Forest Kingdom Trilogy 1 - Blue Moon Rising

and ride back into the darkness, to kill and kill until he and his blade were drenched in demon blood. To die fighting, rather than running. The impulse passed as swiftly as it came, and Rupert grinned savagely as he cut through a reaching demon; he hadn't come this far just to throw his life away on a gesture. He'd fought his way through the Darkwood to summon the High Warlock from his Dark Tower, and now he was going home. And to hell with anyone or anything that got in his way.
    The unicorn struggled on, step by step. Rupert's sword arm rose and fell in steady butchery. The Castle drew gradually closer. . . and still the demons came. Forty yards. Thirty. Twenty-five. We might just make it after all , thought Rupert. We might just make it! Eerie, distorted faces loomed out of the darkness around him, and he cut at them automatically with his sword. A slow, heavy thudding began somewhere far behind him, a deep muffled sound, like the beating of a giant heart. At first Rupert thought it was thunder, and it wasn't until the ground itself began to shake in time to the deep bass rhythm that he realised he was listening to the sound of something indescribably huge and heavy moving slowly through
    the Darkwood after him. Rupert risked a quick glance back over his shoulder, but the impenetrable darkness turned aside his gaze with contemptuous ease. And then the hair on the back of his neck rose as a vile, choking roar sounded on the long night, a deafening bellow of unthinking malevolent rage. The ground shook violently as the creature drew nearer, and Rupert realised that something different was coming out of the darkness, something huge and old and unspeakably powerful. He remembered the great white worm he'd fought in the Coppertown pit, and urged the unicorn on.
    Light blazed suddenly in the long night, throwing back the dark, as the High Warlock finally unleashed his power. Trees were uprooted and thrown aside, and demons died howling silently as a vast invisible force slammed them to the ground and crushed the life from them. The earth rose and fell like a great slow wave as the Warlock's magic moved across it, and deep in the darkness something huge howled in pain and fear. Rupert shuddered as he felt the Warlock's power pulsing on the fetid air, coursing through the darkness, wild and unstoppable. There was something primal and savage in the magic the High Warlock had set loose in the world, something held at bay only by the Warlock's will. It seethed and crackled on the air, destroying everything outside of Rupert's party, and yet somehow, deep in his soul, Rupert knew that it was only the High Warlock who kept this awful power from flying free to attack the Castle and the Forest and all that was, in one vast orgy of destruction. The demons fled back into the darkness, and the power followed them. Rupert slowly lowered his sword, and the unicorn broke into a ragged trot as he realised the way to the Castle was clear again. The Warlock flew after them, slowly twisting and turning in mid-air, as though in response to a wind only he could feel.
    Rupert swayed in the saddle as the Castle Keep loomed up before him, and he knew the last of his strength was finally running out. He clenched his fingers round his swordhilt, desperate not to drop it, and something squat and hairy and many-legged came flying out of the darkness and dropped on to the unicorn's neck. The unicorn staggered, and almost fell. The demon clung tenaciously, its weight almost forcing the unicorn to a halt. Thin runnels of blood trickled down the unicorn's neck as the demon's barbed legs tightened their grip. The unicorn reared up and shook his head fiercely, neighing shrilly as the demon clawed for his eyes.
    Rupert struggled to stay in the saddle, and cut viciously at the demon with his sword. The blade sliced clean through the clinging creature, but it didn't die. No blood ran from the wide cut, and even as Rupert watched, the edges of the wound knitted together and were gone. Rupert drew back his sword for another blow, and the demon's squat body writhed and flowed from one loathsome shape to another as it slithered along the unicorn's neck towards him. It left a trail of tiny blood wounds on the unicorn's pale white skin, as though its belly concealed hundreds of little sucking mouths. Somehow the unicorn still staggered on, shrieking and neighing piteously, half out of his mind with shock and pain. Rupert cut at the demon again and again, aiming