Story of Kel
The red trunk creaked open as Kel’s deft fingers searched like serpents before landing on the cold dome of a pristine, fleshless skull. She tapped her fingers on it with a grin. The tattered black curtains in the doorway flung open, a stark, expressionless face greeting her. Its eyes fixated on an invisible horizon miles in the distance.
The figure leaned in with a too-smooth silent efficiency, its monotone rasp delivering the news of Raven’s engagement with the enemy like a simple recounting of events.
“Leave,” Kel commanded. The figure retreated into the shadows. Alone again, she placed the skull in the middle of the floor and rested her hands on the cold bone. A sigh escaped her lips.
A cyan-colored gel surged from the skull’s eye sockets. It acted with a mind of its own, weaving itself into the muscle of the neck, shoulders, flowing down into the torso and legs. After only a few seconds, a full form laid motionless on the floor in front of her, the cyan gel solidifying into pale flesh and tight muscle that hugged the bones. Kel admired the naked form in front of her. This skull produced the body of a young nobleman, one who’d just begun training.
“You’ll do. Find some armor and a weapon that suits you,” she said. “A name,” she pondered in the silence of the chamber. She crouched over the pale form that laid on the cold stone of the floor, examining the face that gave rise from the gel. “You are quite young,” she said, tilting the man’s face toward her. She traced the strong jawline to the chin. “Young lord Beymont, rise.” The body uncoiled from the stone in a fluid, efficient silence.
A ripple disturbed the tattered curtains, and the messenger stood there once more, a silhouette in the dimness. The messenger reappeared, his movements mirroring the silence of the room. “Raven has fallen.” The whisper crossed the room like a cold, choking fog.
From the chopping block, Kel recognized the other prisoner. Raven’s head lay in the straw, detached and indifferent. He won’t let that slide, she noted. The edge of the executioner’s silver double-sided greataxe shimmered in the waning light of the evening. Wings unfolded behind his shining armor, a radiant mandorla of ivory that framed him like a monument.
His voice boomed, “None in the holy kingdom shall practice the vile arts. Die, necromancer.”
Kel gritted her teeth at the word ‘Necromancer’. “No...” she hissed. “I’m an artist.”
A man leapt from the crowd for his golden opportunity, an excited smile stretched thin across his face. The others cheered him on. “I wanna see this up close,” he whispered in her ear, twisting her arm. “Filthy necro—”
The greataxe swung down and Kel bucked her body backwards with an explosion of strength, lining the attacker’s neck up with the chopping block. The axe cleaved through his skull like dry pine.
The brain was destroyed, Kel winced.
The top of the man’s head landed in the crowd to a sea of excited chanting. Kel rolled to the side as the executioner raised his axe again. Despite his massive strength, he was too slow. Kel made her way to Raven and removed a silver spike from his chest with a wet squelch. The corpse stood and reattached his head.
“They found out?” Kel whispered.
The executioner’s eyes gleamed through the eye slits of his helmet as he watched the conversation, the blade of the axe resting on the ground. The screams from the crowd went silent.
Raven cracked his neck and stretched. “Do you know how hard it is to run from a horseman while keeping the whole ‘vampire’ thing a secret? Anyways, use the souls of the ones you please. I’ll move into the keep.” Kel breathed a ‘thanks’ before facing the towering executioner.
The silver axe sung through the air, burying itself inches deep into the dirt at Kel’s feet—a close call. She lunged, her body a mud-covered blur, as he struggled to unearth his weapon. White feathers rained around her as his wings thrashed, catching on the pillories that covered the execution stage. Reinforced with cyan gel, her hands found the cold silver of his gorget and drove her fingers into the gap at the base of his neck.
A sudden shock of soul-statis surged through his frame. His muscles locked into a rigid, marble statue. The leather straps of his helmet creaked and snapped as Kel ripped it off to expose the bald, sweat-slicked head of the man beneath the armor. With a tap of her palm, his soul was hers. Its architecture entered her mind with a sudden, sharp chill.
Fighting skill was minimal. He’d only ever held an executioner’s axe, perhaps touched a sword once. But his physiology was impressive. It wasn’t just forced perspective; he stood a staggering seven feet tall. She’d never seen a human with such height. Was he human?
Kel eyed him. “I shall scrub your personality later. Follow along.”
The shell of the giant could only watch as the souls of a hundred onlookers swirled in the air before entering Kel’s body, leaving the square haunted with a sudden, eerie silence. The small quiver of glee as she absorbed the souls was enough to make an executioner shiver.
She was no necromancer. Indeed, she was something worse.
Nothing but a sanguine haze was left of the gate guards. Their forms had been rendered into a fine red mist that hung in the air, sticky and suffocating. It stained her rags as she moved through, stepping in puddles as she avoided empty heaps of discarded armor.
“It’s a good thing you were left to me,” she breathed. “Don’t you agree, Ser Charles? I hope you like your new name. Gregor wasn’t going to work for me. I’m sure you understand.”
The rest of the way up to the lord’s chamber was much the same as the outside. A normal army stood no chance against Raven, and he seemed to be in a bad mood, judging by the newly painted ceiling. Despite the sheer mess, the immediacy of having all of the blood inside your body explode outwards led to a rather quiet incursion.
The shock of the lord’s chamber caused Ser Charles to tighten the grip on his greataxe, searching for a threat. Raven laid still on the floor, face down, a metal spike protruding from his back. Kel rushed over and removed it.
“At this point,” he said, rising from the floor as if he’d only been napping, “I suppose I owe you a favor. Look there,” he pointed. Atop the throne sat the lord of the keep, Lord Bayson, a heavy crossbow forgotten at his feet. Beside the throne stood a silent man in white armor, blood splattered on his cuirass.
“A spy?” Raven questioned.
“Lift your visor,” Kel commanded. It screeched open as it revealed a familiar sight—statuesque face, cold, glazed-over eyes that seemed to stare past everything. Young lord Baymont’s features were too perfect; unmarked by the gore of the room and unfazed by the murder that he’d just committed. A perfect, loyal servant.
Raven nodded in approval. “He nearly saved me from more embarrassment. A little quicker on the throat-sword, perhaps.” The tip of a silver sword protruded from the front of Lord Bayson’s throat as he laid limp in his throne. “You will take this one as well, no?” Raven questioned, wiping his cloak free of dust. The bloodstains didn’t bother him. “Your abilities frighten me, Kel.”
“Rend his flesh from his bones, Beymont,” she commanded, turning. Raven followed.
“Could you command an army, Kel?” The frankness of the question caused her to freeze in the doorway. His icy gaze looked through her.
“I believe so,” she said to the sickening gurgle of Beymont tearing his sword free of Bayson’s throat.
Raven bowed, his eyes shifting to a light yellow color, from his icy blue from before. “Call me Vadim, royal vampire lord of Old Constantine. It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.” His manner seemed to change in that instant. The door to the lord’s chambers crept shut to the sound of dripping blood.
“So...” Vadim began with hesitation, “Once a soulweaver has entered one’s domain—be it a keep or a city... You can multiply in vast numbers, forming rebellions from inside, collapsing anywhere that stands in your way at the foundation. You’re like—”
“A rat,” Kel said, shooting a glance at him. “It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been called a vermin.”
“Well,” he breathed, “Were you not on the side of The Hallow... perhaps that would be apt. But you are Unblessed—that is clear to me. The Hallow granted you strong powers.”
“How’s it work for vampires?” she asked, folding her hands under her. They’d just finished their meal. The keep was well stocked.
“Some of us choose, others are forced. Myself? I was born into it. Or are you inquiring about my abilities?” he stood, flaring his cape outwards with his hands. “I, Vadim Constantine, am a man of great feats. Should you, lovely Kel, have any need of my... particular abilities, all you must do is ask.”
“Not those abilities,”
Vadim paused, the flare of his hands hovering in mid-air. A knowing smirk crept across his lips. “Hm. Dirty-minded, aren’t we?”
“Can’t help it. Do you know how many thousands of souls I’ve gathered? They obsess over such base desires as sex. It takes its toll.”
Vadim cleared his throat, his theatrical nature faltering for a moment. “Please,” he said, smoothing his silk lapels, “I’ve no intention of thinning the royal blood with a stray, no matter how talented the weaver.”
“As if,” Kel chuckled.
★★★
Kel and Vadim repeated their process at the next fort. They’d be behind enemy territory by now—the sneaky Beymont and Bayson had crept steadily south, toward the heart of The Hallow’s supply lines.
Perhaps The Sunless Crown will acknowledge my feats himself, she thought, gleefully, as her posture automatically straightened. The moon seemed to fade under the power of his name—despite not even speaking it.
Kel’s horse buckled, the foreleg folding as a hot spray of blood painted the trail where the animal’s momentum turned into a violent somersault. Kel flew over the horse’s head as it toppled, landing in the dirt. The impact shook her, a high-pitched whine screaming in her skull. She fought to her feet and crouched low in the darkness, her fingers digging into the cold soil for balance. She scanned the treeline, searching for a hint of silver armor or the snap of a reloading winch.
“Were we expected?” Vadim asked, dismounting.
“Just a scouting party, I’m sure,” she said, rushing to her feet. She touched the horse’s head. Her mind was flooded with inhuman memories—for a moment, the world shifted into a panoramic greyscale and she felt the urge to gallop away. She shook her head and focused.
Already, Vadim went to work. It was midnight; the vampire’s hour. None shall humiliate a lord of Constantine during the peak of his powers. Another crossbow bolt struck Vadim’s dismounted horse in the chest, toppling it instantly. Kel pulled it out and eyed it as it shone in the moonlight. Her heart dropped.
“Raven, silver!” But she looked behind her and he was gone, his presence seeming to linger despite his absence. “Again!” she yelled after him. “You need to stop doing that...”
An oppressive white fog swallowed echoing screams from the distance as they guided Kel to the slaughter. The heavy mist coiled around the scouting party, sharpening into abstract shapes in the air before lunging. It reeled the men into the white, cinched around their throats and discarded their corpses to the damp earth.
“A scouting party doesn’t make an encampment,” she whispered to the mist she immediately could sense was a form of Vadim. She spotted torches in the distance closing in and hopped back onto her horse, wound and mind stabilized by her magic. Kel was alone. Her horses followed her, obeying her every command, and she’d left her lords behind in the previous castles.
Perhaps I could call for him, she thought. For now, I must retreat.
Vampires were often used on the front lines, and so their abilities must have been well-known to the enemy. After an hour, and much more killing, an encampment took shape around them, tents rising just outside of the area of the mist. Kel hid in a tree, her horses standing at its base.
“Snap out of it,” Kel whispered to the mists once more. “We’re surrounded.”
A royal carriage stormed into the clearing, the hoofbeats of seven horses trampling the ground. Lord Maenor Corlene’s golden armor glittered in the moonlight as he stepped out of the ornately decorated carriage.
“A vampire’s mist—we are in the right place,” he said. Kel watched the movement of his lips, reading the words from her perch.
The lord wandered in a spiral, locating the thickest part of the mist. Reaching out slowly, he allowed the mist to gather in the palm of his hand, reeling it in like a thick thread on a spindle. His golden gauntlet clasped shut with a metallic thud. The mist cleared. A form manifested before the lord in golden armor—Vadim.
“Destroy him,” the man commanded, snapping Vadim’s neck and casting him to the ground. Like ants to a dead toad, ten soldiers with silver spikes dove on his body, plunging them deep into his chest, stomach, legs, arms, and finally, his head.
“Coward!” The word burst forth from Kel’s lungs before she could reign in her anger. The lord’s head snapped to the tree she was hiding in, his eyes beneath his golden visor eyeing her with a predator’s hunger.
“Ah! The soulweaver!” the man yelled. “Tell me: in your travels, have you ever heard the name, ‘Maenor Corlene’?”
The two horses bolted at Kel’s command. Their muscles groaned as they bulged beneath the flesh, over-extending and warping their bodies into a terrifying blur of speed. Maenor leapt aside but his troops were hammered with a thunderous force, their bodies crushed under immense, unnatural weight.
Atop a warped soul-corpse of a horse, a tall man bolted into the fray. The seven foot tall monster carved a path through the encampment, lopping off heads with surgical precision. Kel jumped onto the horse behind him as he passed underneath.
Maenor didn’t flinch. He drew a longsword with an undulating, serpentine blade. It seemed to vibrate with a keen hunger. “I am empowered by only my own strength, not the unholy magics your kind uses. Physical conquers all.”
In a silver flash, the horse toppled, its head rolling into the dark. The executioner atop it crumpled and rolled, leaving a path of ruin through the grass. Kel landed on her feet but slipped, hitting the ground hard. The sky broke, unleashing a torrent of raindrops that turned the dirt to slick mud.
Maenor swung in a downward arc, the undulating blade passing through the air with a rhythmic motion that seemed to saw through the rain. Kel’s reflexes got in the way, blocking with a naked arm covered in cyan gel. There was no immediate pain, only a sudden lightness in her arm. Her hand laid in the slurry of mud next to her, fingers twitching, as the rain washed the blood away into the earth.
He turned and stomped over to the executioner, who, now kneeling, came to Maenor’s eyes. He readied the serpentine sword and swung but was knocked aside by one of the soul-corpse horses. The creature readied a kick. Maenor blocked with his blade at the last moment, shearing the leg from the animal in a sudden spray of hot blood.
The executioner stood, now, in the opportunity created by the now-toppled horse. Maenor breathed and turned, nearly shuddering at the other man’s height. Maenor was tall, but this man...
“Vile magics,” he spat, then tackled the tall man to the ground with a sudden burst of strength, casting aside his blade and pulling a dagger from a pouch at his chest. In close combat, the sword would only get in the way.
The executioner’s lack of battle experience showed as the blade easily plunged through an open eye-hole in his helmet, screeching against metal before finding flesh and severing the soul’s anchor. His body went limp. The final horse charged in, tackling Maenor and dragging him through the mud. Every joint in his body ached.
In an instant, the combatants were surrounded by a group of soldiers armed with crossbows and silver bolts. The final soul-corpse dropped, filled with feathered spikes.
Only Kel remained.
“Feather her,” he commanded through ragged breaths.
Clicks filled her head as the crossbows readied.
★★★
A clawed gauntlet emerged from a carriage that seemed to suck the light from their air, the black steel plate shrouded in a lightless fog. The torchlight of Maenor’s encampment dimmed as it crept near in total silence. The figure fully emerged and approached Maenor, taking in the battlefield where countless corpses lay still on the mud-slick ground. Maenor looked up from the corpse and jumped at the sight of a small force that had somehow snuck up on his encampment. “What kind of black magic—”
A man to the side of the shrouded figure spoke, his voice a low rumble. “You shall not speak in the presence of The Sunless Crown.”
A single word—Kneel—intruded Maenor’s mind, clawing and grating at the inside of his skull. He fought against the overwhelming force but crumpled to his knees. His golden cuirass buckled and imploded under an overpowering, invisible force that squeezed the air from his lungs. The armor cracked and a pressurized geyser of blood erupted from the narrow slits of his golden visor, a sanguine mist spraying into the air. Sunless didn’t need to draw a sword; his sheer presence was enough to kill someone as weak as Maenor Corlene.
The shrouded one crouched over the corpse of the black-haired girl, her lifeless body full of silver spikes. “They spared no quarter, and neither did I. You did well, Kellion. May you be unborn again.”
