The king's guard assembled at once, bringing on their mail and armor, their helmets and their blades, always at the ready.
Horses were brought forth from the stables as ordered.
These last loyal men who had seen the worst of the ogres' destruction, yet remained to guard the last of the royal line, the last of Avonlea.
Maurice mounted his horse, his hand fused to the hilt of the dark dagger. He had seen the power it held over the creature. Seven hells, he had felt it. His command, the mage's immediate compliance. The Dark One was but a puppet on a string, forced to do as commanded and now, here, there was only one command to give.
Kill them all.
The king's guard rode out, leading a small squad of ten man to the edge of Avonlea's ruins. There an ogre hoard was huddled. They had gorged themselves and were content to rest. The monsters were but a handful of miles from the castle and Maurice paled to realize that, had Gaston not brought the dagger forth, he would have met his end before the day was through. Not even the strongest spell of a fairy could withstand the blunt fury of an ogre hoard.
Look at them.
Hides of thick skin and hulking muscle, dull minds but possessing quick reflexes. The adults slept and rested, their bellies happily full, defensively surrounding a gaggle of new hatchlings, only days old. They were barely more than animals, these creatures, but impossible to tame and vicious toward all men. King Maurice felt his heart ache at the sight of them; for years he had been protected as these monsters ravaged his country.
Yes. For Avonlea. For all those who died.
Maurice steeled his mind against the crushing guilt he'd lived with for the last decade. He'd acted on the threat too late. While Avonlea's people lay dead and scattered, he had hidden away in the castle behind stone walls and meager fae magic, growing fat and old while the age of recruitment had grown younger each year. Seven hells, they'd resorted to taking in women and girls to tend the wounded. If not for the Dark One, how long would it have been before ladies found themselves in armor on the field?
No more dead after today.
He had a weapon now, a demon at his beck and call, and as the gods' witness, he would command the death of every last monster in his land and beyond.
Yes. This is right. This is just.
The king's steed stepped forward from the contingent. He withdrew the dagger, lifting it above his head, the dipping sunlight glinting bright off the blade. "Dark One, your master summons thee."
The miserable imp was less than thrilled to be summoned again, twice now in the space of hours. He revealed himself from a wisp of violet fog, a bit of show meant to intimidate the other knights. It worked, as they recoiled at the sight of him on the ground while they remained mounted, their horses shuffling with agitation both from his sudden appearance and from the scent of ogre, nary a half mile away down the hill. The King and Gaston were unimpressed by such a simple trick.
"Getting the hang of calling on me, eh? Don't get too comfortable there, Moe. All kings fall - whether by an outside enemy or by the blade of a knight with high ambition." The demon warned, openly eying Gaston.
The king glared down at him from the seat of his steed, "Silence, creature! Gaston is to wed my daughter, a reward for the loyalty he has shown to Avonlea and for delivering to me the key to your enslavement." He said, brandishing the blade.
The Dark One cringed as the sight of the dagger, a whipped dog. Then, he dared raise his eyes and may have frowned back at the king; it was difficult to distinguish between the smiles and scowls in a face such as his. "Your princess is barely more than a child."
"We are all children in the eyes of ageless evil." The king's own frown deepened. "You waste time speaking of matters that do not concern you. Go, drive the ogres from our land as commanded."
The creature bowed at the waist as his eyes were consumed by black, hissing, "As you wish, sire."
He then vanished from the grass only to reappear a moment later within the ogre camp.
Maurice reached to his belt for a spy glass, focusing the view to search for his demon. For several moments all he could see was resting ogre - many of them sleeping, sated and full after having sacked a long-abandoned farm, eating through the untended crops and what few animals remained. After, as was their habit, the ogres had mated for hours, an orgy mean to breed more monsters to unleash upon the world.
And only the Dark One could stop them. Only the demon could triumph where over a thousand of Avonea's men had failed.
Where is he...where is he...there!
"I see him." Maurice announced to the knights.
The Dark One was there, home amongst the monsters.
The king watched, holding his breath as he saw the demon looking about himself - it appeared that he was only assessing what surrounded him.
Maurice clenched his jaw as the ogres nearest the Dark One noticed him, rousing its fellows to this new, unwelcome stranger in the midst of their herd. Even from his place on the hill, Maurice could hear the shuffling and the growls as the ogres awoke.
From what the king could see, the Dark One stood steady, unfazed by the sure death faced by any other man in his position.
Then, the Dark One moved, crouching into a kneeling position and he began to glow.
A bright golden light began to surround him, growing brighter and brighter, until the king was forced to look away to save his eyes. He could not see the demon any longer but he could see the figure still glowing bright, a beacon of gold.
And then-
KRACKOOM
A deafening roll of thunder from the blood sky.
The king and his knights' steeds stumbled and reared, neighing in alarm as something, some invisible force rocked through the air.
Gaston was unsure of what had just happened - the Dark One had vanished into the glowing light that surrounded him and then sent some strange energy into the air. It felt like being buffeted by a storm wind in an instant. There in one moment and gone the next. He could see nothing be they had all felt it.
Once he'd regained control of his borrowed horse, he returned his attention to the ogre herd below the hill.
The king and his men watched, transfixed, as magic shred its way through the ogres, slaughtering them without mercy or hesitation. Bright flashes of magic struck some, while strange spells came upon others, freezing ogres to ice, changing them to stone in grotesque statues, still others fell dead without a sound, one became water, another crumbled to dust, many burst into flame. This wave of destruction expanded as a ring with the Dark One at its center. The wave of death flowed through the hoard, felling every ogre until none were left to stand.
The Dark One rose from his place in the grass, dizzy for a moment from the energy expended in such a spell. What the king had commanded of him was no small feat, true, but the Dark One had no love for ogres. When he had first taken on the curse, he had rid his homeland of them in similar fashion. He'd done it to save the child soldiers, all of them forced to fight in a war that had never truly been won. It had been his choice, then. A noble thing he had done, an act to save his people, the children of his village abducted into service. It had been a vengeance as well, avenging his former cowardice by slaying the monsters that had had such an influence on his past life.
Whether noble or selfish vengeance, ending the ogres centuries ago had been his choice.
How times have changed, he thought bitterly as he took in the carnage that surrounded him.
Gore stained the ground, and the sky grew redder still. Charred corpses smoked into the air, the stink foul enough to turn a man's stomach. Statues of solid rock, ten, some of them fifteen feet tall. Dead ogres all around, their bodies sure to rot into the grass, feeding Avonlea after having devoured so many of its people.
Some justice, there.
The Dark One sighed, tired as he took in what he had done. He was a killer, that was true. Too true. He had killed men and women over the span of centuries. Most of them had been deserving of their ends - vengeance for abandoning him when he was weak, some he'd killed for the insult of trying to steal from him rather than strike a deal, others who had come to kill him, fools who thought the Dark One could be killed like any other animal, his head to be mounted as a grotesque trophy in a hunters hall.
Some he had killed simply for annoying him. Others he'd killed for no other reason than they were fairies - and all of those he truly enjoyed killing as a repayment for the interference of the self-righteous one.
Yes, the Dark One was a killer.
Brutal and remorseless.
A heart as black as the night, a cruel soul bound to a cursed blade.
He was a creature of near limitless power, and tenfold more dangerous than even the most vicious of monsters because the Dark One was, above all, calculating.
And yet, as he stalked through the death he had rendered under the command of a coward king, the demon paused.
In the silence following slaughter, he could hear small voices. Confused, afraid, inhuman.
The Dark One followed the sounds to the body of a felled ogre. A female. Nestled against her, chirping in fear that their mother wasn't moving, that she was silent and growing cold, were the hatchlings. Only days old. So feeble, such soft things, these babies.
He frowned, thinking on the words of the king. The command.
Kill them all.
It would be nothing to kill these mewling little monsters. He didn't even need to call on his magic. He could reach down and break their necks, step on them, beat them with rocks, choke the life from them. Brutal.
He raised his hand, thinking instead to call on a spell to strike them down. Their deaths would be immediate, silent, painless.
Remorseless.
The demon paused, again thinking on the words of the king.
Calculating.
Rather than rip into them, the imp instead waved his hand, transforming them all into doves. Ah. Their lives as ogres was at an end, their lives as doves had just begun. The command of the king was satisfied - at the man's own suggestion, no less. These caged birds would serve to show the new peace that would settle over Avonlea now the threat was defeated. He smiled to himself, rather please with the symbolism.
He picked up the cage and watched the doves inside as they fluttered and pecked about. The Dark One was a complicated being, but in truth he liked simple things.
But then he felt it, that hard pull on his heart.
The king was calling him to his side, the bastard wanted his dog back.
The demon sighed. He knew it wouldn't end here.
He tightened his grip on the cage and vanished from the ogre slaughter, and reappeared a moment later at the top of the hill, surrounded by knights.
He handed off the cage to the knight nearest to him, "Birds, for the menagerie."
Gaston had dismounted, his eyes wide as he stared down at the field of death. So many ogres dead. The invincible enemy, destroyed in a flash of golden knight. He sank to his knees in awe. A sob burst forth from his chest, a cry of true joy. Brothers, you are avenged.
"The Dark One has done it. The ogres are no more."
His voice was held in such wonder. How could it be true, that a decade of bloodshed had come to an end? How was a cursed demon the savior of them all?
Near him, the other knights were in a similar state of shock. Some of them openly wept the names of their loved ones felled by the roving monsters - their brothers, children and wives. Some whispered blessings. Still others shouted with joy.
The king stood, a statue rooted to the ground. The ogres are gone. It is over. My Avonlea, you are saved.
The Dark One held no joy in being forced to kill at the order of another. Only animals were content in their slavery. Beastly though he was, the Dark One was no animal.
He rolled his eyes and huffed at the knights assembled, ignoring their grateful applause, tired from the use of magic and just done with the lot of them. "Yes, yes, you're all very welcome. Now I'll have my dagger and be off-"
"No."
The knights fell silent and stepped aside in respect to the king.
Maurice came forward and stepped in close to the Dark One, eyes bright with mad vision toward the future. "No, creature. With your power you could restore Avonlea, even raise it beyond what it was before."
"That wasn't the deal." The demon hissed, looking to Gaston.
His eyes spoke for him. Young knight, stand for me. Don't let him do this. Please.
King Maurice dismissed the protest. "Whatever bargain you struck with Gaston has no bearing with me. As I hold your dagger, so I hold you, Dark One. Now come, we return to the keep for a celebration the likes of which Avonlea has not seen in an age."
The king guided his horse to turn around, heading back toward what remained of the small stone castle, with the knights flanking in close. Some of them spared the demon a look of pity, sympathy for a creature to find itself suddenly chained. This went beyond slavery. This was compulsion.
Still.
They were loyal to the king above all else.
The Dark One would find no friend among them.
Save for one.
Gaston remained behind, watching as the king's guard rode down the hill before turning to address the demon. He had summoned the Dark One himself only once; after seeing the servant girl off with a horse and enough food for her journey home, he was ashamed to admit that, yes, he had called the demon before him in the mountains.
Why?
Gaston could not say. There were many reasons why he had done it. Curiosity, chief among them. He had seen many strange and amazing things in his time as a knight. Terrible things. He had wanted to know, needed to know, if the girl's story was true. Could it be true? A demon mage of terrible power, bound to a blade?
He had to know.
And so he had done it, raised the blade and summoned the Dark One. There in the mountains, Gaston had learned that it was true. All of it.
The legends of the Dark One were not legends, not myth. The demon was real, as real as Gaston himself. As great a force of destruction as the ogres.
But with the blade, this force could be harnessed, commanded to an end.
Much as he had in the main hall of the castle, the imp had arrived to greet Gaston, silent in the mist and asked to know who had called on him. The man had been stunned to see him, and foolishly gave away his name. Too late he'd realized his mistake and fumbled to explain why he held the cursed blade - his land overrun with monsters, so many dead and dying, and Avonlea was desperate.
Gaston had sunk down to his knees and begged the demon for help, promising anything the Dark One could want in return.
The imp had perked at that, his interest roused and gleeful.
"Anything, you say? Oh, I love it when they say that!"
He'd smiled and promised to return when summoned next to give his aid.
The Dark One hadn't known of Gaston's thought to give the dagger over to the king and clearly, the king had no intention of letting the Dark One walk free now.
"I...I am sorry, I did not think he would do this." Gaston said, truth in his words. In this moment, he realized just how naive he had been, to hand over the dagger to his king and expect the man to give up command over such power moments after the threat had been defeated. No. The ogres were dead but the country was still shattered.
No.
The king was no fool.
But perhaps Gaston was.
He put trust into his leige and in doing so, his faith had condemned the Dark One; everything of the demon was forced to comply to the whim of another. It was no way to live, but the lives of his people at been saved at the cost of one imp's freedom.
The Dark One shook his head and found that he could conjure no anger against the knight, for in a particularly annoying way, Gaston reminded him of his own kind son, lost so long ago now.
"You are young, dearie. Young and naive. It's no matter, certain deals tend to fall in my favor. This one will prove no different."