Emperor Forged Page 15

  A trap. No two words about it. Aghram had always been home to vampires, and this room had a few interesting qualities that screamed out to me. The low thrum of magic made it clear that something was at work in the room, although that was just as likely to be a means of hiding other magic—such as sleeping vampires.

  “It’s an empty room. Lots of those,” Hish said before stepping through the open archway.

  The air split with piercing screams as whatever spell active in the room forcibly awakened dozens of people. They raced out of the rooms to the side, the sound of their feet like thunder. I felt the magic within them peak, overwhelming the low thrum that had been hiding them from my senses.

  “Into the room, now. Defensive formation,” I shouted.

  I leaped into the room, runes flaring to life along my sword. Each of the people charging toward us wore light armor and, more noticeably, a glowing collar of crystal. I recognized these poor souls for what they were: nightwalker vampires. The inch-long fangs, piercing screams, and inhuman speed further gave them away. They were on us before I could warn the others.

  Our swords lashed out, cleaving through their armor, flesh, and bone with ease. Their blows smashed into our armor. I heard the oni cry out in pain. In a frenzy, Hish and her warriors began scything out with their weapons to push the enemy farther away. The vampires bit, scratched, and clawed in return. Blood flew, limbs were sent flying, and armor was rent. More vampires charged out of the rooms, and the ones in front of us weren’t going down so easily.

  “Why won’t they die?” Hish screamed, ripping her sword free from the chest of a man who then hit her hard enough in the chest to dent her breastplate. I saw her wince from the blow, right before she struck him in the head and snapped his head clean off, taking him down. One of the few ways to cleanly kill a nightwalker.

  “They’re nightwalker vampires. They’re almost as fast and strong as oni, but they can regenerate. This lot are starved but restrained to the room or keep by the collars,” I said in return, cleaving through one with a backhanded blow. Another was clawing at the rear of my breastplate.

  Looking over my shoulder, I could see that the exit was unguarded. Unfortunately, the oni were pinned down at the entrance. They were busy trading their own wounded for those good to fight, keeping their formation steady. It was a constant shift, which concerned me.

  “If they had fighters like this, where were they earlier? I’d have preferred this lot for some fun,” Hish said, grinning despite the battle. She was bleeding from more scratches than I could count.

  Then she looked at me and something passed across her face. Comprehension, I realized. Then she slammed her fist on her breastplate. It was possibly the first time she had saluted me.

  “Go ahead, boss. We’ll catch up when we’ve had our fun,” she said.

  Then she got right back to it. I paused, watching the combat for several moments. Oni battling vampires. Otwin’s last defense system. Then again, I had a feeling he had one more defender, based on the fact that I saw Victoria earlier. I left the room and climbed the stairs two at a time.

  I was right. There were two of them in the throne room.

  Chapter 27

  The dark stone walls and tapestries had an oppressive feel to them. I felt a strange calling from the polished marble floors, as if I should bow down in this throne room. It was no enchantment, however, at least not one cast on the room itself.

  I knew this feeling. Anybody who had felt it once would never forget it. It was a feeling of raw intimidation and wrongness that somehow extended its way out of the magical plane and into the physical world, regardless of how dull my senses were. It would freeze weaker minds in fear, but even the strongest would feel something clawing at their senses, telling them not to ignore this threat.

  Standing beside Otwin was a warrior in armor even heavier than my own and as tall as me. He wore plate armor painted black, and it covered as much of his body as possible. A strange, gummy resin with the appearance of congealed blood filled his visor, surely blinding him, but I knew otherwise. He held a black steel greatsword over one shoulder. He certainly was a fashionable one. Black and red were the colors of the Granaise Princedom, where he hailed from.

  “Lord-General Arquin Volante, to what do I owe the honor?” I said, giving him a half-bow as I approached. I kept my distance. The throne room was nowhere near large enough to handle a foe this dangerous. I had seen him cut down dozens of demons mid-charge without so much as a hint of a spell.

  “Lord-general no longer, just as you are no longer magister-general,” he boomed, his voice loud enough to echo around the room naturally. “We are merely two generals, meeting as generals do on the field of battle.” He inclined his helmet downward and I couldn’t help but imagine him grinning. “A day such as this has taken far too long to come. Come now. Let us settle this like true warriors of the Empire.”

  Volante lowered his sword, gripping it before him in both armored gauntlets. Looking around, I could see no way to avoid this. We were alone, save for Otwin at the rear. Besides the torches burning brightly with wisps, there were no other witnesses.

  Raising my own sword, I activated several of the runes within it. Strength, cutting power, anti-regeneration, momentum—each glowed with a dim blue light on the face of the blade. We faced each other from either end of the hall, silent and waiting for some cue to begin the duel.

  “What are you—” Otwin began to say.

  I blurred forward, my momentum rune activating and propelling me with all the energy I had built up in it from earlier battles. The hall shifted in an instant as I crossed at an inhuman speed. Something hard, vicious, and invisible slammed into me meters from him. He had not moved. Light exploded along my armor, runes lighting up all along it in reaction to the impact. I felt my bones creaking and my muscles tensing. The impact was being distributed across my entire body, but it still hurt like hell.

  Whirling to the side, I barely caught Volante’s slash with my sword. Sparks flew. I pumped magical energy into my nerves and roared in anger. My arms screamed as I pushed back against his attack. His sword should have melted, the cutting rune turning his black steel into molten steel, but it held fast. I felt as though he was grinning at me behind that gummed-up visor, that oppressive feeling pounding down at me.

  Every sense in my body screamed at me to run. For once, I listened. I activated the momentum rune again, using what it had built up from the earlier attack. It shifted me slightly to the left, and I rolled. Just enough, it turned out. The marble floor disintegrated in a cloud of dust, and I saw my true foe.

  Tendrils of red mist whirled through the cloud. Then they vanished along with the cloud, and I was left clueless. I didn’t know how Volante was doing that or how I had seen it.

  I cursed my lack of magical detection ability and unslung my shield now. Archangel knew that I needed it. My ribs were still stinging from earlier.

  “I must say that your runes certainly live up to their reputation,” Volante boomed, stepping around a column that I had rolled around. “That first attack should have cut you in half, especially the way you flew into it. I’ve killed demon princes that way, you realize.”

  “You’re the type to go all-in from the start then?” I replied, looking around for any clue. That cloud had made something visible, formed of a red mist. A magical technique of Volante’s. Did what I see have a physical form? I had seen no ripples in the air, however. That was unusual for magic with a physical presence of any type. What I had seen appeared like an energy weapon formed of…

  Of shadow, I realized. Vampires had only two magical weapons, after all: shadow and blood. Had Victoria been using the same thing on her pole-axe but I had cut through her technique because it was too weak? I did remember a shadow disintegrating at the time. Otwin’s puppet master was the same with her own abilities, her claws formed of shadow able to scythe through even my armor if she so chose.

  “Any opponent who cannot handle me at my best does
not deserve me at my worst,” Volante replied with a chuckle. “Why should I die to somebody without having used my greatest techniques, merely because I underestimated them?”

  Without missing a beat, he then lashed out with his sword. I fell to the ground, not even diving. The column behind me exploded into powder, the wave of energy blasting through it. I heard a shattering sound, and lights flickered. Glancing up, I saw the lights shifting and wisps moving about.

  I rose and pumped energy into my legs, preparing to charge at Volante. He raised his sword in a guard position, as meaningless as it was. Marble cracked beneath my feet as I shot forward, my shield held before me. It was slammed backward against my chest as I ran. I nearly stumbled. Righting myself, I thrust my sword forward. Steel met steel again, but I was ready for him this time. I took another step forward, slammed my hilt against his, and then plowed my spare fist right into his helmet. The edged point of my shield gave it more power, and I felt the satisfaction of his stance give way, his body beginning to keel backward in our physical struggle.

  Then I was sent hurtling to the ground, as if I had been slapped down by a great force from above. My armor glowed brightly once more, runes flaring to life and doing everything to keep me from being chopped in half. I heard Volante cursing as I saw more shifting lights. Evidently, he had broken another of the wisp torches on the wall.

  The shadows in the room were beginning to dance, the little balls of light fluttering to the ceiling now that they had escaped their prisons. I rolled to my feet, taking a defensive stance. Then I stared in disbelief.

  A great glowing rictus grin of red energy hung in front of Volante’s helmet. A pair of bright red eyes the size of my fist hung above it. And hanging about his sword was a cloud of red mist.

  Then the wisp moved. Light fell on him again, and he was once more entirely normal.

  A daywalker among daywalkers. Built to fight in the light with attacks entirely unseen by the naked eye. I’d always thought his greatest asset was his regeneration, considered to be the third-most powerful among all vampires, but I was evidently wrong.

  “So you see my trick. I wish I could see yours,” Volante said, giving me a shrug. “Or perhaps you are like your old mistress’s scion, a punching bag that I merely need to hit harder and harder until it pops.”

  I had no plans on popping, but he was unfortunately right. These runes could only hold up for so long, as my body could distribute only so much cutting power until my organs began to give way. I needed to save my more extreme tricks for Lyria. The cost of them was too great.

  Outwardly, I gave him no response. I merely tightened my stance and looked around at the other torches. He clicked his tongue. Activating my momentum rune, I prepared to end this.

  I shot to my left, and he gave no response. Yet I caught the hint of red in the shadow between him and the wall. He had taken the bait. My momentum rune flared to life, glowing brightly.

  While I cannoned across the hall toward him, that oppressive atmosphere seemed to shift slightly, as though it was busy elsewhere, trying to block an attack that would never come. The anti-regeneration and cutting runes on my sword glowed brightly. I roared and Volante roared back as he raised his sword in defiance. His sword clattered away on the marble as I knocked it aside and swiftly brought my own blade back for a backswing. Red blurred in my peripheral vision.

  I dropped, kicking out with my feet. That brought down the armored vampire, and I watched the red mist lose its form in the shadows around us. He lashed out violently and I weathered the storm, bringing my power to bear. All this needed was one good thrust.

  As I drew back for the blow, he snapped out and grabbed my arms. I smashed my helmet into his and heard a satisfying crack as the resin shattered. Red pieces fell everywhere as he stumbled back. My sword hummed, and I pumped everything I had into this attack. I thrust forward, slamming my blade through his armor and chest. Then, while an otherworldly screech escaped Volante, I ripped my sword out clean through the top of his head.

  Volante collapsed to the ground and so did I, my body aching all over and my nerves singing from pain and overuse of magic. It had been a long, long time since I fought an opponent quite like that. Not since Miya’s predecessor, I realized. The heralds had a knack for ambushing me when I was unprepared.

  Glancing around, I saw Otwin cowering in a narrow hall behind the throne room. Did he think I wouldn’t notice him? Poor fool.

  The oppressive aura had faded with Volante’s death, but the room still seemed difficult to cross for me in my current state. From the moment I rose to my feet, every step was a minor lesson in agony. I still made it to Otwin, looked down at him, and wondered if I should pity him. It was almost as if I could see the strings attached. He would never have the chance to sever them. Severing them myself was pointless. I could never trust him, nor had he given me a reason to. Traitors were to be given a traitor’s death.

  He glanced up at me. My sword sang, the anti-regeneration rune glowing brightly, and his head hit the ground a moment later.

  A light nearby drew my attention. It was black and white and oh-so-familiar. It was coming from one of the indentations in this dead-end hallway. Was that…

  “A noble end for the noblest of vampiric warriors,” a far-too-familiar female voice sung out from the light. “Although I imagine it could have been better had it taken place during the day, with the spectacle of the sun overhead and passing shadows. Each time a cloud passes, you see his face and power. Still, it was the best Arquin could hope for. It’s difficult for vampiric regeneration to compete with that rune of yours, built as it is to explicitly counter our kind.”

  I stepped toward the light, confirming what I already knew: a magetalk projection. Even without looking closely, I could see in my mind her black hair, red eyes, and a pair of razor-sharp fangs that I knew the feel of all too well.

  It was her, after all these decades.

  Chapter 28

  She sat in a dress that was all lace and frills, a lascivious smile on her face.

  Even though the projection was in black and white, it captured almost everything about her as I remembered it. Her long black hair that was like silk in my hands and through which I would run my fingers as long as she would let me. The dress was no doubt as black as it appeared, given her typical love for the color, and I was drawn to the harsh neck of her very modest chest. The projection brought to life her almost ethereal white skin that had always made me think I was handling a doll. Only the enchanting red glow of her eyes, lipstick, and fingernails were missing.

  It worried me that it felt as if she could almost reach out and caress me. It worried me even more that I wanted it.

  I slapped myself internally. This was a woman I must hate with every fiber of my being. Tornfrost was dead. So too was Emperor Somnulus now.

  Giggling at me like she knew what I was thinking of her and in spite of my visor protecting my thoughts and expression, she continued to talk: “It’s been so long I was beginning to think you had forgotten me. But I can see you certainly haven’t. I do wonder if all those fortresses you built were a metaphorical approach to me. The keeps are your feelings cooped up inside you. The walls are what was separating us from being together. The towers… well, that’s a little on the nose. I don’t like to talk about what we do alone.

  “I much prefer to just do it. I’m not that far away, you know. Simply call and I can help you with so many problems, Mykah,” she whispered. “You can even say so now… Mykah.”

  I reached out toward the magetalk disk and found solid glass blocking my way. It was enchanted to be perfectly clear and was solid enough that I would hurt myself trying to smash through it. There had to be a way to take it off. I looked around the edges.

  “My, you are still upset, aren’t you?” the vampire said, suddenly dropping the seductive tone and leaning back with a frown. “I had thought that, going up north, you would quickly build an army of elite warriors the likes of which the Empire had not se
en since Evigilus took the throne and began the Reforms. Unlike you, I know those days. The Reforms were bright precisely because the days before it were so dark.

  “Centuries lost to the Decline, after Lucius threw away an empire that spanned most of the continent. An archangel lost, the badlands cutting off communication with most of the world, and nothing but corrupt bureaucrats stacked from the lowest sewer to the top of Archangel Tower. Then a new emperor brings forth a golden age and makes the Rogistran Empire what it is today.”

  How many times had she told me this story? I had lost count. It was a favorite, of course. Why was she repeating it now, with the Istar family gone?

  I could see some hinges that secured the glass to the frame on the wall and reached out to them.

  Muttering something under her breath, she looked at me before continuing. “That was two centuries ago. That darkness is coming again. The Empire can’t afford to stand at a wall and the mountains and wait for the world to move. It must move the world as Evigilus moved the Empire. You know this, even blinded by vengeance as you are. Or at least I thought you knew this.”

  Pausing, she gave me a considering look as I patiently removed the glass plate. “Last I checked, you are an Arium, not an Istar, Mykah. You carry that name from her for good reason, whatever your service.”

  “Do not speak to me about her!” I exploded. Shards of stone flew in front of my face as my gauntlet slammed into the wall next to her projection, although I was careful not to let it go through her. “I will see you burn as a traitor.”

  She looked away from me, pouting. “Pot, kettle, black.”

  My foot came down on the magetalk device. It made a satisfying crunch as her projection disappeared.

  Chapter 29