Almost done with this story, an unusual feat all things considered. I hope to get the final chapter out this weekend. Please enjoy.
Despite the clanging of the alarm bells and the flickering torches that painted everything we saw in disgusting monochrome, there were no other Royal Knights or guards that we saw. The Castle of Melior was uncomfortably silence, and it unnerved Oscar. "Where are the others?"
I shook my head as we hurried down the ghost like hallways. Each of my attempts to use the crystal to communicate with Renning and others was met with cold silence. "Engaged against the flayed ones. They are too busy to return our messages or are too far away to make any difference. That can be the only option."
It was a lie. My two subordinates looked unconvinced. So was I.
There was another one and Kieran looked knowingly to Oscar as if he nonverbally said it. I knew what the other option was, and I did not to say it.
No further encounters with the flayed ones held us up before we reached the apothecarion. As we stood at the end of the short hallway to the chamber's entrance, I realized why.
There was no entrance. It had been entirely consumed by the veil of darkness.
An ethereal wind sung in the air, drowning out the chiming of the bells. It was as if the shadow became sentient and in response to our presence, belched out nightmares of skinless flesh wrapped in living metal. It twisted and unraveled like mortuary drapes, each time it brought forth another warrior.
Three of the flayed ones stood with proud tower like shields that pulsed with some long forgotten energy. Three armored warriors stomped towards us, coffin-shaped shields locked together in the manner of some ancient empire. Unlike the other flayed ones we had faced, these carried energized khopesh blades and were emblazoned with dynastic symbols. I knew a warrior elite when I saw it. I also knew who they were protecting.
A slender flayed one, not an assassin but one nobility cowered behind this wall of formidable guardians. Stone like lapis lazuli accented his mechanized body in long strips and a gilded beard clasp protruded from his chin. In one metal-fingered hand he carried a staff; the other clutched the tethers of the veil. Here was the architect of darkness. And it was through him we would have to go if we were to reach our stricken Queen. As his guardians marched towards us, the Baron extended a talon in our direction. His voice echoed with the resonance of ages. "Defilers. Infidels. You are an inferior species, lesser in every way to the calligans. Behold what your arrogance has wrought. You will have all eternity to regret it."
I cracked a dry smile as I drew forth my sword. "Those are bold words. I believe they sound like a challenge." Oscar shouldered his lance and flicked out his compact bow and had already notched three arrows with small vessels of corrosive acid at the end.
"Which I gladly accept." He loosed the three arrows against one of the flayed ones, whose true name was the calligans I suppose. The three arrows shattered in a splash of the green liquid enveloped the tower shield wielding warrior. The acid quickly ate away the metal on the shield and exposed the dangerously unarmored soldier. Almost instantaneously, new metal from the shield began to branch out to repair the damage done to the piece of living metal but Oscar had tossed his bow to the ground and threw his wyrmslayer like a javelin. The lance struck the monster behind the shield and it collapsed in the death convulsions.
I raised my Dao to my eyes to salute the last two of the Baron's guardians. Oscar shook his head as he drew forth his falchion and stabbing dirk from his belt. "No Geoffrey." He pointed into the direction of the Baron and not his guards. Kieran also readied his axe and I knew what these two were willing to do. "Kill that thing."
"Aye, save the good queen!" Kieran exclaimed. After a moment's hesitation, I knew the fate my two second in command soldiers had condemned themselves to. Each one of these warrior elites were capable fighters against an entire platoon of Knights, two against two were not favorable odds.
With no further prompt needed, I ran down the corridor. One of the guardians stepped into my path but I parried its khopesh blade and thundered a kick into its lowered shield, smashing the flayed one aside. I heard Oscar and Kieran as both engaged them, with a cry of vengeance upon their lips. I did not stop to see how they fared, I leapt at the damnable nobel.
The ancient calligan recoiled, brandishing his staff defensively as vortices of shadow swirled around him. I watched the darkness retreat, like mist before the sun, carrying the baron with it, who clung on like some infernal passenger. I vaulted into the air, the sword of Delbray held aloft in a two-handed grip. As the blade descended, the vizier was already fading.
Cruel laughter echoed around me as I scythed through nothing, embedding my sword in the deck-plate underfoot with a resounding clang.
But I would not be denied, and gave chase into the apothecarion. Behind me, the two old rivals were fighting for their lives. I could not stop, or their sacrifice would mean nothing. The scent of my enemy still clung to me, and I hurried through the gaping doorway.
The baron had not run far, for inside the hospital the veil of darkness howled like a captured thunderhead. It bleached all vitality from the room and its occupants as if their very life force was being surrendered to sustain it.
Five figures stood in the center of the tempest whirling around them. Renning and two survivors from the honor guard along with Tibarn stood their ground against familiar flayed ones. Behind them, using her body to shield both Elincia and her child, Mist tried her best to counteract the poison that had ravaged Elincia's body Here they were, the ones we had fought on Volus. The skins of the dead clung to their metal forms. There was a score of them, brutal swords and maces in their hands as the survivors mounted one last final stand around the final mother of the Crimean house.
I entered the hospital and spied the reclusive baron, who was half smothered in shadows at the edge of the room. It looked at me and raised a gilded finger and pointed it at me. One of the monsters turned to face me and with the clack of the metal jaw, it sprang at me, this flesh-draped horror. I weaved aside from its reaching claws and cut its midriff, parted abdomen and torso through its spinal column. I didn't wait to see it dissipate, more were coming.
I shot one with my swiftly drawn hand crossbow. The burst took it in the chest, arrested its mad leap and sent it into ether. I aimed at a second but one of the flayed ones slashed my forearm, tearing up the vambrace and disarmed me. With a sweep the Tempest Dao, I decapitated it. A third I impaled through the chest, and staggered a fourth with a heavy punch. It was dazed, or rather I had forced the ethereal essence to recollect what had had just happened and it took a few seconds to adjust.
Long enough for me to cleave it open diagonally from shoulder to hip. It phased out in a flurry of sparks.
My efforts had gotten me as far as Elincia's cot. She looked as sickly and pale as I remember. Her chest was horrifyingly still, even though I had told myself she still yet drew breath.
I turned away and pointed my Dao at the baron in the back to direct Renning and Tibarn. "We need to take that thing out."
Renning scooped in low to take a relic blade from his fallen lieutenant, replacing his ceremonial gladius. The remaining held energized axes whilst Tibarn had his fists. Some eighteen calligans had been struck down around us. Several had phased out, but the rest were currently self repairing. In the encroaching veil of darkness, I saw more viridian balefires flicker into life as the gilded baron summoned yet more warriors "And how do you propose that we do that?" Tibarn growled under his breath to me.
I gulped hard. I knew of only one option. It was borderline suicidal but I had to do it. For Elincia, anything was worth the price to see my rose restored to health. "With courage and pride, Tibarn. He won't escape this time. Make me a breach with your warriors, and I'll pierce whatever passes for a heart in this thing."
"What of the queen?" One of the warriors asked.
Mist nodded and fed more vulnerary into Elincia as she rose. She wrapped Elena in the arms of Elincia to comfort the cry child and drew her sonic sword. "I will stay here, and defend our queen."
Renning looked to me, a flicker of concern danced across his face. "If this fails, you will be trapped in that horde."
"Aye, but you always did claim I was a reckless one." I marshaled my fear and griped my sword for what might be the last time. I knew why Bastian had always treated his weapons and charges like living creatures. They were at your side, in your hands when you needed them the most. I breathed a small prayer of thanks to the spirit of the sword, while also asking for one last victory and I would polish it like I have been meaning to do.
Self-repaired, several of the flayed ones jerked back to their feet. Their jaws clacked as if laughing, and sliced their talons against one another in anticipation of the kill. For animations of metal and fire they displayed an unnerving awareness of malice. The honor guard was ready, and I lowered my blade into a ready stance. "Cut deep…"
Renning and Tibarn led the honor guard against the assembled monsters. Their sudden attack briefly stunned the horde and for a few seconds they reeled against the First Captain' fury mixed with the King's grief. Renning used his bulk and strength to break the flayed ones apart, ignoring the claws that raked his armor. Tibarn was bleeding from several deep fissures across his chest but a fury born of anger kept his heart pumping. "Faith and duty!" The two roared together.
Through the flurry of axes, I saw mechanized limbs fall in a metal rain. Torsos were hacked apart, heads cleaved. Like their captain and king, the Honor Guard were brutal. Relentless.
My warrior's heart thundered with pride to witness such unstinting determination and bravery. Like a spear tip they had driven deep into the flayed ones, forcing a channel that thrust all the way to baron. Embattled on every side, Renning cried out and with one last effort made the breach I needed. "Do it, Geoffrey… now!"
The distance was short, my passage blocked only by broken calligans underfoot. I fixed the light blue orbs of the vizier with a glare that promised retribution. "For Crimea and Phoenicis!" My fury was unstoppable. "Here you will die!"
As I reached my enemy, I sprang into a shallow leap, using it to gain loft and additional momentum. With nothing held back, I struck down one-handed, putting every iota of strength I possessed into the blow. My Dao flared in my hand with the anger that burned inside my heart. I crashed down upon the raised staff and continued without pause down the skullmask. This was one of noble lineage and the warm feeling of blood splashed my face as I sheared him from his head down to his groin without pause.
Steel, skin, muscle, organs, bone… all of it was parted by the fiery edge of my blade. The baron fell to the ground a mess as I wiped away the visceral fluids from my face. Triumphant, I turned to Renning and Tibarn. The darkness was receding, my plan had succeed-
Renning was down, his armor form unmoving and the right arm that held the relic blade was three feet away. Tibarn was on the ground as well, his hand vainly grasping at air that would not come to his collapsed throat. The last two of the honor guard laid scattered around the ground with their internals now outside their body. Mist was wounded, her blood streaked form was at the feet of her assailent unable to move as she cried out for her child.
"No. No it cannot be!" I gasped out and tried to charge the one I saw but my feet gave way as breath escaped me as I collapsed to the ground, in a vain attempt to summon unseen fluid but it would never come. My sword felt heavy in my grip, and it tumbled out of my fingers.
An old enemy turned to regard me and in his fathomless gaze I saw the fall of empires and the terrible entropy of ages. He had returned.
The Gilded King of the Damned.
My nemesis.
The Undying of Volus.
"I am the omega."
As the darkness closed in around me and I drowned again, I saw his obsidian edged glaive held over Elincia in an executioner's grip. There was no pity in his eyes, no mercy, not even malice, just a deep abiding ennui that presaged an end to all things.
The ice came back, crusting the ground and shawling my body in a sudden snowfall. Beneath it, I heard the beating hearts, they quaked the very earth. I gasped, but breath wouldn't come. Black spots flecked my sight, converging at the edge of my vision.
I raged, but knew that I was dying. My gauntleted fingers slipped from the sword's hilt and heard it clatter uselessly to the ground. I fell to one knee, then all fours. Crawling, still defiant, I felt the scrape of talons pin me as the flayed ones swarmed in to watch their master claim the kill.
Swallowed by a sea of cold metal, something seized my face and then a hand was clamped around my neck. A blade pierced my shoulder, another in my back and I was steadily transfixed.
I could only watch on in horror as the weapon was poised to claim the life of Elincia. I watched as little Elena was scooped up from the blade's edge, spared from the death that was to come to my queen. Though what horrors awaited the innocent child and her blessed mother I could not fathom.
The shroud of shadows claimed me once again, and I thought I heard far away voices but dismissed them as nostalgic memory. I had died on Volus and come back, but there was no returning from this.
I had failed myself, Mist, Renning, Tibarn, Bastian, Elincia... all of Tellius. My name would be marked in shame, but my personal dishonor would be nothing compared to the losses suffered today. Nothing would eclipse that fact.
A dense ball of white heat flared in my side prompting a gout of hot fluid to erupt from my throat, spewing up over my lips in a coppery wash. I spat it out, retching up the blood-