“You will leave my court now.” The Emperor—or rather, the Warlock who’d possessed him—pointed at me with a quivering claw-like finger. “And you will march straight back to your ships and forever leave these lands, never to return on pain of death! Get out, now, all of you, before I change my mind and mount your heads on spikes above the city gates!”
“Get ready for a fight,” I whispered to my party.
Ji-Ko and his monks spun their quarterstaffs and readied themselves in combat stances. Yumo notched an arrow to her enchanted bow in a lightning fast movement while Anna-Lucielle held up both her hands, a purple energy swirling around her palms. Anna’s spider appendages started to weave webs within their claws.
The Emperor’s warriors drew their curved claymores and spears, and a voice called out from behind me.
“The Emperor is but a shell,” said the huge swordsman who’d guarded the doors. “We serve the Warlock who speaks through this fallen vessel. He’s given us powers beyond what the feeble Emperor ever could have. When he finally succeeds in squeezing the last few remaining drops of life from the Emperor’s mind and soul, he will take the throne and rule over all of Yeng. We will be his lords and barons. And you will not stand in our way.”
“Kill them all,” the Warlock growled through the Emperor.
The soldiers’ weapons burst into flame, as did their armor. The flames didn’t scorch their flesh but wrapped around them. They were each flaming pillars that wafted incredible heat.
“Fire weapons, cute!” Yumo said as she aimed her Ice bow. “It’s feeling a little hot in here all of sudden. I think I’ll cool things down, huh?”
The nearest soldier to her, a towering hulk in burning armor with a flaming sword gripped in his meaty paws, charged at her. She coolly slammed three blue arrows into his torso, and all three projectiles smashed through his burning armor. He was dead before he even had the chance to swing his massive sword, the fire swirling about him extinguished.
With first blood drawn, the battle was on.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The massive swordsman came at me with a roar, whirling his sword around his head. Pointing his sword at me, he blasted out a torrent of flame from its tip, but I launched a tornado out of my kusarigama to counter it. The furiously spinning tornado not only effectively blocked the gushing river of fire, it sucked the flames into its vortex and turned itself into a firestorm. I blasted the whirling tunnel of wind, Death, and flames at the warrior, but with a few rapid slashes of his sword he cut the tornado to pieces.
We charged at each other, and I launched myself into a somersault, using the whipping momentum of my body to slash the chain end of my kusarigama across the warrior’s torso. To my enemy’s credit, he blocked the blow with his sword and remained standing, even though he staggered back a few paces and almost lost his footing. The blow would have shattered any normal weapon or shield, and would have sent most men flying. The magical power in his sword and armor was impressive.
Just as I landed from the somersault, he aimed a quick succession of cuts and slashes at me, but I parried and deflected them with both my kusarigama and Grave Oath. I counterattacked at blinding speed, dual-wielding my dagger and the blade end of the kusarigama in a flurry of cutting and stabbing attacks. I was forcing the swordsman back, and he knew he was losing this fight.
Trying to catch me off guard, he rapidly blasted another river of fire at my face. I arched my back, keeping my feet planted firmly on the ground as the gushing fire tore through the air an inch or two above me. While bent backward, I flung the chain end of the kusarigama in an underhand toss, hooked it around the ankle of his leading leg, and yanked sharply. I caught him off balance and brought him crashing to the ground. Before he could even think of scrambling to his feet, I darted my mind into the body of a nearby zombie panther, pounced on the struggling warrior, and sank its footlong fangs into his throat.
As he gasped and struggled, the panther bit tighter and deeper, crushing his windpipe completely, and a frothy gush of blood erupted from his mouth. I sprang over to him, Grave Oath gripped tight in my hand.
“The kitty bite was for me.” I stared coldly into his eyes as he died. “But this, this is for the Emperor you betrayed, you greedy, traitorous fuck.”
I slammed Grave Oath into his ear, and his eyes bulged with agony as it sucked his soul out and started to wither and shrivel his head. Before the enchantment did too much damage to his head, I pulled my dagger out. I wanted this powerhouse of a man intact. He would make an excellent zombie.
I commanded the panther to release him from its jaws, then I raised him as a zombie. The blood pouring out of his mouth rapidly congealed and turned black, then his glazed-over eyes began to glow with a yellow-green light. He stood up, now one of my creatures. Fire sprang from his armor and sword again, but now the flames were no longer in tones of orange, yellow, and red. Instead, they were of a deep black, and they sucked in light rather than giving it off. I gripped the blade of his sword and gave it a quick Death enchantment. The steel became the same superhard black substance as the blade end of my kusarigama, sharp and strong enough to take a Frost Giant’s limb off with one slash.
“Go now, Death warrior,” I said to him, “and kill all your traitorous friends.”
He growled and nodded before he charged
