Thunder clapped overhead as lightning snaked its way across the sky. Dark, foreboding pillars of clouds rose to astonishing heights, covering the entire valley as rain fell in curtains from the sky. The combatants below the mountain stronghold surged in a gruesome fashion. Arrows flew across the sky, nearly as thick as the rain that fell. Groans of the dying and injured were drowned out as the thunder of cannons and rifle volleys reverberated around the surrounding walls. Fingers of lightning danced along the battlements of the stronghold, crackling with pent up energy as it searched for the easiest path to ground.
From the darkened window of the mountain stronghold, a vile grin crossed the lips of a shadowed man. With a lick of his lips, he thought, i"So many bodies… so little time."/i His eyes flitted across the expanse of the battlefield below his castle. The fight was no concern of his, for they were not his soldiers below, but the amount of carnage made the wheels of his mind turn.
Footsteps shuffled into the darkened room, disrupting his concentration as his grotesquely disfigured assistant moved into the room. Without tearing his attention from the battle below, he asked, "What seems to be the problem, Mukotsu?" his voice full of loathing.
Shuffling a bit more into the room, moving closer to his master, he replied, "Your brother Ginkotsu ventured from the castle, my lord Renkotsu. His body was brought to the gates but a few minutes ago."
"He did what?!" Renkotsu roared, grabbing the veiled hood of the hideous minion. Blood boiled in his veins at the thought of his younger brother disobeying his direct order to remain within the compound until the fighting had ceased.
Feeling the strong hand flexing against the muscles of his neck, tightening with every beat of his heart, Mukotsu replied weakly, "Curiosity got the best of him, sir. Despite the best efforts of the stable's headman and the sentries at the gates, he left the castle, badly injuring those who came into contact with him."
Realizing that telling his hot-headed brother not to do something would have resulted in this, Renkotsu released Mukotsu, dropping him heavily onto the wooden floor with a sickening crack. Quickly, Renkotsu hurried down to the front gates, as he thought to himself, i"If I'm not too late and his body isn't as mangled, I might be able to fix him up."/i As he moved toward the gates, wisps of conversation from the sentries huddled around the covered body reached his ears.
"This doesn't look good," one said as he shouldered his crossbow, nervously shuffling his feet.
Gazing at the lifeless, dismembered arm that lay across the barely-breathing body, the other replied, "He'll have our heads for not having stopped him."
"Move aside," Renkotsu barked at the peanut gallery, pushing them out of his way and roughly grabbing the sheet that covered his brother's body. The sight before him nearly killed him. Ginkotsu's lower jaw barely hung in place with what remained of his right ear, the tongue having been removed as some grotesque trophy. The meat of his body was flayed to the bone, hanging by mere threads of skin and sinew. His left eyeball hung by the nerve from the socket, swinging back and forth ominously, the optical sphere now attached to the body by only a strand of pink and putrid flesh. Where his arm was previously attached, only a stub remained, the meat of the muscle having constricted around the bone, leaving the end of the humerus exposed as a grim reminder of its former glory.
Unable to take any more of the grim scene, Renkotsu covered the torso of his brother, tears rimming his eyes as he realized that the brother he'd known all his life had died on that battlefield. "Take him to my lab," he commanded in a mere whisper that the captain of the guard barely heard.
Without another word, Renkotsu moved swiftly back to his castle, stalking the corridors until he came upon his hunched-backed minion. "Mukotsu," he called out.
Turning toward his master's voice, a quizzical look upon his hideous face, he replied, "You called, master?"
"Go to the battlefield below and bring back as many bodies as you can. I don't care if they are still alive or not," Renkotsu commanded, ignoring the look of pure glee upon his minion's face.
Slyly, almost sickly, he replied, "As you've commanded," licking his lips in anticipation of the feast he was about to have of the internal organs that were his reward of loyal service.
Turning a blind eye to his servant's habits, Renkotsu moved to his library, grabbing the books of anatomy that he'd compiled over the last few weeks from his macabre experimentations with the dead and dying soldiers from the battle below. Though they were not his soldiers, they were the perfect test subjects for his studies. What were a few more cut up bodies in a battlefield full of dead, dying and desecrated bodies?
Carrying his works to the laboratory, he thought of all the things that he was going to need to reconstruct his brother. Before he descended into the depths of the castle's subterranean caverns, he snagged a guard as he commanded, "Bring all the women from the village below who are currently pregnant. Take them to the caverns below as quickly as you can." The soldier saluted his acknowledgement and rushed with his squad to do as he'd been bidden to do.
"That takes care of the amniotic fluids for the rebirth process," he thought darkly, a wicked smile crossing his lips as he thought of the way to elicit the liquid from the women.
A few minutes later, he entered his laboratory, he looked over all his equipment, tools, beakers, and bottles, avoiding at all costs direct eye contact with the sheet-covered body of his brother. Clearing a spot off on his work bench, Renkotsu laid out his books, opening them to his drawings of the body that he'd been studying. As he looked at his diagrams, he wrote a few notes on some scratch paper of the parts that he would need to reconstruct his brother.
A few hours later, after the death rattle of the corpse upon the table, Mukotsu arrived with his wagon of dead and dying as the crowd of pregnant women was herded like cattle into the spacious caverns. Screams of terror and fear reverberated through the caverns in a cacophony of sheer noise. Renkotsu covered his ears as the noise got louder, nearly deafening him as he advanced toward his soldiers.
"Move the women into some of the dungeon rooms, slice open their bellies to get to the children that they are bearing. I want the fluids saved and brought back here as soon as possible," he cried out to the captain of the guard.
"What are we to do with them when we're done?" the ghastly white faced captain asked, gulping down the rising bile in his throat.
Moving toward the wagon of dead and dying soldiers with the captain dogging his heels, Renkotsu replied flatly, "Sew them up, smack the babes to see if they'll live… if there's dead, send them down to Mukotsu," as he began to sort through the decimated bodies, trying to find the parts that he needed as if he were in a wrecking yard.
Horror filled the captain as he stammered, "Yes sir." Turning on his heel, he practically ran the whole way to the dungeons, relieving his stomach of its contents several times along the way.
Turning back to his servant, he called out, "I want these sorted into usable parts. This is what I need, and make it fast," as he handed the scrap paper to Mukotsu.
A quick scan over the paper elicited a grin of evil proportions. "As you command, master," he replied with a vile chuckle as he quickly moved to the back of his cart, motioning for his assistants to take the various bodies to a nearby laboratory table. High-pitched screams of pain and agony echoed from the dungeons below as the soldiers began their arduous task of following their orders, slicing open the women to get the precious fluids of life. Looks of horror crossed what remained of those men barely hanging onto life as their fate was dealt by the hunch-backed sadist. The growing stench of the dead bodies and excrement rose to horrific proportions as the sound of saws and whirling machines grew louder; the back drop of a macabre opera about to commence.
The chorus of babies crying and mothers wailing echoed through the caverns was quickly joined by the horrified screams of the dying that were being systematically hacked to death as Mukotsu sliced the muscles away from the bones of arms, legs, backs, and torsos. He tossed the severed limbs into various piles. One for his own private use while the other Renkotsu dug through as he searched for the parts that he needed.
Once he collected enough to begin his grisly task, Renkotsu approached the draped cadaver of his brother. As he moved the drape away from the corpse of his once muscular brother, Renkotsu retched once at the sight of his mangled, flayed, and grotesque- smelling body. Wiping his mouth of the revolted material of his body, Renkotsu grasped his instruments and delved into his laborious task.
Hours into the procedure, sweat dripped from his brow as he meticulously stitched together organs, muscle, tissues of every facet of the human body. Buckets of the precious amniotic fluids tinged with blood bathed limbs that had been newly spliced together. Wails of despair, cries of joy and screams of horror continued to echo through out the cavern as the macabre opera continued past the opening act.
Finishing the final knots at the seams of a particularly important and fragile element, Renkotsu moved back from the operating table as he said, "It's finished. Lower the rest of him into the fluids." He wiped his brow with his bloody shirt sleeve, nervously watching his assistant lower the patched together cadaver into the amniotic fluids, hoping that he'd not wasted the majority of the night for a fool's errand.
Once the body was submerged, Mukotsu moved toward his master, a sickly smile upon his lips at the thoughts of his succulent meal of liver, hearts and entrails that he was soon to partake. Glancing toward the pile of corpses, both young and old of all sexes, he cackled in delight, causing a shiver of fear to strike the remaining guards, who were already nervous as they watched the insane doctor sew various body parts to his dead brother. Hearing the quaking of the armor-clad soldiers, Mukotsu turned his hunger-glazed eyes toward the group. Licking his lips he asked, "Scared?"
The captain of the guard replied in a fear-stricken stutter, "No, si… si… sir."
Smirking, Mukotsu turned back towards Renkotsu as he asked, "What are we waiting for?" as he looked once more at the submerged corpse.
Looking toward his assistant, Renkotsu replied, "We need to move this whole container into the east tower before the storm passes."
A confused look crossed the hunch-backed assistant's face as he asked, "What for, my lord?"
"If my calculations are correct, we can reanimate his body by electrical stimulation. Since we cannot make it out of thin air, the thunderstorm makes a perfect choice. However, we must hurry, or all will be lost," he replied, motioning toward the guards to carry the cadaver and fluids to the tower.
A vile smile crossed Mukotsu's face as he countered, "If it doesn't work, we'll have a wonderful soup."
Blanching slightly at the thought, Renkotsu replied, "Only you could think of food like that." They followed the soldiers from the cold, damp caverns into the dizzying heights of the east tower.
Placing the metal box upon a similar table that had been in the cavern laboratory, the soldiers filed from the cramped confines of the east tower, leaving Renkotsu and his assistant to their vile work. Taking some copper plates that he'd had specially made for his experiments, he placed them inside the fluids, near his brother's unmoving body. With Mukotsu turning the wheel to lift the metal box laden table toward the open ceiling and the raging thunderstorm, Renkotsu crossed his fingers, hoping that all was not in vain.
Once the box had reached the desired height, all they could do was sit back and wait for the lightning to strike. A few lightening bolts missed the towers, but finally struck home, sending the electrical charge through the box, fluid and into the body. Electrical currents raced through the lifeless body, causing muscles to contract as the heart jumped back to life, moving the blood that had been drained from the soldiers throughout his body. Muscles quivered and jerked as the current ran through the neurons, causing limbs to flail around like string less marionettes.
Horrid noises came from above the duo as the current surged through the mass of flesh and bone, deafened only by the crack of lightning and roll of thunder. Renkotsu watched in fascination as his once-dead brother's body jumped to life. His screams of pain and agony were like a lullaby to the ears that once filled with the notes of a funeral march.
As the lightning subsided, the screams becoming more of an aching sob, Mukotsu lowered the great metal box at the behest of his master, quite eager to see if the experiment had worked or if the body had been reduced to boiled meat. Lower and lower the table went; wisps of smoke curled from around the box, indicating where the lightning had struck and where the metal was still hot. What had once been a breathless, rotting corpse now rested comfortably in the remains of the amniotic fluid. His steel grey eyes stared straight ahead as he breathed in deep, fresh breaths of air. A guttural sound resonated from his throat as he tried to form words as he saw the amazed looks of his brother and assistant.
Tears welled into Renkotsu's eyes as he gazed upon his brother's once perfect body, covered in horrific scars, patchwork quilted together with various other bodies from the battle below. Turning his head toward the guttural sounds, only able to make out one word, 'how,' he replied, "Through the advancements of science, Ginkotsu, my brother. Through science was I able to revive you."
Comforted by his brother's words, Ginkotsu tried to move. He tried to move an arm, then a leg, only to have them not move as he'd once remembered. The results were more of a thrashing, sloshing the warmed fluid over both men as frustration and fear captured Ginkotsu's mind.
"Hush, brother," Renkotsu murmured, trying to console the monster, only to get knocked back against the stone walls of the tower, striking a metal spike that protruded through his chest. Eyes wide in fear, he glanced down at the intrusion before shock of the situation took over. A scream slipped from his lips moments before a thunderclap ended the horrific sound.
Rumors range around the area of a monster made of deceased men, but few have lived to tell of him. The castle sits vacant atop the mountain; only ghosts dare haunt the halls. Since the day of his death, the servants and guards fled for their lives, never to speak of the horrors and atrocities of the place.