Still Alive

Ozzob walks a road constructed on misery and marked by crushed bones that pop with every step. The path winds up and up into the cliff face. Rounding the final blind corner, Ozzob can see an obtusely gothic castle stretches into the sky. Endless hooked corners divide and split with marked precision, many corners appear to fold inward at impossible angles.

Ozzob crosses the threshold of the elevation, revealed to an open courtyard; he is already inside the castle. The demon points to an open doorway in the wall; enveloped by the blackness through the portal, Ozzob confronts a long passage filled with people and the noise of working blacksmiths. Dim flickers of a dying brazier show little detail inside the tunnel.

A thick bodied, seemingly human, man pushes a steel breastplate onto Ozzob’s chest. Seconds later another man pushes a matching piece on from behind the sorcerer, the two slave driven workers secure the crude armor plate. Slowly pacing down the tunnel, Ozzob receives a helmet from a man lingering by a spinning rack; moments after donning the second piece of freshly pound armor, a sword finds a way into the sorcerer’s hands.

#

Standing at the peak of a giant arch, a ripped, massive demon looks down at the gathering army, his army. The faces looking up cover the entire spectrum of sentient species available. Ozzob stumbles out from the parade tunnel and folds into the ranks of the gathering force. The speechmaker looks at the faces down below; the demon growls a thunderous spiel, empowering everyone with the will to fight.

“This useless infighting among the demon clans must stop! This army must stop it. Trounce the enemy! Tear them down! Destroy them… Now, Warriors of Lesion, go forward and do battle! Win victory for yourself! Win victory for each other!”

Bloodlust passion builds inside the army with every tainted scream of the speechmaker. On the signal to attack, the boiling warriors charge down the mountainside to the front lines of battle. In seconds, the courtyard outside the demonic, fear-inducing castle is empty, but not silent.

The speechmaker’s lieutenant questions, “Do you think this will work? Do they have a chance?”

“This lot, heh… They’ll never get past the first gate.”

#

Forward movement slows; shuffled into the middle of the mass, Ozzob is barely aware of the battle raging ahead, just the sounds of fury cue. A piece of golden armor glimmers among the ranks ahead, brutal fighting just beyond the next layer. The chattering of a thousand weapons, metal on metal dialogue, roars as both sides of the battle take casualties; the front spills inward as the two armies become one--no more delays.

Ozzob spots a red-skinned demon dressed in golden mail, back turned, definitely a defender of opposite ideals. The sorcerer, wasting no time, dives forward with his sword. The tip of the blade sticks in between heavy plates. The creature turns, eyes bulging, puffing up with a grotesque, twin-edged axe; swinging a perfect slice to strike Ozzob down. A final moment opens to the sorcerer: live or die, succumb or fight.

An instant before the sharp axe rips through his skin, Ozzob teleports behind his attacker. One power encased hand jerks up at the demon, holding the threat in place. For a moment, Ozzob almost frowns; he raises a second hand, latching another grip on the paralyzed creature. The demon expels horror wrapped screams--strong enough to deal permanent damage to throat and lungs.

The golden breastplate splits, clothing beneath that tears, and the skin pulls apart, all down a centerline. The creature’s entire front side splits open in seconds, the pattern of damage resembles a stretch of lightning crossing the sky. Ozzob jerks apart his hands; the pull separates the beast’s body and skin, leaving two clumps of remains.

Ozzob raises his sorcerer’s tools to the otherworldly sky; an explosion of magical bolts streak into the air, turn, and reenter the battle. Gobs of flesh drive into the ground with every missile-like projectile that finds a target. The unleashed sorcerer sustains the volley for no more than thirty seconds. A short time span, but just long enough for every single enemy combatant on the front to die.

The demon army, bruised, but not beaten, looks inward at Ozzob. The sorcerer stands in the center of a clear circle, surrounded on all sides by willing warriors. He slowly turns looking at the faces of his veteran allies. Each time the sorcerer makes eye contact with another: the fighter transforms, becomes bigger, stronger, clad in fresh armor, holding a visceral weapon.

Re-envisioned, with a quarter of the enemy force bleeding out at there feet, the demon army marches on the enemy stronghold. Ozzob hovers overhead, standing on a familiar parcel of ground. The opposition attacks with a multi-direction, coordinated maneuver. The demon army, cared for by a powerful sorcerer, faces down the assault pride; moments before the first combatants engage, Ozzob reaches out with his willpower, his soul of souls.

The sorcerer’s spirit touches every weapon held in hostile hands; every touch turns metal into brittle stone. The front ranks of the outmatched enemy are instantly grinded under the feet of Ozzob’s army. The few that have a chance to escape, do--they run hard to distant fields, never looking back.

A steel portcullis stands between close rock walls; the massive structure blocks the front entrance to the enemy fortress, and stops the army’s progress. Ozzob looks to the gate and circumvents designed function, reworking the door for easy-access. When the metal screams subside, the sorcerer and his demonic army charges into the enemy’s walled courtyard.

Inside, the army breaks apart in a ransack barrage; Ozzob’s men easily dispatch the remaining defenders; battle lust sends them to work on the few defenseless denizens. The interior of the demonic fortress turns red with spilt blood; one final fight remains to claim victory. Two of the magically fueled, demon warriors forcefully explode through a door, flung back into the courtyard, splintering wood and snapping metal.

Ozzob locks stares with a foe; a black demon bursting with power, holding a vibrant glowing rod and flawless steel buckler; the creature’s glowing eyes course red with blood from a thousand wars. The traveled sorcerer clamps both feet into the floating circle of ground, bracing opposite angles; he raises two fiery hands and uncorks an inferno blast--the stone doorway turns soft, a step away from magma.

Fighters across the courtyard scream out and burst into flames from the incineration level heat dumped into the area. The black demon pushes forward, into the flames, the magical shield deflects the destruction--redirected high overhead; the flames subside, and for a moment, Ozzob shows confusion at the demon’s, seemingly indestructible, defense.

Raising a shimmering pearl-colored rod into the sky, the enemy war-master sends a burst of blue energy in all directions. The magical blast knocks everyone to the ground, blows away the ash corpses, and kicks the sorcerer off his floating sanctum. Dislodged, Ozzob cracks into the ground with a heavy thud; rocks bordering the impact area split wide, absorbing the crash.

Motionless for a few moments, Ozzob springs to his feet, all at once. Tiny bits of rock float in the air, building a visible volume around the sorcerer. He puts a foot forward and walks directly at the demon. The black-skinned lord holds out the white rod; the magical device transforms into a macabre two-handed sword. The sorcerer’s infuriated expression fixates as stone, he rips off the silvery helmet and walks up to the evil beast.

A single awe-inspiring swing closes closer and closer, aimed to behead Ozzob, or worse. The sorcerer stands before the full fury, motionless, defenseless. The conjured blade tips with blood, lightly slicing into Ozzob’s neck. The weapon is pure and strong, but lacks the type of strength required, the metal splinters on impact with the sorcerer’s godly skin. After a quick burst of light, pieces of the shattered ivory rod splink off stone.

The gathering crowd squints, temporarily blinded by the flash, and therefore slow to notice Ozzob falling to his knees. An audible gasp falls over the motionless courtyard, the sorcerer wavers, dropping one hand to the ground as a brace.

The black demon steps forward carrying an evil sneer. “That’s it…”

The demon speech breaks Ozzob’s tension, sending him over the edge. The sorcerer lunges up, grabbing everywhere at once. He lifts the foul creature overhead, his human body morphs and mutates, bulging unnaturally from every muscle. The sorcerer grows, two, three times in mass. Bones deep under the black skin begin to snap, crushed by extreme pressure.

Disproportioned, the sorcerer’s hand clasps deep, gripping the demon’s black neck. With a physical strength greater than that of his entire army, Ozzob manually rips the last enemy in half. A great pool of black blood washes over his body. Dripping, at the end of battle, the sorcerer and his demonic brethren, win victory. In time, Ozzob will recount the battle for the history books…

#

The fighting was over, we won, and I was the reason. An eon would pass before the lives I wasted found reintegration. I think… I think I wanted to die, to see if I could transform, my body, old as creation… there was no way for me to get out. The only emotion I remember was hate. Revelry followed the battle, and I was angry with everyone steering the ship.

I despised the demon that brought me here, the speechmaker that sent us away drooling, and the general that wanted peace for his warlike brothers. I hated them all. In retrospect, I should have hated myself; I filled the abyss on that day. I destroyed one lord, and empowered another, the second no better than the first.

#

Ozzob, dipped in black blood, poses on a bone work throne, heading the pillar of destruction; he looks down from atop the conquered tower. Below, the sorcerer’s men revel in gratuitous fortune--liberated riches of person and possession. The courtyard pools with blood of the slain; dead warriors scatter the scene, hang from the walls, and crawl about in dying breaths.

Beyond the walls, through the reshaped portcullis, a field without a single blade of green carries a plethora of dead soldiers. Past those trampled corpses, a single flag, and a circle of perfect clarity--a marker for the front--where the battle launched. At the end of vision: the hill, the rise, white powder road, the cliff brimming with demonic sculpture.

Ozzob stands from the perch, a dull growl hangs near him. Looking to the victory faces down below, Ozzob reaches out; his act lacks compassion and caring, his motive is not to empower, but to control. The sorcerer wraps a finger around every living soldier’s soul and begins pulling strings. The army drops fortune and glory for addled bloodlust.

Ozzob walks down an invisible bridge spanning the tower peak and castle gate; the survived fighters form in ranks below. Enervated soldiers, completely dead, slowly stand with broken stature and fall in. A force of ten thousand, living and dead, demon and man, sets a decaying march across the desolate plains.

#

The speechmaker’s assistant runs into a set dining hall, a freshly killed animal roasts over the open-pit table.

“Sir… they came back.”

“Your kidding?”

“NO SIR, but the ones we sent, joined the enemy.”

The speechmaker’s head gives a primitive tilt.

“The whole army marches on us…”

A firebomb explosion tears through the side of the dining hall, breaking stone and exposing the chamber to the dead sky.

The speechmaker scrapes himself off the floor and heads to the battlements, a futile attempt at defense. Ozzob fires massive firebombs from high in the air, the shots demolish any entrenched weapons. Slowly the army pushes up to the cliff face, soldiers climb atop one another and build a flesh ladder over the walls--the death noose closes.

Trained in tactical defense of the gothic fortress, the demon garrison slaughters the advancing army; but death is not enough to stop one the manipulated warriors; magical willpower outweighs an arrow, a sword, even a catapult. Every demon and man in the castle falls under foot in the wake of the walking dead. In the end, the army too, falls over dead; the sorcerer Ozzob vanishes from the sky--he goes home.

#

Dripping with uncertainty, the voice of sarcasm laments, “I hope he never decides to come after us…”