The Lord of Nightmares

Prologue: End of the War

This had been many years in the making, Eli' Hal thought as he waited, suspended in the air upon the branches of a tree, watching the Obsidian Castle on the horizon. Smoke plumed from the windows of the black spire towers as the last wave of the coalition army charged through the massive gates that served as the front door to the castle. The Obsidian Castle itself sat on the edge of a cliff over looking the eastern sea. The black crystal that the walls and spires were made of, almost looked peaceful if also a bit gloomy when back dropped by the beautiful blue ocean waves. Eli' Hal knew though, that place was pure evil. A festering wound on the face of any map of Mendus printed with even a speck of accuracy.

It was the home of the Lord of Nightmares. The common folk had given the Dark Lord his title, due to the fact that he enslaved monsters and vicious beasts through mind controlling collars in order to form an army that haunted the nightmares of any who survived coming in contact with it. That and it seemed absolutely no one knew his real name or even what kind of creature he was. Through the collars the Dark Lord could see what they saw, feel what they felt, give commands, take direct control, or even punish the enslaved who fought his commands... severely.

It had taken the combined efforts of the Human Kingdoms, the Elven Enclaves, and the Dwarven Cartel Clanholds to make an army large enough to destroy the slave army the Dark lord had built over the last twenty years since he made himself known as a threat to all of Mendus. He had been waging war since then, killing and enslaving everywhere he traveled, but in making himself known he had inadvertently revealed a weakness: His power was directly derived from his slave army. Without it, he would become powerless to the point he could be defeated permanently. At least that was the prevailing theory at this point and the main reasoning for committing to the assault on the Obsidian Castle while its master was away.

Eli' Hal was waiting, with the rest of the Elven special forces, in a tree line overlooking the only path down a mountain ridge to reach the castle. They were waiting for the owner to appear and lend aid as he had always done before when his army began to falter. His presence had turned the tide of battle more times than Eli' Hal could count. He seemed invincible when engaged in combat, but if the elders and battlefield scholars were right, then this attack should weaken him enough for the Elven special forces to deal the final blow. They were a hundred strong with mages who had also enchanted their arrow heads and blades so as to easily pierce armor of the highest quality. Eli' Hal carefully shifted his weight on the trees branch out of anxious habit. If the Dark Lord didn't show soon there would be no slaves left to salvage from the battle.

As if on cue, the sound of a song bird echoed down the tree line. The special forces signal that the target had been spotted. Several moments passed and finally the Lord of Nightmares came into view. He walked calmly down the path at a leisurely pace. Surely he knew what was going on at the castle. He altered course slightly and came to a stop at the ledge overlooking the Obsidian Castle. This was the first opportunity Eli' Hal had to observe the Dark Lord outside of combat. He was a solid mass of midnight black crystal of the same kind that made up the castle. At a distance one could easily mistake him for some kind of black knight from the human kingdoms.

Up close, though, it was clear that there was no armor. What could have been mistaken as a helmet, was shaped with sharp edges and angles to form what could be construed as a featureless face. There were the obvious shapes of a humanoid skull like cheek bones and jaw lines but without a mouth, nose, ears, or eyes. Where there were no edges, it was just smooth crystal surface. No place for an eye to see out of, or for a mouth or nose to breath through, and yet his head turned slowly as if scanning the scene before him, assessing the damage and standing as if he were carefully considering his options for what he could do. As his head turned, Eli' Hal's sensitive Elven ears picked up the faint sound of scraping glass and stone, a sign to him that the Dark Lord was more a construct of whatever that crystal material was, than any sort of flesh and blood being. It reminded him of a rock giant or clay golem.

Suddenly, the Dark Lord turned on his heels and started to walk back down the path he had come from. He was walking away from the battle! This realization, coupled with the newly risen faith that they were actually winning, pushed Eli' Hal to give the signal to surround the target. The Elves dropped down from the tree branches and landed silently even as they drew their bowstrings back. The Dark Lord was surrounded on three sides by a hundred Elven warriors, at least eighty of which all had enchanted arrowheads pointing at him and he was cornered on the cliff face.

Eli' Hal, filled with confidence for the first time in almost two decades, took one step forward to address the Dark Lord directly. He spoke in the Elven tongue, not knowing if the Lord of Nightmares understood any particular language or even spoke at all himself. "It is over Dark One." The Lord turned and faced Eli' Hal, putting his back to the cliff side. Good, he can at least hear if not understand. "Your slaves have been destroyed. Your army is nothing but ash and corpses. This war is over."

The Lord of Nightmares did not respond in words, but with a sound like rolling and grinding stones that seemed to be coming from inside his chest. He raised his arms up at his sides, palms facing the sky in a gesture that Eli' Hal interpreted as a challenge that said "Take your best shot." Eli' Hal decided to oblige him and gave the order to fire a volley of arrows.

The Dark Lord showed no signs of flinching, no attempt to shield himself from the arrows loosed upon him. He simply stood still, arms raised in defiance, as the arrows rained down on him. Many arrows missed and flew over the ledge or embedded themselves into the rock of the ledge, aided by the armor piercing enchantments from the mages. Shock and fear registered on Eli' Hal's face as he watched the arrows strike the Lord of Nightmares and either ricochet or stop dead, shafts shattering on impact with his crystalline body. Eli' Hal ordered two more volleys of arrows and was met with the same results. The Lord of Nightmares waited patiently for the volleys to stop before he slowly lowered his arms to his sides. Without facial features it was difficult to be certain, but Eli' Hal was given the distinct impression that, somehow, The Dark Lord was disappointed by their pathetic attempts to cause him harm. As if he had expected more out of them.

The twenty special forces mages stepped forward preparing their spells with silent murmurs as their hands burst into flame or crackled with lightening or frosted over in thin ice. The rest of the elves put down their bows and drew their blades. They could not afford to let the Lord of Nightmares walk away from this fight. If he did, he would simply start over again, build a new army, enslave more monsters. If they could not kill him, they at least needed to subdue him so that he could be imprisoned somehow, someway.

The Dark Lord, keeping his palm flat, lifted his right arm to point all five fingers directly at Eli' Hal and held his arm carefully in that position. Then his hand and forearm began to fracture into hundreds of tiny shards that floated and shifted around and then sealed back together into a single unblemished surface, reforming his right hand almost all the way up to his elbow into a solid black crystal blade. He held the black blade diagonally across his chest, inspecting it as he did so, then let if fall to his side and waited. He was going to make the elves come to him.

Eli' Hal gave the order to charge and the entire unit converged on the Dark Lord. Moments before the two forces collided, the Lord of Nightmares raised his blade and met Eli' Hal's blow, allowing three others to pass through his guard and strike against his body with absolutely no effect. Eli' Hal found that trying to press against the Dark Lords blade was like trying to shove a mountain over by himself. With a single push The Dark Lord sent him tumbling backwards and then switched his attention to the other ninety-nine elves attacking him.

As Eli' Hal picked himself up of the ground, he watched as the Dark Lord shrugged off a fireball from one of the mages to cut through four elf warriors with one swing of his arm. Finally, panic began to take hold of Eli' Hal. They could not lose here. They absolutely could not fail or it would mean the end of all of Mendus as they knew it. Maybe not today, maybe not for another twenty years again, but eventually, the Coalition army would run out of resources and warriors to fight with. They had to stop him, here and now. Eli' Hal tightened the grip on his Elven blade and channeled his fear into destructive purpose and charged towards the Dark Lord yet again. As their blades clashed, he screamed inside his own head. We can not fail! We will not fail!