Amazons readied the throne room, and prepared the altars. They brought two tables and placed each on either side of his pentagram as he had instructed them. A sack cloth covered each table, and on these they laid a dwarf.
The leader thrust out her fist and knelt. “My lord, shall we leave the dwarf’s microchip on or turn it off?” She pointed to the black spot on the boy’s forehead.
“Nimrod is always with me. He needs no mark.”
Saluting him, the Amazon leader backed away, and turned off the boy’s chip.
In a short space, all the preparations were ready. The leader approached him again, and the Amazons knelt behind her.
“We have done as you command, my lord.”
“Shoo, back to your posts.” The Amazons obeyed, slinking back to the shadows beneath the throne room’s columns. Sensing the danger, his guardians also retreated, inching away from their posts at the edge of the pentagram.
The Dragon Lord gloated over his victims.
Over the limp form of the black dwarf boy, he cooed, “Evan Labe, you could not resist my call. You sought your life, but you gave it away. Now your soul and your body are mine. Your flesh shall be a shell for my servant Nimrod to occupy. Your shell is as innocent as a babe, and I shall pour into it the living spirit of Nimrod. Fusing your shell and my servant shall make him more powerful than any creature walking the face of the Earth!”
The Dragon Lord noticed his Amazon’s cowering in the shadows, and added, “Excluding myself of course.”
He purred over the girl, “My dear, Nadia, your soul shall open the gate. Like your companion, you too gave up your life to my ambitions. When I cast you into the outer darkness, I shall be free to use the hole that remains.”