“All right, you can keep her,” I said as I sheathed Grave Oath. “But if this thing tries anything, I’m killing it.”
Anna-Lucielle jumped up and threw her arms around me. “Thank you, Vance, thank you! I promise you she’ll behave.”
After I kissed the goddess, I closed my eyes and resurrected all the dead panthers. It felt good to have undead beings around me again; I’d felt like a part of my body had been amputated without them around.
“That was some impressive fighting,” I then said to my party. “Now we don’t only have some extra fighters on our side, we have mounts who can carry us at great speed. There’s enough for everyone to ride. Ji-Ko, you know how fast these things are. If we ride non-stop all the way to the Forbidden Palace, how long will it take us to get there?”
“On these panthers, we could get there at dawn tomorrow, if we ride through the night,” Ji-Ko said.
Chapter Twenty-Five
We rode through the night with threatening growls and snarls all around us in the dark. Luckily, the presence of my undead panther pack kept the other predators at bay. As Ji-Ko had said, by the time the eastern sky grew lighter, the jungle started thinning. Soon after sunrise, we found ourselves on a grassy plateau, looking down over City of Jewels, the capital of Yeng.
The City of Jewels was a sprawling metropolis, bigger than any city I’d ever visited. A broad river ran through it, dividing the city in half. The Forbidden Palace stood on the smaller half, close to the center and on a tall hill surrounded by what looked like a broad, deep moat. This was obviously the wealthier half; the buildings were larger, more spaced out, and even from this distance, we could see they were more ostentatious and impressive. On the other side of the river, the buildings were dirty and crammed together.
“There it is,” Yumo said with a sneer, “the asshole of Yeng: the City of Jewels. And the hemorrhoid on that asshole is the Emperor’s Forbidden Palace.”
Despite what Yumo had just said about the Forbidden Palace, nobody could deny how impressive it looked. As big and mighty as any of Prand’s largest palaces and castles, the Forbidden Palace towered over the rest of City of Jewels like a glorious statue. The architecture was unmistakably Yengish, as were the colors of the many towers and spires; yellows, reds, and gold were everywhere. The palace was surrounded with crenellated walls at least twenty feet high, patrolled by hundreds of archers, and the rooftops were all in the pagoda style. The main road through the city led to the drawbridge over the moat. It was lined with hundreds of fifty-foot-tall statues of past emperors of Yeng, staring out over the bustling city with stern stone eyes.
We decided to set up camp on the grassy heights overlooking the city. While my fighters rested their weary minds and bodies, I sat and observed the place, taking in details, until I was interrupted by a voice to my rear.
“I don’t need to sleep when I’ve got a mission to complete. Sleep is for the weak.”
I turned around and saw Yumo standing a few yards away, wearing a mischievous grin on her beautiful face.
“I have divine aid, let’s say, Yumo,” I said. “But you’re mortal, and every mortal, no matter how energetic or strong, eventually needs to sleep. You should get some rest with the others. I need everyone to be alert and at their best for this mission.”
“Oh, I do sleep when I get tired, I’m not immune from that. I sometimes sleep for days. But when I’m on a mission, I get so pumped I can’t sleep for days.”
“I guess you’re pretty excited about this mission then.”
“Are you kidding? This is the mission I’ve been waiting for my entire life. I get to take my revenge against the Emperor, help the God of Death find Kemji’s lost Dragon Gauntlet and resurrect the Dragon Goddess, and, you know, hopefully prevent the end of the world. This is the sort of mission I’ve dreamed about since I was a little girl!”
“Your enthusiasm is good, don’t get me wrong, but I want to make something clear. I get that the Emperor’s ancestors fucked your ancestors over, and you’ve got a grudge to settle. Believe me, I know what that feels like. The bottom line is I don’t want you to do anything that will jeopardize my mission. Getting the Dragon Gauntlet is paramount here, not your revenge quest against the Emperor. If I have to be pleasant to him to get it, then that’s what we’re going to do. Sure, it might come down to kicking his ass, but I don’t want you to stir trouble and screw things up for us just because you hate him and want to get your vengeance. Understood?”
“I understand, yes.” Her tone was uncharacteristically meek. “I won’t let my hatred of the man cloud my judgment, and I won’t do anything stupid, trust me. I actually have a plan to propose.”
“Let’s hear it.”
“The Emperor has been acting more strangely than usual, which is saying a lot—the current Emperor is even more of an oddball than his predecessor. Recent reports coming from within the walls of the Forbidden Palace are disturbing.”
“Disturbing how?”
“They say the Emperor locks himself up in his room for days, only permitting food and water to be left by his door so that he can retrieve it when no one is around. Unearthly screams echo through the palace halls late at night. Oh, and the halls also ring with maniacal laughter. When he does appear in public, he is said to look emaciated and haggard, as if he’s wasting away. He should be in his damned prime. He
