Among the chaos, the acrobatic Blind Monks jumped, dived, rolled, somersaulted, and launched off each other in spectacular maneuvers. They whipped their Death-enchanted quarterstaffs in furious blurs of speed, deflecting slashes from the flaming swords and thrusts from the fiery spears. Layna blasted spider webs left, right, and center, ensnaring the enemy soldiers. Yumo fired precise shots at the trapped guards with her Cold arrows, executing the men before their flames could melt Layna’s webs.
While the monks, Yumo, Layna, and the panthers battled the elite Yengish warriors, I raced over to Anna-Lucielle, who was frantically ducking and diving under the burning sword blade of a warrior she was fighting by herself.
I raced toward her opponent, Grave Oath poised in my hand for a throw. As soon as Anna-Lucielle moved out of my intended throw’s trajectory, I flung my dagger and plugged the blade into the warrior’s eyeball. He dropped to his knees, screaming in agony and clutching futilely at his withering face and shriveling head. I walked calmly past him, plucked my dagger out of his eye socket, then casually impaled him with the blade of my kusarigama.
I yanked it out of his dead body without breaking my stride and made a beeline for the Emperor, with Anna-Lucielle alongside me.
“I’m gonna smack you out of the Emperor’s body like a washerwoman beating dust out of a dirty rug,” I said.
The Warlock couldn’t call down his lightning bolts here; the roof was far too strong for that. Also, the Emperor’s body was too frail to use as a conduit to channel that kind of magic. To attempt to do this would surely kill him, thus defeating the Warlock’s purpose.
“Assist me, you fools!” he screamed at his warriors, but they were too occupied with the fight against the monks and panthers to come to his aid.
Layna and Yumo both guarded the bottom of the steps so none of the swordsmen or spearmen could intervene.
I turned to Anna-Lucielle. “You need to reach inside this body with your Charm magic and find whatever’s left of the Emperor’s mind and soul. He’s gotta fight hard to take his body and mind back, and you’re gonna have to help him. The Warlock isn’t going to give up easily.”
“I’ll do everything I can to keep the Emperor alive and fighting, Vance,” she said, her hands already glowing pink with the aura of her Charm magic.
The Emperor jumped up when we reached him and drew an ornate dagger from a jeweled sheath on his hip. He tried to stab me in the throat, but it was a feeble and clumsy attack. A novice assassin trainee could have blocked it and broken the attacker’s arm. I didn’t, though; I wanted to keep the Emperor’s body as unharmed as I could.
The Emperor snarled and hissed and tried to bite me with his rotting teeth, but I grabbed his neck in a powerful lock with my left arm. I twisted his wrist with my right hand, forcing him to drop the dagger. Now that I had him in a headlock, Anna-Lucielle was able to place her glowing hands on his temples and get inside his mind.
“You’ll never get me out of here.” The Emperor struggled weakly against my hold. “He’s mine now, and if you try to remove me you’ll kill him. All of Yeng will hate you.”
“You know what, asshole? That’s a risk I’m willing to take,” I said, and then I punched him in the stomach, nice and hard.
He gasped and shuddered with pain, and his body slackened. Too much physical punishment would certainly kill the Emperor in his frail state, but I wanted to at least make the Warlock feel a little pain before I booted him out of this body.
“You’re like a little tapeworm in there, aren’t you?” I squeezed his neck tighter. “Well I’ve got some bad news for you, you parasite: you’re about to be removed. Anna-Lucielle, have you got the Emperor’s heart and soul?”
With her brow furrowed and her jaw set with intense concentration, Anna-Lucielle nodded.
“Whatever you do, don’t let go,” I said. “Keep him fighting, keep him alive. I’m going in.”
I wasn’t sure if what I was about to do was going to work, but I had to try. I held Grave Oath in my free hand, closed my eyes, and plunged my spirit into the Emperor’s body, in the way I did to resurrect both humans and beasts as my undead creatures. I’d never done this to a living being, and I hoped that it wouldn’t kill him. But I assumed since the Emperor was so close to death, it would likely work.
In a heartbeat, I was in his veins, in his flowing blood. Back in my body—which I was occupying and cognizant of while simultaneously traveling like a virus through the Emperor’s blood and body—I felt the Emperor’s frail body thrashing violently, as if seized by a vicious paroxysm of madness. He howled and screeched in ear-piercing agony, but I kept him gripped tightly in my headlock.
It was beyond strange doing this to a living body. Unlike in a corpse, where everything was still and peaceful, in here everything was moving and active. While a dead body was an empty vessel, devoid of any presence, this was completely different. There were two distinct presences: one immensely powerful and brutally malevolent, the other weak and confused. Both, however, wanted me out. I felt as if I was being crushed and burned and stabbed all at once, so I had to expend souls to bolster my strength and help me fight through the terrible agony and the bone-crushing sensation of pressure closing tightly around me.
The inside of the Emperor’s body looked as awful as the outside. It was as if some sort of invasive throttling vine was taking over his body, crushing him from the inside out. Purple
