by Matt Khourie
Lia stepped back, horrified. The Liche Queen stomped the floor. A blast of moldy wind lanced the Garrison, extinguishing the hovering green orbs.
The child stifled a gasp. The Liche Queen’s illusion of perfection dissolved in the newborn shadows. Her waves of raven’s feather hair melted into a scraggly mess of dusty locks. Her crystal blue orbs rolled over, becoming a sickly mottled silver. She pinched Lia’s chin with skeletal fingers, setting the child’s teeth to chatter in the frigid grasp. “Typical! You mortals are all alike, incapable of seeing the Blight’s beauty.”
She released Lia’s chin. “The Blight can be reversed. I can show you how. I can show you how to restore him.” The wind abated. The illusion restored itself and the Liche Queen was once more the beautiful ruler of the Nekropolis. She offered Lia her hand. But there is something I need first.”
Chapter 26
The Reaper’s Song sliced through the cloudless night without a trace, thwarting even the moon’s keen eye. Her three normally thrashing sails were frozen in place; a trio of hovering shadows. Poogs nervously flexed at the knee while guiding the helm with a steady hand. His skull emblazoned dagger smiled back from its mount at the wheel’s center.
Fitting, he thought, for Death and then a pirate to captain such a vessel. Poogs brushed the skull with a fingertip. He truly loved the Reaper’s Song and the freedom she provided. The fear it inspired was a mere bonus. The ship had been every bit his staunchest companion since the dreary night he rested it from Morgren’s cold, dead hands. He wondered how long it would take for the former captain to claim her justice. Poogs rubbed at his eyes, eternally grateful for every thrilling moment he had spent at flight. But the night had drawn long and he knew the worst was yet to come.
A lonesome speck appeared on the moonlit horizon, contorting into a jagged mess of ugly shadows as the Reaper’s Song sped to her destination. Though Poogs had never seen it, he knew enough to fear the Nekropolis. Its reputation alone conjured a staggering number of grim tales and breathed a chill down his spine.
The landscape was barren, long ago abandoned by the Breath. A dense barricade of petrified trees blanketed the land for leagues approaching the castle’s outer walls. The dark fortress loomed behind the decayed timberline like an angry giant. Poogs nervously tapped his boot to a lingering song in his head. Despite his bluster, he knew the likelihood of success was slim. Still, the North Star had need of him. She was the only patron saint that had ever paid him any mind. He would not fail her.
“We’ve nearly arrived,” the pirate called over his shoulder.
A door opened on the main deck, releasing the Beast and Polaris into the cool night air. The Beast crouched through the man-sized door of the cartography room, then offered a guiding hand to his queen. Polaris somberly took the oaken steps, sadness painting the delicate features of her slender face. Polaris walked past the helm, patting Poogs on the shoulder. The Beast shadowed her steps, unwilling to let her part from sight. They stood in silence at the prow. Their plans had been made and their words exhausted.
The Reaper’s Song hovered high over the peak of a twisted tower. Beneath the stalking intruder, a countless number of Wakeful guards patrolled the battlements. The soldiers moved in pairs, probing the darkness, searching for the unexpected. “They have the benefit of her Majesty’s unholy blessing, but you could shoot them in the dark for all of the racket,” Poogs said, sneering at his mention of the Liche Queen.
The Beast peered over the side, realizing the pirate was right. Though dimly lit by the pale moon, the sinister armor of the guards gave away their movements. It would be difficult, but he was sure he could elude detection.
The Beast enveloped Polaris’s hands in the mitt of a paw. “If there is a way—“
Polaris shushed the horned giant with a finger to her lips. “I know you will do what is right. Now go. Find your daughter. Bring her back.”
The Beast said not another word. He climbed onto the rail, quickly finding his balance against the gusting winds. He met Poogs’s gaze and thanked the pirate with the sincerity of a nod. Poogs winked and returned the sentiment with his trademarked, over-zealous bow. The Beast’s lips curled into a half smirk and then he turned to face the night. He embraced the sky and leaned forward.
The air quickly cooled as he plummeted to the castle rushing to greet him. Poogs’s skill at the helm was better than advertised: The Beast’s landing point would be partially obscured from view by the branching network of interior walls. His incursion would be all but invisible. The Beast spread his arms and then tucked into a roll. He landed on all fours, crouching like a dire wolf ready to explode from shadow. Upon contact the Beast hated the very touch of the Nekropolis. The petrified wood was like the warm wood of his glade. He had assumed the deathly structure would have felt like ice. It was worse. It was numbing and stinging all at once.
Like death...
The decaying power of the Blight reverberated through the Nekropolis like a blasphemous pulse, mocking life with each beat. He scaled down as quickly as he dared, found the darkest shadow, and lunged silently into its depths. Clanking armor drew the Beast’s attention. A pair of Wakeful moved in lock step along the battlement, approaching his shadowy sanctuary. Their weapons were sheathed, but pale hands rested on pommels, anxious to unleash violence.
In the darkness, his lips curled back over his fangs. He wished to the Wandering Spirit of the Wood for the Wakeful to cross his path. He crouched low, inching towards the boundary of his concealment, silently daring the Wakeful to come closer. The clanking grew closer. Barbed silhouettes accompanied the nearing din. They were almost close enough to grab.
One more step...
The Wakeful abruptly spun on their heels and reversed direction. A moment later they were a distant clank. He relished the idea of throttling each of the black-armored soldiers, but there was Lia to think about. No harm could come to his daughter. The Beast turned from the departing patrol and trundled for a deeper patch of shadows. The medallion, his oldest companion, danced in the moonlight, bouncing and twisting as he prowled the battlement. He reached for the jewel, pulling the thin chain taut. Polaris said the treasure would guide him to Lia. The Beast regretted not asking for further instruction on the matter. He felt quite the fool, holding the medallion to the moon, knowing detection could come at any moment.
He pivoted on a heel, orienting the medallion in a dozen directions. Nothing. He grunted his frustration and rolled the stubborn jewel between his palms. He puffed a warm breath onto its glimmering surface. Still, the medallion slumbered. The treasure fell from his claws. “Stupid trinket.”
The castle below was a maddening maze of ramparts and heavy gates. Fire pits dotted the grounds, surrounded by the Liche Queen’s legions of human soldiers. The Beast dropped silently from the battlement and then darted behind a stack of crates. He peered around, vying for a better look through tendrils of smoke and steam.at the Nekropolis’ denizens. They were a sad-looking lot: hungry, and hopeless. They were men who had proven unworthy of the Wakeful curse, but remained loyal to the Liche Queen all the same.
That will not be Lia’s fate.
The Beast clutched again at the medallion. Vivid pictures of Lia and Donovan stoked his mind. “Starshine...”
It was summer. Somewhere warm; safe and far away from the Nekropolis.
Lia stood in her undergarments on top of a cluster of smooth boulders jutting into a lazy river. Donovan waited below, brushing a wet mop of brown hair from his eyes.
“See? Nothing to it!” he called up to the rocks.
The leap was only five feet, but Lia had gotten cold feet at the last second.
“I can’t do it, faday!” She huddled her arms over her chest and stepped away from the edge.
“Yes you can, starshine. Hear me now. Fear is but a lonely creature that slumbers within us all. It whispers terrible secrets to your heart and then feeds upon it, that it may grow s
trong. If you let it, it will consume you.”
Donovan let the words hang in the afternoon’s warming breeze. He offered his hand up to his daughter. “You mustn’t be afraid. I shall protect you always.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.” Donovan traced a cross over his heart.
Lia put her tiny toes to the boulder’s edge and looked wearily down at the babbling river. She swung her arms...
The cool embrace of the river and her father’s strong hands enveloped her all at once. The Captain of the Guard lifted his daughter from the water and into the sun. Lia squealed a perfect pairing of innocence and pride.
“I did it!” Her wide hazel eyes sparkled.
“Yes you did!” Donovan replied, “Because you believed in yourself. And in your old faday.”
Lia nuzzled her face into the coarse mask of Donovan’s beard. She threw her arms around his scarred shoulders and squeezed. After a moment, the child pushed away, her own face framed with a frown. “I wish you didn’t have to shave it off. You’re so much more handsome with it... Beastly.” Lia beamed and tugged on the scruff at Donovan’s chin.
“Aye. I like it too. But I like your mother more,” Donovan replied with a wink. He scooped Lia over his head, setting her down on his shoulders. “Ready to go again?”
The memory of what could have been, what should have been, fizzled away. The Beast let the medallion slip from his grasp, grateful for the gift it had imprinted. His head cleared and he felt Lia’s presence echoing in the firestone. The medallion pulled him to a supply tent near the edge of the clustered campfires. Fifty paces ahead was a vaulted archway of petrified wood. He dodged the Wakeful patrols, ducking behind horse carts and stacked barrels. He counted a minimum of ten patrolling pairs, each moving in a random pattern. That was only the tip of the sword: The Beast knew full well there would be plenty more.
A quartet of Wakeful guards stood at firm attention beneath the arch. The Beast quickly realized these Wakeful were different. They were taller, almost as tall as he was. And bulkier. From head to toe, the guards were covered in a nightmarish fusion of plated mail and coils of razor wire. Polished skulls of fallen mounts adorned each brute’s left shoulder, pierced by long spikes of obsidian. Each soldier grasped a lengthy halberd that burned with the malachite flame of their namesake.
The Beast slunk back behind the tent. He did not doubt that he could defeat the guards. Indeed there was no Wakeful alive that he feared. However, he needed to bypass them without the racket a brawl with four armored foes tended to provide. As he stared past the obstacle, something moist and spongy nudged into his side. The snout of a black boar protruded through the fencing, flaring its nostrils as it sniffed the strange new scent by its pen.
The Beast pet the animal’s tusked snout. “You, are no meadow either, ugly.” He counted a dozen boar in the circular pen, most of which were rooting lazily in a rusty trough. An idea formed in his head, preposterous to be sure. But worth a try. The Beast nudged a playful knuckle into the boar’s snout. “I am going to need your help.”
The pen’s lone gate was a mess of flimsy wire snagged between wooden poles. Reaching it would be troublesome if the pack spooked too early, but he had to hurry. The Beast dropped as low as he could while maintaining speed. He reached the gate and cast a glance at the brutish sentries. No movement. So far, so good. He carefully opened the simple latch, holding his breath and praying for the gate’s silent cooperation. Success. He picked up a large stone and retreated to shadow. Exactly as he had hoped, the Wakeful remained indistinguishable from stone and the gluttonous boars remained feasting.
It was thirty feet or less to the gateway. The Beast needed the guards to completely abandon their posts, only for a moment, for him to gain entry. The North Star blinked reassurance from high up in the lifeless sky. The Beast took a deep breath, took aim, and hurled the stone at the trough. A metallic clang ricocheted from the rusty metal, setting the boars into a squealing frenzy. They stampeded about the pen, butting heads and snapping at tails.
“Come on, come on...” the Beast muttered. Finally, the boars crashed into the gate, trampling the flimsy structure to pieces. They spilled from the pen, squealing in all directions. The Beast quickly snapped to the guards...
They hadn’t even flinched.
The Beast’s shoulders slumped. He frantically wracked his brain, searching for another option as the medallion pulsed at his chest. A second commotion disturbed the drab night scape.
At first, only a handful of soldiers investigated the din. Minutes later the compound burst to life. Dozens of starving soldiers fell upon the squirming boars, desperate to claim the would-be meat. A heavy rattle of metal rumbled to life shortly thereafter.
The quartet of sentries lowered their flaming halberds and marched into the chaotic fray. The Wakeful drove at the crowd, crashing upon them like a battering ram. The Beast heard the first of the screams as he sprinted to the vacated archway. It loomed high overhead as he passed through its gaping maw. The passage beyond funneled into a small corridor of twisting black branches. Stout doors guarded the castle’s entrance at its end.
He hoped beyond hope, as his paw closed around the latch, that his luck yet held. In his haste, the Beast had not considered the possibility that one of the guards may have possessed a key. But there was no time for hindsight. The Beast tightened his grasp and twisted. The latch clicked softly. Now or never, the Beast thought. He pressed a bulky shoulder against the door and pushed.
The door accepted his invitation and opened without a sound.
Chapter 27
Navigating the inner sanctum of the Nekropolis proved easier than expected. At every junction and stairway, the firestone whispered a preference for one path over the others. The labyrinth of the Hollow and its never ending cluster of dead ends and switchbacks were little more difficult to manage than a leaf swept forest path. The Beast silently thanked Polaris for having the foresight to entrust him with such an amazing gift.
He soon realized the castle was guarded more by fear than by force. Servants with the same hollow eyes of the Wakeful seemed all too eager to avoid anything but the highest trafficked areas of the upper levels. He didn’t blame them. Gods only knew what terrors lurked deep within the shadows of the black castle.
The medallion’s pulse guided the Beast into a small round room that stretched twenty paces across. It was Spartan in decor, lacking even the most basic of appointments. He sniffed around the edge, unsure of the medallion’s intentions. The same rank musty air was all the answer he received. He trundled the chamber’s circumference, pushing against the petrified surface every few steps. He was certain there the medallion hadn’t lead him there by error. The tiniest of breezes caressed the Beast’s hackles, confirming his suspicions. He approached a tight knit of branches and held a paw to the wall. A second breeze split though his claws and brushed the fur on his face.
A weak point.
The gap was just wide enough to fit his paws through. Bracing a foot against the wall, he pulled at a clutch of branches. At first, the Nekropolis refused to budge. He tensed and pulled harder, driving away from the wall with his powerful legs. The branch strained as his claws dug deeper into the black wood.
Crack!
The clutch of branches snapped under the herculean effort. He stumbled backwards, dropping the fragments to the floor. He flattened against the wall near the door, waiting to pounce on the first poor fool to investigate the disturbance. A minute later there was no clanking of armor, no heavy trampling of boots, not even the light scampering of a curious servant. Satisfied, the Beast returned to his work. A few more tugs opened the gap just wide enough.
Branches clawed at his face and arms as he squeezed his way through. The Beast felt like he had been buried alive within the Nekropolis’s walls. Ahead, flickering green light teased freedom. A child’s wavering voice echoed from somewhere, defiantly denying an unheard command.
Lia. He broke free of the gnashing branches and pulled his way to the tunnel’s mouth. Beneath him a monstrous space stretched forever into a sea of darkness. Bouncing orbs of emerald cast a ghostly shroud over a floating island of stone. His blood quickly flashed to a boil.
The Liche Queen stood with Lia before a demonic altar, trying to close the child’s hand around a dagger. A stone arbour covered in strange symbols he did not recognize stood guard over the devilish stone basin. A column of light shrouded a figure hovering a few feet above the floor. It took a second, but the Beast finally remembered the old man encased in light. Memories of Cedrik stormed home into his head. Cedrik had been more than a commanding officer. He had been Donovan’s most trusted supporter and greatest teacher. Cedrik had been the one to fill the gaps of Donovan’s military training with a mortar of ethics and strict sense of justice. He hadn’t forgotten his old mentor’s lessons.
A man should never take more than he was willing to give. A man needed to draw a hard line when dealing with those who took what they pleased.
The Liche Queen had taken plenty. She had abandoned her kingdom and family. She had spawned the scourge of Wakeful and erased magic from the realm. It was her anger that set the plot that saw Cedrik flee with Lia into anonymity into motion. The Liche Queen had burned away everything that opposed her will.
Until now.
The Beast took a single step back and then vaulted from the ledge. He fell like a bolt of lightning flung from the heavens by a vengeful god. His cloak flapped behind him like a ships sail. He made no effort to conceal this descent. He crashed onto the observation pedestal with the impact of a meteor strike. Cracks shattered the stone surface, racing away from his paws like a maze of jagged spider’s web.