by Dante King
I found myself perched on top of the highest tower in Brakith, from which I was able to see the landscape for miles around, and the sight that greeted my harpy eyes was a dismal one. I was now able to perceive the vastness of the army besieging my home. The reports that stated that this was one of the largest armies ever assembled in Prand were not exaggerations. Camped around the city walls, surrounding Brakith from all sides, were at least 100,000 Church of Light troops. I knew that most of them were recent conscripts and likely barely able to swing a sword, but even so, by sheer weight of numbers, the defenders were outnumbered by over a hundred to one.
What was more, the core of the Church Army was made up of around 10,000 battle-hardened veteran fighters, who again outnumbered my guards and defenders by ten to one. The Church Army also had a great many siege engines of various kinds, from ballistae to catapults to trebuchets, battering rams, and siege towers.
The destruction these war machines had already wrought on my city was immense. At least half of the buildings in Brakith had been reduced to rubble, and those that were still standing were badly damaged.
I flew Talon down into the town for a better look at what was happening on the ground. What I saw there broke my heart. The citizens of Brakith—my people, who had always stood by me with such loyalty—were starving. Most were rail thin, with skin that was dull and grayish, and glazed-over eyes. Many were too weak to move and were simply lying on the cobbled streets or in the gutters. Since there was almost no water to drink and no food to eat, people were drinking muddy ditch water or stagnant water trapped in gutters. Malnourished children were trying to eat grass and chewed on leather boots in a desperate and pathetic attempt to satiate their hunger.
Elandriel didn’t have to win the battle or even storm the town, despite the overwhelming advantage in strength and numbers he already had over us; he had almost won already, simply by starving everyone almost to death. He could have stormed Brakith now, and my haggard defenders wouldn’t have been able to offer more than token resistance, but I suspected that he and his Church Army commanders knew that. They wanted my people to suffer, to die slow, agonizing deaths of thirst and starvation.
Righteous fury boiled within me. Elandriel was doing everything he could to destroy me and everything I owned, everything associated with me in any way. The citizens of Brakith had been steadfast and honorable in their loyalty to me, and the Church was making sure that they were paying for this loyalty with untold suffering. As I took in these scenes of despair, a hatred greater than any I had ever known—which was saying a lot, considering how much I already loathed Elandriel and the Church of Light—filled me to the point at which it felt as if I would explode, showering everything around me with globs of searing hot magma.
Instead of allowing this wrath to send me spiraling out of control, however, I concentrated it, honing its focus, sharpening it to a razor edge, like an exquisite sword. I turned the white-hot heat of my anger to arctic ice. It was no less intense, but far easier to control. I swore on my father’s grave, and in the name of all the powers of Death, that I would make Elandriel suffer before he died by my hand. He would feel the same suffering he had inflicted on every innocent girl he had sacrificed, on every peasant his troops had callously slaughtered, on every citizen of Brakith he had starved. He would know incomprehensible agony before I finally yanked his soul from his body and used it to become King of all Gods.
“Time to start turning this evil tide,” I whispered to myself.
Beating my harpy wings, I flew up from the ground, seeking out Anna-Lucielle and the rest of my party members with my keen harpy eyes. I found her soon enough. She was looking forlornly out over the town from one of the tower windows in the castle. I landed Talon on the windowsill, and although I couldn’t speak through Talon’s mouth, I needed to communicate to Anna-Lucielle that the time to seek out the actor was now.
She stepped back from the window, surprised that Talon had landed there right in front of her. Behind her, in the large chamber, I saw that she had not unpacked her things yet. She and the others must have only flown into Brakith hours earlier. Nonetheless, there was no time to waste. She needed to find and “infect” the actor so that I could begin my counterattack against the Church Army and turn the tide of the siege.
She must have sensed that it was not simply Talon perched on the windowsill; she was a goddess, after all.
“Vance, it’s you, isn’t it?” she asked, staring at me—at Talon—with those sultry eyes of hers.
I gave her a nod with Talon’s ugly harpy head, and she smiled.
“It’s terrible, isn’t it?” she said, the smile quickly fading from her face. “The Church Army has devastated Brakith. I suppose you want me to find the actor as soon as possible?”
I gave her another nod, and her frown became an expression of determination.
“Of course, yes, there’s no time to waste,” she said. “Let’s go.”
She grabbed the Beauty Mirror and the enchanted bone fragment before setting off at a brisk pace through the huge castle. I flew down to the market square and waited for her there. I was quite sure I knew where to find the actor.
Soon enough, Anna-Lucielle had made her way out of the castle and was striding across the square toward me. If the arrival of hundreds of undead harpies in Brakith had alarmed the residents of the town, no one showed it. I had told Rollar to address the populace as soon as he arrived and explain that the harpies represented no threat to them and were here to fight the Church Army. I was sure he’d already done this, but I also suspected that the citizens were simply too starved and exhausted to care. I probably could have flown a dragon into the town and it wouldn’t have raised any eyebrows.
I loped across the square with Talon’s awkward gait—harpies could fly as gracefully as eagles, but on land they were clumsy things—and led Anna-Lucielle down a series of alleys, making our way into Brakith’s seedier areas. Since she was a native of the town, she soon got a good idea of where I was leading her.
“The Boar’s Nuts, right?” she asked.
I gave her a nod. The Boar’s Nuts was one of the roughest taverns in Brakith, hardly the sort of place the milksop actor would usually dare to set foot in. However, due to the siege, it was likely also one of the only places that would still be open and serving alcohol—the Boar’s Nuts would still be selling ale and beer even when enemy troops were rampaging through the streets, I guessed. If there was one place the limp-wristed little fool could drown his sorrows, it was the Boar’s Nuts.
I followed Anna-Lucielle to the seedy tavern, and sure enough, it was open, and packed to the gills. Being a ten-foot-tall harpy, I couldn’t exactly fit inside the low-ceilinged building, but I could observe through one of the windows. After Anna-Lucielle entered the tavern, I crept over an open window and peered in.
As I’d suspected, the actor was there, drinking wine in a corner by himself, looking both bored and slightly terrified of the shady figures and rogues who made up most of the patrons. Everyone’s heads turned and the rowdy place fell silent as soon as Anna-Lucielle stepped inside; the only women seen here were rough-necked rogues or back alley whores, and women of her class and beauty rarely—if ever—set foot in a hovel like this.
Anna-Lucielle ignored the many hungry and predatory eyes on her as she made a beeline for the actor. He knew who she was and realized right away that her seeking him out had something to do with me. He cringed on his barstool, and a look of panic came across his face. He hastily searched the tavern for exits, but there was no way he was getting out of here without getting past Anna-Lucielle.
She strode intrepidly up to him with the enchanted bone in her right hand. “It’s time to use your only asset for a good cause, you worthless little rat.”
“My, uh, masterful talent as a most notable thespian, m’lady?” he asked, cowering like a frightened child, even though he—being almost my size—towered over Anna-Lucielle.
“No, moron, your good looks … w
hich aren’t quite up to the standard of your noble doppelganger, but they’ll do. Hold out your hand.”
“Uh, my hand, m’lady? But why—”
“Do it, you yellow-livered toad’s cock!” she snapped. A few of the tavern’s patrons snickered at this insult, and shouted mocking insults of their own at the actor, who was so obviously terrified of a woman half his size.
He held out his trembling hand for her, palm up, and she grinned swiftly before she stabbed the bone into his hand. As he yelped with pain, I felt a jolt of energy rip through my body—my actual body in the assassin’s chamber in Luminescent Spires, not Talon’s body—and suddenly my spirit was ripped out of the undead harpy and stuffed into the actor’s body.
This was entirely different to seeing the world through the eyes and senses of one of my undead minions. The biggest difference was the emptiness—or, rather, the very distinct lack of it. My undead creatures were, generally speaking, empty vessels, with only the faintest traces of old memories and who or what they had been while living. The actor’s body was utterly different, for he had a living mind … and it was howling out with panic and terror now, and doing everything it could to fight me off and force me out of his body. As hard as his mind fought, though, he couldn’t shove me out. I was in it like a vengeful demon, possessing him completely.
Even so, this whole thing would have been a lot easier if he agreed to cooperate. Unlike how it was with my undead creatures, I could actually make this creature speak.
“Anna-Lucielle,” I said, manipulating the actor’s vocal cords, “explain to him exactly what’s going on, and make sure he understands that things will go a lot better for him if he cooperates.”
“What?! I didn’t say that!” the actor gasped immediately after my words came out of his mouth. “But I did! But … I didn’t, it wasn’t me speaking! But…”
I could feel the giddying confusion swirling through his brain.
“You and I need to go somewhere quiet to talk,” Anna-Lucielle said coolly. “Follow me.”
“Do it, asshole,” I said, manipulating his mouth and tongue again.
“I’m not a … wait, I didn’t say that! But, but…”
“Shut up before I start making you punch yourself in the face!” I made him yell. I then made him curl his own fist and point it at his nose. He tried to fight against me, but he couldn’t overcome my will. The tavern patrons had been watching this, and they all burst out laughing.
“Don’t hurt yourself too bad, pretty boy!” one of them yelled.
“I’m taking bets!” another yelled. “Two to one odds that he knocks himself out with three punches!”
Confused and quite terrified, the actor had no choice but to follow Anna-Lucielle out of the tavern and into a quiet alley behind it. She calmly explained to him what she had done, and that I would be taking full control of his body, and that he would, essentially, be impersonating me. She made sure he understood that it would be a lot easier if he simply gave in and allowed me to take control instead of trying to fight me. It would, she explained, be the greatest performance of his entire acting career, and this line warmed him up to the idea.
“All right, all right, I’ll do it,” he said with a sigh. “After all, this mess is partly my fault for having unwittingly helped Rodrick. I should do what I can to rectify my past mistakes. Lord Chauzec, I allow you full control of my body for as long as you need it.”
As soon as he said this, I felt his resistance crumble away. Now, possessing his body felt a lot more like controlling one of my undead creatures. With this job complete, I was ready to turn this siege around and bring the fight to the Church of Light Army. And with my wyrm speeding toward Brakith under the ground, the tide was about to turn in a major way.
I clenched my hand into a fist and smacked my palm. “Let the Battle of Brakith begin.”
Chapter Nineteen
Wearing the body of my doppelganger as if it were a suit of living flesh armor, I strode out of the alley. All resistance on the actor’s part was gone, and it really felt as if I was there in Brakith in person.
“Come on Anna-Lucielle,” I called out over my shoulder. “We have work to do. The Beauty Mirror, please.”
She smiled at me, clearly understanding that I now had complete control over the actor’s body.
“I’m glad to have you with us,” she said as she scurried over and handed me the beauty mirror. “It’s terrible what’s happening to our home.”
“It is,” I said as I held the mirror. “But I plan to put a stop to it.”
I called on the Beauty Mirror’s magical powers of deception, weaving an even more complete illusion around the body I was occupying. Now, anyone who saw me, aside from the most powerful Fated people, would be absolutely convinced that this living zombie was actually me. Even those Fated among the Church of Light, who had powers of insight, wouldn’t be able to see through my ruse.
“My armor, where is it?” I asked Anna-Lucielle.
“After the harpies dropped all the baggage in the top castle tower, we moved it to a more secure location,” Anna-Lucielle answered. “One that wasn’t quite so exposed to projectiles from trebuchets and catapults.”
“Ah yes, those little annoyances,” I said, feeling my sixth sense tingling. I abruptly stopped in my tracks, grabbed her, slung her over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes, and sprang nimbly to the right, just as a boulder the size of an ox came hurtling down from above. The projectile missed us by inches and smashed into the ground where we’d been standing moments earlier.
I set down Anna-Lucielle and continued calmly onwards.
“So where is this safe location you were talking about?” I asked.
Her eyes looked as if they were about to pop out of their sockets from the fright of the near-miss.
“Uh, d-down in the cellars,” she answered, still shaken-up by coming within mere inches of being turned into a flesh, blood, and bone pancake by a Church of Light trebuchet.
“Good. Let’s head that way right now; there’s no time to waste,” I said. “Hmm, and on the way there, I need to run a test or two, just to make sure this whole possessing-the-body-of-the-actor is as complete as I need it to be.”
“What kind of test?”
“This kind,” I said, stepping swiftly to the side just as the dead body of a Brakith guard, skewered through the throat by a Church sniper’s crossbow bolt seconds earlier, came plummeting down from the ramparts above and landed with a dull thump on the cobbled stones where I’d been standing.
I pointed at the body, pulling the power of Death up through the actor’s body—my surrogate body. This was something I couldn’t do with any of my undead minions, but now, in the actor’s living body, with the Death and Charm magic enchantment I’d created with the Dragon Sword, I was sure this would work.
Sure enough, I felt the power of Death energy coursing through the body I was in. From my fingertips, a black vein of power—visible only to my eyes—blasted out and slammed into the dead guard like a bolt of lightning. The man’s still heart began to beat again, but it was not blood that the revived organ was pumping through his veins. It was the glowing yellow-green liquid of the undead. His limp body jerked and spasmed, and his closed eyes opened, glowing in the twilight of the falling dusk with the same unnatural hue of the liquid surging through his veins. He growled wordlessly and yanked the crossbow bolt out of his throat, tossing it contemptuously aside as he stood up, filled with the power of Death.
I grinned. This was perfect. I had succeeded in doing something that was nigh-on impossible: being in two places at once. My sixth sense started tingling again, and I decided to ramp up the intensity of my test of my powers. I hadn’t used my Death Fists for a while, but the next few seconds would provide a perfect opportunity to do just that.
“Take a few steps back, Anna-Lucielle,” I said. “Now.”
She could hear the urgency in my tone, so she jogged a few steps back as I pulled the power of Death into my hand
, turning my fist into a weapon packing more force and energy than a Jotunn’s battle club swung by a berserker giant. This time, as the trebuchet-flung boulder I’d sensed came hurtling down from the sky directly toward me, I did not step out of the way. Instead, I watched as it tore through the air at frantic speed, for a direct collision course with me.
“Vance!” Anna-Lucielle screamed in the spit-second that she saw the projectile coming hurtling down, directly toward me.
I paid no attention to her cry of alarm; my Death fist was cocked, ready for a mighty blow. I timed it perfectly, swinging hard in a vicious right cross as the massive boulder came down on me. In a burst of brutal power, two bodies of immense strength and momentum collided.
But only one survived.
With a burst of shattered stone and a billowing cloud of dust, the boulder exploded as my fist connected with it. The fragments of rock flew everywhere, and the bang from the explosion was loud enough to blow out the windows of a few stone buildings nearby, but I stood in the center of the cloud of dust, unharmed and triumphant. My possession of this body was complete, and pretty much anything I could do in my own body, I could do in this one.
“Men on the ramparts, manning the towers, holding the city gates!” I roared out, my voice thundering through the city. “Hear my voice!”
“It’s Lord Chauzec!” one of the defenders on the ramparts cried out. “He’s returned! In our darkest hour, he’s returned to save the city!”
“You are the true heroes of Brakith!” I roared. “And your noble deeds will be sung about by bards and poets in the centuries to come. You have held this city against on overwhelming force of attackers who are bent on the destruction of every life within these walls … but if it’s death they want, then it’s death they shall receive … their own deaths, for Death once again walks the streets of Brakith! The God of Death, and I’m here to take back my city, and take the fight to those who would destroy it!”