The old King ran, and his lungs burned. They burned because he was an old man, as well as an old King, and had been forcing his body into a sprint for far longer than was comfortable. They burned because the air had grown hot and putrid with undead reek around him. They burned because his panic was turning to a fearful flush under his skin, and each breath felt sharp and cramped.

Around him, his palace was a ruin. Walls fractured and caved inwards like helms struck by warhammers, floors beget by cracks spanning the width, sometimes even length, of the corridors themselves. The old King was careful as he ran, for each way he turned there seemed some new tripping hazard where mortar or stone had been driven up and displaced by the fighting.

From outside he heard what was left of his men, either dead or dying. They were good warriors, the best. Knights, all of them, and a cut above their peers to have been selected as personal guards to his palace. It was all worth nothing. The old King had seen the invaders’ monsters, and undead of that calibre could scarcely even tell the difference between Knights or mere men. The ruin they made of bodies seemed unaffected either way.

A tremble ran through the building, and the old King stumbled, almost fell. One of those spells, he realised. The mysterious, impossible ones this dark caster had started unleashing, that engulfed the world in a fire so brief and bright it felt like a second sun was touching the earth within the span of a single eye’s blink. A moment later the sound reached his ears, like mountains crashing together. The old King hurried, pace increasing and carrying him through to the safe room.

They were all there, thank God. His sons, his daughter. Not a one of his mistresses were present- that much needled him- but he barely noticed such trivialities next to the sight of royal blood unspilled and well preserved behind the safe walls of his retreat. He hurried in, hearing the door driven shut behind him and finally letting his aged lungs exhale in relief as the foot of solid steel lining every surface of the room fully enclosed them.

“Folami.” He gasped, hurrying to his eldest son and embracing the boy. More a man, now, and the old King felt as much in his grip. Strong with size and bodily maturation, invigorated by youth and made tightly desperate by the fear of their situation. He squeezed back, as best as his withered muscles would allow, to offer what meagre reassurance the gesture would.

“Father, how goes the defence?” His son asked.

“He wouldn’t be here if it had gone well.” Ado noted, not meeting either of their eyes. The old King resisted the reflex of chastising her, finding himself too weary and too beaten to bother correcting such improper things as her razored tongue now of all times. What use would it do her to speak more appropriately? She would not charm her way out of their situation.

“Quite right.” My dear. The old King breathed, pulling back from his son and taking one last look at his face, etching the sight into his memory. He closed his eyes, sighed, and got down onto his knees.

Prayer. It was all he had left, all anyone had left. If God Himself would not smite the attackers, then there wasn’t a force in all the world that could.

The old King did not commune with God for long, because soon enough the impacts started. Weak at first, barely audible through the layers of stone and steel. They grew quickly, soon intensifying in noise, then in force as even the metal was buckled and dented, bulging out in great mounds as it deformed before the strikes pounding against it from beyond.

He turned, watching the ruin progress and clutching his children tight. It didn’t take long for the door to fold inwards, smashed apart, jagged lengths of metal falling away from the ripped opening like so many sword blades mangled by hard use. There was little dust or debris in the air, such things were typical of holes made in stone rather than steel, and so the beasts responsible were seen almost instantly.

Monsters, there was no other word for them. Like great machines of meat and bone, bowstring tendons and support-beam limbs, bodies covered in articulated plates that looked to be made by a genius armourer and moving with an unseen musculature of impossible strength.

But it was not the mere mountains of flesh that drew his eye, it was the abomination atop them. The caster was a creature unrivalled among any other of his kind the old King had ever seen, a beacon of magic to engulf the greatest of court wizards and the eldest of magi. He was tall, taller than man-height, standing easily eight or nine feet, and lithe as a fencer. His body was covered with plates of a similar composition to those that protected his creations, though more finely worked and made by far. Atop his head, a crest seemed to grow from his skull, protruding in such a way as to resemble a great crown. His body was wrapped in a great robe, and it was that that the stories had spoken of the most.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

It moaned, that robe. Groaning and weeping with every movement, low hums of agony that seemed unrelenting in their projection, and heightened by every fractional movement. The caster came down from atop his mount, drifting slowly to the floor and making his way to the group.

“You resisted.” He said. He had a soft voice, almost deft in its touch against the old King’s ears. It was like the hand of a surgeon, but it still sent a chill down his spine all the same.

“How could I not have?” He asked, trembling, feeling a humiliating tear roll down his cheek. “You demanded total surrender. What kind would simply give that?”

If the caster was moved by his despair, he betrayed no hint of it.

“Clearly a wiser one than you.”

The old King couldn’t argue with that. How could he? It was right. He had been a fool, a stubborn, proud fool. And now his people were slaughtered, his nation in tatters. Everything he cared about ground up as food for some dark magus’ machinations.

He opened his mouth to speak, perhaps to plead or persuade, but fell silent as his eyes caught something more behind the caster. A towering figure, though still far shorter than the caster himself. A figure he knew better than almost any other. King Galukar.

“You.” The old King gasped. “Galukar, what…” For one moment he feared that his old comrade had been killed, that he now gazed upon some reanimate. The Godblade dispelled that fear. It was still there, by his side, and still brimming with the divine light it always did. No undead could have held it, none could have even tried.

Galukar looked up at him for a long second, then turned his gaze away. Shame or regret, the old King couldn’t see. It did not, he supposed, make a difference.

“Surrender now.” The caster spoke up, commanding suddenly, voice hardened and edged. “Or I will further my already wrought destruction.”

It wasn’t a choice at all, the old King simply heard his words and nodded.

“I surrender.” He scowled, shaking with humiliation and regret. “By God, I surrender, my Kingdom is yours, my people yours, just spare them more of your barbarity.”

The caster did not reply at once, waiting until the old King had raised his gaze to meet the man’s eyes before he did so.

“My barbarity?” He asked, voice level, quiet. “You sit atop a feudal pyramid, suborning your people with delusions of divine sanction and birthright. You leave geniuses idle and unutilised, treat magic as a secondary concern at most, and work only to hoard what you already have, rather than create yet more and innovate. You do all this, and dare to call me the barbarian? I am the liberator. I am the hand of civilization caressing your savage empire, an enlightened man would be thanking me for what I intend to make of your world.”

He listened, more for fear of what might be done if he dared interrupt than any true fascination with what was being said. The old King had expected madness, when he heard the dark caster speak, but what he heard now was worse. It was blasphemy of the highest order. He spoke of providence as if it were some foolish delusion, called God Himself a liar.

This is the beast I am to deliver my people to. He realised. A cruel heretic, caring only for power.

The old King was deflated, all his strength slipping away in a single, hard breath as the realisation finally sunk in that this was truly the end. Nothing now existed that might save him, or perhaps even that could.

Better the Dark Lord than this, surely. Better anything.

The caster eyed him for a second, then sighed.

“I should not bother, your kind do not understand the truth of House Shaiagrazni. It must be drilled into you from childhood for your limited minds to grasp it, I am simply wasting my effort.” His gaze grew cold, at that, and final. “I have your surrender, that is all I ever required.”

The caster’s hand raised. It was a simple gesture, sluggish and lazy, but it sent the old King stumbling back a step.

“What are you doing!?” He demanded, eyes wide and bulging, jaw tight with horror. “I surrendered! We surrender!”

It was fascination and surprise that moved the caster’s face, not pity or hesitation.

“And I will, as agreed, spare your people. But you must be punished for your resistance.”

The old King took another backstep, looking around the room now. There were Knights with him, of course, and each had their weapons drawn and bodies tensed for activity. He had no illusions that they would serve to impede the caster.

“I am a prisoner!” The old King snapped. “Not a soldier, not a peasant, you cannot do this-”

“There are very, very few things I cannot do anymore.” The caster cut in. “My armies boast a combined biomass in the thousands of tonnes, my own personal equipment improves by the day, and even your divine magic is now mine to wield. You have no power here, and your world has nothing to offer me anymore. I will do as I will, and never again shall I be shackled by your idiotic customs or diplomatic procedures. Superstition does not rule me, however much it rules you.”

Trying to speak, to say anything at all, the old King found his voice had abandoned him. Lips moving silently, dry with stress and fear, throat convulsive and fist-tight as the panic crept ever deeper into his wits. Finally he managed an answer, though it was barely any sort of answer at all.

“I am a King.” He breathed, feeling his eyes suddenly grow very wet, his legs suddenly very weak. The caster seemed almost to smell the enfeeblement of his resolve, and relish it.

“We do not have Kings in my land.” He replied, calm as if he were commenting upon the weather. “Nor do we believe in anything so trite as providence or divine rule. All I see, now, is the man more responsible for this waste of resources than any other. If you will not bear the consequences of your role in it, then you should never have been a leader at all.”

The caster’s body changed, at that, great tendrils of bone and muscle protruding from both shoulders and shooting towards the old King. He didn’t even have the time to scream.