Author's Note: Sorry it has been so long you guys! This is kind of how it is going to be from now on because I am just so busy! I have work, school, and am volunteering at the Veteran's Hospital. It's way fun, but oftentimes I am so exhausted when I get home that I simply crash. I hope you guys continue to stay with me in spite of this. I promise to try and make it worth your while. Anyways, here is Chapter 3. It is a little dark, but I hope you like the end. PLEASE REVIEW!
If one were to ask Morgana the precise moment she'd crossed the line from a confused and suppressed warlock to a powerful force of devastation she would not be able to answer with any certainty. Even after the year she had spent with her sister Morgause she had not been as full of hatred and rage as she was now.
At first, her goals began and ended with Uther and extended no further. She had not hated her half brother, if anything she felt pity for the man who so blindly trusted his tyrannical father as if the man were a god. She had felt even less animosity towards Arthur's oafish servant, especially since the man had assisted her on more than one occasion. And Guinevere…well, up until the moment Morgana learned of Gwen's future the servant woman had remained a friend to her. Her only plan, at the time, was to bring magic back into the world and force Uther to feel the same terror and pain she herself had felt while doing so.
She knew without a doubt that the year she had spent learning of her gifts and honing them to perfection was the happiest time in her life. She had laughed and smiled with people so much like her that they became the only family she ever needed. She didn't think that the bitter rage she was constantly afflicted with began there, but sometime after that…perhaps with a certain servant in the service of her annoying half-brother.
Yes, Merlin was the cause of everything and oh, how she hated him. He was the pebble within her shoe that, no matter how many times she thought she removed it, kept coming back to pain her even more than before. The fact that he continued to remain so damn loyal to Arthur only enraged her further. The man was weak and if Emrys had not interfered as often as he had he would have been crushed beneath her feet by now, him and his servant.
The thought of Emrys brought a familiar shudder of fear that she attempted to hide from the weary soldiers behind her. She didn't want to seem weak to these men and not just because they had put their faith in her as a leader. To be honest, the assorted druids, sorcerers, and common men that were arranged in sloppy ranks behind her, feet crunching the ground in an unsteady march, were simply a backup plan.
What Morgana truly feared was the one hundred Shadow Spirits that lurked somewhere ahead of their ragged army. They were a force of evil beyond anything that Morgana could begin to understand. The creatures were not fueled by any emotion or cause other than the sadistic enjoyment at causing pain and destruction wherever they went. Morgana hated them.
She had first heard of the creatures from an old Druid woman she had met while seeking out men who would be willing to fight against the powerful nation of Camelot and its unlawful king. Surprisingly the selection of men had not been as small as she had believed it would be and she quickly raised the army behind her, but knew it would not be enough to overtake the kingdom.
It was her desperation that had caused her to listen to the old woman, having briefly considered ignoring her all together. The Druid woman told her of a dark and dangerous place, deep within the earth, that imprisoned creatures of such power that whole cities had fallen at the mere sight of them. Morgana had asked where such a place could be found, but the woman had refused to tell her.
Frustrated, Morgana had begun searching for a way to free these spirits of darkness and use them to brutally tear Arthur from his throne. She had taken steps within her quest of power that she had previously abhorred and detested. Even now, the thought of what she had done froze her insides and forced bile to rise in her throat.
In the end, however, she had gotten the information she sought. The entrance to the world the old Druid woman had spoken of could be found on a mountainside far in the West. The doorway was a mile wide fissure in the earth, rock splitting open like a jagged wound, foul smelling steam and fire rising from its depths. She had felt a terror so sharp that, for a moment, she had considered throwing herself over the side of the steep cliffs in order to escape whatever lurked within the chasm. One man, a young Druid who had sworn his life to protect hers, had done precisely that. They had collected his broken body on the way back down, but the young man had never been given the chance to be laid to rest. The Shadow spirits consumed him before they could do so.
Morgana had thought she would be prepared to do what she would have to in order to gain their power, but after the deed had been done the only thing she could feel was a crushing guilt. She had brought one hundred of her strongest supporters, choosing not to inform them of the fate that awaited them at the top of the mountain. They had promised to sacrifice their lives for her and would do just that, though not in the manner they had intended.
The Shadow Spirits required a living host in order to walk upon the earth and she would provide them with one. It would kill them, of course, but at the time she had been willing to make that sacrifice if it meant having Arthur and Merlin's corpses at her feet. Some of the men had tried to flee back down the mountain as the terror that had previously sickened her gripped them as well. She had stopped them with a flash of magic, freezing them into place while they stared at her, eyes rolling in fear.
The others had shuffled nervously around, searching in vain for the reason behind their mindless terror. Morgana had not waited for anymore of them to desert her and let the words that would call the spirits forth cascade from her lips, sounding strangely dirty to her ears.
Nothing had happened, at first. She had waited with baited breath for a moment then turned with a gasp as something black and shapeless rose from the depths of chasm. Though the sun was shone brightly in the sky above no light seemed to pierce the entity before her, instead swallowing its rays as if their destruction fueled its power.
"Mortal woman," the shadow rasped, voice harsh and gargling. "You have raised us from our prison in the hopes that we will serve you, have you not?"
Morgana could not find her voice for a long time. She simply stared, eyes wide in disbelief and terror, as the shadow undulated and writhed before her. Her small band of sacrificial warriors might have fled with her unable to stop them had the thing before her not stopped time.
"Speak," the shadow hissed. "I will not ask again, mortal. If you do not wish to use your lips to tell me what it is you seek I will happily take them from you."
"Camelot," Morgana gasped out, the demon's threat spurring her to take action. "I called you to…to…help me…help bring Camelot to its knees."
"Small price," the spirit muttered, writhing more wildly than before, as if the promise of violence excited it. "And your terms?"
"My terms," Morgana had asked, voice shaky with fear. "What terms?"
The demon laughed and Morgana flinched back from it, disturbed to hear such sadistic mirth from something without form.
"Little woman," it had laughed. "You are the master of our forms as long we serve you. We obey your words…to a point."
"A point?"
"You will not deny us what is rightfully ours," the shadow spat. "No order can keep us from it."
"It," Morgana had asked, nausea threatening to overtake her.
"Blood," the demon purred, relishing the sound of the word on its lips. "Blood and death, mortal woman. That is our price."
"You will have all of Camelot at your disposal," Morgana had whispered. "You may feed on any who defy me."
The creature undulated jerkily and Morgana got the strangest feeling that the demon was amused with her though she didn't know why.
"We will destroy Camelot," it said after a moment. "Did you bring the mortal flesh we require as payment?"
Morgana gestured shakily behind her and the demon howled in twisted hunger.
"My brothers and I agree to your terms, witch," the thing had hissed and with a screech of pleasure it fell upon the nearest man, its cry a signal of attack to the rest of the demon horde. They sprang forth from the chasm, shadowy forms shaping themselves into inky replicas of men, claws that, despite their ghostly appearance, looked wickedly sharp.
Had Morgana known what to expect she would have ended her own life rather than go through with it. The demons had set upon her men like lions, ripping great chunks of flesh from them with their claws. Morgana shut her eyes and covered her ears as the screaming began and did not open them again until she'd felt icy hands gripping her arm and roughly pulling her to her feet.
She opened her eyes and flinched back, barely stifling a cry of horror. Morgana could not tell who the man had been before the demon had taken control. His face was torn beyond recognition though no blood seemed to have spilled. The demon inhabited man's eyes were glazed with death and the corpse moved jerkily, each movement unbelievably fast and graceful despite its nature.
"Was this not what you expected," the demon whispered, using the man's deformed jaw to rasp out the words. Something black and foul spilled from it's lips and Morgana fought the urge to vomit.
She found that she could not look at them and suddenly the enormity of what she had done hit her, doubling her over as she coughed up her breakfast from that morning. The demons had watched her calmly and Morgana was sure that a few of them even took pleasure in her obvious misgivings.
She had not been able to speak more than a few words for days after the events upon the mountain. The living men within her army had quelled at the sight of their once human brethren, but she had eventually convinced them that they had willingly sacrificed themselves for their cause, guilt squeezing her belly like a vice as she did so. Even with her assurances the men would not travel with the demons, but Morgana found that her shadowy allies cared little for the men's opinions. They preferred to scout ahead or so they said.
There was no doubt in Morgana's mind, or anyone else's for that matter, that scouting was not all they were doing. Every once in awhile the group of travelers would hear an agonized scream from somewhere far ahead of them and each time Morgana felt the gorge rise in her throat. Each of her soldier's steps would falter and they would follow the sound with their eyes, knowing that someone had been brutally murdered in order to feed the demon's perverse appetite.
Morgana ordered them to cease their mindless brutality, but the demon called Azarath, their leader in some way, only laughed at her request.
"I told you," it hissed through its broken mouth. "You will not deny us what is rightfully ours."
"This is cruel," she had screamed. "This is not what I wanted!"
The demon had moved so suddenly that Morgana had no time to muster up an order to stop him. Its fingers curled cruelly around her throat and it shoved her violently against the trunk of a tree, lips curling back from rotting teeth.
"This is what happens when little girls fool with forces they do not understand," it had hissed, breath foul enough to make her gag. "The blood is on your hands, little mortal. We feed at your request."
"No," she had gasped out around the crushing force of his hand. "I order you to—"
Azarath crushed the words from her throat with a brutal squeeze of his fingers. The demon men behind her laughed wheezily.
"Not in this," Azarath whispered, voice silky and dangerous. "We will do as we promised, little woman. Camelot will be crushed beneath our power and you will be the victor. How we accomplish your task is not your decision. We do as we please."
The demon had released her and stared at her for a long time. The woman felt naked and dirty beneath its probing gaze and she found tremors soon overtaking her body.
"The mortal does not like our methods," Azarath said quietly. "Perhaps she is right. We should give her a token of our loyalty, should we not? Something to assure her that we have repented."
Something in the way the demon said the words sent fear squirming in her belly, but she had been rendered speechless. Azarath had turned from her, facing his small legion with a broken, sadistic grin.
"Come," he said. "Let us find a gift worthy of our mortal master, hmm?"
They had left her then and it had taken more than an hour for Morgana to find the strength to rise and return to camp. She wished she hadn't.
Her army, the men she had promised to return to their wives and children lay dead in giant piles all around her. They had been ripped open and brutally murdered in cold blood by the demons who stood, covered in blood, and smiled at her with rotting lips.
Morgana fell to her knees with an agonized cry, retching through her tears. The demons watched her quietly until she had run out of tears and she merely jerked as her body continued to try and sob out her pain and guilt.
Azarath cupped her chin, fingers wet with blood, in an almost gentle manner, looking at her with unreadable eyes. She jerked her head away from him, retching again, and trying to furiously scrub the blood from her face.
"A gift," the demon said softly. "A token of our loyalty. You will not need them, mortal woman. We will provide you with what you seek."
"No," she groaned low in her throat. "I didn't want this.."
"Whether you did or didn't matters little to me," Azarath hissed. "Know this, mortal woman. The tortures we have committed here will pale in comparison to those we will wreak upon Camelot."
"I'll stop you," Morgana hissed out, fury rising in her.
The demon cocked its head at her, bones grating in its broken neck. It seemed to study her for a long time before nodding and grinning softly.
"Do what you wish," it hissed at her. "You have given us an order and we will follow through, with or without you by our side."
"Kill her," one demon spat. "Eat her insides."
"No," Azarath snapped, raising a blood covered hand to bring his compatriot to a halt. "She raised us from our prison and as long as she does not lay a hand against us she is to be unharmed."
The demon snapped its hand out, gripping Morgana's hair and tipping her head back.
"But know this," it whispered dangerously. "Make a move against us and I will not hesitate to tear your pretty head from your body."
It roughly released her, snapping her head to the side and when she looked up again they were gone. She couldn't find any strength to stand and so she merely curled around herself and gratefully passed in unconsciousness.
She woke to the smell of decaying corpses. She stared around her, stunned and numb, at the destruction and death she had inadvertently caused. This had not been her plan. She had not wanted this nor would she wish it on anyone, even her greatest and most hated enemies.
She had to stop them, but she had no resources at her disposal and no army to defend her. She had taken the final step into darkness and now all she wanted was the light. She wanted to laugh and smile like she had before, but knew that those days were over for her. She doubted whether she would ever smile again.
It was a with a heart heavy with guilt and horror that Morgana set about burning the bodies of her loyal soldiers, hoping that despite their gruesome ends they would enjoy a peaceful afterlife.
After she had finished her task she looked far to the east where Camelot stood unaware of the danger approaching it. She knew that the demons would need time to gain enough power to end the kingdom as promised, but Morgana suspected that it would only be a short time. A few days, a week at best, but nothing more. Certainly not enough time for Camelot to come up with an effective defense, unless…unless they knew what was coming.
Morgana knew what she had to do, but dreaded doing it. She doubted whether Arthur would believer her and fully expected to be executed upon arrival, but she found that this thought did not upset her as greatly as she thought it would.
Even if her half brother refused to listen at least she would die with the knowledge that she had tried, however futile the effort may have been, to save them. Perhaps the gods would grant her mercy, but she doubted she was beyond even their forgiveness now. She could only hope that Arthur would at least listen to her.
And so, Morgana mounted her horse and rode with a speed and determination she had not felt before. She headed east, closer to the land she both loved and hated. She headed towards the brother she had betrayed, the friend she had attempted to kill, and the woman that had served her with loyalty and love only to be hated for it. For the first time in over two years Morgana wondered if she had been wrong, if she had made a mistake.
Whether she had or hadn't mattered very little now because, like it or not, they were joined on a collision course with an evil none of them had imagined possible. What came after was of little consequence. First they had to win and the chances of that were growing slimmer by the second. Perhaps she would die along side Arthur, joined together for the first and last time as brother and sister. Perhaps they would forgive her and they could end their now petty feud. Perhaps they could smile at each other again, trust in each other again, love each other again.
The idea of perhaps was a small comfort to her. But, perhaps was all she had.