Emperor of Shadows

by Mike Truk

  “What?”

  Pony frowned, lowered his head, then rapped his knuckles on the slats.

  A hollow sound rang out.

  Not hesitating, the troll grasped the spigot embedded in the barrel’s front and pulled. The entire top came away, revealing an empty interior whose rear was a brick wall.

  “Good work,” I said, and grabbing a lantern I entered the barrel, only needing to duck my head a little, and moved to the back, where I saw a large seam tracing the shape of a door in the brickwork.

  I frowned, trying to find a catch or means to open the hidden door, till a blue fist blurred past my face to crack into the wall and knock a chunk into the room beyond.

  “That’ll do it,” I said, moving aside. “I ever tell you I’m a huge admirer of your style, Pony?”

  The war troll grunted, moved in, and slammed his shoulder into the wall, bursting a mass of brickwork into nothingness and revealing a well-illuminated chamber beyond.

  It was filled with people, everyone busy loading chests and sacks onto a barge, floating low in a private canal that extended through an archway into the darkness.

  There were dozen burly servants, nearly as many guards again, and a massive figure draped in silks that could only be Yestov, his eyes wide with shock as he stared at Pony.

  “Yestov! Remember me?” I ducked my head as I stepped through the Pony shaped hole in the wall. “It’s Kellik. We met, like, eight years ago? I was a gentlefinger in the Sodden Hold. You were meeting with Jack? You passed through a room filled with kids? I was at the back of the crowd. No?”

  Yestov blinked, my words only bewildering him further.

  “War troll,” said one of his guards, a lean man with a badly battered head, as if his skull had been staved in and then popped back out from within far more times than was healthy. He moved his hands in complex signals as he spoke. “As promised. Gonna need to cut him apart. Get out your special cleavers.”

  And to my amazement, the dozen guards all drew large choppers from their belts, each one burning with ghostly green flames.

  “Stop,” I commanded, and though my word rang with the full authority of my blood, the guards kept moving. Rex tested the urge of his huge chopper with a scarred thumb and drew a bead of blood.

  “They cannot hear you,” said Yestov, regaining his wits. “I had them deafened. You would need to use sign language to communicate with dear Rex, and even then, can your vaunted power pass through your fingers?”

  “Deafened?” I grimaced. “That’s positively barbaric.”

  Yestov laughed, growing more confident. “You think me a fool, boy? After Everyman Jack’s death, I knew that events were in motion! Wheels were spinning. Blind Fortuna had averted her gaze. We’ve never met, but I know who you are. Jack’s boy, his folly, his weakness. Kellik. Oh yes. I’ve been waiting for you.”

  That gave me pause. “How the fuck do you know that?”

  “Jack was a romantic soul. In many ways a weak man. He trusted me - had good reason to - and told me about you over cups one night. The son of the mighty Grandfather himself! Would take a fool not to put two and two together. You failed your trial, and then Jack ends up dead a month after? Oh yes. That was when I hired Rex and his Ratsplitters. Never let them leave my side since. Dosed them with every magic potion I could find, paid them their weight in gold, and prepared for this hour. For this very bleeding minute!”

  “Well, good for you,” I said, nonplussed. “But it’ll take more than a Ratsplitter to stop a war troll.”

  “Hehehe,” chuckled Yestov. “One way to find out. The rest of you, resume loading the barge! And mind the seer, I don’t want her growing excited.”

  The servants jerked back into action. Yestov stood behind Rex and his screen of men.

  I peered past them all at the barge.

  Lying on a board of wood was a slender woman, her dark skin ashen, head encased in a steel helm without visor or slits, body bound with iron chains.

  My heart began to pound.

  “All right, Pony, looks like we’d have to take care of the Ratsplitters first.”

  Rex was all rawhide, lean muscle, shaved scalp, glittering black eyes. He looked as if he’d been left out to dry in the sun for a month, the flat flensed from his body with an exacting scalpel, and the sanity beaten out of him by a mallet. He grinned as he sidled closer, holding himself sideways, magic cleaver chopping at the air, other hand opening and closing in the same complex signals as before.

  “Thirteen against two,” I said. “Doesn’t seem fair. Have at it, Pony.”

  Pony let out a low roar and charged forward, sweeping his hammer in a great arc that should have knocked four of the Ratsplitters off their feet.

  Instead, one of the men launched himself at the huge hammer’s head and embraced it, grabbing hold with both arms, wrapping his legs around the haft, and vomiting blood as the swing lifted him off his feet and knocked him into his fellows.

  But adding his near two hundred pounds to the shaft’s end caused the hammer to dip and crash to the ground.

  Somehow the man held on. Those he’d knocked over leaped to their feet, eyes shining.

  Rex banged the flat side of the cleaver against his head, once, twice, three times, then screamed and hurled himself at Pony.

  Who dropped the hammer and swung a massive, knobbly fist at Rex’s head.

  Who somehow ducked and buried his cleaver into the war troll’s thigh.

  The other Ratsplitters swarmed Pony, hacking at him like maniacs trying to take down a tree.

  I cursed and ran forward, silver blade spearing into a man’s side and cutting through his ribs as if they were celery stalks. The man screamed, twisted around, fell away.

  Green burning cleavers rose and fell, arcs of Pony’s blood rising with them and splashing everywhere. Pony’s left hand fell free; his leg was hacked through at the shin, and with a roar, he keeled over onto his side.

  “Get the fuck off my friend!” I shouted as I fell upon them, hewing left and right furiously.

  Rex leaped off Pony, oriented on me, then through his cleaver at my head.

  I tried to lurch aside, but the cleaver slammed into my head. White light flared - pain, tremendous pain - and I staggered back.

  Everyone slowed, stopped, and stared at me.

  I could only see out of one eye. The world was off-balance, and it felt as if the floor were permanently looming up and trying to swamp me without ever finishing the job. I stood there, swaying, blinking my remaining eye, then reached up and touched the cleaver where it was embedded in my head.

  Even the servants stopped loading their cargo onto the barge.

  “Shite in a bread basket,” said Rex. “He don’t seem to mind that, much.”

  I felt around the cleaver till I found the handle, then tried to pull it free. The angle was awkward. The metal was lodged in my skull. I tugged, harder, and my head lurched forward.

  Shit.

  “Well, fuck it,” I said, raising my blade. “I’ll deal with that later.”

  Rex signaled frantically to his fellows, who resumed chopping Pony to bits. Rex himself approached warily, a broad grin spreading across his face as he regarded me. Then he laughed, utterly delighted, and pointed at my head.

  “Laugh it up, fucker,” I growled. It was weird, having several pounds of metal embedded in my head. Made me feel off balance. Made it hard to think straight. In the end, though, all I had to do was kill Rex. Simple enough.

  I lunged, tried to stab Rex through the gut. He twirled away, lithe and graceful as a ballerina, and drew a set of double knives from the back of his belt.

  “Rex failed his Gloom Knight test,” said Yestov conversationally from the back. “Fought off the imp. Didn’t want to die, I reckon, though he lost most of his mind that night. Instead, he insisted he wanted to become an Exemplar of the Hanged God. But that church wouldn’t take him. So he decided to force the Hanged God’s hand. Keep killing till he was blessed.”

  �
��Fascinating,” I said, following after the twirling man. Rex had simply not come out of his spin, and like some mad whirling dervish was turning, turning in an ever-widening gyre, blades flashing, whipping around, again and again.

  Just looking at him turn like that made me feel nauseous.

  Or maybe that was the cleaver stuck in my head.

  A blade flicked out from his spinning form, a second, faster than thought, both of them embedding themselves in my knees.

  My legs weakened, and then Rex was on me, new daggers in his fists, slashing and cutting at me as he screamed, a sound of incoherent rage.

  I went down.

  Fuck, I’d overestimated Pony’s and my abilities.

  Every cut Rex opened in my forearms, my chest, my neck, healed right up. But I couldn’t regain the initiative, and Pony’s weakening moans told me I was running out of time.

  “Stop!” I commanded, but Rex kept at it, slashing in a never abating frenzy. “Stop!”

  No good. Yestov was demon-possessed, which meant he was immune to my commands as well.

  I’d lost the silver sword. I tried to sit up, to hung Rex, to stop him from using the knives. He head-butted me right in the cleaver, which caused the blade to flex inside my skull. Lights flared like slurried fireworks, and I vomited, going down.

  Grinning and drenched in sweat, Rex started chopping at my neck. Slashing and stabbing at my throat, cutting at the tendons and muscles.

  That was bad. If I lost my head it was all over. But every time I raised my hands he simply hacked off my fingers or batted my arms aside.

  He didn’t tire. Didn’t seem to even need to breathe. Everything from jawbone to collarbone was ruinously aflame with pain. I couldn’t breathe. Blood was pouring into my lungs. My strength was fading.

  I smacked my bloody palms on the ground around me, tried to find my blade. Nothing. I couldn’t find it.

  Strange white lights were filling my vision.

  Do or die.

  Rex and his Ratsplitters were immune to my commands. Yestov was, too.

  But maybe his servants weren’t.

  My throat was ruined, but I summoned my last reserves and croaked out, loud as I could, “Everyone attack Rex.”

  The Ratsplitters and Yestov would ignore me.

  But the others?

  For a second nothing happened, just more insane Rex hacking at me, eyes aflame with arousal and delight, and then Yestov shouted in alarm as a mob charged into Rex, knocking him clear off me, the servants dog-piling him to the ground.

  I coughed, rolled over onto my side, head lolling bonelessly, but in seconds my throat healed up, the sinews and muscles grew strong, and with a curse, I pushed myself to my feet.

  And like that, but for the cleaver, I was completely healed.

  I stepped over to the writhing pile where the burly servants were pinning Rex down. Rex screamed, strained, fought to free himself, but there were too many.

  Grimacing, I gripped the cleaver in my head by the handle, took a deep breath, then yanked.

  It tore free in a spray of blood and brains. The world spun, I forgot who I was, and then like snapping your fingers it all came back to me.

  My head healed back over.

  “It’s good to be the king,” I said, staring down at Rex. Raised the burning cleaver high and then brought it down with utter finality on the man’s neck.

  I left the cleaver buried in Rex’s throat, stepped back, and pointed at where Pony was feebly twitching under the rise and fall of the cleavers.

  “Everyone, attack the Ratsplitters.”

  The dozen men shuddered, pulled themselves to their feet, took a deep breath, and then ran at the enemy, roaring in terror as they reached for the cleavers, to grasp at arms, to overwhelm the Ratsplitters as they had Rex.

  It didn’t go as well for them. The Ratsplitters saw them coming, leaped off Pony, and charged right back.

  The servants went down in a welter of gore, but still, they clasped at wrists and ankles, tripped the Ratsplitters, knocked some down.

  Renewed and feeling myself, I snatched up the silver blade and came in right after them. I stabbed through an eye here, slashed a throat there.

  Butchery.

  Then I heard a hollow roar like a boiler exploding, and a vast shape came flying at me from the side, talons extended, leathery wings beating up a storm.

  Yestov hit me like a collapsing cathedral, lifting me off my feet and driving me through the air to collide with the basement wall.

  Bricks and bones crunched, and the air was driven from my lungs to be replaced by blood.

  Yestov drew back. His vast bulk was smeared like butter over the bony carapace of the demon form that had expanded within him, flesh split, face worn like a mask over the demon’s visage.

  “Now you understand the fatal flaw in your plan,” he growled, voice a low, oozing gurgle. “You thought you could contend with me? Fool!”

  And he laid into me, talons slashing through my flesh.

  Each blow knocked me to one side of my crater in the wall. I’d lost the silvery blade somewhere along the way. All sorts of things had gone wrong with my body, but with each second it insisted on healing.

  My spine straightened as Yestov tore out my stomach.

  My stomach healed back as he slashed through upraised forearms.

  My forearms healed back as he roared in frustration and slammed a fist into my chest, driving me another foot deeper into the stonework.

  I began to chuckle.

  Riding waves of pain and nausea, blood pooling about my feet and spattered all around me, I stood, hunched over, pain receding, head clearing, the mortal wounds fading away like mist before the morning sun.

  Yestov drew back, uncertain.

  “That all you’ve got?” I asked, looking up at the demon through my blood slicked hair.

  Yestov took a step back, then another. Inhaled with grotesque intent, cheeks distending, body inflating.

  He unleashed a spout of liquid flame that flurried about me, dissolving the world. All became the superheated roar of its burning touch. I closed my eyes tight, bowed my head, crossed my arms before me.

  The flames whirled and surged, caught within the crater in which I stood, forming a crucible of destruction.

  Finally, they died down. The brickwork around me was shattered and gleaming, reduced to some ceramic composite. The stone behind me was glowing, dripping like slag, like a candle held too close to the heat.

  My body was charred down to the bone. Pain was an abstraction. I lowered my stick-thin arms. My clothing was utterly gone. Skin gone. The layer of subcutaneous fat, gone. Just withered strands off cooked flesh and sinew laid down over bone.

  My vision was blurry and I couldn’t blink. But then my eyelids regrew and my vision sharpened.

  Yestov was staring at me with something akin to horror. It looked comical on his wretched features.

  I took a step forward. It hurt to make my cooked muscles operate, but I managed another.

  “You made a mistake,” I rasped. I tried flexing my fingers; they were so badly charred they wouldn’t bend. “You should have bent knee when you first saw me. Now I’m upset.”

  Yestov backed away from me, huge wings furling across his broad back, mouth opening and closing.

  My body was healing. Muscles filling out, fluid seeping back into their cindered lengths.

  “You are not immortal,” gasped Yestov, as if out of breath. “Aurelius died. You can die.”

  “The Paruko Dream Eaters took him,” I said, forcing myself to stand up straight. Already I was feeling more limber. “You got any of them working with your Ratsplitters?”

  Yestov’s brow lowered. “I’ll tear your head from your body. That’ll do it.”

  “Come try,” I said, lifting a hand and beckoning him closer. The last of the blackness was receding from my flesh, leaving me gleaming and flayed. It was fascinating to see how muscles and tendons worked. I turned my hand back and forth, examin
ing how everything slid and contracted as I moved my fingers.

  “You are not your father,” said Yestov, drawing himself up. “I’ll pop your skull like a grape. Better yet, I’ll harvest your head in the hopes that it will live on, and bring it with me, to torment during idle hours, your screams -”

  A massive fist wreathed in burning white flame impacted the side of Yestov’s temple with such ferocity that the demon’s body went horizontal, torn off his feet as his skull burst. His bulk crashed down to the ground four or five yards from where he’d been standing in a mess of half-opened wings and splayed limbs, blood pouring out of his neck and mangled head like wine from a dropped bottle.

  The strength of Pony’s blow near turned him right around, he caught his balance, straightened, and then looked back over his stony shoulder at me.

  White fire was flickering over his whole frame, immolating him endlessly in the White Sun’s glory, so he appeared a light, dusty blue instead of his normal deep, cobalt hues.

  I met his gaze and then laughed in delight. “What took you so long?”

  Pony rumbled deep in his chest, and I thought I saw a smirk cross his craggy features.

  I cast around for any other sources of danger. The Ratsplitters were all dead. As were the servants. We were surrounded by bodies. Only the barge still moved, rocking slightly in its private canal, loaded high with its precious cargo.

  “Come on,” I said, ignoring the pain that drenched me, the fact that my skin was still healing over my flayed musculature. “Let’s see to her.”

  Pony grunted and followed me over the corpses to the dock’s edge.

  The barge was broad and floated low in the water, already weighed down by chests and sacks.

  The seer lay still, cruelly bound with enough iron to keep Pony in check. But it was the sightless helm that made my stomach turn. Her neck was raw and bleeding where it’s rusted edge cut into her skin; three holes were punched above where her mouth would have been.

  How did they feed her, give her water? There was no seam in the helmet, no obvious means to remove it.

  “Can you hear me?” I asked, gingerly stepping onto the barge. “Hello? I’m… Kellik. I’m here to get you out. To free you.”

  There was no response. The seer lay still, frozen to her board.