Vol 6, Chapter 11

◆ Capital, Countess Erin von Klaus's POV. ◆


The boar's long, brown bristles stuck out in every direction, making it resemble a two-meter hedgehog. Its beady eyes squinted, scanning the capital's street for danger.

Moist nostrils drew in unfamiliar scents. Its tiny brain struggled to sort out the most important: predators had passed here. Instinct urged it to flee, but where? The smells were everywhere.

Hesitating, the demonic hog lowered its snout and licked up the blood that had pooled thickly on the cobblestones.

Its short ears twitched reflexively. Someone was ahead. The unnatural sound of metal scraping stone approached. The boar backed away from the puddle, shaking its head uneasily.

It didn't want to face what lay ahead, but it feared what was behind even more.

Finally grasping that simple thought, the boar lowered its head and, snorting furiously, charged toward the humans. Tusks smeared with human blood reminded it that two-legs weren't so dangerous. Its heavy hooves chipped fragments from the cobbles. The paving stones cracked as if struck by a steel hammer.

People reacted, scattering. None hoped to halt the charge of a creature weighing several tons. No armor could save one caught beneath that mountain of flesh.

Only one man remained in its path. He wore no armor, but his narrow blade was covered in blood… or was it simply crimson by nature? The boar lunged, angling its head to skewer him on protruding tusks. But the man was no longer there. A brief flash, so fast the beast didn't have time to blink, and its eye burst with pain. Its legs buckled, its massive head slammed into the cobbles, smashing its snout to bloody pulp. Tusks tore up paving blocks, flinging them aside.

Its muscular neck snapped.

The carcass tumbled, crashing into a butcher's stall. Wood shattered to splinters. A crash and a cloud of dust as a house groaned. A crack zigzagged up the wall, a woman's scream rang out inside.

The carcass convulsed among bundles of its butchered kin and broken beams.

"Lady!"

Erin flicked brain matter from her sword.

"Keep moving. We must reach the port and cut off the landing of these beasts!"

Her uncle had spent a small fortune bribing a ship's captain. He was supposed not only to miss greeting the portal guests but to block any ship daring to approach the harbor. What, by the Abyss, had he been doing? Judging by the number of beasts, an entire fleet had come calling!

The guards regrouped quickly, glancing back at the hog's bulk jutting into the street, too large to fit in the shop. Despite their unease, the swine didn't try to rise or leave the place clearly meant for it. Ironically, in the Commonwealth such creatures were raised for meat.

Not all were so "harmless." Erin clearly heard a manticore's roar nearby, and along the way they had already encountered chimeras. Alas, while they had gathered their forces at the city walls to face the Second Duke's assault, the enemy had sown true chaos in the rear.

Street after street it was the same. Blood, destruction, torn bodies. After Condor's arrest, Uncle Nerd had dared to spread rumors of the coming attack across the Capital. Some had fled, some had prepared, but most dismissed it as idle nonsense.

Now their blood ran in rivers through the streets.

The sounds of battle grew louder, as did the manticore's roar.

Whoever was around that corner, they would have to join forces.

"Ready the bolt-throwers, we'll need to distract it," she ordered, raising a hand. The guards swapped magazines, loading enchanted bolts—the only thing that could harm a manticore enough. With clicks, the springs drew back.

"Aim for the head. The rest, cover the shooters," she reminded, steadying her breathing.

A manticore was a deadly foe. Sending ordinary guards against it was like feeding it chicks. And to face it alone, even with ranged support… No. She was sure she could win, but it would cost precious time.

Maybe they could go around? Take a detour, try to reach the port along another street? But who knew what lay there? And how many citizens the beast would slaughter in the meantime?

"Ready? Forward!"

Erin rounded the corner and… lowered her sword. She had been wrong.

The manticore was roaring in pain.

A massive warrior, armored head to toe, pinned its muzzle to the ground. A blow! Steel gauntlet met jaw. Crunch! A fang flew free, spattering blood. Its roar turned to a whimper. Its paws were broken, its torn-off tail lay nearby. Another blow! And another!

The crunch of bones gave way to wet smacks, even the manticore's thick skull caving in. Each strike was like a sledgehammer. The beast only twitched now, as the warrior kept hammering, splattering blood in every direction.

Behind her, the shooters lowered their weapons, watching the brutal beating.

The manticore seemed small… No. Wait. The warrior was simply enormous. Far too large for a human.

Finished, he rose. Nearly three meters tall. Blackened armor and sealed helm smeared with bone and flesh. Streams of blood cascaded from his greaves. He raised a hand and tried to wipe his visor with the back of his gauntlet. Metal grated harshly.

"Who are you, warrior? I see no colors or sigil of a house on you," the Countess addressed him, rifling through her memory for anyone of such stature.

Alas, even the tallest brute she knew, Baron Aluin—stood several heads shorter.

The warrior remained silent. Failing to wipe his helm clean, he groped along the cobblestones until he found his two-handed hammer.

A grim premonition touched Erin. If he could barely see from inside the helm, why didn't he take it off? Or at least raise the visor?

Looking closer, she realized—the helm wasn't just closed, it was completely sealed. So much so it was unclear how the wearer even breathed, for there were no slits for air. Even the dark recesses before the eyes were not openings at all, but covered by something like dark crystal.

Erin had never seen anything like it. She might have assumed it was some humanoid creature crafted by the Commonwealth, if not for the fact that he had just slain a manticore.

So he was on their side?

The warrior hefted his hammer, massive enough to match his size, and froze. He didn't seem intent on attacking.

"Very well… we'll just go around him," Erin ordered, and the squad edged along the side of the street, passing the strange knight. He gave no reaction.

Step by step, they left him behind. But ahead… the stench of blood sickened several guards.

Where once the streets had held the remains of civilians, here they were buried beneath monsters smashed by a hammer. And there was always more blood in a beast than in a man…

There was so much that it ran down the drains like rainwater. The walls of the houses were spattered with gore up to the second floor, and crimson rivulets coursed along the cobbles.

The iron tang was so thick it seemed it might congeal into mist. Erin shivered.

Not from the bloodbath. With every step the air grew colder. An icy wind swept down the street, far too frigid for late summer.

After a few blocks, the secret revealed itself.

The port.

One glance told the whole story. The streets were dusted with snow. An icy shock had frozen everything for several blocks: warehouses, houses, people. Here and there stood frozen statues of workers and fishermen, locked forever in their final poses.

They even found the ship meant to guard the harbor. Entombed in ice, crew and all. Its sails, brittle with frost, cracked and fell with the gusts of wind onto the ice that only recently had been the sea. But worst of all—the frozen water stretched for kilometers, a narrow band running to the horizon.

The Countess could have sworn this ice bridge led straight to the portal island. No guards were visible. Which meant…

"Quickly! We must reach the portal!" the Countess ordered.

She knew that scarcely a dozen guards could do little. Were she the enemy, she would have fortified the island to the utmost. But… this was a direct path into the capital, bypassing all city walls. If there was any chance to ruin these plans, she had to seize it.

Even if it killed them all.

Meltwater splashed beneath their feet. The guards panted behind, unprepared for a forced march, yet all followed her without hesitation. Strangely, on the way to the island, they met… nothing. No beasts. No guards.

And the closer they came, the clearer it became: the portal was inactive. Even from afar it was plain—the arch was shattered, and not a single mage remained.

Slippery ice gave way to familiar, reliable melted rock. A battle had taken place here, but only one body stood, frozen in place behind the broken portal. In its hand—a hammer. On its arm—the colors of House Condor. One of the Count's recruited men.

Pinkish water dripped from the warrior. Like the bridge, he too was slowly melting under the sun's rays.

Without doubt, he had destroyed the portal and saved them from something far worse.

"We… we must take the body for honorable burial," she said haltingly.

A hand touched her shoulder. A guard.

"My lady, that knight… he is following us," he said anxiously.

The Countess turned. The black figure trudged slowly across the bridge, two-handed hammer in hand. He was coming straight toward them, and there would be no passing him. All around was the sea.

They were trapped.

**************************************************

◆ Royal Palace, shadow-assassin Autumn's POV. ◆


Killing mages was difficult. Even one with only a spark of the Gift might have some useful talent for survival. A sense of danger was common to those who wielded magic. And those at the top? All the more so.

But Autumn, who had spent decades eliminating the highest-ranking within the Commonwealth, could say with certainty—killing mages was easy. Easier, at least, than killing dragons.

The human body was frail; no matter how enhanced, it still fell short of those noble creatures. A man stronger than others became prey to arrogance. Pride. A sense of his own immortality.

A mage forgot that he was still human. And a human dies when you drive six inches of steel into his heart. Killing within a palace, where shadows and gloom lingered, was far, far easier than upon the open sea, where Autumn was accustomed to work.

The time had come. The signal was given.

The flame of a candle wavered, casting shadows. Autumn drew an obsidian dagger and tested its edge. The King was just beyond the wall, in the adjoining room. More precisely, in the small dining hall. Dining, suspecting nothing.

His shadow fell perfectly. The assassin matched his pose, testing a few thrusts into the air. Yes. Perfect.

Normally he would not bother. But one did not add the title "Kingslayer" to one's resume every day.

Autumn called upon his Gift, upon the shadows. The power washed over him with a piercing cold. A fleeting instant stretched into long minutes of emptiness. He knew his body had vanished, become shadow. Yet the King's shadow was not his own—time ran differently in the void. In a fight, that helped. You had time to think everything through in the span of a single step.

But now, when all that remained was to wait for the very moment…

Autumn was not prone to philosophy. He had always been a practical man. But it was hard not to think of such things when traversing the void. Even he did not fully understand what his power was, or its limits. Others understood even less. How he despised the Commonwealth's scholars lecturing him about the nature of light, hoping it would strengthen his magic. Ha.

He knew better than any of them: his Gift was not merely shadow. It was always the boundary. The line between light and dark. Between talent and mediocrity. Between being and not-being.

And his work was to sever the being of others.

The obsidian dagger manifested from shadow, its edge catching the candle's flame. Though the strike had to be made with his left hand, it was no handicap.

Autumn was equally skilled with both.

The blow was perfect, aimed at the temple. In that fraction of a second the King had left to live, there was no time to react.

But it was not the King who reacted. The crown flared with a blinding blue light, scattering his magic. The shadows burned, even the cold receded before the searing rays. The King, who only a moment before had been smugly whistling as he chewed turkey, leaned forward like a seasoned warrior. Fast. Devilishly fast.

But not fast enough to avoid it completely. The blade sliced part of his ear, cut skin, and trimmed his hair. Far from mortal damage.

The King's hands moved as if with a will of their own. One, with a gesture of general magic, snuffed the flame. The other turned all steel in the room into sharp needles and sent them flying at Autumn.

The assassin called upon his Gift again and leapt. Using the new shadows cast by the crown's light, he teleported to a column. Far. Too far from the King to strike with a dagger, but the best position he had left.

The minutes of subjective time were enough to form a new plan. He would throw the dagger. The King could not deflect obsidian. A strike to the eye would kill him as surely as any other.

Steel needles pierced the void. Autumn emerged behind the column, escaping the grasp of nonexistence. The dagger was ready, but…

Autumn shuddered inwardly at what he saw. Each needle altered its path to converge with the others in one point. An impossible level of control. Simply impossible.

The needles merged into a smooth plate in midair. A shield against his poised dagger?

No. A weapon.

The crown blazed again. In a second the plate warped into an impossibly complex figure, riddled with hemispheres. A moment later Autumn understood why. The crown's light refracted and seared him, nearly breaking his cast and dragging him from shadow. Panic seized him as he sought a place to leap, but none remained. Every space behind the columns was lit. The light had torn every shadow in the room to shreds. The few half-shadows left were too weak to bear his "weight."

No. There was a shadow. One shadow. The one directly beneath the damned contraption, for in channeling the crown's light, it created shadow.

Autumn leapt there, and realized.

Checkmate.

A trap. From the King's left hand a new cast was ready to spring. Something from general magic, raw power meant to tear him apart without any unnecessary effects or flourishes.

He could not cancel the leap, not now. To do so would mean being trapped in the void forever. It would devour him whole and that was the worst death of all. Better to be torn apart by plain old magic.

His last minute ticked away. Autumn no longer sought escape. He thought.

And came to only one conclusion—the King had even more time than he did. Not merely time. It was as if the King had split his mind. No human, no matter how much of a genius, could possess such ability. The ability to plan so perfectly, to act with such clarity. The thought alone of what he faced chilled Autumn.

And he had lost.

Autumn reappeared. The King's finger already aimed at that spot. The crown shone blindingly, as though gloating in triumph… The crown! Abyss, of course! All he needed was to strike the crown…

Even professionals make mistakes.

And there he was, fully corporeal. Dagger raised for a throw, muscles completing the motion though his mind knew—it was already too late.

Too late?

His arm moved in a flawless arc, the dagger slipped from his fingers.

How?

The spell never left the King's finger. The crown went dark.

Autumn felt the triumphant howl of the void. Its hunger. Inhuman hunger. Though the shadows had returned, he felt he could not move a step within them. Where his Gift once let him pass between the "teeth" of the void, now there was a wall. As if being itself had become nonbeing.

Clang. The dagger shattered on the crown, but the impact knocked it from the royal head. Autumn lunged at the King, drawing his spare dagger.

From the first teleport into the dining hall only seconds had passed.

The King turned in shock to face the assassin. Pieces of turkey still in his mouth. He had no idea what had just happened. Stripped of the crown, he was disoriented, as if part of his mind had been torn away.

Autumn slammed into him, knocking him from his chair, raising the dagger. The King lifted his hands to shield himself.

The strike!

Sometimes you had to get dirty. Obsidian daggers were poor tools for severing heads.

Blood spilled. Formally blue, yet in truth quite ordinary. Killing mages was easy… but this one had been terribly difficult. Autumn wrenched the crowned head free of its spine and hurled it onto the table. No more surprises.

The killing had taken ten seconds. Seven of those were spent sawing off the head.

Sparse applause echoed in the room.

Autumn turned toward the exit of the dining hall. Two men stood in the doorway. The Third Prince clapped and smiled approvingly. The other—a count, judging by his bearing—held a goblet of wine in one hand and an open coffer in the other.

From the coffer emanated an unbearable stench of void and inhuman hunger.

"Splendid, but I would have preferred you handled it without my aid, Monsieur Autumn."

The assassin rose slowly, wiping his nicked dagger on the King's mantle. Now he understood why the King's spell had failed. Why he still lived. The damned artifact of the zealots!

The Prince stopped clapping, took the goblet from his minion, and approached his father's head.

"So crude. And how am I to bury him like this? Couldn't you have killed him with a clean strike to the temple? Ah, I jest! Don't look so grim. I take no offense—everything went as planned." The Prince laughed merrily.

Oh yes, he was in excellent spirits.

Autumn watched the madman warily. If his jumps were not blocked, he would already have slipped through a shadow into the next chamber where a candle still burned. But alas, the artifact drained everything, even royal blood evaporating into crimson mist. Strange indeed, that even that bizarre crown had not instilled as much dread in him as this young man did. The void seemed to peel away his cover, revealing his essence.

The Prince stepped on the crown and kicked it disdainfully into a far corner.

"Why so silent? You've achieved your dream. Everyone will know you as the King's killer. Trust me, I'll see to that! Autumn, Kingslayer. How does that sound?"

"Thank you," the assassin replied warily. Perhaps, if he forced the count to close the coffer, he could still escape?

"Think nothing of it. It was preordained. But you know, I must admit—my plan did fail in one regard. Yes, imagine that."

Autumn tensed further. When someone began revealing their plans, it meant only one thing—they would soon try to kill you.

"Do tell, if you please," the assassin said politely, buying time.

"The plan was simple, as always. Use others for my own ends. You, for instance—you killed the King for me. And when I summon a necromancer, he will confirm that the King was slain by the envoy of the Commonwealth. Unpleasant, isn't it?"

"The new King will not investigate," Autumn cast the bait.

"Who can say? I am open to suggestions. Perhaps I won't."

"Not you."

"Ah, the Second Duke. Oh, Vitor, did you know an army approaches the capital, and our defenses cannot withstand it? Oh no, whatever shall we do!" the Third Prince mocked.

The envoy's eyes flicked to the Count. A precise throw might slam the lid shut. Even a second would be enough to flee. The question was only how to survive that second while the dagger flew.

The Prince flicked the nose of his father's severed head with a finger and sipped wine.

"But, as I said, not everything goes my way. A disgrace, really! I gave him everything he needed. Carefully prepared incriminating evidence on each one, so he could execute my enemies without losing face. And he simply let them go! Even I did not expect him to be so spineless. Can you imagine?"

Autumn took a step back, placing the table between them. The Prince noticed instantly.

"You bore me. I truly wished to chat with you, boast a little, complain a little. But alas, you make for no better company than a stool… I'll have to kill you."

Autumn flinched, but he didn't even manage to let his dagger fly. The Prince appeared beside him in an instant. In his hands—a sword. A sword dripping with his blood. Pain lanced his throat. His body failed him.

"And where am I to find a clever enough corpse to converse with now? Eh, Vitor?" the Prince said, drinking more wine.

He hadn't spilled a drop while delivering the blow that beheaded the assassin.

"A tenth of a second, my friend. But no matter—in another life, you might learn. If your soul is lucky enough not to be devoured… Vitor, shut that foul thing! Quickly!"

The Count, murmuring apologies, closed the coffer in which lay a long, inhuman fang.

The Prince lifted a second head and set it on the table beside his father's.

"Well then, you know what comes next. As for me, I'll step onto the balcony, get some air. It feels a bit… empty in here."

Grabbing a bottle of wine from the table, he headed toward his goal.

From the palace heights the city lay clearly before him.

Screams, blood, monsters rampaged through the streets, yet his trained specimens cut them down with ruthless efficiency. Of course, the valiant saviors could not be shown to the people without full armor, but even so, the people would be grateful. A pity he had so few of them. If only the laboratory under the Black Forest were still his, he would have not only doubled their numbers, but perhaps even completed the Beast Project. Still, materials from the Commonwealth would serve. Though in that case, it would be odd to call it the Beast if its basis was an insect, wouldn't it?

Sipping wine, he admired the Capital. His Capital.

The Second Prince was gone. The First had departed the Kingdom by chance, but that mattered little. He would be eliminated in the coming war with the Theocracy. The Fourth, bereft of support, would also fall, this time by the hand of the First Duke. That would not only rid him of a nuisance, but aid in the war with the Theocracy by weakening the First Duchy.

As for the Second Duke… he was reasonable. He only needed to be shown the truth, and he would make a deal. He was far too shrewd not to.

So everything was proceeding perfectly. Already nothing could threaten his rise to the throne.

A pity for this world, perhaps, but those who had created it had every right to destroy it. Merely a settling of debts.

The Third Prince, or rather the new King, raised his bottle in a toast to his reign. Reflected in it was the ice bridge stretching toward the Commonwealth. Cowards, who hadn't even dared to send their battle mages alongside the chimeras… their stinginess would come back to haunt them soon enough.

A dark speck marred the bridge. The King lifted his empty bottle. To reshape glass was difficult even for earth mages. Or rather, for earth mages whose knowledge had decayed over millennia.

The glass flowed into lenses, guided by currents of mana. They aligned of their own accord into the most typical mage-scope.

The King adjusted the focus and looked closer. The portal island was littered with corpses. The hammer had mangled them beyond counting, but there were about a dozen. A small figure, tiny compared to the specimen, retreated along the bridge toward the shore, pursued by the warrior. His two-handed hammer swung like a feather, each stroke raising gusts of wind. One hit, and not even a knight in full plate would survive, let alone a girl in a light doublet.

But again and again she dodged, even counterattacking, aiming for the specimen's legs. Logical enough: cripple him and she might escape. Yet it went poorly. The light strikes he simply took on stronger parts of his armor, and whenever the Countess's sword glowed blue, signaling a family technique, the warrior sprang aside with phenomenal agility, leaving her strike to crash uselessly into the bridge.

The King watched the fight, drinking straight from the bottle. He waited for von Klaus to finally exhaust herself. If he took her alive, she would be yet another bargaining chip to use with the Second Duke.

But the girl refused to give up. She tired, while the specimen could not tire at all.

Strange that she didn't simply try to flee. True, she could not have escaped, but she could at least have tried.

The dance went on. The Prince was already growing bored when a column of spray leapt into the air. When it cleared, only the weary girl stood on the bridge, staring intently at the collapsed span. The severed slab of ice bobbed on the water, while the armored warrior sank beneath. It seemed the Countess was a bit cleverer than he had thought…

"Ah, old gods! I should have sent two…" The King shook his head in disappointment and hurled the empty bottle down.

It was time to go to the fortress wall.

The Second Duke would be arriving soon.

For a deal he would not be able to refuse.