Chapter 16

Outside the mountain keep of Chirock

Emeria

“Finally!” Emeria shouted out. She gazed across the horizon, peering through the low clouds to see the keep of Chirock coming into focus. She dug her heels in and her reaver descended slightly to give a better view. Emeria looked at the massive mountain rising up in front of her. The very peak still reached higher than she did as she flew through the sky. The battlefield began to unfold underneath her as the fields that sprawled forth from the mountain gave way to well-traveled roads. The forces of Chirock stood at attention just outside the massive gate that led inside the mountain. Their numbers weren’t immense, but their equipment was the finest in the land. They had ballistas and archers at the ready, already taking aim at the descending Sacrotian forces. As Emeria took her ride down lower it began to cast a shadow over the ground. The Sacrotian forces looked up at the shadow and began to cheer, the soldiers from Chirock instead seeing a terrible omen. The Sacrotian soldiers stopped just outside the distance of the archers and ballista and stood at the ready. Emeria let a savage, hungry grin cross her lips. Her heart began to beat at a frantic pace. She gave her reaver a pat on the side, “We’re going to have so much fun now. For the first time in forever, we are going to get to eat our fill.”

Emeria raised a hand to halt the flying forces behind her. She waved a hand from her ear to her mouth, establishing a magical connection before she began to speak. “You all know your orders, follow them and you will live, disobey and you’ll die.” She paused for a moment and with a sigh continued, “I say this for your safety. The glory of Sacrotia will grow today and tales will be told of the bravery and strength you all are about to show.” She heard a cheer from the men behind her, they were sheep as far as she was concerned, but at least they were useful sheep. “Those of you carrying my cargo, please let it loose.” The men carrying the cargo had no clue what had been attached to their mounts, but they knew better than to ask.

From behind her Emeria could hear one of the lower-ranking knights talking to his Moren. “Sir, did she just tell us to stay back? We’re the pride of the Sacrotian army, surely she can’t mean it?”

Moren replied, “She wasn’t wrong when she said it was for our safety. We would only be endangering our own lives if we went in with her. We’ll be lucky to be vultures picking up scraps once she has had her feast.” Moren shivered with a memory, “I take it you have never seen the queen in battle, have you?” The knight shook his head. “What you are about to witness is the stuff of nightmares, it is the reason so many fall to Emeria and why so many others are broken without a raised hand,” Moren remembered his own downfall to the queen, the pain he had felt and then felt lightning run up his back as his whole body tensed. He looked forward to seeing Emeria staring him down, her blood-red eyes humming with magical energy.

Emeria spoke once more, “I won’t ask again men, relay the order, drop the cargo.” Another jolt of lightning ran up Moren’s spine as he waved his hand to the men behind him. Each one grabbed at the latches and the ties that held the large barrels to their mounts. For the knights, it was a relief to let them go. Most had assumed they were filled with something highly explosive and worried for their safety on the flight. As the barrels began to drop Emeria spoke again, this time connecting only to Moren. “You will be the signal for the march, once I have taken care of things you need to take the soldiers in to clean up the battlefield.” She gave her reaver one more pat on the head “You stay up here until the others move,” Red magic flickered across the beast's scales as it bent to Emeria’s will. With that she stood up on top of her mount, raising her hands above her head, clutching her handaxe, and with a spring dove off of the reaver’s back.

Emeria began to plummet through the air like an arrow coming back down. Quickly she approached the barrels that had begun to drop. The ground grew closer with every millisecond, but Emeria felt nothing close to fear, instead, she felt a giddy sick anticipation. She would devour everything in her path and this would be a meal unparalleled, the grandest feast she had ever had. As soon as she was near enough to the dropping barrels she took her axe edge and ran it across her neck. Blood began to fly out and around her, tendrils forming quickly, lashing out at anything around her.

One of the tendrils ripped apart a barrel and more blood began to fill the air. Emeria’s tendrils began to feed, taking in the blood from the barrels and growing larger with each one they broke. Emeria became covered head to toe in blood, creating a shimmering red armor across her constantly growing form. The mass of blood around Emeria continued to grow until there were no barrels left in the air. The weight only accelerated her form crashing down towards the Chirock army. Bloody spikes began to form on the outside as tendrils lashed wildly around.

The Chirock forces let loose ballista bolts and arrows but to no avail. Finally, Emeria crashed down to the ground with horrendous force. The army beneath her was crushed or impaled on the spikes and tendrils. The very earth beneath her had been decimated into a crater. Men went flying through the air due to the shockwave. With every soldier that died on the field, Emeria fed more, growing larger and larger. The impact crater became a lake of blood, pulling everything near inside it. Then rather suddenly the blood began to condense, drawing closer and closer to Emeria. It began to harden forming a body around Emeria, an armor of nothing but blood. As Emeria stood up the Chirock army stood in a state of terror. They had lost nearly a quarter of their forces due to Emeria’s impact alone. As the few brave and stupid enough soldiers charged Emeria she raised a hand. A spike of blood shot through each of them, skewering them and killing them instantly. Emeria raised up her other hand and formed a massive sword from the blood and began to charge, with each swing of her weapon men fell and were added to the blood, only charging her further. Emeria laughed maniacally with delight, feeling each and every life that she cut down, each one nourishing her.

“Time to feed!” Emeria yelled out as she hit the second wave of terror struck soldiers. As she breached the line she brought her arms close to her chest as if to defend. She jumped into the air and threw her arms wide. As she did spikes shot forth from the bloody armor, piercing countless soldiers and impaling them to the ground.

The soldiers above looked down in awe as they watched their queen decimate an entire army. It was beyond tactics, beyond strength and beyond the extent of savagery any of them thought was real. Within another few moments, the only thing in front of Emeria was the massive doors to the inner keep of Chirock. Emeria stood in the middle of the corpse-strewn battlefield feeling an ecstasy she hadn’t felt in a long time. She brought her hand from her ear to her lips, establishing the connection once again. “Clean up time,” she said panting.” The mounted units began to fly down, picking off any stragglers that had tried to flee. The ground troops marched in formation, cheering for their queen as they went.

Emeria stood, catching her breath, trying to calm her crazed heart. She turned back to see her forces quickly approaching. Her reaver was off in the distance chasing down deserters from the Chirock army, already chewing on one. She turned back to the massive doors in front of her. They were nearly ten stories tall when opened at the greatest point, though smaller sections could open separately. She knew there was a mechanism on the inside to open them, but nothing on the outside. They were enchanted to hold off intruders through some magic that no one aside from Graclose was old enough to understand. “Stupid paranoid stone face,” Emeria cursed thinking of how careful Graclose was. Emeria knew what she had to do to open them, but even for her, this would take great exertion. That was the true purpose of the mass amounts of blood. Emeria could have let her troops handle the Chirock defenders without assisting, but the doors were a different story.

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Emeria took a deep breath, concentrating on the beat of her heart. She closed her eyes and could feel the pulse of every living thing around her, from the bugs to the soldiers to the dragons carrying her men. She clenched her fists and let the blood begin to collect around her once more. She pulled it from every corpse, everything living or dead within her reach. Several of her own overzealous men were caught in the pull and had the blood sucked from their bodies. Her heart began to beat harder and faster, drowning out everything else around her. It was deafening in a singular way as every other sensation was wiped away until all Emeria could do was feel her pulse. With a scream, Emeria launched her arms forward and blood shot to the door in a geyser, bending metal and ripping a hole at the center. The doors began to glow a fierce, pulsating yellow that rippled across the blood, reaching back to Emeria. She felt waves of pain cross her body as she shrieked. She held her hands together, extended out as the blood continued to pour, and finally as she felt she couldn’t bear it anymore she threw her arms apart. The stream of blood ripped in two, pulling the two pieces of the door apart and flinging them across the battlefield. Emeria dropped to her knees, drained from the energy she had just released, the magical feedback having been the most intense feeling she’d felt since her “birth.” The blood slowly pooled back around her, still humming with energy as it rekindled Emeria’s fury.

A last small battalion stood inside, behind where the doors had been. As the dust settled they cried out and loosed arrows at Emeria. Several landed, piercing into the blood that surrounded her, none going near deep enough to wound her. After a few moments, Emeria stood up and rushed to the battalion. The soldiers steadied their blades, gazing one last chance to save their kingdom. Instead, Emeria merely ran straight through them, bodies flew across her armor as tendrils knocked away weapons. She continued to run, now being chased by the desperate soldiers.

Emeria gazed at the buildings around her, looking for something familiar from her visions to clue her to where she was. At least she reached the center of the city, the square where Graclose spoke from his high palace down to the people. She gazed up and saw what she was looking for, the balcony that Graclose spoke from. She jumped up, lashing out a bloody claw, sinking it into the back walls of the keep and she began to climb up. She could hear the cries of the soldiers beneath her, but they were of no importance now. Her goal was in sight. She reached the balcony and hopped over, blood cascading behind her as he shifted form to be able to go through more claustrophobic passages inside the mountain. Reaching a point where she realized her size was an issue she spoke, “Relevos Sanguis.” The blood around her returned to its normal liquid state and the bloody armor fell from her being. She began walking down the hall unencumbered, leaving a trail of bloody footprints as she went. She continued down the hallway until she saw her final goal, the doors that lead into the throne room of Chirock. She burst excitedly through the doors and gazed across the room. “Well, I guess all the throne rooms really do look the same,” she said.

Sitting upon his stone throne, Graclose gazed back at her, “Yes, they do. You would know that if you were such an insufferable monster.”

“A little relaxed for someone who has just lost their kingdom aren’t you?” Emeria replied.

Graclose’s body creaked as he stood, his old withered form cracking as he loosened himself for the impending issue. “I don’t believe I have lost anything. In fact I do believe I have gained the opportunity to rid the world of an abomination, a stain upon this canvas.”

Emeria stepped forward angrily, “I wouldn’t call your new queen an abomination if I were you!” she yelled. A bloody tendril shot from Emeria’s neck and grabbed Graclose, pulling tighter to crush him. A yellow glimmer surrounded him and his skin stiffened to protect him. “There we go. I’ve been waiting for you to show off your real form. Graclose the covetous, the greedy, the mountain hermit. You’d sell your very soul just to have more than your neighbor. I know the power you have Graclose and my, it is a splendid one. What I can’t figure out is why you’ve just sat here with it. If I had power like yours I would rule the whole world already, but you just decide to sit here and try to stay the same. You have the power to create, but just like with all of us, it’s a double-edged blade. Your price is that nothing is ever enough, you’re strong yes, but empty eternally in every way imaginable.”

“No amount of cutting or crushing will kill me monster.” Graclose spat out. “I would have been dead quite a long time ago if it were that simple.” Graclose stamped his foot down and stone encased Emeria’s feet. The tendril released Graclose as Emeria began to struggle. “For some reason, you seem to believe you have the upper hand here. You are in my kingdom, my throne room no less. I could not be any more in my element, to be honest,” he said with a wry smile. “I can simply encase you in stone and be done with you. You may be quite hard to kill, but I assume that being without air will kill you just the same as it kills anyone.” Graclose stamped his foot again and a stone spire shot through Emeria’s chest, rending her armor. “Whether this kills you or not I do have to assume it still hurts.”

Blood began to pour from the wound and from Emeria’s mouth. She let out pained laughter, “The joke is on you old man, at least when I’m feeling the pain I know I’m really alive, this is the best I’ve felt in years. Besides, this won’t help your people. You kill me and they all die.”

“So it is true,” Graclose said heavily.

“Of course,” Emeria said grinning as the blood began to spill from her mouth. “Without me, the blood plague will ravage your kingdom. I’m the only person who can stave it off. Without me, all of Chirock dies under your rule and you’ll have to watch as it happens.”

The stone piercing and holding Emeria sank back into the floor. “That’s better,” she spat out. The gaping wound in her chest began to heal and with a shudder, Emeria stood back up. “With all the power you have I knew your weakness would still be too great. For as much as you care about yourself and your things, there is some twisted little piece of the man you used to be that cares for his people. Even you can’t go down as the king who killed his whole kingdom.

Graclose dropped to his knees, “You’re a monster,” he murmured.

“I prefer queen thank you,” Emeria said as she walked past Graclose. As she stepped closed she struck him with the back of her hand, sending him toppling to the floor. She then took her seat upon the throne of Chirock. “Now, about the terms of your surrender?”

“I’ll do whatever you want,” Graclose said weakly as he pushed himself from the floor.

“I did so hope you’d be open to my suggestions,” Emeria said sarcastically with a childish smile. She grabbed the crown from Graclose’s head and placed it atop hers. It was far too large and sat at an angle, but she reveled in the trophy nonetheless. “It’s not like you ever had a choice anyway. You’re just another one of my little puppets like Moren. Now, be a dear and call up an announcement to everyone below.” Graclose waved his hand and a window hummed to life in front of them. Emeria put her hand to her lips and connected to her soldiers. “Great warriors of Sacrotia, the battle is over we have won. People of the former kingdom of Chirock, welcome to Sacrotia. If you resist your new rule you will be killed. Your king has just bowed to me and as you can see I now wear your crown. If you obey your lives will continue and be bettered by the might and wisdom of Sacrotia and of your new queen, the Incomparable Emeria!” At this, she stood up and threw her hands up in the air dramatically. “If you don’t obey I will bring this whole mountain down upon you and crush every trace that your people ever existed.” She bowed to the screen, “Now all of you who still live need to head to the center of the city so we can take inventory. All smiths and miners especially hurry up, we have great need of your skills.” Emeria grinned at the screen and licked her lips. “I look forward to ruling over you all and just know, your new queen loves you all so much.”

The window blinked shut and Emeria looked at the broken form of Graclose sitting next to her. “Get moving. I did say that everyone still alive needed to go to the center of the city and most of all that means the dishonored king.” Graclose stood up and began to shuffle to the door. Emeria sat on the throne and laughed as he walked out. Graclose knew that same laughter would be the sound in his nightmares for the rest of his endless life.