by Dante King
If these monks wanted a fight, they would get one.
“All right,” I said as the other monks closed in on me. “No more Mr. Nice God. Nobody attacks my friends and gets away with it, blind or not.”
Two more launched themselves into the air with flying kicks. I dived forward, cutting a curving arc between them. They both missed me, one sailing over me and the other going under my dive. I hit the ground and rolled forward. I jumped to my feet and leaped back to avoid a downward-chopping axe kick from the head monk. The impact of his strike smashed a small crater into the stone floor.
“Is that the best you can do?” I asked as I sprang to my feet, fists balled, legs bouncy and ready to jump or kick in a millisecond. I could have drawn my weapons to kill them, but I needed these guys alive.
“Your arrogance will be your undoing, foreign devil!” the head monk yelled. Then he shouted something in Yengish, and all the monks came charging at me at once.
I bobbed and ducked and weaved, narrowly dodging three lighting-fast typhoon kicks aimed at my head by three separate monks. Fists like maces crunched into my ribs from two others though; as fast as I was, I couldn’t dodge them all. A split second after these blows landed, a heavy chopping kick slammed into the side of my knee. When the follow-up sweep came, I was able to leap over it, despite the sharp pain rocketing up my leg. While airborne, I spun around and smashed an approaching monk with a spinning kick of my own. His friend hurtled through the air at me with a flying knee attack, but I ducked under his knee, grabbed his shoulder with one arm and his trailing calf with the other, and swiveled my hips. He crashed into another monk who was coming at me with a stomping frontal kick.
I’d barely gotten my feet planted on the ground when two more monks came at me from my left and right. I had to block with both arms and turn a blinding flurry of punches aimed at both sides of my face. I managed to plant a solid right hook on one’s jaw, then snapped the other’s head back with an uppercut, before I pivoted in a half-turn to smash a straight rear kick into the midriff of another monk who charged at me from behind.
I jumped over another one who came at me attempting a double-leg takedown, rolling over his back and kicking two more monks in the face in the process. As I landed, I dropped into the full-splits position and dick-punched another monk. He grunted and staggered back.
“So, I guess you guys aren’t eunuchs then?” I said as I jumped to my feet.
The monk gasped as he gripped his balls.
“You have sullied the Order and found our secret place,” the head monk said as he approached me. He settled into an unorthodox combat stance, both arms lifted high above his head, and a single knee raised to chest level. “For that,” he continued, “you must die.”
We both launched flying kicks at the exact same moment, colliding in midair and somersaulting backward from the impact. His kick hit me hard, smashing the air out of my lungs, but mine hit him harder, and I could see his face scrunching up with pain.
We circled each other more warily this time, before he darted in, coming at me with a series of punches so rapid that his fists were a literal blur of motion. As fast as he was, though, I was faster, and my own fists, hands, and wrists moved with a speed he couldn’t match. Every punch he threw my way was blocked or turned, until finally he left an opening in his guard. I didn’t waste the opportunity—I slipped my hand through and smashed a vicious right hook across his chin. This was what finally dropped him.
Panting, I turned around, and saw that every other monk had already recovered from the injuries I’d dealt them, and they were closing in again.
“Fucking hell,” I said. “Don’t you assholes know when to stay down? Come on, I don’t want to have to kill any of you.”
“STOP!” a new voice roared.
We all paused, and everyone turned to face the direction the yell had come from. Standing at the other end of the room was Zhenwan, holding the Dragon Gauntlet high above his head.
“The man you’re attacking is no man,” he said. “He is Lord Vance Chauzec of Brakith, God of Death, and he comes bearing one of the sacred Dragon Gauntlets. He is the only living being with the strength to wield them since the days of Uger and Kemji.”
It seemed that the monks could “see” the gauntlet, somehow. They could certainly sense its presence because they all stood from their fighting stances and bowed their heads a little.
A monk walked over to Zhenwan and said something to him in Yengish. Zhenwan allowed the monk to touch the gauntlet, and the moment he did, the monk dropped to the floor and pressed his face into the ground. He said something in Yengish to the other monks in a shaky tone filled with excitement. Immediately, every other monk, including the head monk, joined him in this position of prostration.
“All hail the God of Death!” The head monk brought his jade necklace to his mouth and kissed it. “The prophecy has finally come true. He is here, after a thousand years—he is finally here!”
Chapter Twenty-One
“I like the way this whole thing has turned around,” I said to the monks. “Please, stand up. Like my friend said, I’m Vance Chauzec, God of Death, and yes, that’s one of the lost Dragon Gauntlets. I need to find the other one and resurrect a dragon so that I can kill the Blood God.”
What I’d just said was probably too much for them to handle in one go, but I figured we were running short on time so I might as well tell them everything as succinctly as possible.
The monks all got to their feet, and the head monk beckoned to me.
“Come here, please, God of Death, that I may look upon your face,” he said.
“I thought you were—”
“Blind, yes, but there are other ways to see. I must touch your face, if you don’t mind.”
I shrugged, then remembered he couldn’t see me. “Sure,” I said. “Go ahead.”
He approached me and started to gently feel the contours of my face with his fingertips.
“Since we’re already at the petting stage, do you mind telling me your name?” I asked him.
“I am Ji-Ko,” he said. “You are a very handsome man, very handsome indeed!” He laughed. “You must have a vast harem.”
“It is, and still growing,” I answered with a chuckle. “Quality over quantity though, that’s my motto when it comes to women.”
“Ah, women, one of the pleasures we Blind Monks must forgo on the path to enlightenment,” he said wistfully. “But we do miss the female body, do we, brothers?”
“Yes, brother,” they all answered, with no small measure of regret and reluctance in their voices.
I stepped away from the monk. “Let’s get straight to it,” I said. “I understand your order is affiliated with the Dragon Cult. In order to find the lost gauntlet, I need you tell me everything you know about the Dragon Goddess. And about this prophecy thing you mentioned too.”
“Ah, where do I even begin?” Ji-Ko pulled the hood from his face, and I saw that he was a middle-aged man with a chubby, friendly-looking face and a shaved head. “I’m still awestruck by the fact that you have arrived, fulfilling the prophecy! Never did I imagine that I’d be the monk who would welcome you to the shores of Yeng.”
“With the ass-kicking you guys tried to deal out, it was some welcome!”
We all laughed at this.
“You are a mighty opponent, God of Death,” Ji-Ko said, “just as the prophecy foretold. In fact, everything has come to pass exactly as the prophecy said it would. It was said that a false monk and a rogue would come to us, and that there would be a great fight. The undefeatable one would reveal himself to be the God of Death, carrying a lost treasure. He would come when our land and the whole world was in its greatest moment of peril, under the threat of an ancient deity of evil.”
“Sounds about right,” I said.
“Indeed. We have been awaiting your arrival, although we did not know it would be so soon. Truth be told, it has felt like the Final Days have come to Yeng, with the evil Warlock and
his Spirit of Prosperity Sect sowing chaos and anarchy through the land. These apocalyptic feeling has only increased with the rise of the Blood God and his most powerful earthly servant, the Hooded Man.”
“I’m glad that someone else knows that the Hooded Motherfucker is working for the Blood God,” I said. “It’s felt like I’ve been fighting this battle on my own. Back in Prand, the Church of Light launched a Crusade against me, and blamed me for the atrocities the Blood God’s followers committed.”
“From what I’ve heard of them, the Church is a corrupt and greedy organization,” Ji-Ko said scornfully, “more concerned about hoarding gold than finding enlightenment. Their deity is a powerful but aloof figure who cares little about the world of mortals, and knows even less about the happenings in his church. Thankfully, the Church never gained any footing here in Yeng.”
“And there’s no chance of them coming here to cause trouble either, because I wiped out their entire navy a week ago.”
“This is good news. We already have too many threats to deal with here in Yeng.”
“And these threats, do they have armies? Because I do have an army. A big army, waiting in my ships, for my command.”
“You will need one, although how you will get it across Yeng without being attacked by the Glorious Emperor’s Imperial Army, I do not know. No army is permitted to set foot on Yengish soil but the Imperial Army, and no soldiers or mercenaries are permitted to move around in Yeng, outside of port towns, without the Emperor’s written consent. Any movement by any foreign army, regardless of the cause, is treated as an immediate and irrevocable declaration of war. Should even a single one of your troops set foot on Yengish soil without the Glorious Emperor’s permission, you will have a fresh war on your hands to deal with.”
“That makes things a little more difficult, but I kind of figured I couldn’t just send my army marching through Yeng without starting a war.”
“All the more difficult since we Blind Monks have discovered that the Warlock is putting together an army of his own,” Ji-Ko said.
“Shouldn’t the Emperor be sending his Imperial Army against the Warlock, then?” I asked.
“Ha! He would do no such thing. The Emperor fears the Warlock too much to do that. He could have stopped him long ago, before things grew this bad. Except he laughed off the threat posed by the Warlock’s growing power until, suddenly, it was no laughing matter. The Warlock has an army to rival the Emperor’s now. And now the Warlock is even starting to control the weather. He is far too powerful an opponent for the cowardly Emperor to deal with. So instead, the Emperor continues throwing lavish parties and living his opulent lifestyle in his Forbidden Palace, while Yeng burns all around him. And the fool searches for any excuse to persecute sects like ours, likely to soothe his aching conscience. What he does not realize is that those like us are trying to save what’s left of Yeng.”
“He sounds like a bit of an asshole, this Glorious Emperor. But even if he allowed the Warlock to build his army, where’s he recruiting troops from, if mercenaries and soldiers who aren’t affiliated with the Imperial Army are banned in Yeng?”
“Half of the Imperial Army has deserted the Emperor and flocked to the banner of the Warlock.” Ji-Ko shook his head. “Soldiers and civilians alike have all been fooled by that charlatan’s empty promises of boundless wealth. He’s brainwashed half of Yeng, and his lies and evil have gained him an army, a warlock’s tower, man-eating monsters, and great wealth. His next target is the throne of Yeng. Our network of intelligence has discovered that the Warlock aims to assault and take over the Forbidden Palace, dethrone the Glorious Emperor, and crown himself Lord and Ruler of Yeng.”
“And still the Emperor fiddles while Yeng burns?” I asked.
“He will continue with his frivolous pursuits, his head buried firmly in the sand, until the Warlock is literally breaking down the doors of the Forbidden Palace,” Ji-Ko said sadly. “The Emperor and his Imperial Army will not act until it’s far too late. This is why we have to stop the Warlock, before he gets to such a position.”
“Agreed. It’s a serious ball-ache that we have to deal with the Blood God and the Hooded Asshole at the same time, fighting two wars at once. Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve had to do that, though. Let’s not waste any more time then; tell me anything you know about the Dragon Goddess. Does she exist? Is she dead?”
“She has ceased to live, yes, but I know the location of her bones.”
“That’s good. I’ve resurrected Xayon and Lucielle. I need a willing, living female to consent to fuse her body and soul with that of the goddess, and then I need the dead goddess’s bones. I don’t think I’ll have too much of a problem finding the former, and it sounds like you can help me with the latter.”
“Although I know the exact location of the Dragon Goddess’s bones, getting to them might be a little bit of a problem.”
“Good thing I’m a problem solver, then. Tell me where they are and I’ll find a way to get them, I promise you that.”
Ji-Ko chuckled dryly and shook his head. “It’s a rather major problem, perhaps greater than the ones you’re accustomed to solving. The Dragon Goddess’s bones are in the last Dragon Temple in Yeng.”
“I was a crypt diver long before I was a god,” I said, “and there’s no temple or crypt I can’t take treasure from. Whatever traps and locks are in there, I’ll get around them.”
“It’s not traps and locks that are the problem, God of Death. It’s the Warlock. He built his tower on top of the ruins of the last Dragon Temple. He has the Dragon Goddess’s bones.”
“Well, shit.”
“This is a problem?” Ji-Jo asked.
Zhenwan laughed from beside me. “This is no problem at all.” He smiled at me, then looked at the monks. “This is a solution!”
“He’s got that right,” I said. “We can kill two birds with one stone. Or maybe just kill a Warlock and resurrect a dead goddess, but you get my point.”
“And we will help you do this, in whatever ways we can,” Ji-Ko said. “I know the layout of the goddess’ temple and would gladly guide you through it. We Blind Monks have been devoted to the Dragon Goddess for thousands of years. Despite her death, the banning of her worship by the 51st Glorious Emperor, and the death of her final dragon.”
“So dragons are officially extinct then, huh?”
“They are, sadly.”
“Don’t worry about that, I’ll be able to resurrect one when the time comes. I’ll need both Dragon Gauntlets for that, though. Do you know where the lost one is?”
“All our sources point to it being held in the reliquary of the Forbidden Palace,” Ji-Ko answered.
“Damn, I was kinda hoping it would be in the Warlock’s tower as well,” I said.
“Not everything can be fortuitous, even for a god,” Zhenwan said.
Ji-Ko frowned. “There will be no way to obtain it short of stealing it from under the Emperor’s nose. And although he is foolish and lax about many things, security around his reliquary is tighter than anywhere else in the City of Jewels or the Forbidden Palace.”
“It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve had to steal something valuable from a high-security location,” I said. “Besides, we don’t have a choice. I need that gauntlet.”
“We will do whatever we can to assist you,” Ji-Ko said. “You can count on us, God of Death.”
The other monks murmured their agreement.
“I was planning on setting off for the City of Jewels tomorrow morning,” I said, turning to face all the monks. “I’d like you guys to join my party. I can use all the local assistance—and extra elite warriors—that I can get. Especially when I can’t bring my army to the continent unless I’m willing to go to war.”
“We will meet you outside this temple at dawn, God of Death,” Ji-Ko said. “We are as eager as you are to get this mission underway. We have been preparing all our lives for this time, and finally, it is here. You are here. Together we will defeat
both the Warlock and the Blood God, and our revered Dragon Goddess will finally draw breath again!”
The monks all let out an enthusiastic cheer.
“I’ll see you at dawn tomorrow for the start of the greatest quest Yeng has ever seen!” I said.
The men let out another enthusiastic roar.
“Right, I have one more question for you guys, though,” I said. “This robe I’m wearing, why was it hanging in the Plump Herons Inn?”
Ji-Ko’s face crinkled with mirth as he laughed heartily.
“Ah, that is brother Wen-Ting’s robe!” he said. “We Blind Monks are permitted to consume small quantities of alcohol, but brother Wen-Ting has a little trouble controlling himself once he gets started.”
One of the monks hung his head as his cheeks turned crimson. Too bad he felt ashamed for having some fun.
“Last night we brothers went to enjoy a crisp amber ale at the Plump Herons Inn—its specialty—but brother Wen-ting ended up having a little more than his share,” Ji-Ko said. “He vomited it up all over his robe, and the floor and table of the inn. After cleaning it up, the innkeeper graciously allowed him to wash and dry his fouled robe there too. It seems that fate directed brother Wen-Ting to drink to excess last night, so that you could find his robe and then us, God of Death.”
“Here’s to drinking! Who ever said it wouldn’t save the world, huh?” I grinned, and my new warriors laughed. They sure did sound like they’d make some fine drinking buddies too.
Zhenwan and I returned to the inn without a problem, since the Warlock’s storm had died down almost completely now, and he went straight to bed. I found Friya waiting for me on the balcony of my bedchamber, wearing her wolfskin Cloak of Changing.