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I wasn't at all happy with the first part of the opening chapter of The Ex-Hero's Inn. 

A couple weeks ago I thought of a way to make it better: shift the viewpoint character.

So, with that in mind, here's two versions of the first chapter: the original (without the prologue bit I wrote later, which was unacceptably bad), and then the rewrite. The beginning part, in particular, got a major rework to accommodate the new viewpoint.

Hopefully this gets me back on the horse, writing-wise. It'll be nice to do something... especially since a video edit I invested over 20 hours into is going on the shelf because I finally realized it ends anticlimactically...

------ FIRST DRAFT CHAPTER 1 -----

Sunlight glittered off the Falls of the Jentar. The green hills and ridges glowed under the mid-springtime sun, with the fresh plantings of the fields just rising from the recently tilled soil. Below the ridges, next to the lake beneath the falls from which the mighty River Jentar arose, stood the walls of Fallsberg, pennants still flapping from the towers, still capital of the Jentar Empire.

Or, rather, capital of what was left of it, which wasn’t much.

Flat farmland with occasional woods stretched out from the winding Jentar as it flowed towards the sea; that territory the Empire still held, fifty miles as a crow flies from the falls to the great bay and the port of Ashbulion. But the rest of the empire- all its mines, all its trade towns, and all the conquests it had made in two decades of aggressive expansion- all of that was gone, lost in a scant two years. Now the two cities, Fallsberg at the head of navigation of the river and Ashbulion at its mouth, were all that remained of the empire… and Ashbulion hadn’t sent either gold or troops to the capital since autumn.

The reason for this stood on a more gentle slope of the ridge which separated the hills above Fallsberg from the plains below. Straddling the great northern military highway for over a mile on either side, the great Army of the Alliancelooked down on Fallsberg, on its central keep, on its small inner walls which contained the homes of the highborn and wealthy, and on the large outer walls which held such of the townsfolk which remained.

Over there stood the armies of the elves, united against a common foe in a way nothing else could. Beside them stood the dwarven army, thick battle-axes shining under the cloudless skies. The banners of two adjoining human kingdoms rose side by side with the tattered flags of six kingdoms that the empire had conquered, the sad remains of their armies gathered, kingless, leaderless, under the command of their neighbors.

And, in the center, dimming the sunlight even where they stood, there stood the army of demons. The demons numbered almost as many as all the other members of the Alliancecombined. And whereas elves were elves and dwarves were dwarves and humans were humans (unless they were halflings, in which case halflings were halflings), the demon army held more shapes than humans wanted to admit existed. Orcs and trolls made up the bulk of their numbers, with a small number of lesser goblins and kobolds lurking at their feet. The monsters of the wilderness, the great cats and winged goats, the witches and skeletons, the bats and lizardwings, the griffins and manticores and unicorns and all the other natural enemies of humanity, all stood or flew in rough mobs around a central point.

And at that central point stood a single banner, a silver rook on a black field trimmed in dark crimson: the emblem of the Great Demon Lord.

A bystander witnessing this spectacle of armed might, if they hadn’t fled at the first sight of this army preparing to besiege the Empire’s last city, might be forgiven if they overlooked the other force marching on the field of battle. The army of the Alliance could only be described as “vast”; the other army, by comparison, could only be described as “tiny”. If the observer were feeling cruel, they might add “pathetic.”

One hundred pikemen formed the core of the smaller force, arrayed in ranks twenty wide and five deep. Ten of them in the rear rank, rather than carrying the usual polearms, bore swords, drawn and placed at the neck of ten ragged-looking unarmed peasants. Behind them ten archers marched in a single rank, bows strung and arrow in hand ready to nock.

And in front of them all marched George.

George was… well, even to the eyes of the monsters at the core of the Alliancearmy, he looked weird. He had on strange clothing, blue pants and an odd checked shirt- not the armor you’d expect of a warrior or the embroidered robes of a wizard. In fact, the only armor the man wore appeared, against all logic, to be an old cracked stew-pot upended and sitting on top of his head.

And his arms? The man, whoever he was, whatever he was, was marching to battle with a potlid in his left hand and what looked like a large metal laundry spoon in his right.

George could practically hear the laughter- not that there was anything but silence except for the fresh spring wind, but even silent laughter is audible if it’s hard enough. He tried to ignore it, just as he tried to ignore the crick in his neck from the stupid pot on his head, tried to ignore that the handle of the pot lid could only accommodate three of his fingers by squeezing.

Just like he tried to ignore the ten hostages which were the only reason he was even doing this.

He fully expected an arrow, or a thousand of them, to come flying out and put an end to this farce, but none came. How far could a medieval arrow fly, anyway? He didn’t know. He hadn’t read history since college. He was forty-three and assistant manager at a convenience store until a week ago; what did he know about medieval weapons? But however far they went, he was pretty sure he was closer than that now.

Screw it, he thought. This is close enough. He held up his shield-arm… his pot-lid-arm… and brought his tiny little army to a halt. That done, he slung off the large backpack he’d been carrying, reaching in and assembling the poles which made up the pathetic little flagpole he’d been given. With his standard raised and flapping in the breeze, then took out an even more pathetic little bongo drum and (after a minute struggling to get his fingers back out of the pot lid handle) played a rough, sloppy roll on it.

Right. Now, what were the words. “GREAT DEMON LORD!” he shouted. “BY THE TRADITIONS OF MONSTERKIND, I HEREBY CHALLENGE FOR YOUR THRONE!”

Now the army did make some noise. There was some laughter, yes, but even over a hundred yards George could hear the rumbling of confused talk among the armies. The disciplined ranks of the elves, the dwarves, and the humans on either flank of the army lost their precision as soldiers muttered to one another. The monsters screeched, cawed, and roared, with what meaning George couldn’t guess.

But at least he had their attention.

And then a tall, slender figure stepped through the ranks of the monster army. It raised a single hand- one hand, high over head, palm out- and the muttering, the squawking, all of it ceased.

Then the tall figure continued forward, walking down the slope towards George. George picked his pot lid and iron spoon up and walked up the slope towards him. He noticed as he walked that a handful of other figures- a couple elves in glittering plate armor, a dwarf with a large helm of many points, and two gigantic trolls with horns almost as tall as George himself- were following the demon lord down the slope. His own army- the Empire’s, rather, since it wasn’t there to obey him- held back, staying where they’d halted.

Once the demon lord was within ten yards, George shouted, “That’s close enough! This is a challenge for the right to rule! No one may interfere!”

The demon lord stopped, turned, and waved a hand back at his approaching generals. They formed a sort of half-circle behind him, about twenty yards back up the slope. This done, the demon lord faced George again, drew a long sword from a scabbard hidden under his robes, and bowed slightly, bringing the sword up in an ironic salute.

George looked at the long iron spoon in his hand. It wasn’t even a sharp spoon. It was a long, heavy piece of metal a washerwoman had been using to stir clothes last week. He’d spent all day yesterday scouring it, and it still had rust pits on it. The little spoon-bowl at the top just made it blunter. A stock of bar iron would have been more useful.

But it was what he had, and he brought it up to return the salute.

Then he stepped forward, cautiously approaching the demon lord.

“Well, little man,” said the demon, who towered over George, “you have my attention.” And with that he swept his sword down and across. George brought up the spoon, deflecting the great sword just in the nick of time, then stabbing forward with it and forcing the demon lord to hop backwards to keep him from getting inside his guard.

“It was the only way I could figure out in a week,” George said, cautiously circling around the demon lord. “I just had to hope the old books those idiots had were right.”

The demon lord raised an eyebrow, almost vanishing under the double-pointed skullcap that hid his scalp. “They were right,” he said, and the greatsword stabbed out, then drew back as George slapped it to the ground with the spoon. “Monsters don’t respect a leader who can’t defend his position.”

“Good,” George said. “There are ten people behind me whose lives depend on that.” He poked the spoon forwards, then drew it back to block another broad sweep of the demon’s sword.

“Only ten?” the demon lord asked. “Well, that’s still ten more than I care about.” He shook out his left arm, letting the robes slide back, and then casually tossed the great sword into his left palm. “You’ve made your challenge, little human. Let’s see you defend it!”

That ended the conversation for a couple of minutes, during which George found himself very busy. The sword was huge, but it could move fast, and George could just barely keep that stupid metal spoon between it and himself. Up, left, up, right, down- block, block, deflect, slap aside, jump.

And then came the thrust, which George leaned out of the way of. As he leaned back he felt something pop in his back, and he grit his teeth. Wonderful- a back spasm now, of all times. The demon king kept going forward, totally committed to the double-handed thrust, and George lifted a leg and kicked at the exposed right elbow.

To his enormous surprise, it worked, and the demon lord wobbled on his feet.

Now George pressed an attack of his own, and the demon lord had to bring that sword back to block the spoon. George’s spoon was only about a meter long, but that meant he could swing faster, and he went for the joints- knees, elbows, anything he hoped might be smashable. The sword always got in the way, just barely, never deflecting, never knocking him back. Mobile armor, George thought, and nothing more.

And then George stepped back out of immediate range, gasping for breath. Forty-three, fat, out of shape… what idiotic fate had decided that he, of all people, should be a hero?

The demon lord also stepped back, not looking winded, but eyeing George with caution. “Not bad,” he said softly.

“Come off it,” George growled. “I’ve got no idea what the hell I’m doing.”

“And you admit this to me,” the demon lord asked, “why?”

George took a couple more breaths, then took up his best guard stance again. “Those people in the castle,” he said, “they told me they summoned a hero to save their kingdom. They wanted some young buck, fit and strong, full of dreams of glory and honor.” He gestured his spoon at himself. “They got me.”

The demon king struck, and George just barely got the spoon up in time to block, stumbling back just before the blade could slide down the spoon’s shaft and slice off his fingers. When the blade came back he was better prepared, and on the backswing he struck out against it, making metal ring against metal. Shaken, the demon lord took a step backwards, holding the sword one-handed again while shaking the numbness out of the other.

“Forty-three years old,” George continued in the same soft voice. “Fat. Bad back. Bad knees. Never touched a sword in my life. Stuck in a dead-end job. Hate fantasy stories- I read murder mysteries. But they got me.”

The demon lord swung again, and this time George blocked with the pot lid. It stopped the blow, but he had to stifle a curse as his fingers twisted in the handle and the lid slapped against the back of his hand as if on a hinge. He checked the swing he’d been making with the spoon, then slipped his hand out of the worse-than-useless pot lid and let it drop to the ground.

“They got me,” he repeated. “And I got this. Heal.” A little green light surrounded his left hand, and a soft crackling noise followed as the bones in his fingers knit back together. “The starting fantasy hero package. Some training required, I’m told.”

“Indeed?” the demon lord asked, taking his turn to circle cautiously around George. “What level are you?”

“They tell me ‘one’,” George said. “We don’t have levels where I come from. But they tell me I’m a level one hero, whatever that means.”

“A level one hero challenges to become the Great Demon Lord.” The demon lord laughed, softly, slowly, with the menace of a sawblade. “Do you realize just how absurd you are?”

George sighed, turning to keep the laundry spoon between the two of them. “I’m fighting you with a goddamn spoon,” he said. “It can’t possibly get more absurd than this.”

The sword flashed out, but only a short distance; George’s spoon didn’t move. “And how did you expect to win, then?”

“Win?” George couldn’t stop himself from laughing bitterly. “Just between you and me?” he asked. “I’m planning on throwing the match.”

The smile vanished from the demon lord’s face. “Explain,” he said, extending his sword so that the very tip just brushed the bowl of George’s spoon.

“I was hoping to,” George said. “Take a close look at the back row of pot-heads behind me.”

The demon lord’s eyes involuntarily flickered up to look at the thing on George’s head.

“The pikemen,” George added, careful not to raise his voice. “There are ten civilians in the back. The people in charge in that castle down the hill? They said if I didn’t come out here, they die. That’s the only reason I’m even here.”

“This somehow does not surprise me,” the demon lord said, laying the irony on thick. “So if I order them dead now, will you surrender?”

“What??”

The greatsword slashed out, and George had to duck backwards to avoid it. Belatedly he tried to swing at it as it passed, but the spoon swished through empty air.

“If we don’t keep trying to kill each other,” the demon lord said, “your friends will get suspicious.” He brought the sword back and stabbed forward, but George was ready this time, and the demon lord stepped back before George could turn the block into an attack. “There. Please continue.”

George rolled his eyes. “Well, yeah,” he muttered. “I spent a week in there, in that castle and in the town.” He twitched his head backwards to indicate Fallsberg below. “Fat king. Fat queen. Fat prince. No princess.”

“I know that,” the demon lord said. “A princess would have simplified matters a little.”

George’s mouth hung open for just a moment. “Don’t know, don’t care,” he said quickly. He began circling the demon lord again. “Anyway, fat royals, fat nobles, fat priests, yeah? Which wouldn’t be a problem. I mean, I ain’t skinny myself.”

“I can remedy that.” Thrust, block, withdraw. “Just remain still.” Downward sweep, sidestep, withdraw.

“Ha ha.” George attempted a rush, but with his back still in stitches it was more of a limp, and the demon lord swatted him back with the flat of his blade. Recovering, he continued. “The thing is, you get out of the castle and the inner city, out where the actual people live, and nobody’s fat. At all.”

“Unfortunate for them,” the demon lord said.

“Unfortunate, hell,” George said. “Those bastards are starving their own people in there. ‘Save the food for our troops,’ they say, when there’s not five hundred guards in the whole damn place.”

“Thank you for the intelligence.”

“As if you didn’t know.” George took a little swat at the demon lord’s sword, and the counterstrike almost knocked the spoon out of his hand. He pulled back and switched hands, then switched back. “Yeah,” he grumbled. “Thing is, there’s plenty of damn food. I’ve seen restaurant buffets with less food than what the royal table serves in one night. But they talk about a siege- as if you people had been here all winter!”

“Thank you.”

“Huh?” George asked. He blocked a half-hearted sweep of the greatsword and said, “Thanks for what?”

“I believe you are the first person to call my followers ‘people’ unironically,” the demon lord said. “Thank you for that.”

“Oh. No problem.” George shrugged, then made another little charge, and for about thirty seconds he actually pushed the demon lord back with a series of wild blows, a couple of which actually got past the greatsword. He felt the clank of spoon on armor both times, and as he stepped back again, blocking one last follow-up swipe of the sword, he muttered, “Shit.”

“Did you really expect me to be unarmored?” the demon king asked. “And what should I care about starving human peasants in an empire that tried to conquer the whole world?” He gestured back and forth with the sword, pointing at the ends of the great army behind him. “I was able to unite all of these people- every one my sworn enemy before now- because as hated as my people are… yours are even worse!”

“They’re not my people,” George said quietly. “The ones in the castle? Not my people. Not my king, not my priests, not my merchants, none of them!” His voice had become a growl as he continued, “I didn’t ask to be here. I didn’t ask to come to a world without indoor plumbing or toilet paper or clean laundry! And I sure as hell didn’t ask to fight and die for some fat bastard who thinks peasants and townspeople aren’t even human!”

The demon king took two full steps backwards, lowering his sword. “If you wanted to surrender,” he said quietly, “you shouldn’t have challenged me to rule.” He smiled that sinister, ironic smile again and added, “But if you like, I’ll try not to kill you outright. You can heal in my dungeons until this is all over.”

George sighed, and the anger went away. “I don’t particularly want to die,” he said. “But look at my situation for a moment.” He gestured his empty hand at himself. “They gave me this and told me this was all the equipment they had left, which I know is a lie. They’ll kill the hostages if I surrender, and I think the archers are there in case I actually win. But even if I did win, I’d then have to fight off your whole goddamn army, either one at a time or all at once. It wouldn’t change a goddamn thing. No matter what I do, I die. That’s how it adds up to me.”

The demon lord nodded once. “And what did you want to die for?” he asked.

“I just said I don’t want to die!”

“Indeed. Let me rephrase.” The demon lord raised an open hand and clenched it into a fist. “Why did you bother to choose this particular death?”

George sighed again. “Because I wanted you to know,” he said. “And because I wanted to make a request.”

“A request?” Now the demon lord laughed, loud enough to be heard by the great army behind and the pathetic army below. He raised his sword and flourished it grandly overhead, then brought it back to a guard position. In a much softer voice he added, “And what possible reason do I have to grant it, little man?”

“I knew the bastards in the castle wouldn’t,” George said. “So I figured, why not take a chance on you?” He gestured to the army. “Besides, I figured you couldn’t hold that kind of army together and be a complete bastard at the same time.”

“How little you know,” the demon lord said. “But go on. Name your request.”

“Just this,” George said. “To the poor bastards in the outer city, and the ten civvies behind me? Be kind to them when you take the city.” He took a deep breath, crouched, and brought the spoon close to his body. “But you kill every last one of those fat, lazy, greedy sons of bitches in the castle stone cold dead. And make sure they can’t bring any more poor bastards like me here. Okay?”

The demon king smiled. “We shall see,” he almost whispered. Then, in a much louder voice, he shouted, “And now let us end this!” He began running forward, greatsword pointed ahead, aimed directly at George’s chest.

To George’s eyes it came at him so slowly that even he couldn’t help dodging it. Screaming a wordless bellow of rage, he slipped past the blade, running up to the demon lord, and with a final gasp he stabbed the spoon into the demon king’s gut.

It had been a final gesture of defiance, or something. He’d expected the clang when it struck the armor under the robes. He expected the shove back, the sword swinging down, his head rolling down the hill as it ought to have done minutes before.

He didn’t expect the demon lord to fold up around the spoon like a cheap set of drapes. And he especially didn’t expect him to flop backwards onto his back, yanking the spoon out of his hands and leaving it to stick up like… well… like something had actually impaled him in the guts.

After a moment of staring, George heard a hissed whisper. “Pick up the sword, you idiot.”

George did so, noticing that although the damn thing was heavy, it didn’t seem as heavy as it ought to have been. “I know you’re not really hurt,” he whispered back to the demon lord.

“Prove it in a court,” the demon lord hissed back.

“It’s a goddamn spoon!!”

“You’d be amazed at what I could do with a spoon.”

“A blunt spoon!”

“Best kind.”

“Boss!” The two trolls had come rushing up to him. “Boss, say somethin’! What happened?”

“Alas, my faithful ones,” the demon lord said, wailing in a strong voice that nobody actually stabbed in the guts could ever have used, “the blow is mortal. This man is indeed the hero promised of old, against whom no monster can stand.”

The trolls turned to look at him. “Is that true?” the more green of the two asked.

And as George watched, one eyelid dropped. The troll had just… winked… at him.

What. The. Hell?

“Um… yes! It is true!” George tried to wave the sword with one hand, but the weight of the thing almost pulled him over. “I have won the challenge! By tradition, rulership of the demon realm falls to me!”

“He is correct,” the demon lord moaned. “He is a dangerous and canny foe, and his courage speaks for itself.”

“Yeah, it does,” the second troll said. “Anybody comes out dressed like that, he don’t fear nothin’.”

“Thanks for that,” George muttered.

“You are to obey him as you obeyed me,” the demon lord continued, his wavering voice still loud enough to carry across the entire battlefield. “I only ask my conqueror to allow me to return home to die. I doubt any spell can heal this wound, but I would still die in my own bed.”

Uh huh. George didn’t see the whole picture, but this part of it came through loud and clear. “You,” he said, pointing at the winking troll. “You take… no, wait.” There had been the slightest head-shake from the troll. “First, both of you kneel. Swear obedience to your new lord.”

The winking troll dropped to one knee immediately. The second troll took a moment before he followed suit. “The monsters will obey the Great Demon Lord… what’s your name?” the first troll asked.

“George.”

The troll kept his head bowed, but George could see the scowl on its tusks. “Yeah, let’s just stick with ‘Great Demon Lord,’” it said.

“Good enough. Rise.” George pointed to Winky-troll. “You take the former Demon Lord home. And you,” he said, pointing at the less intelligent one. “How’d you like to get into the hero business? Join the good guys?”

“Dunno,” the second troll said. “Nobody ever asked me to.”

“You see those guys behind me?”

“Yeah,” the second troll said. “Been watchin’ em all the time.”

“Any of them has empty hands, I want them taken alive,” George said. “Anyone with a weapon, kill ‘em. If they drop the weapon and surrender, take ‘em prisoner. And any of ‘em kills one of their own that doesn’t have a weapon,” he finished with a growl, “don’t take them prisoner even if they do drop their weapon.”

“Huh.” Second troll thought about this. “Not what we’re used to doin’, yeah?”

“Can you do it?”

“Yeah, easy. Just not used to it much.” The troll reached under the furs that provided his only clothing and pulled out a bat. “You got all that, Rejk? Go get ‘em.” He threw the bat in the air, and it made a half-circle and flew back to the great army.

The two elf-generals, one light-skinned with blond hair, the other with dark brown skin and silver hair, stepped over. “So you’re the new demon lord?” the blond elf asked. “What are your intentions? Do you plan to break our- look out!”

George heard the twang of bows, and even as the elf spoke he had brought that huge greatsword around, wrenching his back even more in the process. Not bothering to stifle the yelp of pain, he kept bringing the sword around, putting it between him and four arrows which otherwise would have punched right through his rib cage.

“Those were not our arrows!” the elf said.

“I know they weren’t your goddamn arrows!” George shouted. “And considering whose arrows those were, what makes you think I want to fight you guys??”

The two elves looked at one another, then at George. “What are your orders, then?” the dark-skinned one ask. “The Great Demon Lord is, after all, our supreme commander in this alliance.”

“My orders?”

Ten minutes before, George had been walking to his doom, feeling powerless and trapped, hoping he could at least buy a little grace for the innocents in Fallsburg. But now he had an army. He had power. He had…

… well, he had a pretty good idea of the Fallsburg defenses and how weak they were. That was the most important thing.

“My orders are, to hell with a siege,” he said grimly. “If we storm the gates, those bastards in the castle are toast before sundown.” He leaned on the sword, trying not to flinch, and pointed down at the city. “Leave the civilians in the lower city untouched. Women and children in the upper city, too. But the royal family? The fat priests? The merchants? The bastards who brought me here?”

“Their heads will be on spikes by morning,” the blond elf said.

“Not that you needed to order that,” the dark elf added. “We have our own scores to settle.”

“Yeah, just remember,” George said, “most of the people in that city are victims almost as much as you. Pass the word. Leave the poor people alone.”

“We came here for revenge,” the dark elf said. “We’re not here as liberators.”

George laughed. “Well, you’re liberators now,” he said. “And as soon as you pass around the orders, we’re going to liberate the shit out of this kingdom.”

Overhead, a swarm of over a thousand bats swirled down towards the pikemen.

------ SECOND DRAFT CHAPTER 1 -----

Sunlight glittered off the Falls of the Jentar, and the Great Demon Lord hated it. His forces hated the sun, especially the undead who could barely withstand it.

It beamed down from a cloudless sky on the green hills and ridges and over the farmland freshly tilled for the spring planting. The Great Demon Lord hated that, too. No hope of cover from enemy crossbowmen and spell-casters.

It sent sparkles over the roaring falls of the three rivers that cascaded over the lowest ridge, uniting into the great River Jentar. The Great Demon Lord hated that even more. The wide river would be hell to blockade and besiege, while offering quick escape for the enemy when the time came to storm the city.

And it shone on the thick stone walls of Fallsberg, the pennants of the Jentar Empire still flapping from its towers. That the Great Demon Lord hated most of all, as did every single soldier in his army, the Great Army of the Alliance. After years of war and six massive battles fought over hundreds of miles of territory, they had pushed their way to the gates of the capital of the Empire.

Or, rather, the capital of what was left of it, which wasn’t much.

Flat farmland with occasional woods stretched out from the winding Jentar as it flowed towards the sea; that territory the Empire still held, fifty miles as a crow flies from the falls to the great bay and the port of Ashbulion. But the rest of the empire- all its mines, all its trade towns, and all the conquests it had made in two decades of aggressive expansion- all of that was gone. The Great Demon Lord had seen to that.

Now the Empire lay reduced to two cities, Fallsberg at the head of navigation of the river and Ashbulion at its mouth, and the lands between… and Ashbulion hadn’t sent either gold or troops to the capital since autumn.

The reason for this stood before the Great Demon Lord, straddling the great northern military highway for over a mile on either side along the ridge that overlooked the northeast approaches to the city. The great Army of the Alliancelooked down on Fallsberg, on its central keep, on its small inner walls which contained the homes of the highborn and wealthy, and on the large outer walls which held such of the townsfolk which remained.

Over there, on his right, stood the armies of the light and the dark elves, united against a common foe in a way nothing else could. Beside them stood the dwarven army, thick battle-axes shining under the cloudless skies. On his left the banners of three adjoining human kingdoms rose side by side with the tattered flags of six kingdoms that the empire had conquered, the sad remains of their armies gathered, kingless, leaderless, under the command of their neighbors.

And, in the center, dimming the sunlight even where they stood, stood the Great Demon Lord’s army. The monsters numbered almost as many as all the other members of the Alliancecombined. And whereas elves were elves and dwarves were dwarves and humans were humans (unless they were halflings, in which case halflings were halflings), the demon army held more shapes than humans wanted to admit existed. Orcs and trolls made up the bulk of their numbers, with a small number of lesser goblins and kobolds lurking at their feet. The monsters of the wilderness, the great cats and winged goats, the witches and skeletons, the bats and lizardwings, the griffins and manticores and unicorns and all the other natural enemies of humanity, all stood or flew in rough mobs around a central point.

And in the center stood the Great Demon Lord, under a single banner bearing a silver rook on a black field trimmed in dark crimson, watching the last field army of the Jentar Empire deploy into battle formation. He couldn’t avoid smirking at the sight. Compared to the almost forty thousand warriors in the Alliancearmy at this point, the Imperial army… if you wanted to call it that… was a tiny, pathetic thing, almost an insult.

The main force consisted of pikemen, twenty men wide, five deep. Ten of the soldiers in the rear rank bore swords and not pikes; the Great Demon Lord could see the glints of light reflecting off of them, just in front of the necks of ten unarmored, unarmed peasants. Behind them ten archers marched in a single rank, bows strung and arrow in hand ready to nock. No crossbowmen, no cavalry, no spellcasters, no adventurers.

And ten paces in front of them marched what had to be the most ludicrous captain ever to lead a force into battle.

Even to the Great Demon Lord, who’d seen monsters in his domain that looked like a jumble sale at a body-parts pawn shop, the enemy captain looked weird. He had on strange clothing, light brown pants and a blue tunic- not the armor you’d expect of a warrior or the embroidered robes of a wizard. In fact, the only armor the man wore appeared, against all logic, to be an old cracked stew-pot upended and sitting on top of his head.

And his arms? The man, whoever he was, whatever he was, was marching to battle with a potlid in his left hand and what looked like a large metal laundry spoon in his right.

The Great Demon Lord heard some soft muttering and the occasional chuckle as the less eagle-eyed among his followers worked out what they were seeing. He took no notice. After all, how could he blame them? If the tiny army was an insult, its leader would have been unforgivable mockery, had he been even the slightest bit less ridiculous.

But it wouldn’t do to rush in. This could be a feint, or a trap, some devious ploy to bring the Alliancearmy within range of some devious new device or spell. Granted, he knew the Jentar Empire was on its last legs in terms of military strength. He’d destroyed four armies of theirs in six battles, used diplomacy and threats to peel their few allies and vassals away.

But with their backs to the wall, with the bill come due for twenty years of attacking every single neighbor they possessed, who knew what the Jentar dynasty might do?

Besides send an obvious fool out to get slaughtered. As arrogant and stupid as they’d shown themselves to be in the war, that simply didn’t make any sense…

The man with the pot on his head lifted his left arm high, calling the little army to a halt. With two stomps so precise that the Great Demon Lord could hear them even from almost two hundred yards away, the pikemen stopped in their five perfect rows. There they stood at attention as their leader shrugged off a large backpack and began fiddling with bits and bobs that, eventually, became a small staff and standard of the Jentar Empire. Then came a little toy drum, on which the man beat a thin, arrhythmic roll before shouting, “GREAT DEMON LORD!” he shouted. “BY THE TRADITIONS OF MONSTERKIND, I HEREBY CHALLENGE FOR YOUR THRONE!”

The laughter that surrounded the Great Demon Lord would have made him feel easier if it had covered the more subtle mumbling that ran up and down the line of the Alliancearmy. The human and elf armies broke discipline slightly, talking among the ranks. The dwarf army, which had rather less discipline, began shouting. And his own followers…

Well, they’d heard the challenge. It was more formal than usual, but that same formality made it unmistakable… and, thus, impossible to ignore. And from the squawking, the roaring, and the shouting, all of them expected him to crush the absurd man.

And if he didn’t, they would demand he do so… or else.

He stepped forward, through the churning ranks of his monstrous followers, who fell silent and parted to let him by. Behind him, automatically, came his two bodyguards, the great trolls Rorgotha and Guilimort. He heard behind him the calls of his subordinate generals- the commanders of each of the other six armies of the Alliance-as they rushed to find out what was going on.

He didn’t bother to answer. Once he was out in front of the army a few paces, he raised his hand above his head. That one signal silenced the army, brought it back to order, as he’d taken extreme pains to train them to do. That done, he resumed his walk down the slope towards the enemy commander, who in turn was walking towards him, pot lid and iron spoon at the ready.

At just about the point where a quick rush could have ended it all, the strange man shouted, “That’s close enough! This is a challenge for the right to rule! No one may interfere!”

The Great Demon Lord stopped, turned, and waved a hand back at his approaching generals. They formed a sort of half-circle behind him, about twenty yards back up the slope. This done, he reached under his long, flowing robes, drew out his long warsword, and bowed slightly, bringing the sword up in an ironic salute.

The little man hesitated before returning the salute, giving the Demon Lord a moment to look him over up close. He stood about average height for a human, or slightly less- much shorter than the Demon Lord’s tall, whip-slender frame. A mix of black and gray hair peeked out from under the cracked pot on his head. A week’s growth of beard matched the hair, covering a round face that in turn matched the round belly under the odd blue tunic. The pot lid was just that- a pot lid with a simple handle that could only take three of the man’s fingers. And the laundry spoon… well, it was a little longer than a short sword, and heavy enough to make a fine bludgeon, but the little bowl of the spoon at the tip actually made it blunter than the raw bar stock would have been. The spots of rust that had evaded obvious frantic efforts to buff out only made it the more embarrassing.

The salute ended, and the little man stepped forward cautiously, spoon held in the kind of guard position that screamed Please disarm me to any skilled swordsman.

“Well, little man,” the Demon Lord said, “you have my attention.” With that he swung down hard with his sword, expecting the spoon to drop from the fat man’s fingers at the first slap.

The spoon came up with a speed that took the Demon Lord completely by surprise, and it was the sword that got knocked away- but not out of his hand. Then, almost in the same move, the little man lunged forwards, thrusting the spoon straight at his abdomen with such speed that the Demon Lord found himself scrambling a couple of steps back to keep the man outside his guard.

The little man, breathing heavily, pulled his own guard back in and began circling around the Demon Lord. “It was the only way I could figure out in a week,” he said. “I just had to hope the old books those idiots had were right.”

Those idiots? The Demon Lord raised an eyebrow almost up to his double-pointed skullcap. “They were right,” he said, stabbing out with his greatsword, only to have it slapped to the ground with surprising force. “Monsters don’t respect a leader who can’t defend his position.”

“Good,” the little man said. “There are ten people behind me whose lives depend on that.” He poked the spoon forwards, then drew it back to block another broad sweep of the Demon Lord’s sword.

Oh, yes, the hostages.“Only ten?” the demon lord asked, stepping back again. “Well, that’s still ten more than I care about.” He shook out his left arm to free it from his robes, then casually tossed the great sword into his left palm. “You’ve made your challenge, little human. Let’s see you defend it!”

As it turned out, despite all the evidence available to the naked eye, the strange man defended himself very well. The Great Demon Lord had trained with the greatsword as assiduously as he had with his magic, and strength and skill let him wield it with the speed of a fencer’s foil. He drove the human down the slope, swinging and stabbing, again and again, at the obvious weak points in the human’s technique, every strike a certain fatal blow…

… except somehow, somehow, that idiotic spoon was always in the right place at the last possible moment to bar the way. Whatever laundress had had the thing hadn’t skimped; the thick, heavy metal stopped his strikes every single time, except for a couple of swings that the man either ducked or, in one case, jumped over.

Frustrated, the Demon Lord committed his full weight to a two-handed lunging stab, aimed straight at the stranger’s collarbone. The man leaned back, letting it pass over his face, teeth grit in what might have been determination or sudden overwhelming pain. The Demon Lord had just enough time to see that expression before something hit his right elbow hard. Between the lunge and the blow, he wobbled on his feet, off-balance for a couple of vital seconds.

With a series of barks that might have been battle cries or screams of pain, the little man staggered to the attack. Just like his defense, the offense was laughable, wild swings and lunges with no target or goal except a vague urge to hit something. But the speed at which they came forced the Demon Lord to focus all his attention on blocking the swings and to his shock he found himself just barely able to stop the blows from hitting home.

When the strange man finally stepped back to catch his breath, the two of them had returned to the place where they’d begun. The Demon Lord wasn’t winded, but he was grateful for a moment to collect himself and absorb what he’d just experienced.

I was annoyed. Now I’m curious.

“Not bad,” he said to the little man, lowering his voice so it wouldn’t carry beyond the two of them.

“Come off it,” the little man growled just as softly. “I’ve got no idea what the hell I’m doing.”

“And you admit this to me,” the Demon Lord asked, “why?”

The little man took a couple of deep breaths, then took up his ridiculous guard stance again. “Those people in the castle,” he said, “they told me they summoned a hero to save their kingdom. They wanted some young buck, fit and strong, full of dreams of glory and honor.” He gestured his spoon at himself. “They got me.”

In the moment the spoon wavered from the guard, the Demon Lord struck. The strange man just barely got the spoon up in time to block the swing, and he stumbled back just before the blade could slide down the spoon’s shaft and slice off his fingers. He pressed the attack with a return backhand swing, but this time the spoon was there well before the sword, hammering it with a clang loud enough to leave echoes in the Demon Lord’s ears. and on the backswing he struck out against it, making metal ring against metal.

Shaken, he stepped back, holding the sword one-handed again so he could shake the numbness out of the other. Who or what was this man??

“Forty-three years old,” the stranger continued in the same soft voice. “Fat. Bad back. Bad knees. Never touched a sword in my life. Stuck in a dead-end job. Hate fantasy stories- I read murder mysteries. But they got me.”

The Demon Lord swung again, and this time the little man blocked with the pot lid, cursing as the blow twisted his fingers in the handle. The lid slapped against the back of his hand as if on a hinge, and the Demon Lord heard the crackling of bones breaking. Now it was the human’s turn to stumble back, slipping his hand out of the worse-than-useless pot lid and dropping to the ground.

“They got me,” he repeated. “And I got this. Heal.” A little green light surrounded his left hand, and a soft crackling noise followed as the bones in his fingers knit back together. “The starting fantasy hero package. Some training required, I’m told.”

“Indeed?” Now all was explained. The Great Demon Lord had faced heroes summoned by the Jentar Empire before… but this man before him was not just a summoned hero, but a summoned hero with the gift of Hero magic itself. That explained the strength and speed from a body so obviously soft and weak. “What level are you?”

“They tell me ‘one’,” the little said. “We don’t have levels where I come from. But they tell me I’m a level one hero, whatever that means.”

Level one? They sent him into his very first combat against me? For the stupidity and cowardice of the enemy, may we always be grateful! “A level one hero challenges to become the Great Demon Lord.” He allowed himself a laugh. How could he not? “Do you realize just how absurd you are?”

The man sighed, shifting his stance to keep the laundry spoon between the two of them. “I’m fighting you with a goddamn spoon,” he said. “It can’t possibly get more absurd than this.”

The Demon Lord feinted with a quick slash; the spoon didn’t move. “And how did you expect to win, then?”

“Win?” Now it was the human’s turn to laugh, and to the Great Demon Lord it had the ring of a condemned man about it. “Just between you and me?” he asked. “I’m planning on throwing the match.”

That wiped the smile off the Demon Lord’s face in an instant. Going into battle at long odds, he could understand. Going into hopeless battle when there were no other options, he didn’t understand, but it was a thing he’d seen happen. But this? “Explain,” he said, extending his sword so that the very tip just brushed the bowl of the little man’s spoon.

“I was hoping to.” The man twitched his head backwards. “Take a close look at the back row of pot-heads behind me.”

The Demon Lord’s eyes involuntarily flickered up to look at the thing on the little man’s head. Who was calling who pot-head, again?

“The pikemen,” the little man continued. “There are ten civilians in the back. The people in charge in that castle down the hill? They said if I didn’t come out here, they die. That’s the only reason I’m even here.”

“This somehow does not surprise me,” the Demon Lord said, laying the irony on thick. “So if I order them dead now, will you surrender?”

“What??”

That surprised the human enough to leave an opening broad enough that this time the spoon didn’t stop the greatsword. If the human’s reflexes- boosted, no doubt, by the damnable summoning spell the Jentar Empire had used- hadn’t allowed him to jump back out of the way, that would have been the end. The swoosh of the spoon followed the swoosh of the sword, as the man tried vainly to strike away the blade.

“If we don’t keep trying to kill each other,” the Demon Lord said, “your friends will get suspicious.” He brought the sword back and stabbed forward, but the man was ready with a block this time, and he stepped back before the man could turn the block into an attack. “There. Please continue.”

The man rolled his eyes. “Well, yeah,” he muttered. “I spent a week in there, in that castle and in the town.” He twitched his head backwards to indicate Fallsberg below. “Fat king. Fat queen. Fat prince. No princess.”

“I know that,” the Demon Lord said. “A princess would have simplified matters a little.”

The man’s mouth hung open for just a moment. “Don’t know, don’t care,” he said quickly. He began circling the demon lord again. “Anyway, fat royals, fat nobles, fat priests, yeah? Which wouldn’t be a problem. I mean, I ain’t skinny myself.”

“I can remedy that.” Thrust, block, withdraw. “Just remain still.” Downward sweep, sidestep, withdraw.

“Ha ha.” The man attempted a spasmodic rush that turned into a pathetic limping motion that the Demon Lord had no trouble swatting away. “The thing is,” the man said, wobbling back out of reach, “you get out of the castle and the inner city, out where the actual people live, and nobody’s fat. At all.”

“Unfortunate for them.”

“Unfortunate, hell. Those bastards are starving their own people in there. ‘Save the food for our troops,’ they say, when there’s not five hundred guards in the whole damn place.”

“Thank you for the intelligence.”

“As if you didn’t know.” The stranger took a little swat at the Demon Lord’s sword, who counterstruck hard enough that, for a moment, it looked like he might actually drop the spoon. But after a moment of juggling between hands, the man got a firm grip again. “Yeah,” he grumbled. “Thing is, there’s plenty of damn food. I’ve seen restaurant buffets with less food than what the royal table serves in one night. But they talk about a siege- as if you people had been here all winter!”

“Thank you.” The words slipped out before the Demon Lord knew he’d said them. To cover for his slip, he made a weak swipe with his blade, which the spoon knocked away casually.

“Huh? Thanks for what?”

It took a moment for the Demon Lord to figure it out himself. “I believe,” he said, “you are the first person to call my followers ‘people’ unironically. Thank you for that.” Even his allies, who stood with him only to fight a more hated enemy, never referred to him or his as anything other than monsters. It had always grated, but he hadn’t realized how much until this man…

“Oh. No problem.” The man shrugged as if it were nothing, then made another little charge, this time not limping. The Demon Lord blocked frantically, again and again, then felt strikes to the plate armor under his robes. He tried not to wince as he felt the armor dent under the blows, but aside from the loud clangs nothing worse happened. Hearing this, the little man stepped back again, blocking one last follow-up swipe of the sword. “Shit,” he muttered.

“Did you really expect me to be unarmored?” the Demon Lord shouted. “And what should I care about starving human peasants in an empire that tried to conquer the whole world?” He gestured back and forth with the sword, pointing at the ends of the great army behind him. “I was able to unite all of these people- every one my sworn enemy before now- because as hated as my people are… yours are even worse!”

“They’re not my people,” the little man said quietly. “The ones in the castle? Not my people. Not my king, not my priests, not my merchants, none of them!” His voice had become a growl as he continued, “I didn’t ask to be here. I didn’t ask to come to a world without indoor plumbing or toilet paper or clean laundry! And I sure as hell didn’t ask to fight and die for some fat bastard who thinks peasants and townspeople aren’t even human!”

The Demon Lord took two full steps backwards, lowering his sword. “If you wanted to surrender,” he said, voice returned to low, confidential levels, “you shouldn’t have challenged me to rule.” He smiled and added, “But if you like, I’ll try not to kill you outright. You can heal in my dungeons until this is all over.”

The man sighed, the anger fading from his face. “I don’t particularly want to die,” he said. “But look at my situation for a moment.” He gestured his free hand at himself. “They gave me a pot and a spoon and told me this was all the equipment they had left, which I know is a lie. They’ll kill the hostages if I surrender, and I think the archers are there in case I actually win. But even if I did win, I’d then have to fight off your whole goddamn army, either one at a time or all at once. It wouldn’t change a goddamn thing. No matter what I do, I die. That’s how it adds up to me.”

So the man could see the obvious. The Demon Lord nodded understanding. “And what did you want to die for?” he asked.

“I just said I don’t want to die!”

“Indeed. Let me rephrase.” The Demon Lord raised an open hand and clenched it into a fist. “Why did you bother to choose this particular death?”

The little man sighed again. “Because I wanted you to know,” he said. “And because I wanted to make a request.”

“A request?” Now the Demon Lord laughed, loud enough to be heard by the great army behind and the pathetic army below. He raised his sword and flourished it grandly overhead, then brought it back to a guard position. In a much softer voice he added, “And what possible reason do I have to grant it, little man?”

“I knew the bastards in the castle wouldn’t,” the man said. “So I figured, why not take a chance on you?” He gestured to the army. “Besides, I figured you couldn’t hold that kind of army together and be a complete bastard at the same time.”

“How little you know,” the Demon Lord said with feeling. “But go on. Name your request.”

“Just this,” the man said. “To the poor bastards in the outer city, and the ten civvies behind me? Be kind to them when you take the city.” He took a deep breath, crouched, and brought the spoon close to his body. “But you kill every last one of those fat, lazy, greedy sons of bitches in the castle stone cold dead. Most of their soldiers are busy keeping the townspeople from fleeing. There’s maybe a hundred left for the walls, tops. Only a dozen at the main gate. I’m here to buy time, but the hell with them. Don’t give them any. And make damn sure they can’t bring any more poor bastards like me here. Okay?”

It was a situation unique in all the Demon Lord’s experience. People dying for their king he knew all too well, but this was the first time he’d seen someone dying to make sure their king got overthrown. And it couldn’t be a trap. It was too ridiculous, too absurd… and, damn them, too in line with the short-sighted greed and arrogance of the rulers of Jentar.

And he decided: why not?

“We shall see,” he almost whispered, smiling broadly enough to bare all his teeth. Then, in a much louder voice, he shouted, “And now let us end this!” He charged forward, greatsword pointed ahead, aimed directly at the little man’s chest.

His charge was slow, the thrust of his sword slower. The little man had plenty of time to get out of the way, survival instinct overriding whatever peace he’d made with his fate.  The man shouted a wordless battle cry as the sword passed by him, bringing up the laundry spoon and driving the bowl directly into the Demon Lord’s gut, where it found a gap between the plates and slid in.

The Demon Lord folded backwards, flopping to the ground, half the wind knocked out of him for a moment. There would be a hell of a bruise just below his sternum come tomorrow.

The spoon stayed trapped in the armor, yanked out of the man’s grip by the fall. It stood almost straight up from his body, looking as dramatic as it is possible for a yard of somewhat rusty metal to look.

The little fat man gawped down at him, obviously completely flummoxed.

Tough.

“Pick up the sword, you idiot,” the Demon Lord whispered.

As the man did so, he whispered back, “I know you’re not really hurt.”

“Prove it in a court.”

“It’s a goddamn spoon!!”

“You’d be amazed at what I could do with a spoon.”

“A blunt spoon!”

“Best kind.”

“Boss!” Two immense shadows blocked out the morning sun. His bodyguards had come running to his aid. The generals of the Alliance army, he noticed, were only a few steps behind. “Boss, say somethin’! What happened?”

“Alas, my faithful ones,” the demon lord said as loudly as he could, “the blow is mortal. This man is indeed the hero promised of old, against whom no monster can stand.” He writhed a little bit around the spoon to emphasize the point.

The trolls turned to look at the man with a pot for a helmet. “Is that true?” Rorgotha asked.

And Rorgotha winked at the man. Good, the Demon Lord thought. Rorgotha’s got the idea. Excellent.

“Um… yes! It is true!” The man tried to wave the Demon Lord’s sword in one hand over his head, but though he had the strength, the sheer leverage almost pulled him over. He managed to convert the move into a flourish, driving the point of the sword into the ground in front of him (and just missing his own boots). “I have won the challenge! By tradition, rulership of the demon realm falls to me!”

“He is correct,” the Demon Lord moaned. “He is a dangerous and canny foe, and his courage speaks for itself.”

“Yeah, it does,” Guilimort, the much less intelligent of his bodyguards, said. “Anybody comes out dressed like that, he don’t fear nothin’.”

The man mumbled something under his breath, and the Demon Lord had to turn an incipient laugh into a coughing and writhing fit. Once the urge passed, he said, “You are to obey him as you obeyed me. From this moment, the army is his. To do with. As He. Sees. Fit.” He stared directly at the hero’s eyes for the last words, hoping he’d get the message. “I only ask my conqueror to allow me to return home to die. I doubt any spell can heal my mortal wounds, but I would still die in my own bed.”

The hero’s eyes narrowed. He nodded decisively, then pointed at Rorgotha. “You,” he said. “You take… no, wait.” Rorgotha had given the slightest head-shake, and the hero had picked up on it. Most excellent. “First, both of you kneel. Swear obedience to your new lord.”

Rorgotha knelt instantly, then nudged Guilimort until he followed suit. “The monsters will obey the Great Demon Lord… what’s your name?” the first troll asked.

“George.”

The Demon Lord fought down another laughing fit.

“Yeah, let’s just stick with ‘Great Demon Lord,’” Rorgotha said.

“Good enough. Rise.” The hero George pointed to Rorgotha. “You take the former Demon Lord home. And you,” he said, pointing at Guilimort. “How’d you like to get into the hero business? Join the good guys?”

“Dunno,” Guilimort said. “Nobody ever asked me to.”

“You see those guys behind me?”

“Yeah,” Guilimort said. “Been watchin’ em all the time.”

“Any of them has empty hands, I want them taken alive and unharmed,” George said. “Anyone holding a weapon, kill ‘em. If they drop the weapon and surrender, take ‘em prisoner. And any of ‘em kills one of their own that doesn’t have a weapon,” he finished with a growl, “don’t take them prisoner even if they do drop their weapon.”

Oh, yes, indeed. The Demon Lord nodded his head in approval. He liked this George. For all the reputation demon lords had, only self-righteous heroes could be so utterly ruthless.

“Huh.” Guilimort had only average troll intelligence, and he wasn’t used to new ideas. . “Not what we’re used to doin’, yeah?”

“Can you do it?”

“Yeah, easy. Just not used to it much.” The troll reached under the furs that provided his only clothing and pulled out a bat. “You got all that, Rejk? Go get ‘em.” He tossed the bat in the air, and it made a half-circle and flew back to the great army.

The two elf-generals, Dolfimbil of the yellow hair and alabaster skin and the brown-faced, silver-haired Gadnast, stepped over. “So you’re the new demon lord,” Dolfimbil asked. “What are your intentions? Do you plan to break our- look out!”

The Demon Lord watched George twist around at the sound of arrows in the air, hauling the heavy greatsword around to block. It almost seemed like something was twisting him, putting his upper body and arms in position to block the arrows coming at him while leaving his legs as they’d been. The result looked excruciatingly painful, if the Demon Lord was any judge of outward signs of excruciating pain.

The yelp George let out only confirmed it, but it was mostly drowned out by four arrows clattering against the broad sword blade.

“Those were not our arrows!” Dolfimbil said.

“I know they weren’t your goddamn arrows!” George shouted. “And considering whose arrows those were, what makes you think I want to fight you guys??”

The two elves gave each other the briefest of looks before giving the hero their full attention. “What are your orders, then?” Gadnast asked. “The Great Demon Lord is, after all, our supreme commander in this alliance. And we don’t have time to pick a new one now.”

“My orders?”

The Demon Lord watched George’s face. A couple of minutes before, he’d been ready to meet inevitable death as well as he could, powerless to prevent it. But now he’d just been given all the power he’d need to do whatever he wanted… if he acted quickly and decisively.

And from the look of things, George took only a moment or two to figure it out.

“My orders are, to hell with a siege,” he said grimly, all confusion gone from his voice. “If we storm the gates, those bastards in the castle are toast before sundown.” He leaned on the sword, flinching and rubbing his back with one hand before pointing down the hill at the city. “Leave the civilians in the lower city untouched. Women and children in the upper city, too. But the royal family? The fat priests? The merchants? The bastards who brought me here?”

“Their heads will be on spikes by morning,” Dolfimbil said.

“Not that you needed to order that,” Gadnast added. “We have our own scores to settle.”

“Yeah, just remember,” George said, “most of the people in that city are victims almost as much as you. Pass the word. Leave the poor people alone.”

“We came here for revenge,” Gadnast said. “We’re not here as liberators.”

George laughed. “Well, you’re liberators now,” he said. “And as soon as you pass around the orders, we’re going to liberate the shit out of this kingdom.”

The Great Demon Lord- for today, the former Demon Lord- smiled, letting his head loll back onto the ground. Despite the cloudless sky, the bright sun, and all the annoyances, it had turned out to be a very fine day after all.

Rorgotha’s massive shadow loomed over him. “Boss?” he asked. “What’s the deal? What do we do now?”

The Demon Lord’s smile broadened. “Arrange to have me taken home, as I said,” he whispered. “Then watch this hero for me. I want to see what he does with his new power.”

Rorgotha’s face twisted in confusion- though only a fellow monster could tell that expression from any other on a troll face. “I’m sure this wasn’t part of the plan, boss.”

“Plans,” the Demon Lord said, “exist to be rewritten. And it might just be that I can use this George. If so… my plans may be vastly ahead of schedule.”

Overhead, a swarm of over a thousand bats swirled down towards the pikemen.