THE CORPSE KING

A Tale of Eisengoth





by Christopher Kellen





Copyright 2011 by Christopher Kellen





Kindle Edition





License Notes





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Original Cover Art by

Zoe Cannon

and

Christopher Kellen





Other Work by Christopher Kellen



The Arbiter Codex

Book One: Elegy



Short Stories

Dutiful Daughter





It was still raining.

Thunder echoed in the distance, though it was barely audible over the sound of huge raindrops spattering against the ground all around them. Lightning flashed in the sky, muted by the heavy mist and thick clouds that filled the air.

Despite his heavy riding cloak, D'Arden was soaked through to the bone. The horse he rode on was likewise drenched, and the wool blanket beneath his saddle was giving off a powerful stench that made the young Arbiter a bit nauseous. The poor beast plodded on with its head down, mane matted against its graceful neck.

"We're almost toâ€Åš" his mentor called from the horse ahead of him, but Havox Khaine's last words were swallowed by a particularly insistent roar of thunder. D'Arden strained to hear him over the sound, but it was useless.

"To where?" he shouted back, trying to be heard over the downpour.

Khaine waved a hand, not looking back, seeming to acknowledge what D'Arden had said. After a moment, though, it became clear that Khaine hadn't actually heard a word. D'Arden shivered under his cloak, grateful for what little warmth the horse's body was providing, even if the smell was almost unbearable.

Though it was near-impossible to see, the road was sloping gradually downhill. From the geography lessons Khaine had been feeding him along the way, he knew that they were along the western edges of a foothill of the vast Aztenda mountain range. The Aztendas stretched from southwest to northeast across the Old Kingdoms, and the Arbiters were about as far southwest as it was possible to get and still be within sight of the peaks.

D'Arden had never imagined that they would be traveling so far from home. It had been nearly two years since he had passed the final tests required to be moved from the ranks of the acolytes and named a true apprentice. He was required to spend five years as an apprentice to one of the Masters – which often involved traveling as far and wide as possible to gain a grander vision of the world – and he was truly honored that they had named Havox Khaine as his mentor. All Arbiters grew up with no idea of who their birth parents were, and thus one formed connections where they could be found. Khaine had been something like a surrogate father to him, throughout the years. It was widely expected that one day Khaine would be asked to take the Grand Mastership by the Council of Masters, and it was a great privilege that D'Arden had been chosen to learn from the best.

He looked up, and the dripping-wet hood of his cloak clung to his forehead, obscuring his vision. He raised one hand and pushed it out of the way, clawing dark strands of sopping hair from his eyes.

There were lights ahead.

They were dim, yellow things, and they seemed to be bobbing up and down. He blinked in astonishment; it took a long second to realize that the lights were not moving – it was him. He was so cold and wet that his legs had gone numb, and he could barely feel the motion of the horse beneath him any longer.

The ground was beginning to level out at last. Through the rain, he could barely make out the dark shape of another hill rising up before him, though it was some distance away. He refocused his eyes, and could almost make out the edges of a wooden gate beneath the floating yellow orbs.

Shelter. At last.

Blinking rain out of his eyes, he nudged the horse with his knee, prodding it to go faster. It reluctantly picked up its pace and almost, but not quite, broke into a trot. Even though they'd been maintaining a slow pace through the rain, they had been riding for hours, and the horses had been bearing their burden for nearly an entire day. Warmth and shelter from the rain was all any of them wanted, D'Arden was sure.

The gate grew larger as they approached, but then seemed to stop growing, and D'Arden felt his elation beginning to ebb. It was a gate, all right, but it wasn't much. As the details became clearer, he could see that it was ramshackle, barely maintained, and although it didn't actually hang open, the hinges appeared as though they might give way at any moment.

There were lights burning, though, which meant that someone lived nearby. D'Arden and Khaine hadn't passed any other travelers along the road through the foothillsâ€Åš so whoever it was that lived behind the gate might not take too kindly to strangers. Even if they were Arbiters.

Perhaps especially if they were Arbiters.

As they closed on the gate, D'Arden felt disappointment grow to eclipse any other feelings he'd had. They'd encountered nothing but falling-down villages along this winding mountain road for the past month. Sometimes they'd found nothing at all, and were forced to make camp beneath what few trees were scattered about atop the hills. The locals had been unfriendly and sometimes downright hostile, he'd discovered, though few dared to act on their hostility when staring through the cobalt light of Khaine's manna sword.

This little village looked to be no different from the others; it had a gate, at least. He could see the thatched roofs of tiny houses beyond the vines growing around the gate, barely darker against the near-black sky. Lightning flashed again, illuminating a tiny community of perhaps ten buildings behind the gate; all was dark, there was no smell of smoke in the air, just the wet scent of the pouring rain.

"You don't suppose this place actually has a hostel?" D'Arden asked, but was almost completely drowned out by the pounding raindrops.

Khaine lifted one hand to his bearded face. "Ho there!" he called out. "Travelers at the gate!"

There was no answer but another distant rumble of thunder.

"Is anyone there?" Khaine called out again.

Nothing.

Despite the water coursing down the back of his neck, D'Arden felt the hairs along his spine prickle. Even in the pouring rain one could expect to occasionally catch a glimpse of some wildlife taking cover, or to hear the occasional call of a bird in the distance. There was nothing now; no sound at all but the rain and the occasional peal of thunder.

Khaine turned back to look at D'Arden. "The road goes straight through the village. We'll either have to stop here or go on around, and it's too late to keep going tonight. No choice but to claim Arbiter's Right and go on in."

D'Arden nodded, though the idea of the Arbiter's Right bothered him. As the named and appointed guardians of the manna, the Arbiters claimed a right of hospitality anywhere that they chose. This was often resented by the common folk, who generally saw the travelers with the blazing swords not as defenders, but as strangers who sought to stir up trouble and kill anyone who got in their way. He and Khaine had only been forced to invoke the Right occasionally during their two-year sojourn, but it had never once been taken well.

Khaine stepped forward and pushed the gate open.

It didn't take any more than a touch. The decrepit wooden beams simply swung inward with no sound that could be heard over the deluge of rain.

"Must not be many bandits in these parts," Khaine said, flashing D'Arden a smile.

D'Arden returned it, somewhat uneasily. Something about the village set his teeth on edge, though he could not quite place what it could be. He considered speaking up, but chided himself on the thought. Khaine's vast experience in these matters held far more weight than his own intuition.

Together, they rode their horses into the circle of decaying buildings.



**



They took shelter in one of the larger houses, one of the few which was not completely rotted away. This one at least was dry, if not warm. There was a hearth in one wall which seemed to have not been lit for several weeks or months, yet there was a pile of dry kindling and logs sitting just beside it, slowly gathering dust. Kitchen utensils, pots and pans and other household items hung from their hooks or lay on rickety wooden tables, all with a thin sheen of grime atop them.

There didn't seem to be a single living soul anywhere.

No dead ones, either, for that matter. It was as though the people had all simply left their belongings behind.

They managed to get a warming blaze going in the fireplace before long. Though there were no ingredients for hot food, salt pork, jerky and some soggy, two-day old bread with the moldy ends cut off made a decent repast.

Khaine hunkered down by the fire, stripping off his sodden cloak and hanging it over a rickety wooden chair to dry. D'Arden shed his cloak as well, spreading it out across the floor a few feet from the hearth.

"It certainly is nice to have shelter," Khaine said, stretching out to let his clothing dry. "The fire's not a bad thing, either."

"Mmm," D'Arden agreed, poking at the growing blaze with a longer stick.

"I'm sorry we had to leave that last village so quickly." The elder man grinned, tilting his head sideways at D'Arden.

"I don't mind the sudden movement," answered the apprentice. "It didn't bother me."

"Not what I meant," Khaine chuckled. "I saw the way you had your eye on that farmer's daughter."

D'Arden tightened his jaw and turned his face toward the fire to hide the flush that crept up his cheeks. The girl, though not exceptionally beautiful by any means, had been quite fetching – long, blond hair and blue eyes that sparkled in the sunlight. The wart on her cheek hadn't been particularly attractive, nor were her twisted teeth, and the blue eyes were set a bit too wideâ€Åš but after two years on the road, away from the Arbiter's Tower and his friends – and Shaera, he thought wistfully – the farmer's daughter had been quite intriguing. Receptive, too, he'd found outâ€Åš quite accidentally. An innocent conversation among the goats and chickens had transformed into something less so, and before he'd realizedâ€Åš

Khaine must have seen something in his face, because he burst out laughing, a deep, booming sound that echoed in the little hut. "So it was a good thing we got out of there with all due haste, I see!"

D'Arden didn't take his eyes off the fire, but his upper lip twisted slightly in a mockery of a smile. "Perhaps."

Still laughing, the master Arbiter shook his head. "Just wait until you've lived as long as I have, D'Arden. After eight decades, they all look alike, and they just don't seem that interesting anymore."

The younger man sat back from the fire, still staring at the flickering orange tongues of flame that leapt up, consuming the wood. The logs and kindling crackled and popped as air and tiny bits of water exploded out of them.

Though the fire was warm, D'Arden felt a sudden chill. The image before him seemed foreboding somehow; he shuddered.

As Khaine's laughter died down, a tiny scratching sound burrowed its way into D'Arden's awareness. He looked up, twisting his head in each direction, trying to shake off the fire blindness that now ruled his eyes. He looked at Khaine.

The older man tilted his head in the direction of a second door in the small hut, which D'Arden hadn't previously noticed.

Nodding agreement, D'Arden picked up his sword, got to his feet and made his way across the floor, well aware that he was trailing muddy footprints across the wooden planks. There was so much grime and muck already, though, that his own prints could barely be seen against the dull, murky gray color.

The air seemed to get colder as he approached the door, and he slowed down his steps instinctively. He was farther away from the fire, of course, but the sudden chill seemed deeper than that, somehow. One hand crept over his shoulder to grip the leather-wrapped handle of his manna blade, ready to draw it in case something should strike from the shadows.

He pushed open the door slowly, revealing a darkened chamber within. The gloom was so thick behind the orange-lit walls around him that his eyes had difficulty adjusting, but slowly, the dancing dark spots before his eyes began to fade.

"You're welcome to the hearth," creaked a voice like yellowed, crumbling parchment.

Though the voice startled him, D'Arden managed to control his reaction and not jump out of his own skin. He pushed the door open the rest of the way, letting the firelight dimly illuminate the darkened room.

Against the far wall, in a very old, cushioned chair, sat a man. At least, D'Arden thought it was a man. The skin was so old and wrinkled, the hair sticking out wildly in all directions in its stark white stiffness, that it was difficult to say for certain. Bundled up in blankets and shawls, his body was completely covered; only the wizened old head was visible.

"Who are you?" D'Arden asked, and he managed to keep a quaver out of his voice. There was something still not right about this entire place, and he kept having to grit his teeth to keep from shuddering uncontrollably in fear.

"I own this house," murmured the ancient figure in the chair. "Who are you?"

"Is there anyone else here?" D'Arden asked, a bit uncertainly.

"Oh yes," the old man said. "Oh yes, there are others here."

"We haven't seen anyone," answered the young Arbiter. "Where could they have gone?"

"Oh, they'll be here or there, unless they've all gone on to the castle," the old man said. "Come in, come in. Let me see your face."

D'Arden cast a glance back over his shoulder at where Khaine sat by the fire. His master was sitting on the grimy floor, staring into the flames in contemplation. He considered calling out to his Master, but it might have startled the old man, and they were going to need information.

Cautiously, he took a step into the room.

"My, my, such a wary lad," muttered the ancient lips. "Worry not. No one here will harm you. Come, come closer. My eyes are not what they once were, I'm afraid."

The room was dark as the door swung closed behind him, so D'Arden drew the manna blade from its scabbard on his back, and it came free with a rasp. Cold blue light instantly illuminated the room, and the paleness only served to make the old man look even more decrepit. Frankly, it surprised D'Arden that the man was even still alive.

"Oh, an Arbiter," breathed the old man, as the azure light fell across his face. "It has been many years since we have seen one of your kind in our little kingdom. What brings you all the way out here? You are far from your Tower indeed."

"We are travelers," D'Arden said, taking a few more strides across the room. "The rain is strong and has been since dawn. We were seeking shelter when we came across your village."

Something tugged at the back of D'Arden's mind. The room was cold, and seemed even colder in the blue light from his sword. He couldn't quite place what it was that was bothering him, so he brushed off the thought as he might a troublesome fly.

It returned an instant later, when he noticed a strange, muted buzzing at the bottom end of his hearing. Fliesâ€ÅšHe brushed it off again. He'd glimpsed structures outside that might have been for beehives. Perhaps the old man was a beekeeper.

He finished crossing the room and looked down at the ancient features. The flesh was dry and papery, seeming as though it were about to crack each time the pale lips moved. Pale eyes were sunken deep into the sockets, the irises watery and the sclera heavily bloodshot. There was an odd cloudiness above the dark pupils that seemed to reflect back the light of D'Arden's sword.

"You said something about a castle?" D'Arden asked.

"Oh, yes, the castle," whispered the old man. He twitched; a strange movement, as though something had prodded him. "I haveâ€Åš a message for you. From the castle. From the king."

"Where can we find this castle?"

"Oh, it is not far. Not far at all. The King requests your presence, Arbiter. You are cordially invited to his court."

"What is your King's name?" asked D'Arden.

The lips were silent for a moment. One pale, milky eye fixed on him with a disturbing intensity.

"The Corpse King," wheezed the old man.

The blankets exploded outward, and D'Arden stumbled back with a startled cry. The buzzing amplified within the span of a second to a deafening roar as the air filled with flies, and the horrific stench of death and decay. He swung his sword uselessly before him, trying to dissipate the cloud of insects.

"Master!" he shouted, stepping back toward the door, his blade cutting through the air in great swaths, accomplishing nothing but to leave trails of blue light in the air.

The door burst open behind him, and for an instant, the swarm of flies parted. D'Arden caught a glimpse of the old man, wizened head perched atop a naked, colorless, emaciated form that was slowly shambling toward him. The belly was swollen to the bursting point, dragging entrails across the wooden floor. Maggots writhed everywhere, covering the body nearly from neck to foot as they feasted. D'Arden felt his gorge rise in his throat as he took in the scene of death and decay before him.

"The King requests your presence, Arbiter," the corpse said, taking another ragged step forward. "You are cordially invited. Cordially invited. The King requests your presenceâ€Åš"

Then Khaine was there, sweeping his manna blade down in a flawless arc that left a blue stain on D'Arden's vision. Khaine's sword cleft the corpse in twain from left shoulder to right hip, and it tumbled to the ground.

Cobalt fire sprung to life as the blade cut through the old man's dead flesh, greedily consuming it. Even the flies were not spared as sparks leapt into the air, burning the tiny black things from the air. They plummeted toward the ground like tiny falling stars, burning to nothingness before they reached the ground.

Seconds later, the room was dark once more, save for the steady glow from the two manna swords.

"So," Khaine said, a grin flashing white teeth in his dark brown beard. "Looks like the rumors are true after all."



**



"Do you want to tell me why we're out here, master?" D'Arden asked as they sat by the fire.

Khaine paused to fish a small leather case from beneath his shirt. "Before we left Kalleda, I heard rumors that a small-time monarch was setting up some kind of puppet court, except that instead of paid sycophants, he was using corpses. I didn't take much stock in the story at first, until I kept hearing it at every stop we made. Some were saying that this king actually keeps the dead bodies of all of his family and friends propped up in chairs to hold audience. Others maintained that the corpses were actually still alive in some way, and that he was ruling over a kingdom of the dead."

"I'm not sure which is more unsettling," D'Arden mused, retrieving his own leather case from its lined, hidden pocket on the inside breast of his tunic. He opened the top with gentle fingers, revealing a tiny, needle-like blade made of perfectly clear crystal. The heartblade glimmered with a pale light, pulsing to an unfathomable rhythm.

Khaine's manna-blue eyes twinkled. "Oh, the living corpses are far more unsettling. If it was just some crazy kook with dead bodies propped up everywhere, there'd be no reason for us to be here at all. As it is, there's no telling what we might be up against."

D'Arden nodded, turning his attention to the artifact in his hands. He handled the fragile blade with the utmost reverence, gazing at its lambent glory with something approaching love. Carefully transferring it to one hand, he pulled aside his tunic – and with a single, swift motion, plunged it into his breast.

The exquisitely fine crystal shard pierced through flesh and muscle with the greatest of ease. As the hilt touched his skin, the tip grazed his heart, sending a flash of energy deep within him. There was a warm glow that emanated from the depths of his chest, and he felt his whirring mind begin to ease. Power coursed through him, and he felt renewed.

He withdrew the heartblade from his chest. A prickling sensation began in the thin canal left behind as the manna flowed through him, its fire cleansing and closing the wound. With equal reverence, he slowly returned the blade to its sheath, took a deep breath, and looked once more at Khaine.

"I didn't sense any corruption in that room," D'Arden said, hooking a thumb over his shoulder at the mercifully-closed door behind them. "How could that old man still have been alive like that?"

"Your senses aren't fully sharpened yet, young one," Khaine said. He stared for a long moment at the closed leather case in his hands, his gaze distant, before returning it unopened to the pocket next to his heart. "The corruption was there, but it's not centered here. It was just a tendril, keeping that old man alive indefinitely, waiting for travelers like us to come along so that it could feed. It was faint, but it was there."

D'Arden nodded, picking up a piece of bread. Khaine was incredibly sensitive to the changes in the flow of manna – he chalked it up to being an Arbiter for so long. D'Arden was beginning to possess the necessary skills, but they were still forming in him. He was not envious of his master's abilities, exactly – more wishful that they would come to him more rapidly.

"All in good time, D'Arden," Khaine said, spotting the faraway look in his eye. "Come, eat. You must be famished. The rain is letting up outside, and I believe the castle isn't far at all. We should be able to make it there before sunrise."

D'Arden looked down at the bread in his hands. Though he had been hungry moments before, the sight of the damp white lump turned his stomach. "Do we want to make it there before sunrise?"

"Of course we do," Khaine grinned. "What fun would it be otherwise?"



**



The storm was indeed finally passing by. The lightning and thunder retreated to the east as D'Arden and Khaine made their way farther west, along the road that continued past the little, empty village.

Khaine was right, as he usually was – they rode for less than an hour before entering a large, open, low-lying area. In the flashes of lightning from the storm behind them, they could easily make out the rising stone walls of a keep. There did not appear to be fortifications of any kind; no outer walls, no portcullis, nothing defensive at all. Just a simple, long central keep with lanterns burning along its edges.

"Can you feel it now?" Khaine asked him.

D'Arden nodded. "I can." With each step their horses took, the sick, diseased feeling of corrupted manna grew stronger. The keep ahead glowed orange in spots, from the dim light of the lanterns, but his spiritual sight also revealed a malevolent crimson glow emanating from the very heart of the castle.

"Be on your guard," Khaine warned him. "There's no telling just how deep this monarch's insanity runs." He drew his manna sword from his back, blue light springing forth in a brilliant glow, enough to light the ground before him. D'Arden focused on it as though it were a beacon, took a deep breath, and drew his own.

Near the large and delicately-ornamented wooden doors was a horse tie, though there were no horses attached to it. D'Arden looked about for the bones of horses which might have been left here to rot, but found none. The two animals seemed only mildly skittish, which was to be expected with the thunder still rolling in the distance. D'Arden dismounted and attached his mount's tack to the tie, and did the same for Khaine's horse a moment later.

The doors of the castle were open slightly, showing a thin line of shadow running straight down through the center. Rainwater was running in between them, forming a small river from the soft, wet ground outside into the castle. Khaine and D'Arden exchanged a glance.

"Nothing for it, looks like," Khaine said, sliding his manna blade back into its sheath. He stretched out his powerful arms, placed his hands firmly on the doors, and shoved with all of his strength.

At first, the large wooden doors refused to move, but D'Arden watched as Khaine summoned pure manna energy to himself, infusing his muscles with it to provide him strength. He did not change the amount of exertion in his arms, just the amount of force behind them. D'Arden's spiritual sight picked up a faint blue radiance around Khaine's hands as that intensified as the elder man focused his will. The doors creaked, groaned, slipped an inch, and then finally gave way, swinging open and crashing into the walls on their side with a sound that echoed all the way down the throat of the long hallway that opened up before them.

Khaine stepped back and dusted off his hands, glancing at D'Arden with a wry expression. "So much for the element of surprise."

The deep, shadowed hallway was sparsely lit by flickering torches, set every twenty feet or so along the walls, in stone sconces. As D'Arden gazed down along its length, he saw the bones of scattered corpses lying like children's toys, flung out in every direction. He grimaced at the sight, and the rank smell of death and decay that followed only the briefest of moments afterward only worsened his mood.

Khaine wrinkled his nose. "Even if he wasn't crazy, I'd probably still name this lunatic the 'Corpse King'," he muttered. "Come, D'Arden. We'd best see what's waiting for us inside."

The elder Arbiter drew his sword from his back scabbard once more, and advanced at a leisurely but long stride into the castle. D'Arden hurried to keep pace with him. The slackening rainstorm continued to funnel a river of filthy water into the corridor behind them, which certainly wasn't helping the smell.

A soft white light appeared at the far end of the hallway, and slowly began to grow as it appeared to approach. It was several shades dimmer than the light emitted by the manna blades, bobbing up and down as though carried by someone. As it reached the edges of the swords' blue light, though, it became obvious that it was simply floating there, hanging in midair as it drifted toward them.

Khaine came to a halt, and D'Arden stopped immediately behind him, casting a glance over his shoulder. Lightning flashed outside, but there was no similar light – nor anything else – creeping up behind them.

The white light stopped just inside the edges of the radiance of the manna blades. It flashed, and slowly coalesced into a translucent representation of a man, well-dressed in highly-contrasted clothing, with short, clipped hair. He held one arm up before him, the other firmly at his side.

"Greetings, Arbiters," the spirit said, with only the slightest echo belying the fact that he was not fully human. "My master the King has been expecting you. Please accompany me to the royal audience chamber, if you will. May I have your names, please?"

D'Arden looked at Khaine, who did not return the glance. Instead, Khaine continued to stare at the spirit, sizing it up with a hard glare, apparently trying to determine whether or not they should feel threatened by its presence.

After a long, tense moment, Khaine's expression relaxed, and he actually smiled. "Of course. I am Havox Khaine, and this is my apprentice, D'Arden Tal. Lead on, good sir."

D'Arden opened his mouth to speak; whether in protest or confusion, he wasn't certain. He was silenced by a firm look from his mentor, and immediately closed it again.

"Of course. You are expected. If you would please follow me," the ghostly white form said, smoothly rotating in midair and beginning to proceed down the long hallway.

Khaine strode down the passage behind the ghost, his shoulders out and his head held high, blazing blue sword resting easily on one shoulder as though he were indeed an honored guest or knight being conducted to an audience with a great lord or king, instead of a mystical enforcer intending to bring judgment on a foul, evil creature masquerading as a monarch. D'Arden did his best to follow his mentor's example, but couldn't help casting furtive glances at the shadows, expecting a horde of living dead to rush out from every corner at any moment.

More of the dead lay piled up against the walls of the corridor, some strewn about as though they had exploded, others lying peacefully, as if they had simply lay down to rest for a moment and forgotten to ever get up. As they proceeded on, the rank stench of recent death was slowly replaced by the stale must of old death, and the corpses became less rotten and more skeletal. The sour pit in D'Arden's stomach grew deeper as they went, the cold fingers of anticipation playing up and down his spine.

At last they drew up outside two large doors, arched to a point at the top, with gold-colored hinges and accents in strange symbols on the outside. D'Arden recognized it neither as a language nor a pattern – they seemed to be random shapes in unfathomable, unpleasant patterns, though there was a vaguely geometric feel to them all as a whole. The symbols themselves, though colored in gold to his physical eyes, glowed hot crimson like a smith's forge in his spiritual sight.

The ghost lifted one hand and made as if to knock on the door. The concept was so starkly humorous that D'Arden found himself trying to smother laughter in a sudden coughing fit. Khaine turned a baleful glare on him. The laughter died, though, when the translucent fist struck the door with a loud, deep rapping sound which could only have been rivaled by a burly knight with a mailed fist, pounding with all his strength.

The doors swung inward to reveal the most ghastly sight D'Arden had ever seen in his life.

What lay before them was clearly an audience chamber or a throne room. It was brightly lit inside with the glow of torches and lanterns, which seemed to burn an angry reddish color, and emitted no smoke or smell whatsoever. Long, low benches with wooden backs, like the pews in a temple, were arranged in rows before them. Crowded on all those benches were motionless corpses in various states of decay. They were all facing away from where D'Arden and Khaine stood, their heads oriented toward the far end of the room. The stench of death was suddenly overpowering, and D'Arden could not suppress a gag reflex that choked him nearly to the point of being unable to breathe.

"This way, please," the ghost said, politely ignoring D'Arden's gagging.

Khaine, for his part, seemed unmoved by the grotesque, macabre image before them. He nodded to the ghostly attendant, and crossed the threshold only two steps behind it. D'Arden hurried to follow, though every instinct in him screamed for him to run before it was too late.

As they walked between the rows of benches, D'Arden moved his gaze around the room. There must have been hundreds of them, some with their flesh sagging or even mostly missing, and others which appeared to have been dead no more than a day, all with their sightless, staring eyes riveted toward the far end of the chamber. There were no visible marks on them, and D'Arden realized that he had not seen any obvious death wounds on any of the corpses they had seen so far, save for those who had been scattered like meat. Some of them were dressed in finery, others wore simple peasant's garb. There seemed to be no distinctions made in class and rank here in this audience of the dead – women dressed like nobles leaned their rotting heads on the shoulders of men dressed in smith's aprons or shopkeeper's robes. They ranged in ages from the very old to the very young, and D'Arden even spotted a few dead mothers, still clutching their decaying babes-in-arms.

At the far end of the room was a dais, raised off the ground by several wide, thin steps. It was covered in a carpet which had clearly seen better days; it was coated with grime and dust which seemed an inch thick. It might have once been red, or perhaps a rich violet – it was impossible to tell. At the top of the dais were several ornate chairs, all arranged in a row, and in each chair sat another body, that same sightless gaze staring toward them with nightmarish intensity.

They were all dead, D'Arden realized, except for the one in the center. In the largest chair sat a young man, no older than twenty. His youth was apparent even despite the stringy, patchy blond hair that fell around his shoulders, the sunken eyes in an emaciated frame, and the deep, dark circles beneath those eyes that suggested a man who hadn't slept in weeks, perhaps months. The eyes, though, burning crimson with corrupted manna, were most definitely alive, and not animated by the twisted life force alone. He bore a thin circlet upon his brow, wrought of what appeared to be exquisitely-intricate golden patterns.

"Your majesty," intoned the ghost. "I bring before you two Arbiters, Master Havox Khaine and his apprentice, D'Arden Tal, who were brought in from the rain and cold under your hospitality. Arbiters, you find yourself honored to be in the presence of King Thormund the Younger, third of his illustrious name and ruler of our fair kingdom."

"Thank you, Haras," said the king, waving one hand dismissively. The ghost vanished without a sound, as though it had never been there to begin with.

Slowly, the young monarch lifted himself from his chair. It obviously took an effort for him to do so; even lifting his meager weight with his arms and legs seemed to take a toll on the fragile-looking man. Once he straightened his back, D'Arden gaped. The king must have stood seven feet tall, and atop the dais he appeared to be a giant. Though his body was thin and appeared half-starved, his kingly vestments ragged and filthy, he was still surprisingly imposing simply because of his monstrously-large frame.'

"I am so pleased that you answered my invitation!" the king beamed down at them, his gaunt, deathlike visage split in a wide grin. "Speak, Arbiters. What brings you to my realm?"

Khaine's brow knitted in curiosity. "I would have thought that to be obvious, Your Majesty." He swept his hand to indicate the room around them.

"Why do my subjects concern you?" The grin faded, to be replaced by a slow, uncomprehending frown.

D'Arden looked at Khaine, who blinked a few times, as though gathering his thoughts. "Well," began the elder man, "You do know that they're, ahâ€Åš dead, yes?"

"Dead?" the surprise and confusion in Thormund's voice was echoed in the bewildered stare that D'Arden focused on him. "Dead? What do you mean, dead? They are all here to pay homage to me."

D'Arden slowly turned his incredulous stare to his master, who briefly widened his eyes in response. Khaine looked at the king once more. "Do you mean to say that these hundreds of people in this room are not dead?"

"Of course not!" the young man exclaimed, his voice thinning, becoming almost reedy in its intensity. He turned, suddenly, snapping over his shoulder, "Oh, do be quiet, uncle! Your constant blathering annoys me to no end!"

Khaine pursed his lips for a brief moment. "Your subjects must be quite loyal, to attend to you so."

"Oh, they are, they are," Thormund said, turning back to them, his mouth widening briefly in the most hideous of smiles. "The best subjects any king could ask for, I believe."

"This is madness, master," D'Arden hissed. "We should just kill him and end this insanity before it spreads."

Khaine held up one hand in a placating gesture; whether it was directed at him or the king, D'Arden wasn't really sure. "Your Grace," he said. "Just how long have your subjects been here paying homage to you?"

"They have been coming from all over the kingdom for the past two weeks, and I have given them every comfort," the mad king said, with another of those hideous smiles. "I do love them dearly."

"If I might ask," Khaine continued, "How long has Your Grace held the throne?"

"Ten years, since my father – rest his soul – died of the plague when I was eleven."

"You asked why we have come, Your Grace, and I believe I now know the answer to that question," Khaine said. "We are here because Your Grace's castle is inhabited by a demonic presence."

Thormund's eyes widened in horror and shock. "A demon? My castleâ€Åš my home? Howâ€Åš how is such a thing possible?"

"Demons are quite insidious beasts, Your Majesty. They can take many forms and appear as many things; sometimes they do not appear at all, but simply wait, growing their power over a long time. I believe that is what has happened here." Khaine's voice was calm, patient, like a parent explaining something to a child. Which, D'Arden realized, in a way he was. "Fear not, though. My apprentice and I will find this demon and expunge it from your castle. May we have your leave to explore and locate the foul thing?"

"Of course!" The mad king's eyes lighted with relief. "Of course you may, Master Khaine. Please, you have my royal leave to do whatever is necessary to banish thisâ€Åš this creature from my home!"

"Thank you," Khaine said, making a sweeping bow. D'Arden followed suit, though somewhat more awkwardly. "We shall return to Your Grace's audience as soon as we have determined its hiding place."

The elder Arbiter turned on his heel and began proceeding back down the aisle between the benches, heading toward the doors which had admitted them to this chamber. D'Arden turned to follow, and was caught for a moment, paralyzed in the sightless, milky gaze of hundreds of dead men, women and children.

"D'Arden," Khaine said, and the sound of his name was enough to snap him out of his stunned paralysis. He hurried to catch up.

As he took his place, matching Khaine's stride but a single pace behind, the elder man whispered, "Look behind you, at him. Look at him, D'Arden."

Slowly, D'Arden rotated his head to glance over his shoulder at the king's dais, and willed his spiritual sight to its fullest.

He immediately wished he hadn't.

Corrupted manna energy hung over the entire room like a thick fog. The angry crimson glow pervaded everything. At first, it appeared to D'Arden as though the King himself were the center of it, as he glowed brighter than anything else, but as the young Arbiter stretched his sight and his will, he began to see the truth. It was like trying to focus on a single snowflake in a blizzard, or to pick out single threads from a vast tapestry, but slowly he began to see the patterns.

Tendrils of corrupted manna reached out from the king's fingers, hundreds of them, threads connecting the king himself to every rotten corpse in that room. From his heart, head and eyes, thicker, brighter tentacles of angry russet light stretched backward, behind him, into the stone wall. As D'Arden realized it and adjusted the focus of his sight to look past the king, orienting on the wall behind him, he saw what Khaine saw, the truth of just what was happening in that audience chamber and in the castle.

The vision he saw was so indescribable, so incredibly horrifying that it touched the very center of his spirit. His legs ceased moving, his eyes widened as he was transfixed by the image of the creature lurking within the castle. His breath ceased – he found that he could not draw another.

He saw the tendrils brighten for a moment, as though alerted to something.

D'Arden thought he was going to die.

Then Khaine was there, grabbing him by the arm and hauling him along. D'Arden's gaze was broken from the maddening vision, and he found his breath returning.

They passed through the doors, and closed the massive wooden structures behind them.



**



Khaine didn't stop walking until they were outside. D'Arden followed, trying to scrub the image from his mind with every meditation and mind-clearing method taught to him over two decades of training by the Masters at the Arbiter's Tower.

Nothing worked.

Once they crossed the outer threshold, back outside in the cold, wet night, Khaine finally stopped.

"Now you see?" he asked.

D'Arden nodded mutely.

"This is going to be a problem," Khaine muttered, resting the point of his manna blade in the ground and leaning a bit of weight on it.

"Whatâ€Åš is that thing?" D'Arden managed to gasp.

"A lurker," Khaine answered, almost absently. "It probably showed up during the plague to feed on the suffering. When the disease was gone, it had enough power to start actively draining the life from the immediate survivors, and after that it would have had enough to start the siren call that dragged out the people from the surrounding areas."

"That's a lurker?" D'Arden asked. He'd heard about them in the texts, of course, during his studies. There had been no description, though – no way to define them except by their methods. He now understood why.

"We're going to have to kill it," Khaine said. "The problem is; I'm not sure we have enough strength between the two of us. It's been here gathering energy for ten years or more. I'm not in my prime anymore, and you're barely beginning to recognize your strength and come in to your own."

"Ten years?" D'Arden asked. "The king said it has only been two weeks that his subjects have been arriving."

The elder man looked at him from beneath bushy eyebrows. "Did you see the state of some of those 'subjects'? Were you actually observing, or were you simply listening to the ravings of a madman?"

D'Arden blinked, stunned. He dipped his head in acknowledgment. The rebuke stung, but Khaine was right. He'd taken the word of the king instead of making his own observation – an apprentice's mistake, and one he'd been warned against before. He resolved not to do it again.

"It's clear that his mind is so far gone that he no longer has any sense of time, D'Arden," Khaine continued, more gently. "He's probably had subjects filing in 'for the last two weeks' every day for the last five years, or maybe longer. The strength of that lurker is far too great."

"So what are you saying, master?" D'Arden asked. "That we might die trying to kill it?"

Khaine shrugged. "It's possible, but we can't leave it here."

"Is there any way to spare Thormund's life?" D'Arden asked, looking hopefully at Khaine. "I don't think it's his fault."

"Weren't you the one who said we should just kill him and end this madness?"

A frown knit D'Arden's brow. "I believe I was wrong."

His master regarded him with sad eyes. There was a long, quiet moment. At last, Khaine asked, "Would you want to wake up out of that dream, D'Arden?"

The young Arbiter looked at the ground, and considered for a long, quiet moment. He thought of living ten years, thinking all the while that he was a boy king growing into his power, with subjects who loved him, and a family of counselors that sat by him every day, supporting him in his noble reign after his father died of disease. To wake up to find that all those he loved and had been speaking to for ten years had been dead long ago, and that a demonic force had lured in his beloved subjects to feed on their life essence, would drive any man over the brink of insanity.

Khaine was right. There was no way to save the unfortunate boy king.

D'Arden felt his young heart, his very soul harden at the thought. A demon had to be slain, and there was no way to save the innocent it had enslaved. A sick certainty of the world's unfairness sank and rooted itself deep within him.

A moment later, he looked up again, a different man than he had been just moments before. The change was minute, but there was a very slight, distant chill in his eyes as he stared at his mentor. "What do we have to do?"



**



"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 thick 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 a gaunt 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 to the floor, harmlessly 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 dryâ€Åš 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 ofâ€Åš 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 himâ€Åš 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 spineâ€Åš 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. If you enjoyed The Corpse King, you may wish to check out my novel Elegy, which is the beginning of D'Arden Tal's greatest adventure, almost sixty years after the events of this tale.

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.





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