The captain roared, swinging his shield in front of him, and I let out a shout, mirroring this motion and whipping the tower shield in front of me. His shield started to glow, and I heard the whispering of magical words echoing in his great helm. At that moment, power rippled through my fingers into the shield, and I felt my own lips moving, whispering an incantation in a language I did not recognize. In an instant, the shield I was holding turned from gold into a glossy obsidian-like black.
With a simultaneous surge, we crashed into each other, shields first, golden shield slamming into obsidian shield. We battled each other with sheer physical strength, each pushing as hard as we could. Then, we shouted the words that would blast out shockwaves from the shields. For a terrifying moment, it felt as if my entire being was being filled with the necrotic energy to the point where I would explode. It was as if I was dying a thousand times in the blink of an eye, and then being resurrected. The captain’s shock wave broke, and his shield shattered against my unyielding black shield.
All the energy coursing within me spiralled to my arms and then out through my shield in a titanic wave of stone-shattering force. The captain was launched up through the air as if an ancient titan the size of a mountain had just kicked him. He was catapulted up a hundred feet in the air and hurled almost two hundred feet back. His body smashed through a giant chandelier, severing the chain that suspended it from the ceiling and sending it crashing to the ground. The captain’s body continued until it struck the huge organ pipes with a resounding chorus of gongs. The pipes shattered in a cloud of dust, and disembodied limbs were flung through the air. The shrapnel toppled down before skittering along the ground.
“Holy shit,” I murmured, an ear-to-ear grin smeared across my face. “That was pretty fucking cool.”
The shield became hot in my hand, and I threw it down before it melted into a pool of liquid metal.
I turned to look at Elyse and Rami, and both of them were staring at me with their jaws dropped and their eyeballs virtually popping out of their sockets. If I’d had the chance to have witnessed what I had just done from where they were, I’d probably also be standing there speechless and slack-jawed.
Before they could say anything, a slow clap echoed through the cathedral. I turned to see a portly, hunched-over figure shuffling out of the cloud of dust and debris from the smashed-up organ. He was an old man, bald, warty, and age-spotted, with one eye larger than the other. His swollen, wine-stained lips were curled up in a mocking grin.
He was beyond obese. I couldn’t imagine how someone that corpulent could even walk. With difficulty, it seemed. He was inching forward at a tortuously slow pace, dragging one foot limply behind the other. He leaned on a gnarled walking stick and wore the brilliant white robes edged with gold thread of a bishop.
“Nabu, you disgusting slug,” Elyse said.
“Well done, well done, necromancer, apostate, and… foreign whore,” he sneered, still clapping slowly. “You have bested my Resplendent Crusaders. An impressive feat. Not nearly impressive enough, though, to deal with the likes of me.”
“This fat old piece of shit is Nabu?” I asked Elyse with a snort. “He looks like someone even Grast could kill!”
“Looks can be dangerously deceptive,” Elyse replied. “He’s far more powerful than any of the men we just fought.”
“Who are you, necromancer?” Nabu demanded. “I have seen you in my dreams, but I do not know your name. Tell it to me, before I destroy you.”
“I am Vance Chauzec, rightful Lord of Brakith, and I’ve come here to suck your rotten soul into my dagger. After seeing what you look like in person though, I feel like I’ve wasted my time. I’d do better sucking the soul out of a plague rat than capturing your pathetic soul.”
“Ah, the Lord of Brakith. I know the current one, and, yes, Vance… You are his nephew, are you not?”
“When I’m done with you, I’m going to kill that thieving, lying piece of shit as well.”
Nabu laughed mockingly. “You are a naive fool, aren’t you? Well, no matter. Your body will be on the meathooks with all the others soon enough. I will eat your heart before the morning sun rises, and my powers will become even greater.”
“You have abandoned the Lord of Light,” Elyse said, her hand clenched over her mace.
“I’m sorry, what did he do to your god?” I asked her. “Eat him?” I smiled at the overblown bishop.
“One such as me can serve two masters. Blood for the Devourer. Righteousness for the Luminescent One.” Nabu pointed his walking stick upward, the sheer effort making him wobble on his feet as though he might topple over and cause an earthquake. Then, he righted himself and set his eyes upon me, the walking stick still pointed at the stained glass ceiling. One of his eyes was gold, like the captain’s had been, but the other was blood-red. “Come, necromancer, let me feed upon you!”
Nabu raised his hands to the sky and cried out a booming command that echoed through the many aisles of the cathedral. At the very highest point of the ceiling was a domed skylight, and the unfiltered light of the full moon shone through in a pillar-like beam. It bathed him in its glow, and his body started to shift. It was as though a hundred leeches writhed beneath his skin, and then, it started to melt away, filling the air around him with a light haze.
In seconds, gone was the obese, hunchbacked old man. Standing in his place was a towering giant. The transformed Nabu was over eight feet tall and built like the strongest of blacksmiths. He was clad in full plate armor of
