Paved walkways and paths appeared first followed by manicured grasses, bushes, and trees. Then, chiseled stones and large wooden beams materialized and moved about on their own, forming walls and foundations.
As the wave of light continued across the plateau, it vaporized all the hellhounds, imps, and other demon soldiers in its path. It passed through the demon lord. He braced himself and struggled to stand. The powerful magic pushed him backward. His hooves dug into the soft earth as he pushed back against it with all his strength. When the wave of light finally passed, Thraul still stood. It did not destroy him as it had the others.
The demon lord turned his merciless gaze toward Marc and Trystan.
“Even this magic is not powerful enough to destroy me.” Thraul laughed cruelly.
The brilliant wave continued to expand outward and across the skies until it had consumed the last of the demons. It destroyed all of the portals, sealing off the passages between Earth and the demon realm. Then, in a sudden reversal, and with a speed far greater than its expansion, it withdrew itself back into the sword in the stone.
An eerie silence shrouded the land for a few seconds. Then, sounds of victory erupted.
Those men and women that were still able raised their swords and bows and cheered. The elves and wolves stepped out of the shadows and stood side by side with the King’s army. A few guardians also stood among them. Many of them had seen their dragons fall in battle, while others still glided above.
They all looked to the hilltop where the beginnings of a castle now stood. They watched in awe as it continued to slowly build itself upward.
But the cheers of triumph quickly faded as a new portal formed just above the hilltop.
***
Emrys, drained from the fight with Morgaine and then Thraul, lay where he had fallen after the wave of light knocked him back. Marc and Trystan, now standing near Camelot’s keystone, looked upon the demon lord.
Above him, Iôr Thraul summoned another portal.
“Don’t you see?” Thraul’s voice boomed. “I can summon more demons to this realm. The hold the curse had on me died with Morgaine.”
The portal opened wider and wider. Demons and dragons, once again, funneled through.
***
As the new portal opened, despair found its way into the ranks once more. It seemed they fought an endless battle they would never win, and the soldiers found it hard to remember what they were fighting for until a single messenger rode through, her words bringing hope to the army.
“The one true king lives! The heir of Camelot lives!” the messenger yelled over and over again as she rode through the army.
After the messenger rode by Regent King Locryn, he shouted and rallied his soldiers. “Your heard him men. King Trystan is alive. To arms!” Locryn raised his sword. “To Camelot!”
The guardians that still had their dragons focused on the plague dragons coming through the portal. The other guardians, along with the humans and elves, once again trained their attacks on the demons.
***
Trystan surveyed everything happening around him. Emrys had propped himself up against one of the trees that had emerged out of the ground. In the skies above, dragons fought each other, tumbling and flying. Locryn’s warriors and archers alongside dragon-less guardians battled the demons on the edges of the hilltop as the elves continued their furious onslaught with arrows.
A plague dragon fell near him, slamming into the ground with a thunderous force. A silver dragon flew furiously at it, blasting it with its fiery breath and then, pulling up just feet above the ground, it flew off to attack another. Trystan caught a glimpse of the guardian rider on its back, and he nodded to him.
Iôr Thraul stood on the other side of the newly formed courtyard. He was the one they needed to stop—destroy—in order to end all of this.
Marc grabbed a sword from a fallen soldier and studied the assault on the demon lord. Soldiers attacked with swords and arrows. The elves shot their silver-tipped arrows into him. Even the guardians attacked with their swords and bows while the dragons made use of their fire. But they did nothing more than push him around. The demons and hellhounds continued to surround and attack from all sides. Marc and Trystan fought them as well, desperately destroying as many as they could while they worked to determine how to defeat him.
A deafening roar thundered, shaking the very ground on which they stood. Iôr Thraul pulled two colossal swords from his back and the two axes from his sides and launched his assault on anyone within his range.
Holding two swords and two axes with his four massive arms, he swung the dull-edged blades and smashed heads, tore legs from underneath, deflected swords and arrows, and ripped humans and elves right through their middle. Slamming an axe into the earth, he reached up with one claw as a silver dragon flew over, grabbed its tail, swung it around, and slammed it into a wall. Then he picked up the axe and continued his assault. Enraged, he roared again.
“We have to stop him,” Trystan yelled to Marc. “But nothing seems to penetrate him or do any damage.”
Trystan aimed his bow, summoned an arrow, and shot it at the demon lord. The arrow penetrated his skin and the magic spread into him, causing him to flinch a little, but nothing more.
“We need something more powerful,” Marc shouted. He looked around, thinking. There had to be something they were overlooking. He stared at Excalibur, the blade glowing within the stone.
Of course. How had he not thought of it before?Both were needed to fulfill the prophecy.
