
Chapter 6: Regicide
The Cleric stood with the others on a hill overlooking Castle Sepulkre as the catapults began firing away. She grimaced, reluctant to wish death upon the guards but seeing no other choice. In the distance, she spotted the helmets of the Kings’ guards along the parapet, sticking their crossbows over and firing in volleys. She knew several diversionary bands of ghostly legions carrying siege ladders and rams would advance from other points around the castle.
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Yet the main focus was to be here.
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Deceptively small in number, a formation of undead soldiers in close ranks advanced at a steady trot to their ordered gate. The Legate was there, front and center, his words carrying on the wind as he bellowed to his obedient legions. They formed a shield wall, crossbow bolts glancing off or sticking into their shields as they trotted forward.
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“Hold here!” the Legate called out, and they came to a sudden halt. Among the ranks of undead soldiers, the Hex now scrambled forward, keeping behind the cover of the raised shields and whipping her hands outward. Flames blossomed around her, and the fiery portal opened in front of the undead soldiers.
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The Cleric watched in awe as two Pitfiends poured out of the portal, the sight just as incredible as when she fled the Twin Kings nearly a week ago. They towered above the others, screeching menacingly and advancing toward the gate—the skies, cloudy since daybreak, now rippled with the rumble of thunder. Marching forward, the two Pitfiends charged into the wooden gate at this section of Castle Sepulkre’s front gate. Their great claws raked the gate, sending splinters and chunks of wood soaring as they howled and battered away in a fury. Then, the undead soldiers came ever closer at the Legate’s command, shields raised high.
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This close to the walls, the guardsmen above began hurling down boulders and pots of boiling oil on the invading horde. The Cleric watched in horror as they twitched and sizzled from the impact—their shields dropping to the ground, clattering beside their swords as they silently toppled down their siege ladders.
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Had they been living, the Cleric knew she’d be rushing forward to treat and heal their wounds, her mission be damned. But, as it was, she could do nothing but stare as the Legate’s unit merely closed ranks.
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The Headsmen pushed back the other assaulting parties all along the castle walls. A halberd hooked itself against the top of one particular ladder, and a half dozen guards grabbed it together, managing to push it away from the stone wall. The undead soldiers struggled as they were pushed aside, toppling to the ground all at once as a ragged cheer echoed from above. Though the Savant’s soulless army were great in number, they lacked the vigor and dexterity of the living.
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Several stones slammed into the wall in response. Steady as ever, the undead siege engineers quickly reloaded, using the vast stockpile of rocks they had hoarded over the previous few days. Small scenes of destruction played out all along the walls of Sepulkre as the Kings’ men were pressed to their very limit.
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We will surely slip in unnoticed, the Cleric thought to herself, glancing over at the Augur. He merely observed the assault without expression.
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The Pitfiends continued battering away against the gate, already ripping away pieces of wood and steel as gaps appeared - showing glimpses of the gold armor of enemy guardsmen in reserve. Maria felt a surge of hope growing as she saw the guardsmen waiting silently as the gate fell to pieces. If they are out here, then the Kings are unprotected.
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Bolts and rocks spat down through embrasures atop the gates, yet it had little apparent effect. The Pitfiends continued their unrelenting assault, now gripping stout wooden planks and wrenching them out of their rivets. A boiling pot of hot oil doused one of them. The flames rippling along his body merely swelled in size as the oil spattered against his demonic skin.
The gates were now a ruin, shattered wood and metal barely holding together as enormous holes had been gouged inside. Yet the Pitfiends were not yet finished. Together they grasped the remnants of the gate and pulled. They strained, their cloven hooves digging into the churned-up dirt and rubble, and then stumbled back a pace as the shattered gate finally ripped open.
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At once, the headsmen surged forward. A wild swing from one grazed a Pitfiend’s flesh, spattering a few drops of ichor against the wall. Then, in a fury, it reached out with both arms a moment later. The Pitfiend plucked the struggling guardsman, roaring in his face before crushing his helmet and brains alike. The headless guard toppled to the ground amidst his fellows.
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“Charge!” the Legate shouted, and his force of undead soldiers pressed forward, shields still raised high as they joined the two Pitfiends.
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“Now is the time to strike,” the Reaper hissed impatiently as if finally giving vent to an overpowering emotion. The Cleric looked back at the small band of Conduits gathered together. The Reaper paced back and forth, her hands clenching and unclenching around the hilts of her twin swords.
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“Patience,” the Augur said distantly. He leaned against his staff, staring into the swirling melee as the Pitfiends ripped into the elite guardsmen, even as their axes landed heavy blows on the demons’ exposed legs. “They will create a breach that I will take us through. But not yet… not yet…”
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“Are you really so eager to kill?” the Cleric asked despite herself. The Reaper’s eyes flicked over to her in annoyance. She snorted, her mask rippling.
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“Stay out of my way.”
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The Cleric opted not to reply. Instead, she eyed the Heretic as she cackled and rubbed her hands together while she watched the fighting. The Schism aside, she did not trust the former church leader. Although she was an ally of convenience, she clearly had much more sinister intentions—why else would she help their siege?
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More than a few rams were in ruins outside their chosen gates. The Cleric wrenched her eyes away from the melee in front of her and examined the overall battlefield. Crossbow bolts were not quite as effective as they would be against a living legion, but they still peppered the area and felled their share of undead soldiers. Several lay slumped against a fallen ram, hands pinned against the heavy timber, while others had been burned to a crisp. The initial assaults had fallen short in most places, though they had managed to push onto the walls in others.
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Still, only two groups stood a chance of ending this. “We have a breach,” the Augur announced calmly, as if stating a dessert course. He lifted his staff, and a shimmering aura of magic spread around the gathering of Conduits. “Do not leave this bubble.”
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At once, the Augur strode forward. The Heretic followed close behind with several apostles, the Reaper trailing them. The Cleric hurried to keep near the Augur as he continued his steady walk. The flickering teal magic around them kept them within a small shell of energy. The Cleric wondered what the Augur would do next to speed their passage as they walked toward the gate. Then she realized just how slowly everything took place outside.
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No, not just slow, but almost frozen.
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She gazed at a crossbow bolt sailing down, slowly sinking toward the dirt as though it had been caught in thick molasses. They passed by before it even hit the ground. Up ahead, a Pitfiend’s massive arm had arced back. It was reeling for a strike, but the arm’s motion was glacial. A tableau of combat lay before them, yet they strode forward calmly as if they were highborn nobles observing a gallery of the Kings’ fall.
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A slow spread of magmatic viscera trailed down the second Pitfiend’s leg where a headsman had lodged his great axe. The Legate had lunged forward, snarling as his sword slowly stabbed upward to the headsman’s unguarded stomach. The headsman had noticed, his eyes wide, though there was little he could do about it with his axe stuck firm. And all around them, the Conduits weaved a narrow path, passing through undead soldiers and guardsmen all but frozen by time.
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“What would happen if I slashed his throat?” the Reaper asked, eyeing a halberdier in mid-shout, his black plate mail daubed with blood.
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“Your sword would break,” the Augur replied curtly. “Never mind him. You know who it is we need to kill.”
A droplet of sweat trailed down the side of his neck, and he looked haggard as he led the pathway, now leaning hard on his staff as if for support.
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Such magic must be taking a lot out of him, the Cleric surmised.
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“Hurry now,” he said, speeding up his pace as they pushed past the gate and into Sepulkre Castle. They continued at a trot as they made their way past the walls and closer to the throne room. A troop of swordsmen in chainmail were frozen mid-march, slowly bobbing up and down as they marched toward the gate. Their eyes drifted to the side as the Conduits passed by them.
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I suppose they see us as a blur.
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“The Inquisitor,” the Reaper growled, whipping a sword forward but carefully keeping it inside the traveling bubble. She pointed out a wide-eyed woman glancing over her shoulder. The Cleric recognized her at once; the shock of ginger hair, the flowing green dress, the barbed whip in her hands. Then, running at full sprint, she slowly disappeared into a narrow doorway, even at the almost frozen speed of those outside the bubble. “She will warn them!” the Reaper shouted.
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“I can’t… go much faster,” the Augur managed, spitting a frothy, pinkish mix of spittle and blood on the cobblestones as they neared the throne room. “But we are almost there.” The Augur cast feverish eyes on the doorway. “I am ending the spell,” he added abruptly, and the magical shell fell away.
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The noise outside came back at once in a crescendo; the sounds of combat behind and around them, as well as the panicked shouts of the Inquisitor. The Conduits now bounded forward at a charge, the Cleric tarrying a moment to cast a quick healing spell on the weary Augur.
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The Cleric delayed no longer, charging into the throne room. The Reaper was blindingly fast even without the Augur’s spellcraft and had cut her way through three elite guards before they could blink. A fourth parried desperately with his axe. The Reaper slashed at his eyes with one sword as she sliced the second along the man’s neck. Blood gushed out from his severed artery as the guardsman fell to one knee. Finally, the Reaper sprinted past a few others, making for the twin golden thrones.
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The Heretic moved forward quickly with her blade, slicing a dying guard’s neck as her apostles began tussling with the surviving guards. The two Kings rose, drawing their weapons as they cringed and gestured for their remaining royal guards to take on the Reaper. She spun in a whirlwind of her own, twin swords slicing through metal and flesh, and then abruptly shot forward toward one of the Kings.
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A bladed whip struck from the shadow, gouging against the Reaper’s left cheek as the Inquisitor sprung out from hiding. The Reaper whirled around, parrying the flurry of quick blows as the Inquisitor slashed away wildly. There was a desperation in her strikes as if she knew the Reaper had to be put down quickly—the Inquisitor’s crazed eyes even wider than usual as she hacked away. The Reaper ducked low as the whip soared past, chipping into one of the golden thrones. The Reaper leaped forward, twin swords embedded deep into the Inquisitor’s gut.
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The Reaper laughed while she ripped her swords free, eyes shining as she turned to face the Kings again. One moved to flank her, sword held loosely but drooping low. Yet the other King slashed forward, much faster than the Cleric would have expected, and the decisive strike cleaved the Reaper in half. A flickering black shimmer radiated along the scythe, revealing some form of hidden magic. The King smiled in triumph as he stood beside the dying Reaper. “Seems this ‘Corpsemaker’ lives up to its name,” he murmured to his weapon.
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He then shifted backward, caught off balance by some arcane magic. The Augur stood before them - his staff pointed toward the two Kings as he locked them in a time cage. The Kings shot twin glares at the Augur as they slowed to a glacial pace.
“Save the Reaper!” the Heretic shouted. Then, gritting her teeth, the Cleric bounded forward and knelt before the fallen Reaper, cut clear through the guts. Viscera lay strewn about the bisected Conduit, painting a grim scene of death and defeat.
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But that’s not going to stop me.
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“I will add my time magic,” the Augur’s ragged voice called out, and the teal glow around the Kings now spread to the Reaper. “But hurry!”
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Her natural powers alone wouldn’t be enough for a wound this dire. The Cleric pulled out a whitecloth scroll, hands shaking as she incanted briefly from it. The scroll disintegrated as a surge of energy flowed into her hands from the Leylines around her. Her fingertips glowed white as she held her hands out, and suddenly a purifying light beamed downwards to the Reaper’s severed body. Her torn abdomen began knitting itself together like fibers on a loom. The sight might have been horrifying once, but the Cleric had spent years studying to save lives, and she wasn’t bothered by anything but the fear of failure. She had never seen one so on the verge of death.
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The ripped skin joined together once more, reversing rapidly from the combination of the Augur’s and Cleric’s magic. The spilled blood spreading out from below the Reaper disappeared, returning to her shattered body as it reformed, though a jagged scar now marked where the King had cut her.
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The Augur groaned, staggering back as his magic faded at once.
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“Shield me, Cleric!” the Heretic called out, before falling back into a quick litany as she whipped her hands around. A dark presence spread out from her, the apostles forming a defensive circle.
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“I don’t know who you think you are,” one of the Kings sneered, “but you won’t be leaving here alive,” the second finished, lunging forward with his sword. Then, although they were still some distance away, a piercing beam shot forward and cut down one of the chanting apostles. He sank to the ground, his chants falling into a pained mutter, and the Cleric sensed the ritual magic fading away for a moment before the Heretic hurriedly kept it going.
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“Are you summoning something?” Oppius spat out, then fixed his glare on the Cleric. “Treachery, everywhere I look!”
Feeling a twisting feeling in her gut, the Cleric stepped in front of the Heretic and cast a powerful protective ward. She had no idea what devilish arts the Heretic and her apostles were pursuing…
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But I have no other choice!
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The Twin Kings’ assault pushed back the Cleric, flashing beams stabbing into the protective ward with enough force that it seemed sure to break, yet somehow it held. Finally, the Heretic finished her chanting, concluding with a crazed cackle, and the stunned Kings lowered their weapons. Keeping her ward steady, the Cleric risked a look back.
“What have you done?” Varus asked softly.
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A dark, glowing ball of energy floated in the massive throne room, rising higher and higher as spikes emerged and shifted around. It drifted up from the Soulstealer Chalice clutched in the Heretic’s hands; red energy flowing upward.
“I have called on the spirits of the dead,” Mistress Tevora said triumphantly. “There is no shortage of them in Sepulkre. The culled will have their vengeance!”
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Before the Kings could reply, two large tendrils speared outward from the flickering ball of energy, impaling both Kings through their stomachs. The Cleric saw now that the glowing tendrils bore spikes all along the edges, which clawed back through the Kings’ opened guts as they retracted. A howl from thousands of tortured souls roared as the Kings dropped to the ground, blood pooling in front of their two golden thrones. The ball of energy burst apart, and the Heretic shrieked. Shards from the broken curio littered the ground, golden pieces smoldering. She held out her bloodied hands and let out a low chuckle.
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Among the fallen corpses, a single figure stirred. The Reaper slowly lifted herself, her face devoid of color, examining the fallen Kings and clasping a hand against her stomach. The apostles celebrated their victory as she overcame her stupor, but she paid them no heed.
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“I’m alive…,” she muttered. “I’m alive?”
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Confused but grateful eyes fell on the Cleric from behind the Reaper’s mask as the apostles sang their praises to Ashathrux. Heavy steps echoed in the passageway, and a low chuckle filled the throne room. The Savant emerged, the Titanblood cell held in its pot and clasped within his arms. A dark mist had formed in the throne room, and now it drifted toward him, swirling and then concentrating as it was pulled into the beating heart.
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The Cleric blinked, taking in the scene, then moved over to the Heretic. Hiding her distaste for the woman, she pulled loose a bandage, imbuing it with her healing arts as she swaddled the Heretic’s bloody hands. “What happened?” she murmured.
“The Soulstealer Chalice functioned as a soul phylactery,” the Heretic replied. “It was of little use to the Savant after he imbued the Titanblood cell with its energy, but even one as untutored as myself could call on the hatred of Sepulkre’s culled spirits.” She nodded at the Savant, who stood patiently while the Titanblood cell fused with the spirits of Oppius and Varus. “This is what victory looks like.”
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The Cleric cinched up the bandage, glancing away from the wound and to the madman collecting the powerful souls of the fallen Kings. It didn’t seem much like victory. In silence, they watched as the last essence of the Twin Kings disappeared into the Titanblood cell. The heart glowed, casting a dim light in the throne room, and the swirling fog which had taken up the room now roiled within it. The Savant stared down at it with a mixture of emotions as the Augur came near. “Much progress has been made,” the Savant said, handing it to his servant. “Yet much still remains to be done.”
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“What next?” the Augur asked, accepting the Titanblood cell. Distantly, the sounds of fighting still echoed. The Battle of Sepulkre had already been won, but no doubt desperate bands of defenders remained, fighting more out of self-preservation than any sort of loyalty.
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The Savant cracked his knuckles in thought, staring pensively at the kings’ fallen bodies. “We have what we came for…but we have yet another important task. Come, there is no time to waste.”
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The Augur nodded, striding out of the throne room, the Titanblood cell pulsing in his hand. The Reaper called out toward the Savant. “Is that all?” she demanded. He paused, frowning, seemingly lost in thought.
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“Do you wish to serve me further?”
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“No. I came here to see the Twin Kings dead.”
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“Then we are done here,” the Savant declared, turning to look at the others. “Let us not pretend we were ever a coalition with the same goals. We united for one purpose—to end their rule. It is done. Our alliance is dissolved, for now.” He paused as he glanced at the Cleric. “Though, of course, I am willing to accept the aid of willing Conduits.”
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The Cleric shook her head. The Savant shrugged indifferently, striding out and leaving them in silence. The Cleric sighed. She leaned on her staff, pulling herself to her feet. Disgust filled her—at the acolytes around her, at the treachery and bloodshed that had taken place here, at the Savant’s rituals, at the Reaper’s bloodthirsty attitude, at the many increasing atrocities that had led up to this point.
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And, most of all, at herself, for the part she had played in all this.
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The Cleric gathered her thoughts and muttered a quick prayer to Gwyn. It was time she made amends as best she could. No doubt there would be plenty of wounded and dying to treat. The sound of a choking cough called her back to her senses. She looked over and saw the Inquisitor, clinging to life despite the Reaper’s efforts and contributing to the pool of blood around her. She hesitated for a moment before grabbing her staff tightly, then pulled out a whitecloth scroll from her robe and approached the dying Conduit.
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No matter her previous allegiance, she is still a living being. Everyone needs a chance at redemption.
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