The Gateway (Harbinger of Doom Volume 1) (10 page)

The blow shocked Gabriel, but at first, he
felt little pain. Dropping his sword, he pulled his Asgardian
dagger from his belt and slashed it across Korrgonn’s throat, once,
twice, and a third time, slicing it from ear to ear. Blood and bile
surged from both opponents’ mouths. Still the beast held him
fast.

Now the excruciating indescribable pain washed
over Gabriel, blasting him to his knees, Claradon’s legs pinned
beneath him.

From where he lay, only semi-conscious,
Claradon attempted to let fly another magical blast, to come to his
hero’s aid, but his strength was spent. He couldn’t even pull
himself out from under Gabriel. He could do no more than watch in
dazed horror as the ghastly scene unfolded before him. For him the
battle was over.

Strangely, Korrgonn’s arm began to glow a
fiery red, first at the shoulder and soon extending down toward his
fist. Gabriel continued to struggle to pull away, but the wicked
spike would not release him. He felt it boring deep within his
chest. It was moving, growing, twisting, probing. Probing for
something. His heart? Gods, how did it come to this? How to get
away?

The hellish glow permeating Korrgonn’s body
reached Gabriel, causing his chest to begin to glow as well.
Coughing up blood, he tried in vain again to free himself. “No!
No!” he gasped as he realized the fiend’s mind. It was consuming
his very body, devouring his immortal soul, assailing his mind,
taking over his very being. He looked down and saw the blood
draining from his chest. This can’t be happening, it can’t be real.
I cannot be defeated.

Fleeting, ephemeral memories passed instantly
before Gabriel’s eyes and assailed his senses. A momentary image of
smiting the fire wyrm of the Kronar Mountains; a mere wisp of the
fetid stench of the barrow-wight who had killed those poor
children. His duel with Valas Tearn – the assassin who had slain a
thousand men; his conquest of the city of Saridden and of freeing
its slaves; the great battle of Minoc by the sea; his victories
over the demon-queen Krisona, and the vampire-lord Jaros, and the
evil masters of the Dead Fens. A glimpse of that far off fateful
day at R’lyeh when he and Theta banished the last of the fiends
back from whence they came, back unto the void, and extracted some
small measure of vengeance for the abominable plague that the
beasts had unleashed upon mankind. That victory had freed all
Midgaard from the yoke of chaos and bore witness to the dawning of
a new age of freedom and hope. Gabriel would survive this battle,
just as he had that day at R’lyeh. There could be no other
outcome.

In desperation, he plunged his Asgardian
dagger into Korrgonn’s right eye, sinking it to the hilt. Still the
spike held him fast.

His vision began to cloud, the sounds around
him dimmed. He thought of the thousands of lives he’d saved down
through the years, of all those he’d protected, of the uncountable
mighty deeds he’d done.

He withdrew his dagger and plunged it into the
beast’s left eye. “Around me are my kinsmen, always,” he said, and
then pounded down on the hilt again, and again, and
again.

He could see little now, and the sounds of the
battle went away. He could hear his heart beating, the rushing of
blood at his temples, but nothing else. Can this be the end?
Everything moved in slow motion, the merest moments extending to
long minutes. He thought of all the things important to him, all
the places and the people he had known, all the lands he had
visited, all that he would never do again.

“
To the south, my father, my
father’s father, and all my line before them, back unto the
beginning,” he said, though only Claradon could hear
him.

The evil glow covered nearly all his body, but
Gabriel fought on and pounded down on the dagger’s hilt again, and
again, and again, and again.

“
To the north is Odin…” Visions of
fire, floods, and terror flashed before his eyes.

He pounded down on the hilt again, and again,
and again, and again, and again.

The world went dark, he could see no more. The
pain was less now.

“
The hero’s path.”

Gabriel convulsed as the evil glow consumed
him. He was alone. He would die alone.

Korrgonn’s body stopped glowing and went
limp.

Gabriel thought of the woman he’d loved and
lost and forever longed for. If only he had another chance, if only
he could do things over, if only he could be with her
again…

His eyes closed and his head rolled to the
side.

“
The homeward road…”

He thought of his mother’s face and her
undying and unconditional love. If he could only see her one more
time, if only he had more time…

“
Valhalla”.

Then he thought no more. And Sir Gabriel Garn
passed into legend.

At last, Claradon’s head began to clear and he
dislodged himself from beneath Gabriel. Still dazed he flung
himself into Korrgonn, ripping him away from Sir Gabriel. Claradon
pounded his gauntleted fists into Korrgonn’s unmoving head,
Gabriel’s dagger still protruding from its eye, over and over,
mashing it to pieces. As he pummeled away, smoke rose from his
hands and they began to burn. The acidic blood of the otherworldly
beast actually ate through his gauntlets. He shed them before his
flesh was sorely beset.

Claradon turned toward Gabriel, tears
streaming down his face.

When Gabriel’s eyes opened moments later, they
glowed a brilliant gold. Claradon gasped in horror at the
abominable sight, surmising exactly what it meant. He cried out for
aid, but the din of the general melee drowned him out. Those
terrible orbs were not Sir Gabriel’s eyes at all; they were the
eyes of the Son of Azathoth, the Prince of Demons. Claradon
couldn’t believe his eyes – so stunned was he that he couldn’t
move.

Gabriel’s mouth opened and it spewed out a
gory glob of blood. The wound on his chest glowed for a moment and
then rapidly closed and healed itself. It grinned an evil, unholy
grin, picked up Korrgonn’s sword as it stood up, turned, and fled
the building.

XIII

THY TIME HAS COME AND
GONE

The enormous monstrosity at the breach broke
its way through and entered Midgaard. As it did so, its form shrunk
and transformed into the likeness of a huge, handsome armored
knight wielding a mammoth crimson sword. No one could mistake its
dark unholy visage. This beast was none other than Bhaal, the
infamous lord of death and chaos. It paused at the hell-mouth for
several moments surveying the carnage taking place in its ancient
temple. It laughed. But this was not a laugh of mirth, not the
laugh of a man. It was a maniacal, inhuman cackling, such as had
not been inflicted on the ears of man for untold epochs. The beast
was here now, on our world. It would make it his again. It had
won.

As a multitude of smaller fiends leaped
through the gateway and moved to engage Lord Theta, Dolan and Sirs
Artol, Glimron, Talbot, and Dalken closed with the transformed
fiend from its flanks. With blinding speed, Bhaal struck a brutal
overhand blow at the largest of the warriors, Artol, who swiftly
raised his battle-axe to parry the blow, but the massive strike
sheared the axe haft cleanly in half. Bhaal’s red sword rotated
with the impact and the flat of the blade struck Artol squarely
atop his helm. His eyes rolled back in his head as he crumpled to
the floor. Dolan lunged in and stabbed Bhaal in the sternum,
burying his glowing dagger in the fiend’s chest. Bhaal roared,
grabbed Dolan by the throat, and lifted him high. As Talbot moved
in, Bhaal threw Dolan into him, sending them both cascading across
the ebony slab. Glimron and Dalken simultaneously struck at Bhaal’s
legs. Their steel blades clanged loudly and sparked when they
struck the chaos-wrought armor, but had no damaging effect. Bhaal’s
next cut entered Glimron’s right shoulder, cleaving clean through
him, coming out his left side. Bhaal grabbed Dalken by the throat
and lifted him up. The fiend opened its mouth, wide like a serpent,
and a two-pronged, pincer-like object flew out and plunged into
poor Dalken’s eyes. The pincers retracted, ripping the knight’s
eyes from their sockets. Bhaal held Dalken up for several seconds
as he screamed in agony before tightening its grip and crushing the
knight’s throat. It flung the corpse away as if it weighed nary a
pound.

Nearby, Lord Theta’s whirling blade sliced off
fiendish arms and legs with abandon. No fiend could stand against
him for more than moments. Even the press of numbers could not turn
the tide against him. The corpses of the demons piled high about
him in gruesome heaps. He was an unstoppable juggernaut. He was
death incarnate. The last thing each of his foes heard was his
booming mantra, “Doom! Doom!” He finished off the last of them and
stepped over the pile of corpses to engage Bhaal.

“
Ye hast slain my minions mortal,”
said Bhaal, his voice now a rich baritone, to the bloody knight
that stood before him. “Impressive. But ye cannot stand against a
Lord of Chaos!”

Theta sheathed his blade and picked up his
lance which still lay at the base of the altar and brandished it as
a spear.

“
Doth ye not know me, creature?
Has it been so long?”

Lord Bhaal’s mouth dropped open. “Ye?! Ye! Ye
wilt not thwart us again, harbinger of doom. Not again, damn ye! We
will have this world back, traitor. We shall cleanse it by fire and
sword and ye wilt not stop us. What once was ours will be ours
again.”

“
This be no place for thee Bhaal,”
shouted Theta. “Ye do not belong here. Thy time hath come and gone,
it be our time now.” Theta stalked cautiously toward the beast,
looking for an opening to use his lance. “I shall put thee down as
I have thy brethren. Thou shalt sleep with them in the
void.”

As Bhaal began to advance, it was struck by a
large glowing, floating mace that appeared from nowhere. The mace
pummeled Bhaal about the head and chest forcing it backward. Bhaal
swung its sword wildly, but there was no foe for it to smite. The
sword passed through the spectral mace and could do it no harm. One
wild swing caught the edge of the stone altar, shearing off a large
chunk while barely slowing the mammoth blade.

Theta, mouthing ancient words of power,
pointed the tip of his lance at Bhaal and a sparkling arc of
electricity rocketed from it and crashed into the beast’s chest.
Its breastplate blackened, charred, and fell off, exposing the
reddish leather-like flesh beneath. The beast roared in pain but
continued to swing its sword frantically, slicing nothing but air.
Par Tanch sent his magical orbs of arcane power blasting into
Bhaal. One struck its exposed chest, tearing into the beast and
causing some damage; the others bounced harmlessly off Bhaal’s
chaos-wrought armor. The enchanted mace, also controlled by Par
Tanch’s arcane arts, continued to pummel Bhaal and caused him to
stagger farther backward, toward the breach.

By this time, Dolan had skulked his way on
hands and knees behind Bhaal who was oblivious to his presence.
Dolan saw Theta moving in with his lance and carefully positioned
himself just in front of the breach, and directly behind Bhaal.
Distracted by the array of magical attacks assailing it, Bhaal
could not react in time to counter Theta’s lance. Theta lunged
forward and buried its sharpened tip deep into the breast of the
chaos lord. A look of shock and agony formed on Bhaal’s face as the
lance sunk in and thrust him backward.

“
Give my regards to Arioch,”
shouted Theta. “Tell him I have not forgotten, and I will yet have
my revenge.”

Bhaal roared in anger, as he struggled against
Theta, who used the lance to push him inexorably
backward.

“
Damn you, traitor,” spat Bhaal.
“Ye wilt pay for this threefold - three evils to thee I promise. So
do I curse thee.”

As Theta pushed the beast back, it tripped
over Dolan, just as Dolan had planned. It fell backward over him
and tumbled right through the gateway, back whence it came. Bhaal
fell out of sight, into the utter blackness beyond, roaring more
curses at Theta as it fell; Theta’s magical lance still buried in
its chest.

XIV

THE LORD OF THE LAND

Soon only the moans and wails of the wounded
filled the air.

“
We killed them all boss,” said
Dolan. “All except the skull-faced one, what came out first. But we
lost a lot of the shiny men.”

“
Tis not over yet, Dolan. We must
close the gateway or countless more fiends will soon come through.
If that happens, all Midgaard will be lost.”

“
Let them come,” said Artol, as he
pulled himself to his feet beside the altar. A thin stream of blood
trickling down the side of his head. “We can take them.”

Ignoring the overconfident sergeant, Theta
began searching the floor around the altar. “Find the shards of the
black orb, they must be holding the gateway open,” he
bellowed.

More roars, howls and maddening gibbering
began anew from somewhere beyond the breach, although no fiends
could yet be seen.

“
Another wave comes,” Theta
shouted over the increasing din. “I’ll hold fast the portal. Ye
must destroy the shards. But don’t touch them with thy flesh or ye
shall surely die.”