The Undying Emperor [Grand Conquest Fantasy]

By the time the night set on the isle of the gatekeepers, Lucius had excavated three hidden rooms but not found the reaping blade. Among the lost chambers was a bathhouse, now flooded by the sea, and a library without a single legible word left in it. The bookshelves were broken down for kindling as the spring night took on winter's lingering edge.

The isle was a cornucopia of life, but he and the crew hesitated to feast on it. Two more men had worked up the courage to toil upon the isle, proving themselves true comrades with their crewmate. Together they were four, and thus outnumbered the mad gatekeepers. Uneasiness tempered even their stomachs that night. One of them had speared one of the fat carps from the lagoon, filching the turtle's dinner right from its maw. They seared it atop the little blaze, until fat dripped from blackened scales and fouled the air, but they ate little of it despite the day's exertion.

After the sunset, Lucius saw one of the gatekeepers step out to the rim of the lagoon. The cold made for poor sleeping, and he wasn't keen on sharing the warmth of bodies the sailors did, so he joined the strange prisoner of the isle. None of the gatekeepers had helped or interfered with their investigation, and the man's attention was still not upon Lucius.

So he watched to see what the old monk had come to see. The fog of the world laid particularly thick around the isle, enough to obscure the shoreline even at the sun's apex, but at night it was like a wall on every side. Starlight glinted down upon the inky waves with the luminescence of a well's bottom. Then he saw the shape slowly surging up and down. Like a submerged boulder it rolled through the sea and into the mouth of the stony lagoon. It rode upon a wave, crashing down with a surge. When the froth abated, an old and scarred whale died upon the stones and bones of the isle, pouring its vitality amidst the algae until fish came to succor like whelps to teat.

"Did you know that would happen?" Lucius asked. The gatekeeper chuckled and ran his mangled fingers across one of the bone blades he had cooked with, now tucked within the strap of leather he used as a sash. Then the strangeness of their robes struck him again. The isle had no plants that could be spun into cloth and he had seen scant evidence of supplies delivered by the temples. Had the robes been old, he would have expected them to be frayed and tattered, but the material was peculiarly whole. Thus, he realized the cloth was not cloth but leather, likely stripped from the regular onslaught of sea creatures.

He could only imagine what it had done to their bodies after so many decades, and part of him suspected it had been a great deal longer than mere decades.

"Do you sleep in this cold?"

The eyeless gatekeeper grinned at him and stated, "Only madmen sleep on this isle."

There was a sense of anathema about the man, and Lucius kept finding his hand drawn to his blade. Of the two gatekeepers with faces to see, both carried marks of age, yet they carried themselves with a strength that defied their myriad injuries. The swordsman in him evaluated the ease with which he might behead the madman, but the demented giant had a spine like a rod of iron. He stayed his sword and said, "By all marks, you three are poor monks. Both in the quality of your duties and your worldly state. All day I have been here and you have done nothing to supplicate the goddess. You have neither fulfilled your earthly tasks. This isle is home to a divine relic and yet the poorest, most feeble-minded farmer of the central kingdoms would shudder to think of regarding any of this gods this way."

The gatekeeper showed little reaction to his words but it was impossible to tell if his muscles might have tensed and coiled beneath his leather robes. "Have you found the reaping blade?"

"No."

"And you believe our task is to protect the reaping blade from those that would take it?"

"Your task seems to be defying the last living angel of your goddess."

Crooked and cracked teeth grinned at him. "What higher honor of the gods is there but doing one's task well? Especially when you detest the purpose you were given."

Their exchange was interrupted by the gatekeeper suddenly turning to face the ruins of the monastery. The lopsided specter of the mute gatekeeper loomed and he lifted his claw to point back. Without a word, the eyeless gatekeeper walked off from Lucius. The boy followed and soon beheld a sight most gruesome. The deaf gatekeeper lay by the cook pot, still twitching but with his head twisted backward. His eyes darted about, but his entire neck had been severed down to the spine.

The eyeless gatekeeper clicked his tongue and knelt in the small pool of blood. Together with the other monk, they rolled the body over and beheld the wound. As Lucius watched, they grabbed the man's head and twisted it back forwards, the flesh squelching and oozing black blood in the moonlight. Then, from a fold in his leather robe, the eyeless gatekeeper produced a loop of sinew, threaded through a bone needle. When he sank it into the pallid flesh of the man's neck, and he quivered, Lucius drew his blade.

"Strip that robe off of him," he ordered.

The eyeless gatekeeper glared up at him, but the mute one rose with hunched shoulders. The pincers of his claw opened and Lucius waited for no more provocation. He stepped in, steel flashing as he cut a cross through the man's chest. The edge parted flesh without so much as giving the twisted creature pause. The claw grasped for Lucius' throat and he interposed his sword. The chitinous grip closed, shoving back against him, and his infantry blade shattered. Off-balance, Lucius stumbled half a step closer, enough for the monstrous weapon to scrape against his chest plates, ripping through and sundering the muscles beneath.

He hissed, jumping back. From his boot, he produced a throwing knife and flicked it into the creature's throat. The blade sunk, staggering the gatekeeper. His next attack was a kick to the creature's knee. What should have been enough to down a fighter instead shattered bone. The gatekeeper fell and the men grappled, Lucius' grip upon the chitinous wrist. Despite its peculiar sharpness, the boy's strength proved greater and he jammed the stump of his blade up through the gatekeeper's jaw and into his brain. He twisted it and shoved the creature to the ground where it lay still.

Then, he beheld the flesh within the robes. Blotched and covered in oozing sores, it was still pallid and soft. Where he had cut open his gut, intestines squirmed as though worms tangled within.

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The eyeless gatekeeper had silently continued stitching his comrade's throat back on. He tied the final knot, clipping it with his jagged teeth. Then, he stood up and stomped his foot upon the man's chest, causing blood and bile to spew from his mouth before the man groaned and whimpered like a child, slowly curling into a ball.

"You can hardly be called men, can you?" Lucius asked. "Has the Shepherd forsaken you?"

The eyeless gatekeeper shook his head as he looked at the ruin Lucius had made. "We shall never know her touch."

Screams echoed across the isle. "A friend?" the gatekeeper asked.

Lucius touched his chest, finding the flesh inside already mended. He gave no answer to the mad gatekeeper and charged back out of the monastery. The fire had dimmed, leaving only degrees of shadow with which to traverse the rocks, but the carcass of the whale proved a suitable landmark, its ghostly skin almost shining in the night. What he came upon was the turtle, maw closed around the chest of one of the sailors, scything through flesh and bone. A lumberous limb stepped down on a dangling foot so it could shred the man in half.

The screams persisted, up at the old shrine where the fire burned. Lucius shouted, but his demands for answers fell on manic, deaf ears. One sailor remained, waving a burning splint even as it seared his palm. Of the four men who had joined Lucius, one was in the turtle's gullet, another had a dagger sprouting from his chest, and a third had the same red gash as the gatekeeper. That one still laid in his bedroll, contorted in the struggle of death as his comrade signaled for help.

"Where's your sword, my man?" Jon Brume asked, perched in the darkness.

Lucius faced the warden blade. Nearly anyone else he would have happily faced unarmed, but he hesitated to gamble between Jon Brume's stigmata and his own, even with the acceleration given by the isle's abundant life force. "You know, I suspected someone might have followed me here, even if only a fool would move as fast as I did. I should have expected no one else, Jon."

The former prisoner laughed and let his dagger glint in the moonlight. "You're a real monster, you know that, Solhart?"

"My enemies tend to say that," he said, casting his eyes about the carnage. He expected one of the other sailors had brought a knife, but he could see none.

"Are you actually Lucius von Solhart?"

"People keep asking that as if Lucius von Solhart was anybody before he was the hero of Rackvidd. Or do you think I'm some face-shifting homunculus, who also evidently has the ability to heal, that stole his body after that?" he asked, edging closer to the fire. He hoped that one of the broken hafts of furniture might serve as a bludgeon, but the sailor had already taken the only sturdy piece.

Brume rose and hopped off his stone mount. The pressure of his stigmata already weighed upon the whole shrine, a touch of mortality to the undying. "I'm just asking. I'm curious! Of all the people you could have become, why would you choose him? Why not one of the princes? No, I suppose the angel would have spotted you at once. I can't fault you there, can I? Jules Feugard then. Not handsome enough for you? You do so love the company of women, don't you?"

"I guess you wouldn't understand."

"The Montisferro then. You wouldn't have had to fight."

"And disregard my talent? You are mad, aren't you?"

"A touch, perhaps. Nothing compared to these freaks."

"You mean them?" Lucius asked, gesturing to the three figures standing upon the roof of the monastery. The sight stunned Brume and Lucius was upon him. He had no weapon but hand and fist, but he had armor and the confidence that the moment Brume died, he would be able to heal. They fought in shadow, blows landing upon nothing more than guards as slices opened upon Lucius' wrists and face. He had to restrain himself from his typical recklessness, which dulled his reflexes.

Then Brume caught him by the sleeve of his linen under-coat. The Blade of Night had rolled his own sleeves before the killing began, girded by nothing more than a leather vest. The twist of fabric, hooked by his fingers, pulled the the two men close so that he could sink his dagger into Lucius' armpit.

The gambling lion did not flinch from death. The moment he felt the pull on his arm, he stepped in and stabbed with his fingers. Brume pulled back but not fast enough. Lucius gouged into the man's eye and he howled, dagger yanking back and sinking into Lucius' forearm. Their bodies as close as lovers, Lucius grabbed him by his belt and hauled, throwing Brume back across the stones. The man tumbled and rolled, falling down the slope and vanishing into shadows.

The boy had to rip the dagger from his arm. Blood poured out of the wound and he still felt the touch of Brume's stigmata. The man wasn't dead, but perhaps unarmed. He was cutting a bandage from the coat of one of the dead men when the surviving sailor ran past him. The man scrambled down from the shrine as the distant ship flashed a signal back. He leapt into one of the rowboats and shoved off, without Lucius.

The boy didn't flee. Even while he was still tying the knot on his makeshift bandage, he climbed down the shadowy rocks. No corpse awaited him. He followed the shore, ears sharp. Every bird on the isle seemed to have already taken flight but the wash of waves drowned out the crunch of gravel. Before he knew it, he was back at the entrance steps of the monastery.

"He'll leave," the eyeless gatekeeper said, his butchered companions beside him. "Take his boat and flee, leave you here with us."

"No, he won't," Lucius said, mounting the steps.

"Your ship will leave you now as well," the eyeless gatekeeper said.

"No, they won't."

They laughed at him. "You are young."

"I think that's the first thing you've said that wasn't a lie," Lucius said, grinning back at the madman. "You don't guard the reaping blade, do you? You three are the reaping blade."

The gatekeeper frowned. "You've lost your senses faster than I expected."

Lucius slashed with the dagger. He could only keep a loose grip, but the gatekeeper's throat parted like rotting flesh. Little blood spilled out. The mute gatekeeper stumbled forward, but his muscles had not yet fused together. A strike from Lucius' good hand re-shattered his skull and downed him before the wicked claw could cut him again. As the eyeless gatekeeper fell to his knees, the last of the madmen tried to ask a question. From the shape of his mouth, Lucius suspected the man might have been trying to ask what year it was, but air could not pass through his severed throat. No more resistance came as Lucius sent them on to the Shepherd's embrace.

Their disfigured forms proved to be the relic itself. The spines of the two tall gatekeepers had been replaced with the arcane metal of the weapon's shaft while the blade had fused with the third man's arm, forming the chitinous claw like a scab. When he dug into their bodies, flesh fell away from metal the moment his hand seized the parts.

The angel's warning proved true. Fitted together, the weapon was a burdensome thing. Lucius could do naught but sling it over his shoulder and trudge with it, but the weapon was powerful in a way no ley cannon could ever compare to.

For his part, Brume watched in disgust. The extraction sickened even his black soul. When he saw how heavy Lucius' footsteps became beneath the angel's scythe, he prowled like a leopard. The injuries across his body were forgotten as he moved with utmost stealth back across the isle and to the remaining rowboat. He waited for his opportunity, the moment when Lucius would be off-balance from setting the relic down, then stole up behind him to plant a dagger through his heart.

For all the months he had spent with Lucius, he had never realized that the boy could tell when his stigmata weighed upon him. Lucius had no need to see or hear the man's approach and before Brume could touch him the man was split in twain by the reaping blade.