The third book (counting Demonsbane) written for Diablo is The Black Road. The book tells the story of Darrick Lang who was abused as a child by his father. Because of this Darrick and his best friend Mat Hu-Ring escape from their childhood town and head to Westmarch. At Westmarch Darrick meets a master fencer and proves to be a very good fencer although insubordinate. After his fencing master died, Darrick and his friend Mat join the Westmarch navy and Darrick even manages to get promoted to officer.
As an officer, Darrick led several missions with one of them being to rescue the King's nephew from the hands of the pirate Captain Raithen. While on this mission Darrick and Mat saw Buyard Cholik (an ex Zakarum priest) release the demon Kabraxis. They tried to flee but Kabraxis wasn't having none of that. He chased after them causing Mat to fall off a cliff.
Darrick holds himself responsible for this and gives into drinking. He journeys from town to town until he meets with Taramis Volken, a demon hunter. With the help of Taramis, and a sword called Stormfury, Darrick manages to kill Buyard and Kabraxis.
The book is written by Mel Odom who has also written many famous novels including the Blade, Buffy, and Angel series novels.
My opinion of the book was that it was pretty well written, but I did not really like the main character. He comes across as irritating especially in the late parts of the book where he constantly whines about his father. Given that, the story is very good and creative and any Diablo fan will have a good time reading this book.
The book can be found below in it's original format:
Or if you prefer to get more value for your money, you can get the Diablo Archive which contains The Black Road and 3 other Diablo novels: