Mark Lawrence - Emperor of Thorns

I took the stance, folded the iron-wood rod beneath my elbow, and beckoned Onnal forward, just a flexing of the fingers, as Lundist had beckoned me so many times.

Chella’s Story

Thantos walked Kai’s body away from the newly-dead guards between the empire gates. It seemed foolishness to Chella to have built such gates and to have them stand open. If they were not closed now when were they ever closed?

The corpses began to stand, awkward, jerky, drawn by invisible strings, occupied now by only the basest instincts of the men who owned them, housing only their sins. The lichkin spent his power with reckless disregard, but the Dead King had commanded it and so it would be.

‘Hold the gate,’ Chella said, her voice soft.

Thantos turned to stare, his gaze like the touch of sudden grief, of inconsolable, intolerable loss. The creature made her feel that she had lost her child just by looking at her. What would it be to have it riding within your flesh?

Kai collapsed as Thantos flowed out, released in a single breath, red-tinged. Within an instant the lichkin was everywhere, insinuated into the shadows of the grand entrance, haunting the empty spaces. It would take the bravest of men to walk in from the failing light of day outside. It would take more than bravery for them to walk out again. At least alive.

Chella removed the thong from around her neck. The black vial depending from it had hung above her heart half the journey, nestled spider-like through long hours on the road, bounced there when Jorg of Ancrath had her. She hurried to Kai’s side and dribbled the contents into his mouth while he retched and stared unseeing. The vial held ichor from a lead-lined tomb. An agent of the Dead King had ridden hard to bring it to her on the road catching up with the column somewhere close to Tyrol. Three horses died under the man between Crath City and Tyrol. He didn’t tell her which tomb had been desecrated. But Chella knew.

‘You should have learned to fly. You could have taken that pretty nothing with you, Kai.’ She spat the words and tried to hate him.

The Dead King’s brew worked fast. Kai stopped choking. Knowing came back into his eyes. The thing that had last looked at Chella out of Artur Elgin now watched her from inside Kai. Though he might seize almost any corpse, the Dead King could not exercise his full might through them. It took time for him to settle into a dead man and strengthen him sufficiently to be a conduit for the terrors at his command. A necromancer, however, suitably prepared, provided a more robust host. And the contents of the vial accelerated the process beyond measure.

‘This is the palace?’ He sat up.

When you’re among lichkin you can imagine nothing worse. The Dead King is worse. Chella tried to speak but words wouldn’t come from her dry mouth.

The Dead King ignored her silence. Instead he flexed Kai’s limbs, clenched his fingers into fists, and drew his face into a death’s head grin. ‘This is good. Very good.’ He got to his feet. ‘I’m here in my power. Death in life.’ Again the smile, a sudden and unholy joy behind it. ‘More! More than my power!’ His voice hardly raised but it hurt her ears even so. ‘I am remade. I have my foundation once again. I am more.’

All around her the dead quickened. The guards’ still hearts beat with swift corruption, no longer the shambling things they had been when first returned but darker, stronger makings like the quick dead of the Cantanlona swamp. Her work of months there accomplished here in seconds by her master’s will.

For a moment the Dead King’s exultation rang through her. The power bleeding off him thrilled and terrified. But the joy ran from him quicker than it came, leaving only grim purpose.

‘Lead on.’ The Dead King stood. ‘They’re all inside I take it?’

Chella nodded. The horror hung around him, a sense of hurt and loss, betrayal of all things precious. She had never seen him commit an atrocity, never heard of any deed more wicked than the destruction of those who opposed him, and yet she knew without question he was the worst of them.

‘Now.’ The word hurt her. She obeyed without hesitation this time, leading through the vast and open gates, the Dead King behind her, and over two hundred dead men in their golden armour, bright-eyed and quick with the Dead King’s hunger.

‘It’s time,’ the Dead King said through Kai’s mouth. ‘To visit Congression. Kill the head and the body is ours. Mine.’

‘Open the door.’

I stepped through quick as quick. ‘Close it.’ And the steel slammed down behind me.

The rulers of many nations crowded around me. I had found a replacement for my blooded cloak, cleaned the iron-wood rod and hidden it up the length of my sleeve, wrist to shoulder. I stood ready to answer their questions.

‘Where is Costos Portico?’

‘What happened in there?’

‘How are the doors working?’

Dozens more, all together, in shades from angry through indignant and down into fearful.

‘Lights on me.’ And high above us the constellation of Builder-lights grew dim, save for a tight and brilliant grouping that lit the space about me.

That shut them up.

I walked toward the middle of the chamber and the light followed me, the point of illumination moving across ceiling and floor. In the shadows before the dais Gorgoth crouched, fingers to the stone flagstones. Two quick bounds took me up the dais steps and I sat upon the throne, letting the rod of office slip free and setting it across my lap.

It was the sitting down that broke the spell. An angry clamour rose among them. These were, after all, rulers of nations.

‘Costos is dead,’ I said and the Hundred fell silent to hear me. ‘His vote passes to his advisors. His advisors are dead. His bannermen also.’

‘Murderer!’ Czar Moljon, still clutching his broken finger.

‘Many times over,’ I agreed. ‘But the events in the Roman room are a mystery that none of you observed, that passed unseen by the guard. There will of course be an inquiry, I may be charged, an imperial court may be convened. These however are matters for another day. This is Congression, gentlemen, and we have matters of state to decide.’

‘How dare you sit in Adam’s chair?’ A white-haired king from the east.

‘No law denies me,’ I said. ‘And I was tired. In any event it was Honorous’s chair last and if any wish to dispute my occupancy they may approach to discuss the matter.’ I set one hand upon the iron-wood rod. ‘Seating arrangements do not make emperors, gentlemen. That’s what we’re here to vote upon.’

I beckoned Taproot to me and leaned back in the throne, as uncomfortable a chair as I’d ever sat upon. Taproot climbed the steps quick enough, coming from the shadows into the light. I motioned him closer still.

‘You’ve found out who my friends are and who my enemies are?’ I asked.

‘Jorg! You’ve given me no time. I’ve hardly started to mingle. I-’ The silk of his doublet flapped around him.

‘But you have, haven’t you? You knew already.’

‘I know some of them, watch me!’ He nodded, a sharp grin, quick then gone. No one is immune to flattery.

‘Then get out there and have Makin, Marten, Kent, and Rike stand close to four of them who wish me ill. Gorgoth too, if he will. Tell him everyone is going to die if I don’t get to be emperor. Those words.’

‘Everyone? The whole of Congression? Jorg! Excess is no-’

‘Everyone everywhere,’ I said. ‘Just tell him.’

‘Everywhere?’ His hands fell still for a moment.

‘The lights will go off in a short while. Tell my brothers to be ready. When the light returns those men need to be dead. Have another set of names ready and then another. If I have to I will vote myself emperor.’