**
"We need to see the king," Khaine announced to the ghostly valet, a few moments later.
"So soon?" Haras asked. "Surely you have not already completed your investigation?"
"We have, and we must render the information to His Grace immediately," Khaine urged. "It is a matter of great importance."
The spirit eyed the elder Arbiter up and down, but finally nodded. "Very well. I shall conduct you to His Majesty forthwith."
Once again, they followed the spirit down the hallway littered with death, but this time, D'Arden could feel tension tightening in his stomach. He hoped that Khaine was wrong; that he and his mentor did have enough combined strength to be successful.
"I pray you have brought good news to my lord," the attendant said. "He does not take kindly to bad news."
"The news is good indeed. We know how to stop the demon," Khaine said.
"Wonderful. I'm sure he will be glad to hear it."
There was a note in the ghost's voice that D'Arden didn't particularly care for.
They stood again before the doors to the king's audience chamber, and the ghost simply waved them open without knocking. The arched doors swung wide, revealing the rows of wooden benches with the hundreds of corpses sitting upon them. Nausea twisted D'Arden's stomach once more as the stench of years upon years of death rolled over them.
They followed behind the ghost for a few steps, and then the doors slammed shut behind them. The spiritual valet vanished, only to reappear at the side of the king a moment later.
"Your Highness!" cried Haras the attendant. "The Arbiters have told me that you are the demon! They mean to kill you and steal your throne! You must defend yourself!"
"WHAT?" roared the king, rising to his feet. "How dare you seek to take my kingdom from me!"
In his spiritual sight, D'Arden could see everything so clearly. The ghost, Haras, was simply a projection, controlled by the lurker as a way to whisper directly in the king's ear. As the spirit spoke, the tendrils of corrupted energy tightened around Thormund's eyes and heart, and D'Arden realized that it had complete control over the young king. Perhaps it did not possess him entirely, but the roots of its insidious poison ran so deep that it would be impossible to extract the king from them without killing him in the process.
The king flung out one hand, and D'Arden saw the threads of power connecting the king to the hundreds of dead subjects in the room jerk, and then dangle like the strings of a marionette. "My loyal subjects! Your King calls upon you to defend him!"
All at once, as though drawn to their feet by invisible ropes, the hundreds of dead rose from their seats on the benches, and turned to face the two Arbiters.
"Shit," Khaine spat.
The dead descended upon them like a tidal wave of rotting flesh and bone, raking claws and gnashing teeth.
D'Arden slashed about him frantically with his manna blade. The blue crystal edge cut through swaths of the dead, trailing brilliant azure flame in its wake. The corpses shrieked and howled as the fire ignited the corruption within them and drilled inward, seeking the source to purify it.
There were just so many of them.
Khaine stood with him, back-to-back, his sinewy arms wielding his own cobalt crystal sword with effortless skill. The king's subjects fell like wheat before a scythe as Khaine tore through them, cutting limbs and heads and cleaving torsos in twain to let them be devoured by the cleansing fire, burning away the evil which animated them.
A claw raked D'Arden's face, causing an explosion of pain – he responded by severing the hand, the arm and finally the head from the shoulders of the creature that attacked him. Teeth groped for his arm, his throat, and the smell of death, which had been cloying in the air before, was now almost suffocating. He did his utmost just to keep breathing as he hacked through the horde with ruthless, desperate intent.
The room was alight with blue flame, he realized hazily. His arms were growing heavier, but the mindless intent of the dead did not provide them much in the way of strategy. They simply rushed, all at once, and the scything arcs of fire from the Arbiters' blades caught more alight than the swords could cut on their own.
After what seemed like both an instant and an eternity, the dead were gone.
D'Arden lowered the point of his crystalline blade slowly, his breathing coming in short, heavy gasps. His arms felt like lead weights, and all he wanted to do was simply to lie down and sleep.
Khaine was behind him, his breathing also labored, though not as deeply as D'Arden's. "Are you all right?" the elder man asked in a fierce whisper.
"Yes," D'Arden responded between gasps. "Yes, master, I'm fine." He could feel the lines on his face where the dead man's claws had cut him already beginning to prickle and tingle as the manna repaired them.
D'Arden turned toward the dais, just barely in time to bring up his sword in a parry as the king brought a monstrous, two-handed blade bearing down him, with surprising strength for such an emaciated young man.
Instead of parrying the blade straight-on – he had no chance of stopping a blow with that much force and weight behind it – D'Arden twisted in a pirouette even as he brought his own sword around, deflecting the direction of the great sword without absorbing too much of the shock. The king's strike slid off and slammed against the ground beside them both, but the impact jarred D'Arden's shoulders enough that they wrenched and cried out in protest.
Khaine was ready with his own attack, his weapon arcing through the air at chest-height. Thormund, evidently realizing there was no time to bring up his six foot-long sword in a parry, simply ducked under the manna blade and shouldered Khaine with unexpected force, causing him to go sprawling backward against the rows of benches. The wooden structures collapsed under the sudden weight in a shower of splinters and near-deafening cracking, snapping sounds.
Then Thormund turned his attention back to D'Arden, and swung that monstrous sword around again, the tip whistling through the air. "How dare you try to take my throne from me?" roared the young monarch.
He was stuck on that idea, D'Arden realized, as he flung himself to the ground to avoid the chest-level strike. Even so, the whirling great sword severed more than a few of his long dark hairs from his head as he dropped. The king could not see anything past what the monster was feeding him.
The king's sword came around again, and D'Arden leapt backward to avoid the upward cut. Though possessed of incredible strength, the king was not much of a swordsman, and his technique was basic. Unfortunately, even the most rudimentary of skill, when paired with enough strength, would be enough to sever D'Arden at the waist if he wasn't careful.
"I'll kill you!" roared Thormund. "Stop moving!"
The childish whine behind the threat instantly changed D'Arden's feelings; the anger and exhilaration that he felt from the fight vanished in an instant, to be replaced by a sick sense of pity.
Thormund swung again, over the shoulder this time, and D'Arden watched it come, only dodging out of the way at the last moment, when the king was fully committed to the strike. The blade slammed into the stone floor, throwing off a shower of sparks, but then it came up again only a split-second later.
D'Arden had learned much about swordplay from his trainers at the Arbiter's Tower. He knew that this king possessed no skill, no training beyond that of a squire, perhaps, and with a much shorter blade. Thormund swung the great sword like a club, simply trying to hit the Arbiter with it. It was like watching a child attempt to swat a fly with a heavy stick most of his height.
The Arbiter dodged another clumsy swing, stepping back and to one side. With a battle cry that had all of the ferocity of a denied child's screech, the king drove the six-foot sword in a straight line at D'Arden's chest.
Almost sadly, D'Arden knocked it aside with a parry, though his strength was not enough to push it aside completely. The king's sword slid along D'Arden's ribs, separating cloth and flesh, spilling blood and azure fire down the Arbiter's side. Pain engulfed
D'Arden, but he bit back a cry of pain as he slid his crystal sword all the way down the length of the great sword, locking his sword's edge into the hilt of his opponent's weapon, and twisting. The great sword wrenched free of the king's grasp, clattering harmlessly to the floor, away from them both.
Thormund's eyes went wide as he was disarmed. He stared at D'Arden, and at the glowing shard of blue crystal now pointed at his throat. In those maddened eyes, D'Arden could see the child who had grown up with his family and his subjects dying all around him, both knowing and simultaneously blinded to their fate. He also saw the madness there, dancing in the boy king's eyes, the insanity instilled in him by the lurker and by his surroundings. That madness was soul-deep, and there was nothing that Khaine or D'Arden – or anyone, for that matter – could ever do for such a soul.
The king took a slow step backward.
D'Arden realized that he was wrong.
There was one thing he could do.
The young Arbiter flexed, his right foot sliding forward as his arms sprang out, and his blazing sword moved as though time had slowed to a crawl. It arced out before him, and caught Thormund squarely in the throat; flesh, muscle, tendon and bone severed in a spray of glittering carnelian droplets, sparkling like garnets in the torchlight, before the blade exited the other side.
The boy king's red-tinged eyes were locked on his for what felt like the longest moment D'Arden had ever lived.
"I'm sorry," the young Arbiter whispered.
The king exploded into azure flame.
D'Arden flew backward at the force of the blast, tumbling head-over-heels in the air, slamming into the ground with bone-jarring force, and finally fetching up against the doors to the audience chamber.
He looked up from the floor, opening his spiritual sight.
The tendrils of crimson which had surrounded the king were all alight with the cobalt flames of purity. The place where Thormund had stood only a moment before was a monstrous bier of blue light, with the purifying manna racing along all of those red tendrils of energy.
D'Arden watched as the lurker tried to extract those tendrils, pull back its energy, but it was too late. They were too deeply rooted, and the lurker had no way to extract them quickly from their target. The tongues of cleansing flame raced along them, back to where the lurker was hiding within the wall, and then the monster itself began to burn.
It had been so closely tied with Thormund that they were essentially one creature, D'Arden realized, as he watched the lurker burn. Its shriek echoed on the spiritual plane so loudly that a soft, keening wail could even be heard from the stone wall behind the throne. The lurker howled and twisted, but it could not escape the fate which had finally come for it.
The explosion had put out all the lanterns and torches in the audience chamber, and the only remaining light was shed by the battle between purity and corruption, the cobalt and the crimson, twisting around one another and throwing off violet sparks as the lurker fought to hold on to its existence. Slowly, D'Arden realized that he could see a dark shape against the light – it was Khaine, directing the blue flame with his own will, driving it inexorably forward, overpowering the lurker which was badly weakened by the loss of its host.
With a last, dying scream, the lurker's will failed, and the azure blaze consumed it completely, leaving the Arbiters in the pitch-blackness of the empty audience chamber.
**
The rain had slackened to a gentle mist, and pale, colorless light from the Deadmoon above was beginning to filter through the clouds by the time they made it back outside. D'Arden was still holding the healing gash in his ribs, and Khaine was nursing several bruises, splinters and what might have been a broken ankle from where he'd been tossed against the benches like a rag doll.
"Back to that village," Khaine said as they untied their horses from the hitch. "It's not much, but at least we know the residents won't be coming back, and it's dry… if not particularly warm."
D'Arden only nodded, his mind engulfed by pain and the memory of the king's eyes; they had been shocked, but he'd been certain he'd seen a measure of… relief. Was it relief that he had seen there – thankfulness at finally being released of his terrible burden? Or was his mind only imagining it, to lessen the guilt of what he'd done?
Khaine appeared before him, a dark shape against darker surroundings. The elder man clasped D'Arden's shoulder with one huge, calloused hand, looking him squarely in the eyes. "You understand that we did only what we had to? Such corruption cannot be left to fester, D'Arden – not if we can help it. A boy like Thormund, his family and kingdom ravaged by a plague, left to fend on his own as his friends and family died around him… he never stood a chance. In time, such a wound in the natural flow could fell even the strongest and most brilliant of us."
The young Arbiter found that no words would come to his lips. Instead, he nodded mutely, his face a fixed, grim mask.
"Good," Khaine said, turning back to his horse. "Now come."
For a long moment, D'Arden watched as his mentor climbed into the saddle atop his soaked and miserable-looking horse. He felt a chill travel down his spine… one that had nothing to do with the cold breeze blowing at his back.
With gritted teeth, D'Arden climbed up into his saddle, and they turned their backs on the castle.
####
Author's Note
Thank you for taking the time to download and read this novelette. The real measure of an author is not in how many sales they make or where they rank on a chart - it's how many readers that they connect with, and I hope that I made an impact on you.
I am just beginning this road as an independent author, and it has been a hell of a ride so far. The world of Eisengoth, in which this story is set, takes up a large section of real estate in my head, and is continuing to grow. There are a lot of stories which could be told in this setting, and I intend to continue exploring.
I truly hope, if this is your first exposure to my work, that you enjoyed it. There is more out there, and there is more coming.
Thank you again, and I hope you're looking forward to another Tale of Eisengoth.
Christopher Kellen
September, 2011
About the Author
Christopher Kellen is an IT specialist who thinks he's got what it takes to spin the occasional swords-and-sorcery yarn. His heroes of literature are those who are fearless in telling an uncompromising story. He wishes that there were more people who wrote like Robert E. Howard, H.P. Lovecraft, and Karl Edward Wagner, and while he knows that that he can never live up to their genius, he hopes to contribute something to the genre that they so loved. He lives in New Hampshire with his wife and their monstrous black dog.
Connect With Me Online
My blog: https://christopherkellen.wordpress.com
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/eisengoth
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