When Angels Fall (Demon Lord) Read Free

lance of light shot upwards from Pretarin with a hissing crackle. For several moments, he became a pillar of white fire that illuminated the barren plain for leagues around, then it shattered with a monstrous roar.
    The wall of white fire swept through Majelin in a searing swathe, healed him and destroyed the demons. He collapsed, stunned, and raised his head. A shield of black power protected Torvaran. All that remained of Pretarin was a white, star-shaped pattern in the sand, and the echoes of his cataclysmic destruction. The fire his death had unleashed swept away the clouds and turned the sky blue, covered the land with pale mist and changed the ground whe re he had died to diamond sand.
    For a few moments, the dark wasteland resembled a fragment of light realm, then the mist seeped away and the sky darkened once more. Only the patch of diamond sand marked the spot where a light god had died. Majelin climbed to his feet and staggered towards the closest Channel, his shaking legs barely strong enough to carry him. Torvaran caught him within a few strides, smashed him down and kicked him in the head.
     
    Majelin had woken chained in this cavern, and, shortly thereafter, Torvaran had begun his torture. First, he had amputated Majelin’s wings, slowly. A few cuts a day, from Torvaran’s duron dagger, had sliced through flesh and sinew, then bone. First one, then the other, his wings had been stripped from him while he writhed and screamed. The gore had crusted on his back, layer upon layer as each day fresh blood had flowed. His wings had been displayed on the ground in front of him. Torvaran had ordered torches lighted to ensure the archangel could see his severed wings, and then had ordered the demons to beat him every time he closed his eyes. Eventually, the wings had rotted away. The bones still littered the floor, grey and crushed now.
    Over the past five hundred years, the archangel had suffered so many forms of abuse that he could not remember them all, and perhaps that was a mercy. At times, the pain became so intense that he passed out, only to wake still racked by agony. Dark gods hated angels, especially archangels, and longed to turn them to the darkness, but rarely succeeded. Even when he was not being tormented, being chained to a wall was its own torture, as was the hunger and thirst he suffered. Such things could not kill him, and, as far as he knew, he would hang on this rock face until the light within him weakened and the darkness claimed his soul.
    Several centuries ago, another dark god had joined in Majelin’s torture, and two others, one a female, had occasionally tormented him. The archangel had become inured to it, and found ways to cast his mind into another place to escape it, yet the minions of the darkness had never tired of it. Time was hard to judge in the darkness, but Majelin had clung to the light.
    N ow, something had changed. No one had tortured him for some time, and he wondered why. He shifted and eased his wrists in the shackles, restoring circulation to his hands, as he did regularly. While he might be freed if his hands rotted off, all that would do was enable him to lie down in the leg irons. There was no escape. He had accepted that several centuries ago. The dark realm’s corruption sullied him in every way, and he hated his stench and filth, even if none of it was his. Demons loved to use dirt to degrade.
    A while ago, a deep chime had shivered the ground, and the demons that had been amusing themselves at his expense at the time had rushed out. Since then, there had been an unusual amount of demon activity in the corridor outside his cavern. The chime told him that someone had closed the dark realm’s world gate. Since Torvaran had forced the gate to remain open, only he, or another dark god, could have closed it. That made no sense. Even if Torvaran had become annoyed at the other dark gods in his domain, and ousted them, he would not close the gate. The mystery ate at