Malachar went to sleep that night, exhausted but satisfied. He had made sixty-six scarecrows out of straw, twine, and the tattered banners of his vanquished enemies. He had imbued them all with the most potent curses he knew that could blast the beak off of any rebellious corvid.

  The dousing demon hadn't returned, but Malachar hadn't expected it to. A water source was going to be difficult to find in the Ashlands, so he was prepared to wait. Tomorrow, he would build a small structure for the portal that would send whatever water the demon found to him. It would resemble a well, but it would house the hole in space and time effectively, concealing it from outside observers.

  Before he was done, he was able to build himself a bedroll from the same discarded banners and straw. Sleeping on the ground at this point was ridiculous. Living in a lean-to was also ridiculous, but the sun was setting and he'd need good light to build himself anything better. Although he was more comfortable in his linen clothes and bedroll, the dark lord still tossed and turned as he tried to sleep. He wasn't hungry. He had been conjuring up some nutritious, but tasteless, field rations to sustain him. He wasn't in pain. He was merely tired, not injured. And he wasn't lonely. The solitude his farm granted him was soothing, like a balm.

  So what was keeping him awake? Before he could figure it out, the sun began to rise in the hazy sky. He rose and stretched, cracking his neck like he always did to start his day. But instead of surveying the troops or scrutinizing yesterday's rituals, he marched along the walls and analyzed his plants. Were they growing at all? Were they withering away?

  Then he saw the legions of scrubby new growths that had emerged during the night. He glowered at the twisted, scraggly weeds that dared to grow alongside his terro. He yanked the first out of the soil, noting its pathetic root system. How dare it try to steal nutrients from his terro? He crushed it in his fist and made sure to burn the intruders with purifying fire. He didn't want weeds to spread.

  But as he looked out at his field, he saw that the battle was already lost. Hundreds and hundreds of brown, ratty weeds had invaded, as though he himself had invited them in! What was this? How could they have grown so quickly? What was feeding them? What was drawing them?

  Something must have attracted them to his field because they were growing in a familiar, blasphemous pattern. The weeds had sprouted in a basic hex pattern that was designed to sicken and weaken all living things within! But he had written the hex when...

  His attention was drawn to his sixty-six scarecrows keeping guard on their posts. He had written the hex into their construction, granting them potent repelling auras that would keep the crows out of his terro. Actually, he had designed the hex to be strong enough to kill them instantly if they landed on his field. So had the overpowered hex drawn in the weeds?

  Malachar sighed. Being a heavy-handed guardian wasn't going to help the terro grow. In fact, it would hinder their development. He yawned as he trudged up to the first scarecrow. The curse would stay, but he would reduce the intensity so that it would just suggest that the crows should stay away, not destroy them utterly. The adjustment took less than five minutes, but he had sixty-five more of the damned things to alter. He rubbed his eyes. Today was going to be a long day.

  After he recalibrated his scarecrows' hexes, he turned his attention to the weeds. He didn't have time to pluck each and every one out of his field. The labor was mindless drudgery and not worth his time. But it needed doing...

  A grin spread across his face. He knew just the ones who were absolutely perfect for mindless drudgery. He scrawled the lines of the necromantic sigil outside of the field so as not to contaminate the terro with dark magic and uttered the words that would call the dead to rise yet again.

  He wasn't worried about not finding enough bodies to raise. This was the Ashlands. There was one corpse for every ten square feet of the region. When the first skeletal hands clawed their way from the wasted soil, he wasn't surprised. After too long a time, six skeletons stood at attention. Unlike the cheeky demon, these creatures knew who was their master.

  Malachar paced in front of his new recruits. “Gentlemen, I have called you here to serve me yet again, but it is a different kind of slaughter I need from you.”

  No one answered. Skeletons were not talkative and that was what Malachar liked about them.

  He led them into his field and showed them the weeds. “These,” he commanded, “must be ripped from the dirt like you would pull a mewling babe from its mother's dying arms.”

  The dark lord heard a chattering and clacking of excited jaws. Skeletons couldn't speak, but they still took pride in their work.

  “But!” Malachar continued. “Do not remove these! These plants are called terro and I need them for my ultimate plan.”

  Malachar didn't need to elaborate. The skeleton troops didn't need to know what his ultimate plan actually was. They were just there to do the job, whatever job he needed.

  “You have your orders! Get to work!” Malachar commanded.

  Eagerly, the skeletons set to their task. Malachar lingered for a while, ensuring that they understood what to pick and what to leave alone, but soon became confident in their work. The entire field would be weeded before the day was done. He didn't like how disorderly the terro grew, but their roots were shallow enough for him to replant them.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  He stood for a moment, looking over his field and his workers, assessing its progress. Yes, soon he would have a field full of terro. But what would he do with ugly potatoes that screamed and bled? What was the point of ensuring these nightmare plants thrived at all? Would they thrive? Would they even survive?

  He looked at the looming clouds as they billowed on the horizon. He knew that a storm was coming. Would it be a fierce, hellish gale? Or would it be a light downpour? And, most importantly, would it be raining blood? As if from a lacerated scar?

  He hoped so. For the sake of his potatoes. And they were his potatoes. He accepted the burden of responsibility. Yes, they were his and he would ensure they grew to harvest. Because he would harvest them, he decided. He would harvest them no matter what.

  He worked alongside the skeletons for the rest of the day, replanting the terro into tight, orderly lines. It would be easier to harvest and keep their ranks free of weeds. But mostly, he liked the look of the straight lines. It showed there was some intention and purpose to this mad endeavor. And when he replanted all six-hundred and sixty-six terro plants, he allowed himself to use his magic and reconstruct the outpost's roof. The outpost was perfect and would be far more tactical than his indefensible lean-to. He didn't build it for comfort, of course. It was a sound strategy, to have a home base.

  ****

  The blood rain came with the fury of a hundred thousand damned souls. As he sat on his bed, which he had upgraded from his bedroll, he could hear the ground outside being churned by the violent downpour. Malachar hoped his plants would survive the abuse. He had invested too much time into them to have them all die in a single night.

  He held a hand out of the window. It faced east, so that the sun would wake him as it rose over the shadowed land on its path to ultimately die. That's what the sun did. It rose only to die and do it all over again.

  Somehow, the thought, nearly identical to what he had a couple of days ago, was comforting. When he pulled his hand back inside, it was red and sticky with blood. He was pleased with the turn of events. Tomorrow, he would inspect his plants for growth.

  He settled down into his bed and realized how much he had missed it. The fireside bedrolls at the battle camps were always good, but having something comfortable and your own was undeniably better. Malachar pulled the blanket he had found in his necrotic shadow realm and closed his eyes for sleep.

  “Ash King, what are you doing?”

  Malachar's eyes snapped open at the sound of the voice. He leaped out of bed and summoned his fiery greatsword but didn't see any intruders. In the thick darkness, he could only see the light of the flames licking along his blade and...oh.

  A phantasmal shape hovered over his bed. Though he was immaterial, Malachar could tell that the ghost, when alive, had been burned to death. His crispy skin flaked off his limbs and he could see the raw muscles underneath. The face of the ghost was unreadable, lacking any lips or eyebrows to give him an emotional tell.

  “What do you want, spirit?” Malachar demanded.

  The ghost lowered himself to be at eye-level with the dark lord. “I want only answers. So I will ask again. What are you doing?”

  Malachar shook out the flame of his sword. “I do not answer to the likes of spirits and shades. Be gone.”

  The ghost shook his head. “Then destroy me. Consign me to the sweet embrace of total obliteration. You owe me that much.”

  “Do I?” Malachar asked.

  “You do not like to leave things unfinished,” the ghost said. “And you condemned my entire town to burn at the stake.”

  The dark lord sat on his bed. It seemed like this was going to take a while. “You will have to be more specific.”

  “You sentenced us all to death for refusing your terms of surrender. My family and friends, they all have moved on. Only I remain, for whatever reason,” the ghost said.

  “Sometimes the wheel of fate gets stuck,” Malachar said. “Entire schools of magic have been formed around that funny little quirk of life and death. I should know. Do you want the release of true death?”

  The ghost lowered its head. “I have been in this outpost for so long.”

  “And I have a lot of work to do tomorrow. So, let's be quick about this,” Malachar said.

  “But, why?” the ghost asked.

  Malachar felt his patience begin to unravel. “You were just saying...”

  “No,” the ghost said. “I mean, why do you have a lot of work to do tomorrow? Why are you here? What are you doing, fiddling with little plants that are ultimately going to die in this land of rot and ruin?”

  “Why?” Malachar asked, his voice rising into a shout. His eyes burned alongside his reignited sword. “You dare ask me why?”

  The ghost held out its arms wide, sending little insubstantial flecks of char to fly off his body. “What are you going to do about it? Kill me? I have nothing to fear from you.”

  Malachar doused his sword and ran a hand over his face. “You wish to know why I'm doing this.”

  “Yes,” the ghost reaffirmed.

  The dark lord let out a weary breath. “I don't exactly know why. All I know is that I've been happier fretting over these spindly little scrubs than I have been in a long, long time.”

  The ghost hovered for a time. “You aren't reforming your army for another invasion?”

  “No,” Malachar said.

  “Not designing another plague to send out in advance of your troops?”

  “No.”

  “Not plotting to burn and salt the fields?”

  “No,” Malachar said.

  “And this isn't atonement for all the death and suffering and massacres you've caused over the centuries?”

  Malachar snorted. “Of course not.”

  The ghost smirked. Or, at least, it looked like the ghost's face stretched to try and smirk. “Then I guess that's as good of an answer as any. I'm ready.”

  Using a simple, necromantic spell, Malachar held out his hand and dematerialized the ghost. And as the specter faded into nothingness, the dark lord sank into his bed, feeling like the magic had taken more out of him than it should have.

  Was he feeling...guilt? No, he decided, curling up deeper into the blanket. He was just tired. Today had been a big day and he needed sleep. He needed rest. He shut his eyes but sleep didn't come. Really? He wondered. A whole town? Burned at the stake? Seemed terribly inefficient. A waste of wood, if anything.

  But any regret or remorse he felt was washed away by the steady sound of the blood rain falling on the roof of his outpost. Of his new home.