all too much. Gemma blindly scrabbled for her sword and turned to flee the courtyard, sprinting past the still-unmoving Furies out of the fortress and away from what she had done.
She called for Sen as soon as she could remember the invocation, and rode hard away from that cursed place, sobbing into her mount’s neck and holding onto the reins as if they could anchor her through her heart’s turbulence. She had done something unforgivable. She did not even feel worthy to call upon her god for guidance and comfort, not worthy to ride back to camp and see her still-living friends, not worthy to call herself a defender of anyone if this was the depth she would stoop to. She couldn’t tell anyone what she had done.
The camp approached, and for once Gemma was less than grateful for Sen’s unerring navigation. She swung uneasily out of the saddle. Sen nosed at her, comforting, but she dismissed him without a word. Inside the camp was light, warmth, friendship. Friends so dear that if she requested it, they wouldn’t even ask what had happened that night, why she had been away for hours. Friends like Darius had been.
Gemma wiped her face on the back of her hand and took a deep breath. The conquering hero returned.
Author's Notes:
Written 12/27/2018. Poor Gemma. And he didn't even die! She did all that for nothing!