The Emperor's Knife

The stone was cold beneath her tunic, every ridge and hollow digging into the soft flesh of her back. Dampness seeped into her bones as she lay there, powerless before him as he stood above her, his eyes fixed upon a distant target. A cruel smile twisted his lips as he watched the battle unfolding below. She strained against the bonds holding her, trying to summon forth her magic but there was nothing more than the dull flickering of power deep within her. She was trapped.

“I would save your energy, my dear,” he said, his cultured tones rippling over her like an icy wind. “Your magic is powerless on this altar.”

She glared up at him, her eyes speaking the words she could not get out, promising all forms of dire retribution once she was free and in possession of her powers. “I will kill you, K’rall,” she bit out, her body trembling with the effort to speak.

He looked down at her, his eyebrow raised mockingly as he watched her struggle. “I somehow doubt that, my dear,” he replied before his attention was caught once more by the battle being fought. “He cometh, just as I knew he would.”

She turned her head and looked down on to the fields below, her heart twisting as she saw the tall warrior at the heart of the fighting. His broadsword, stained with the blood of his enemies, flashed in the sunlight as it smote down his attackers as though they were harmless flies. She wanted to cry out to him, to tell him to leave, but her voice would not work, K’rall’s sorcery paralysing her entire body.

“CAILLEN! CAILLEN OF NAVARRE!” K’rall roared out across the clanging of steel and cries of the dying.

Caillen looked up towards the crest of the hill where the stone altar stood with K’rall and his followers and Jenna. For an instant he was frozen as his pale amber eyes met her cerulean blue ones and he saw the bonds tying her physically and magically to the altar.

A blade nicked his forearm, breaking his link with Jenna, and he turned with a growl, the sword decapitating the attacker without a breath of hesitation before he turned his attention back to the altar.

“Come to me, Caillen of Navarre. Come and meet the destiny you have always denied!” He raised high above his head a jewelled dagger. Caillen froze  as he recognised the Emperor’s Knife, the broad blade flashing in the weakening sunlight, before K’rall plunged it straight and true into Jenna’s heart.

Caillen felt as though the dagger had plunged deep into his own heart. Pain, white hot, arcing out from his very soul, raced through his body out into the heavy air surrounding him. He roared his denial of what his eyes told as he stumbled to his knees, his eyes fixed upon Jenna, her rigid body softening as the life bled out of her.

Above him, the heavens erupted into a cacophony of rage. Black clouds rolled across the sky, blocking out the sun, as thunder boomed around them in crashing waves. Vivid forks of lightning arced down towards the earth, their lethal bolts igniting the trees, incinerating the soldiers of K’rall’s army in a fiery inferno.

Caillen knelt oblivious to this as he tried to seek out Jenna’s spirit, to hold her to him rather than her entering the afterlife. There was nothing there, just a barren, empty void where there should have been light and laughter and love that he had always denied.

Rage rose within him from the depths of his soul. Blood red and searing his body it flowed through his body. His beast roared its pain and anger and, for once, Caillen was in no mood to restrain it. He felt his muscles harden, strengthened by his anger, straining against the constraints of his clothing. His skin, tanned from long hours toiling in the sun, darkened to a near black, leathery appearance, dappled with midnight blue patches. Fingers lengthened as black claws emerged from their tips, their points honed to a lethal sharpness.

Fangs erupted from his gums, their whiteness dazzling against the dark skin, whilst amber eyes became harder, like diamonds against a blood red backdrop. There was a darkness about him that caused warriors to stop in their tracks and stare with a mixture of wariness and awe at the being before him. This was the demon they had heard so much about, a being of power greater than all of the gods put together. So powerful that Caillen had suppressed him for much of his life.

A soldier, not recognising the power of the being before him, lunged at Caillen, his sword raised to deliver the fatal blow. Without a glance in his direction, Caillen rose to his feet and flung his arm out to the approaching assassin. The steel-tipped claws ripped through the man’s throat like a knife through butter, sending blood spraying out across the ground. Caillen was halfway up the hillside before the body hit the floor.

K’rall watched as Caillen approached, a sense of triumph flowing through him. The demon was released and soon K’rall would have him in his control to wreak terror across those who dared to defy him. He reached for his staff, the black orb glowing on its tip as he began to say the words of the ancient spell to control the demon.

Soldiers rushed at Caillen but were flung away, their throats shredded with frightening ease. With murderous intent, Caillen approached the altar, his eyes focused on K’rall, burned with a fiery vengeance. His sword and hands became coated in the blood of those who stood in his way, a red river trickling down the hillside.

Finishing the spell, K’rall waited for the demon to stop, to acknowledge him as his master. Yet the demon continued advancing, still slaying those who tried to halt him. K’rall’s eyes widened in dawning horror as he realised the demon was not in control of Caillen. Caillen was in control of the demon. He had been certain that once Caillen released the demon it would take control of Caillen and would therefore be subject to the holding spell.

Fear and horror washed away the triumphant feeling and he stumbled backwards as Caillen reached the altar and glanced down at Jenna’s lifeless body. When the demon’s eyes met his, K’rall knew that his time was up. Before he could speak Caillen was upon him, the black talons plunging deep into his heart. He tried to retreat but was trapped, the talons wrapping themselves around his heart and pulling it from his body.

Holding the heart tight in his bloody hand, Caillen hauled K’rall close to him. “For what you have done here, you do not deserve to go to the afterlife. This mortal plane will be your last.”

K’rall’s eyes opened in horror as he saw his heart flung to the blood earth. Lightening arced from Caillen’s hand enveloping the ravaged organ in a ball of flame so hot not even ashes remained. As he fell to the floor, K’rall’s last image was of his staff breaking, the orb turning to opaque glass as the magic left it.

Caillen turned to Jenna, all his rage and anger fading away as he lifted her hand. His demon form retreated leaving only a broken man behind. A shaking hand stroked her flame coloured hair, searching for some spark of her existence but only the void remained. She was gone. He wanted to cry out loud, shout his anger to the gods, destroy everything around him but he knew she would not want to be the cause of such devastation.

“You can bring her back,” said a voice behind him.

He turned and looked at Martog, aide to the gods and advisor to the people. “She is gone. There is nothing to bring back,” he whispered, his voice broken. How he wished he could join her in death, but his was an immortal life, death only allowed when the fates decreed.

“You are the son of the most powerful demon ever known and the grandson of the king of the gods. There is nothing you cannot do. Nothing.” With that, the old man turned and retreated down the hill, his white robe somehow managing to avoid the river of blood.

He looked back down at Jenna, her face pale in death, a large, bloodied wound in her chest. Could he, he wondered. Dare he? His heart screamed yes but his mind hesitated over the implication of what he was doing. In the end, it was the demon within him that gave him his answer, extending one lethal talon out from his fingers. Caillen slashed at his wrist, allowing his blood to trickle down into her mouth and into the wound on her chest.

For a second nothing happened and he thought he was too late. But then, colour started to seep into her skin, the ragged wound edges pulling together without a scar. He watched as the pulse at her neck started to beat before, finally, her chest rose and fell with her first breath of life.

She was alive but not awake and, with great reluctance, Caillen allowed the healers to carry her away to a tent situated off the battlefield. He wanted to go to her but knew there was much still to be done before victory would be theirs.

Rain was softly falling as dusk fell across the valley, washing away the red sea of blood that stained the parched earth. Camp had been established and the air was filled with the scents of cook-pots warming over open fires. Bodies had been removed and buried, a mass grave for K’rall’s men, individual ones for their own soldiers.

Caillen stood away from the camp, lost in his thoughts, his eyes staring out into the forest ahead yet seeing nothing. Jenna still remained unconscious and he wondered whether he had done the right thing by trying to save her. Had he left it too long, he wondered.

“You saved my life.” Her voice was soft and gentle like the falling rain, washing over him.

“I could not let you die. Not without … “ he paused, afraid to voice what was in his heart. “Not without you knowing I love you.”

She came to stand before him, her blue eyes meeting his amber ones and he relaxed a little as he felt their connection. “I know,” she replied, placing her hands against his chest. She could feel the jump in his heartbeat at their contact and knew her own skipped a beat. “I feel everything, now. Hopes, fears, love and anger. All that drives you is within me.”

“It will be that way for eternity,” he warned. “You are now as immortal as I am.”

A smile lit her face as she pressed her lips to his. “I pledge my love to you, forever and beyond. For you are my light, my reason, my life.”

As he heard the words of the ancient wedding vows, something lifted inside him, banishing the darkness that had gripped his soul for so long. As the rain fell around them, lips met and held and the sun broke through the clouds to bathe them in eternal warmth and light.