The Dark Master

It was a cold night, the kind that made it obvious that winter was just around the corner. The air was unnaturally still, and it was silent in the early hours of the morning. Four guards stood at the inner gate of the royal palace of Nepheria. These four powerful knights who could negate magic were known as the Templars.

They were guarding the palace that night due to a threat received the week before on the king's life. To respond to this threat from a powerful dark wizard, the entire royal army was stationed inside the outer wall, while mercenary groups guard the outer wall. The Templars were there as a last resort.

"Well, I'm going to get some sleep," one of the four, named Clyde, yawned. His dark hair swayed in the breeze as he stretched his tall, thin body and stroked his thin chinstrap. "Wake me up if anything exciting happens."

"You can't sleep!" Amelia, the only female of the four, shouted. Her gold-plated armor reflected what little light there was from the stars that night. "We need to stay vigilant. That was the order from the king."

"Do you think one man is going to make it through all that?" Clyde replied, motioning to the thousands of men in front of the palace. "Please, I don't care if he is a dark lord. He will die in the courtyard." He slumped down against a wall.

"This reminds me of the time that you said that there was no way a wivern was still alive after 1000 years of hibernation to guard the lost treasure of Vanmon..."

"Hey! I killed that thing, didn't I?"

"Be quiet, you two!" the largest man shouted with his deep black eyes focused on the horizon. He ran a gauntlet through his neatly kept black hair. His name was Orin, and he was the leader of the Templars. "Look there." He pointed out towards the village until the others followed his gaze and gasped in amazement.

Darkness so black it stood out against the night sky loomed like a cloud over the town, swirling around it like a swarm of locusts, swallowing it up. Death and decay filled the air, tickling the Templar's noses with a sickening smell. Blackness crept towards the castle while mercenaries ran in terror.

Those that stood their ground appeared to be swallowed up like the town and didn't come out. The darkness reached the outer wall, which immediately cracked, crumbed, and turned to dust. With the wall gone, the darkness continued, undaunted by the army before it.

"What is that?" Clyde asked, no longer interested in his nap.

"Greater Aura of Decay," Orin said. The four watched as the army ran from the darkness. Those that did not flee in time aged quickly, died and turned to dust like the wall that they protected.

"Are you telling me that one wizard is the cause of that?" Clyde asked with wide eyes.

"No," Orin muttered as the darkness crept up the hill towards them. "Only a master of dark magic could attempt such a spell, and anyone who can hold it that long is a demon. It is a spell that feeds off the darkness in a man's soul."

He drew his sword as the gate they were protecting began to crumble and decay. "Holy light," he yelled. A ray of light formed at the tip of his sword, shooting forward to repel the darkness.

"Show your self, so-called lord of darkness!" Orin demanded. The other knights readied their weapons with trembling hands.

"You must be the paladin I have heard so much about!" a shrill voice laughed from the darkness. "It's a shame you have to die today; you do seem rather skilled. Oblivion!" Bone-chilling laughter filled the night sky.

"No!" Orin shouted with fear in his eyes. "Divine protection!"

The darkness grew and extinguished his holy light, but Amelia began to glow radiantly. She watched helplessly as the town, the remnants of the army, the other knights, and the very castle they protected turned to dust. Left standing in a desolate wasteland, all that remained near her was a man in a black hooded robe. He stood at the center of the dark aura.

The dark lord cackled demonically. "I don't believe this! That fool was strong enough to save one person from my spell. He could have saved himself and killed me, but he saved you instead. I can kill you with the little strength that I have remaining!" the dark lord spat as he pulled a jagged dagger from his robe. He fixed murderous gleam on the lone survivor.

Amelia readied her sword and pushed everything from her mind except one thought. "I will kill you and stop this from ever happening again!" she said aloud as she charged the dark lord, eyeing his pitiful dagger.

The dark lord laughed hysterically as Amelia closed in on him. "Lesser Fear," he shouted while pointing a finger at the last Templar.

Amelia screamed in terror as she relived the last few moments. Her friends, king, and home all turned into dust while she watched and felt the guilt of being the only survivor. She reached out and tried to grasp her fellow knights as they turned to dust in front of her, again.

Pain shot through her stomach as she snapped back to reality. The dark lord pulled the dagger from her gut and laughed again.

"You have so much to fear I hardly need the spell!" he spat in her face, leaning in close to whisper in her ear. "You aren't strong enough to stop me." He started cackling again while she fell to her knees. "Poor thing, you can't even stand..." Turning his back to the dying Templar, he scanned the barren horizon.

"Dispel," Amelia muttered, gasping for air. She managed to release the spell. The pain in her stomach was unbearable, but she grunted and stood anyway.

"What was that, my dear? I could not hear you despite how quiet this place is now," the dark lord said, laughing.

"I said that I will kill you and stop this from ever happening again!" Amelia replied, regaining composure.

The dark lord jumped and whirled around. Amelia drove her sword into the area where a normal man would have a heart. As the dark lord drew his last breath, Amelia collapsed from exhaustion.

Amelia was able to survive and flee Nepheria, which never recovered from the decay and remained a desolate wasteland. Eventually, she founded a small independent nation and called it Amel. From that point on, her nation regulated the use of magic in the known world and enforced the universal law that dark magic was forbidden.