Morning in the Ashlands was much the same, day after day. A light ash storm would blow in like a gentle snowfall, gray powder coating the ground. Malachar shoveled it off his front door like always and gazed out onto his field. The gravebind was not just living, but thriving in every sense of the word. The pale, gray ropey vines gripped the loose soil with an unrelenting stranglehold. Tiny white flowers started to appear along their lengths, almost like candles at a vigil. And they would hum slightly when the wind blew the right way. The dark lord couldn't be happier.

  He had become slightly more proactive in the past few weeks, carefully testing in certain areas to make sure what he did wouldn't throw the gravebind into a death spiral. The Ash King discovered that the gravebind liked a soil addition of ash, bone meal, some food scraps, and a sprinkle of a burned holy book of a religion he had eliminated merely through his conquests. He didn’t remember what it had been called and he felt rather embarrassed about the whole thing. But, regardless, the soil itself grew darker and had become slightly warm to the touch almost as if it were alive. The gravebind vines covered his field, and he hoped that they would yield something he could eat. He was getting sick of conjuring his tasteless field rations.

  He jotted down this morning's progress in an old grimoire of apocalyptic rites. The scripture inside had long ago faded, but the spine and cover were good, thick leather. It was perfect for taking notes even if it did scream every once in a while. A quick, reprimanding shake fixed that.

  Still, he thought as he leaned on his shovel and gazed at his works. This may yet be a kingdom worth ruling.

  A hacking, whooping cough brought his attention to his field and furtive motion drew his gaze to a particular patch of gravebind. Someone was skulking around in his field. He watched the ragged, emaciated figure from his front door but only approached once the being began to hack away at his fine crop of gravebind with a rusty knife.

  The man was working in such a frenzy that he didn't notice the nearly seven-foot-tall menace leave the outpost and walk up to him. He just kept cutting away and stashing bits of the gray vines into his worn satchel with an urgency that bordered on mania.

  Malachar had to finally say something. “What are you doing in my field?”

  The man looked up at Malachar, bared his sharpened teeth at him and actually hissed before succumbing to another racking series of coughs. The dark lord watched him, patiently waiting for the fit to pass until, suddenly, the filthy man leaped at the towering man with his knife. He let out a wild cry as he tried to sink the dagger into Malachar's chest.

  Tried.

  Though he hadn't fought much since his resurrection, he still had his old war instincts earned from centuries of battle and conquest. Violence had arrived as the Ash King seized the ragged man by the throat in a crushing grip. He wrenched the rusty blade out of the dirty wretch's hand and threw it aside. And though Malachar was overjoyed to have something different to do today, he had to work to keep from grinning like a madman.

  “I will ask you one last time. If you don't give me a satisfactory answer, I will snap your windpipe and watch you slowly die,” Malachar said. “What are you doing in my field?”

  He dropped the scavenger with an undignified plop and watched him catch his breath. Finally, after hacking and wheezing enough, the man cowered at Malachar's feet and held up his hands in supplication.

  “Please, Master, don't kill me!” he begged. “I didn't know this land was yours! I didn't know anyone lived in that outpost.”

  “And now you do. Why did you just call me “Master”?” Malachar asked.

  “Because...” the dirty man struggled to answer. “You held my life in your hands. I figured I owed you some kind of respect. I can call you whatever you want, though! Just let me know.”

  He doesn't know me. He's not a cultist. He's just scared, Malachar thought as the man fell into a series of full-body coughing. After he recovered, Malachar resumed questioning him. “Why were you cutting away at my field of vines?” He didn't call the plant “gravebind”. The pathetic worm wouldn't know the dark lord's own personal name for the stuff.

  “I was gathering some of the flowers because they help you breathe when the red winds come,” the man whimpered. “I was getting enough for myself but I was also going to sell some to Shallow Grave.”

  “What is that?” the dark lord asked.

  “It's a town not three days west from here,” the vagrant said.

  “And why is it called Shallow Grave?” Malachar asked.

  “It’s a bit of a joke, since it’s a great big whopping hole in the middle of town. Stories say that it was a mass grave years ago when the dark lord was on his conquest way back when. Looters and scavengers just sorta stuck around after pickin through what they wanted,” the man said. “Gallows’ humor, you see. It’s all we Ashlanders have.”

  The scavenger shrank back at the sight of Malachar's smoldering eyes. “How many live there?” he demanded. Why didn't the leader of his cult tell him about a goddamn town so close to Bloodrot Keep?

  The man trembled. “A few hundred. But most folks don't stick around for very long. It's a proper hive of scum and villainy. Children would slit their mama's throat for a silver, they would. And when the red wind blows in, they'll either hunker down in their shanties or they'll head east.”

  “East,” Malachar stated. Goldengrove.

  “Yes, sir. Them that's strong enough to make the journey are gonna go east to a village where the air don't burn when you breathe it in,” the wretch said, his eyes going wide with wonder. “The people are all clean and free of disease. They got plenty to eat. And the ground don't split open to swallow them up in the black abyss of nothingness!”

  The ground splits open? Malachar hadn't encountered that phenomenon yet. He shook his head, getting back to the matter at hand. “So the flowers help you breathe when the red wind comes. And what precisely is this red wind?”

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  The raggedy man itched at his rash-covered neck and hacked up another glob of something crimson and chunky. “Oh, it's terrible, Your Eminence. It's most terrible. A horrible catastrophe...”

  “Go on,” Malachar said. “What is it? When will it come?”

  The man's face turned red as he erupted in a paroxysm of violent barking and hacking. He spewed more bloody phlegm and Malachar stepped away in disgust. The beggar convulsed on the ground, clawing at the dirt as though it could help him. His jaundiced eyes bugged out of his head as he thrashed, but before too long, he lay motionless on the dirt.

  Another dead thing on his farm. The dark lord sighed.

  Malachar ordered the skeletons to dispose of the body far away from his farm. He really ought to get a guard dog if miscreants like that one would keep wandering onto his farm. He allowed himself to admire his field a bit more before starting the day's work. Malachar had no fear of this mysterious “red wind”. Whatever it was, it couldn't kill him. He had withstood dragon's fire before. What had he to fear from some wind? He was more interested in this town than anything. People lived there. His people. A dark lord should know more about his subjects. Even if he had taken up an all-consuming interest in agriculture.

  ****

  Malachar picked a bag full of the gravebind flowers and decided to slip into the realm between shadows and spaces to get him to Shallow Grave. He could have summoned his fiery hellsteed, but he didn't think it would blend very easily into an impoverished village, what with the flaming hooves and eternally-burning mane and all. That, and he didn't want to waste time on a leisurely ride through the countryside. No, he was on a fact-finding mission and he had too much work to do on the farm to faff about.

  So when he stepped out of the shadow of a gnarled and crooked tree just outside the town, he took a moment to collect himself. Blackened tree stumps jutted out of the cracked earth like rotten teeth. A few skeletal windmills stood off in the distance. He stood on a beaten dirt road lined by rusty barbed wire stuck in random places.

  As he journeyed closer to the village, he saw a sign carved on a sunbleached piece of weathered wood.

  “SHALLOW GRAVE”

  And then carved in smaller letters under the name

  “bury your expectations”

  Further down the path, he saw leaning huts, shabby shacks, and the occasional two-story establishment held up by mud and hope. Most of the structures seemed to be made from repurposed siege engines and palisades. Smoke in strange, unhealthy colors wafted from lopsided chimneys. And, like anywhere else in his kingdom, ash blew in like drifting snow to cover everything in a fine, gray powder.

  Instinctively, he noted ambush points and high ground where a decent defense might be made. With an eye sharpened by countless battles, he automatically began to pick out the best escape routes and bottlenecks where enemies might be kept at bay.

  Then he scolded himself. He was not here for war. This was a reconnaissance mission. But when he heard a bloodcurdling scream, he almost summoned his flaming greatsword. Then he remembered that he had turned the weapon into a shovel and also it was only a goat screaming at him.

  The decrepit creature had gotten stuck in the ruined wire fence lining the path. It bleated again and attempted to free its horns from the sharp, rusty tangle but it only managed to scratch its gaunt face. It looked at Malachar with a yellow, wall-eyed stare as if asking for help.

  The dark lord sighed and bent down to free the wretched animal, muttering to himself the whole time. “You probably don't have many days left to live anyway,” he told the goat. “It would be a mercy to kill you here and now. And I am not building an army. I am untangling livestock.”

  When the job was done, the goat shook its head, gave out a bleat of happiness, and then loped down the path with its knobbly-kneed gait. Malachar shook his head and continued on his way.

  He reached the village and saw there were a couple of men guarding the path leading in. They were as decrepit as the goat and wore mismatched leather armor. One wore a broken symbol of some forgotten god that dangled from a cord around his neck. And though Malachar towered over them, they held their posts easily like soldiers who had seen it all.

  “Hey, what's yer business?” one asked.

  “I have come to buy farming tools and trade the flowers that help during the red wind,” Malachar said.

  The one wearing the holy symbol snorted until he realized Malachar wasn't laughing. “What, yer serious?”

  “Yes,” Malachar said, his scarred face remaining stony.

  “You have a farm?” the other guard asked. “Around here?”

  “Look at the size of him!” the first guard exclaimed. “He can farm anywhere he goddamn wants!”

  “What about all the monsters out there?” the second guard demanded. “Can you handle them?”

  “I believe so,” Malachar said.

  “What's your name, then?” the first guard asked.

  “I am Eli,” Malachar said.

  “And what the hell could you possibly be farming out there?” the second guard asked.

  It would be nothing for the dark lord to seize their minds, to make them give him passage. He could also burn away their memories and make them forget how to use a spoon, but he wasn't feeling the cruelty necessary for such things. “I am growing terro,” he finally replied.

  “Those hideous things?” the first guard said. “They got faces on em!”

  “They scream and bleed when you poke them!” the second guard added.

  “They are also good for breakfast,” Malachar said with a shrug.

  The guards laughed. “All right, then. Go on through, Farmer Eli. Next time through, bring us some of your ugly little taters.”

  Malachar leveled them with a steely stare. “Then the contract is sealed.”

  As the dark lord moved between them, the guards found themselves at a loss for words. He walked down an empty avenue, taking note of the filthy surroundings. Old bloodstains splattered the walls like a halfhearted attempt at a fresh coat of paint. Gallows had been repurposed as signposts for streets with names like “Gutterscum” and “Cutthroat Avenue”. He noticed there were too many dark alleyways that should be possible in a town of only so many streets, and yet here they were. He chose one at random. Woe be to any muggers who attempt anything today, he thought.

  He passed by a curious feature that made him stop. A curious altar had been set in a crumbling stone wall. It was so worn and weathered, it could have been anything, but he could spot an altar after his many years of leading the legions of hell. It, too, was stained with blood from past offerings. Their little bones still lay around the statue that stood with an upraised sword. Wind and time had worn away its facial features, but carved at the base were a list of his old titles.

  ASH KING

  ENDER OF DAYS

  KILLER OF THE SUN

  He felt the heat of embarrassment rise on his cheeks. Those really had been the titles he had accumulated over his long, illustrious career. At the time, such names seemed like they were right and proper, more tools to use in his eternal conquest.

  Now, they just felt like a bit much.

  Then he saw that someone, at some time, had made sure to cross out those hard-earned titles and scrawl “FALSE HOPE” over the names. He had only been gone for only two hundred years but his legend was already dying. He couldn't be more thankful for the unknown vandal. Relieved, Malachar continued down the road as he explored the den of iniquity and wickedness.