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The first in a series of three I'm writing because I'm bored. It's a darker tone than I usually take, but it was...interesting. Hope you enjoy just the same!

• Faora

The twin armies swarmed out onto the battlefield with cries of rage. Blades swept forth, slicing with deadly precision towards their marks.

Arrows hurtled through the, striking those same targets with impunity. Before the onslaught, many fell, some dead, some wounded, some trampled by their stampeding brethren.

He swept into battle, a long sword in each hand, the twin blades biting into their foes like the teeth of a viper. Before him, all fell.

He was a blur, a vague perception, a presence of brown robes and red blood, a whirlwind of death destroying all in its path.

A large warrior rose up against him, a mace in his hand and a fire in his eyes. A long sword jabbing into his chest doused that fire. Not wasting a moment, the sword slashed through 180 degrees, before being pulled out the other side.

Behind him, the top half of the warrior fell away from the bottom.

He continued to move effortlessly against the flow of enemies, his own forces living and fighting and dying behind him. He didn't, couldn't care. All that mattered was himself, his blades, and the next enemy.

None could rise against him. All that tried, failed. Life itself bent, bowing to his will as would a servant to a master.

He became Death, the master of Life, the ultimate answer, the ultimate end, the ultimate all.

The ultimate.

The battle was quick, and as battles went, relatively clean. Significant enemy losses, before a full retreat. Few allied losses.

Behind him, a blooded fox was forced to his knees. "My lord Kieral. You have done well. I could only expect you to have ordered such an attack." The voice dripped with sarcasm, a deliberate attempt to anger him. A futile attempt.

He turned slowly, the same brown robes masking his body, masking his face. "The attack hasn't gone ahead yet." His voice was cold, flat, emotionless. It was the voice of Death, the voice of evil.

The eyes of Death could be seen beneath the cowls of the robe. They burned with internal fire, setting the inside of the robe faintly aglow with red light. Those eyes burned into the fox before him.

"Tell me, commander. I know that your army has posted sentries around the Temple walls. You know what I am capable of. You can tell me what I need to know, or you can die."

The fox laughed. "Go ahead, kill me. You won't get anything out of me."

The glowing eyes narrowed. "I can do far worse than kill you, Lordrad. I can cause you pain. Pain unimagined by your feeble mind, pain unimagined by the minds of those within the city."

Lordrad coughed blood, spitting it at him. The blood seemed to run off the robe as easily as water might off oil. "Go to hell."

Within the robe, Death may have smiled. He leant down, before his face was right beside his head. "I have seen the extent of hell, Lordrad. I have tamed it's everlasting fire, tempered it to steel, aimed it at you. It need not be a blade, to kill you with. It may be a whip, to lash your life with, or acid to douse you with, or a knife to slash your flesh open with. It is all this and more."

Lordrad raised his head defiantly. "I'm not afraid of you, Kieral."

The figure rises to his feet again. "You should be, Lordrad. For the pain I can wreak upon your very soul...is incredible."

The fox's body is still. Within though, a searing heat burns along his nerves. They shrivel under the strain, sending powerful pulses of sensation to his brain. He shrieks in agony, his body aflame from within. He feels his flesh crack under the power of the flames, feels his fur curl and blacken and disintegrate under the heat, feels his body liquidify under the pressure. He utters another scream.

Because it is all in his mind.

For days the agony continued. For days he would just stand there, before the poor fox, filling him with the most explicit pain possible, and then some. For days the fox lay beneath it, unable to cope. His mind had long since been washed away in a white-hot tide of anguish, his sanity gone just as simply.

His is unable to resist, his arms and legs not responding. How could they, when the only signal they understood was pain?

The pain was unholy. It withheld sleep. It pervaded unconsciousness. It denied sentience. It destroyed life. It was chaos.

And Kieral smiled, directing it all.

Several days after the beginning of the pain, it vanished. The white-hot agony was replaced with cold, dead blackness as Kieral lifted his power from Lordrad. The fox twitched beneath the newfound freedom, his nerves simulating the pain as best they were able.

Pain had become a crutch for him. For so long, pain was all he knew. All was pain. There was nothing else.

But then everything vanished. What are you, when all you know is gone?

Kieral knelt down before the twitching fox, and reached out. A red-scaled hand emerged from the sleeves of the brown robe, touching his forehead. Slowly, the twitching ceased.

Lordrad opened his eyes. He looked around, before looking into Kieral's face. He didn't speak, didn't cry out, didn't dare to breathe too loudly.

Slowly, Kieral lifted both hands to the cowl of his robe. Just as slowly, he drew it back to reveal his face.

He might have had the head of a red dragon, once. What once was though, is not what is now. Scales had melted away. Flesh showed, charred and blackened, arrayed like arcane carvings between the melted armour of his natural form. Bright red reptilian eyes glowed in their sockets, forcing light into harsh beams that threatened to ignite all they touched.

Lordrad didn't cringe away. He couldn't. He wasn't Lordrad.

Slowly, he took the hand that Kieral offered him. He stood shakily, looking into those twin pools of insanity.

"Who am I?" Kieral asked.

Lordrad didn't hesitate. "You are my lord Kieral," he replied, his voice a cold shadow of what it once was, "Master, Overlord and Ruler of all. I bow before you, submitting totally to your will." He crouched down on one knee, lowing his head before his master.

"Your submission pleases me. Rise."

Lordrad did as he was told. His head remained bowed. As was appropriate.

"I command that you tell me the positions of the troops protecting the Temple."

For a moment, some small part of Lordrad resisted. What do I tell him? How does it make any difference?

It didn't matter. Soon the master reached into his mind, prodding him gently into response. The master was pleased by the answer, greatly so.

"You have done well in telling me this, Lordrad," the master says quietly, placing a hand on his shoulder, "You will be rewarded greatly for this."

Familiar pain flared from the touch on his shoulder, igniting his nerves, blanketing his mind completely.

Lordrad wrapped himself in the blanket. The darkness was gone, he could again exist as he had been.

Lordrad was pain once more.

Over the next few days, he saw the master several times. Though he did not touch him with the hand of pain again, Lordrad was content in the memory of the warmth. He could wait for it again, and would. His master would have chance to reward him for his faith.

The master did touch others with his hand though, but the fox was no longer capable of envy. Rather he felt the distant hurting, channelled through the master into him, as it was channelled into all his servants. It warmed him little, but kept him doing the master's bidding.

The master was before him now. He was asking again, always asking.

"Who am I, servant?"

He supplicated, as he always did. "You are my lord Kieral, Master, Overlord and Ruler of all. I bow before you, submitting totally to your will."

"Very good, Lordrad. Your submission pleases me. Today, I ask you do take part in a great action, one that will liberate you from the darkness completely, if you succeed."

His eyes widened in happiness. Oh, what a gift! "My lord, you must tell me what I am to do, in your service!"

His master looked into the distance. "In your past life, where all was darkness, you commanded many, as I do. Your heresy brought you to me, where I taught you the light. You remember the darkness, yes?"

Lordrad nodded, shivering. His memories of his life before the master filled him with untold horrors. He could see the heathens now, absent of the light and warmth the master could bring them...and hated them.

"I remember, master, though I wish I could forget. I feel tainted merely thinking about the before-times."

"Do not fear, for your success will cleanse you of the sin. You must destroy the heretics, my son. Kill them all, allowing me access to the Temple."

Lordrad grinned wildly. "It would be a pleasure, my lord. I await your command to attack with great anticipation."

He sat before the crystal silently. Images played through his head, feelings, sensations, emotions, people, objects...it was all there, perfectly clear to him.

Power, great power swirled around him as he sat. The crystal reached out, spoke to him, whispered of the events coming to pass...and his role in them.

Fear was a given. Knowing one's own end is never easy to accept without fear coming into perspective, sometimes overwhelmingly so. Fear would cloud the crystal's sight, telling it to whispers lies to him.

He did not fear.

Hope too, was a given. Knowing that the end was truly not the end filling him with that hope. Knowledge of the part he was to play in the pivotal events about to pass filled him with more hope.

Uncertainty was a given. The crystal could not give accuracy. So many things could change, so many things could swing either side of a balance point so small it barely existed, that uncertainty fed into fear.

Battle too, was a given. The battle to be fought, the battle that must be fought, was the only certainty in the events shown in the crystal. Hardly a calming thought, but it was some comfort at least.

Battle closed in on him, his mind focusing on it. The crystal showed a great army moving stealthily, and army of death, and destruction, and evil. The army moved forward, moving towards his position.

He could see his own forces, vibrant and alive with life, preparing to intercept them. He could see the fear on their faces, the uncertainty...but he could see too the hope. Their willingness to live and die for their cause was well justified...but this showed it to him. It forged his hope into a potent power, a power he wrapped around himself like a cloak.

And he waited.

The dark army approached when the moon was shrouded by cloud. The darkness of night made their approach all the more easy. They became a hive mind, each individual's senses filtered through the master, so that each had a hundred pairs of eyes with which to see, a hundred pairs of ears with which to pick up the slightest sound. They were coordinated perfectly.

The master knew the weakness. The one point that the enemy, the heathens, were unable to defend totally. Their point of entry, their egress into the Temple. Silently and as one them moved.

It was sheer luck that the sentry noticed them approach. He called out a single short alarm, before an arrow struck his chest. He tumbled back, falling from the wall that encompassed the Temple.

The defenders became aware of the threat, but it was too late. Channeling the power of the master, Lordrad pushed. The section of wall imploded, crushing a pair of unfortunate soldiers. The attackers swarmed inside.

The fox led the charge, a long sword held steady in his hand. He moved through the infidels in the name of his master, slaying all he found. They fought back, but they could not appreciate the battle as he could.

He felt it all. The knick of an arrow against his shoulder, the caress of a blade against his side, the crushing force of a mace against his food, none of it fazed him. Rather, it gave him strength.

Wrapping the pain around himself, as the other servants of the master did, he fought on long after pain would have crippled a normal soldier. The pain gave him strength, strength to fight in the name of the master!

And before them, warriors of the light fell before the power of the darkness.

He could see it from a distance. The wall of the Temple was roughly circular, barely a flaw in the design. It had protected the Temple perfectly.

A small section of the wall had become weak after thousands of years. Channeling his power through his subject, he smashed the barrier down, his troops desecrating the temple grounds like a disease, or a virus.

With the sight of his subjects to guide him, he could see the Temple itself. It was shaped roughly like a rounded pyramid, a great talon of diamond curving up to touch the sky. The crystal of its walls shimmered day and night with repressed power, flickering and seething, wishing to be free of it's bonds.

Kieral moved, flowing towards the Temple.

The last of the soldiers fell before the master's superior might. Lordrad cheered, as did all of the warriors. Their master was coming once more! Soon all of creation could feel the warmth he could bring them!

They moved towards the Temple slowly, almost unsurely. But still they moved, pressing forward, searching for any cowards that may have fled inside.

Lordrad burst through the door, the other warriors following him inside. Before he could do anything though, he found his body frozen.

Darkness closed in on him. The once strong fighters behind him began to whimper as pain faded away completely. Lordrad moved closer.

His eyes were playing tricks on him. It looked like the master was before him...but it couldn't be. The figure was draped in the same brown robes as the master, and though he couldn't see his eyes, it looked just like him...

The figure stood, his head still bowed. "You must leave this place. Now."

Lordrad frowned. The voice didn't belong to his master...who was this?

"Be gone!" he cried, "This place belongs to my master now, creature!"

The figure laughed quietly, a heart-warming sound to those that still had the ears to enjoy such a sensation. "This place does not belong to Kieral, and never will. I warn you again, leave this place immediately."

He knew he couldn't leave. His master's wish was that none survive the attack...and that must mean this creature as well.

He tried to take a step forward, but couldn't. His feet were frozen in place. He looked down. They appeared fine. Lordrad tilted his head back up, looking at the creature.

He was standing there, white-scaled arms raised to the air. A coronal sheen played about the exposed scales, brightening to the point where Lordrad had to shield his eyes away.

A massive wave of energy swept across the interior of the Temple, energy focused and channelled through the body of the figure before the fox.

The light faded.

Lordrad was gone.

So were the other troops.

The figure breathed a sigh. _Why could it not have been different?

Because of me._

Kieral moved forward, entering the Temple itself. He paused, looking about himself. "Strange. I expected it to look different. Larger."

The other figure laughed again. "You were always obsessed with size and power, brother. It was your undoing."

"Too, it was my doing, brother. I have grown in power since my...demise. You are no longer a match for me." Red eyes flared brightly in the temple, scarlet light flickering around, rebounding off the crystalline walls.

"I defeated you once before, Kieral. I can do it again."

"I doubt that, Torun. You were never a match for me." He extended both arms to the sides. There was a flash of violet light, and his twin blades leapt into existence, gripped tightly by Kieral's claws.

The other figure, Torun, merely sighed feelingly. "This is your last chance, brother. Leave this place, or you will not be as fortunate as your lieutenant."

Kieral didn't reply. Instead her roared, charging forward. He raised a blade before bringing it back down with bone crushing force over Torun.

The other moved, raising a hand. A great white flash of light emanated from the hand, and a bright staff of opal appeared within his grasp. The blade fell across the staff with a brief spark of light, but didn't carve through.

Torun's hood fell back, revealing the face of the white dragon. It was an eerie parody of Kieral's own features, with the scales fused to his face, charred flesh carved in patterns across the ruined flesh.

"You've learnt much," the red dragon growled, before bringing the other blade around. Torun flicked the staff around, knocking the original blade away while moving down to block the new threat.

He raised his head. "You cannot win, Kieral. Leave now, and you may be redeemed."

"As you were?" he snarled, "I'm sorry brother, but I'll never be that lucky!" He pulled both blades away twirling around, slicing at Torun as he spins.

The staff seems to move of it's own accord, blurring as it flicks out, tapping aside each attack before it can strike him. Quickly the white dragon spins, his tail emerging from beneath his robe and striking solidly against Kieral's side.

The red dragon almost lost his balance before adding his weight to the strike, rolling into a cartwheel off to the side. One blade struck down towards Torun's feet, the other arcing up towards his head.

The white dragon leapt above the blade strike below, raising the staff to block the upper attack. The force behind it pushed him back.

Torun lost his balance as he landed, his ankle twisting badly, dumping him on the floor. The staff clattered away.

Kieral stood over his brother, one sword, pointed down at Torun's neck, the other draped at his side. "I'm going to enjoy this, brother."

Torun's eyes flared to life, glowing with a soft white. "It'll be a fleeting victory, I promise you. Mark my words, Kieral. This isn't over."

The red dragon smiled thinly, and swung the blade.

Torun's neck erupted in a spray of blood, coating his brother head to toe. Torun's eyes never left Kieral's face, even as his life drained away. His body shuddered once, and died.

The glow in his eyes faded, and was gone.

And Kieral stood inside the Temple alone, with it's full power now at his disposal. His smile broadened, an insane grin spreading across his face.

And he laughed.