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    TWENTY-TWO


    <h2 style="text-transform: uppercase">KAX</h2>


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    Kax was informed by the rhinn prisoners that King Druk was being kept in his chambers. He didn''t know whether or not to trust the rhinn, but he had little choice. They hadn''t raised any alarms, so it appears that the prisoners were speaking the truth. If the king was back in his chambers than Kax had no clue where the Emperor was residing in the keep.


    Ten soldiers guarded the doors to the king’s private suite of rooms. This was one place in the keep Kax hadn''t explored as a child and anything that laid beyond the heavy double doors was a mystery.


    Kax quickly attacked, spinning with a sword in each hand. They fell silently, their dead eyes like black beads in their slack faces.


    Four more joined the silent theater in his mind. A spear thrust caught Kax’s left arm, right between the bicep and the bone. A dull pain bloomed for a breath, until Kax pulled back, removing the weapons from inside him.


    Kax quickly dispatched his attacker. Five down, five to go. One of the guards ran, presumably to raise the alarm, but Kax caught up before the young guard made it more than a few steps. He took the rhinn’s legs off at the knee as a gentle reminder never to run from death. It wasn''t a mortal wound, but that didn''t matter with the beautiful swords Kax carried. His instruments of oblivion. The soldier was dead before he hit the ground.


    Kax turned to face the rest of the guards and found a sword sticking out from his chest, jutting out from where his heart used to be. This one hurt a little. When Kax spun, the rhinn lost his hold on the sword and screamed in terror. Then he couldn’t scream anymore.


    Three to go.


    Kax placed his palms against the tip of the sword and pushed on the blade until it slid out of his body. The final three soldiers stared in horrified disbelief. They didn’t even raise their weapons when Kax came for them.


    There would be no hiding what happened in that corridor, not with all the blood pooling around the bodies. Kax would have to move quickly if he wanted to be gone before someone stumbled upon his little massacre.


    Druk, the King of Eldsprak, sat in a plush red chair, his eyes fixed on a book in front of him. If Kax hadn’t known the man by sight, he might have taken him for an imposter, with his disheveled tunic and trousers, the same worn by the servant staff in the keep.


    "Who?" The King narrowed his eyes. "Kax? Is that you?"


    "Yes."


    The king stood and rushed toward him. "What''s happening to my kingdom? Are you here to mount a rescue?"


    The king was not a man of physical prowess, but he still towered over Kax. In Kax’s current state of being, height, or the lack of it, mattered little. Still, Kax wished he didn''t have to look up into the faces of everyone he killed.


    "Eldsprak is teetering on the brink of defeat, but you need not worry. Goslin will set it right."


    Druk''s eyes widened. "Goslin is alive? Thank goodness! His father and brother are in the other room."


    He shouted, "Verien! Your child is alive! "


    Kax swore under his breath. King Druk died before he drew another breath. A merciful death for a merciful man. This way, he would not be used as a bargaining tool and, according to Nothing, the kingdom would be able to heal once the rhinn were driven from Maydian.


    The door opened and revealed Verien, Goslin’s father and the man who, no matter the situation, was in charge. He had not adopted the forlorn look of an overthrown monarch, not even while wearing the same servant garb as Druk. His face was clean shaven, and he stood with strict rigor in his back, shoulders back and his face tilted down, as if always looking down on the world itself.


    The man’s gaze immediately went to the floor behind Kax. "Kax? What have you done? This is regicide!"


    "To be fair," Kax said. "He wasn’t ruling Eldsprak before he died."


    A younger man barreled past Verien and charged. His face was set in grim determination as he sprinted forward, arms reaching out in front of him. All of Goslin''s brothers shared the same coloring and it was difficult to tell them apart. It did not get any easier with the life drained out of them.


    "What is this?" Verien asked, taking a half-step back. It must be the first time in his life he’d retreated, Kax thought. "Where are Gatling and Goslin?"


    "You can take heart in the fact Goslin has no idea I’m doing this,” Kax said, stepping past the dead son to approach the father.


    Verien raised his hands, palms forward. "Kax! I’ve been like a father to you after your parents were killed."


    "Father?" Kax spat, raising his sword. The anger swelling in his chest surprised him. "You were never even a father to your own son. If not for Goslin''s own inner strength, he would have crumpled under the pressure and humiliation you put him through on a daily basis."Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.


    Kax drew a deep breath and pointed Bandit at Verien’s face. "Goslin wants you dead. He’d never say so himself, and would certainly never hold the sword, so it’s a good thing he has me."


    "Wait!" Verien shouted.


    Kax did not wait.


    Before leaving, he took both the king''s and Verien’s rings. They were both easily recognizable and would serve as proof of what happened here.


    Shouts of alarm sounded from outside.


    Leaning out the open window, Kax spotted soldiers running across the courtyard. Some were coming toward him, but quite a few were rushing in a different direction. To protect the Emperor?


    Kax grinned and clambered out of the window. He peered down at the long distance to the ground, and he knew he would survive a jump from this height.


    Shouts drifted through the closed doors to the king’s chambers. Kax sighed and climbed back in the window. The released prisoners weren’t his obligation, but it still felt wrong to let them die so soon after setting them free. He left the king''s chamber the same way he had entered.


    Thirty-six dead rhinn soldiers later and Kax stepped out into the courtyard. The strength of those he’d slain empowered him, and he pushed down the urge to laugh out loud into the night. Three of the prisoners were dead, and it was a solemn bunch who emerged behind Kax, wearing the uniforms of the slain guards. The night hid the bloodstains.


    They followed hesitantly behind him, eyes filled with fear and wonder. Kax didn''t blame them after the heap of death and destruction he''d left behind.


    "You’re good to go, then?" Kax asked, looking at their leader.


    The rhinn nodded. "We will be fine from here. Your king wasn’t up there?"


    "He’s dead."


    "Sorry."


    Kax nodded and the surviving prisoners walked in formation toward the same gate Kax entered through earlier. With the uniforms, they were free to flee the city and regroup.


    Dissent in the rhinn lines. It was something to note.


    Kax set his sights on the building that the other guards were headed to earlier. It was the library, if his memory served him right. Kax didn''t believe that the rhinn took a sudden interest in Maydian literature. The emperor must be located within.


    The library was surrounded by rhinn soldiers, who paced in agitation. More headed in his direction. The time for stealth was over.


    He sped through the courtyard, leaving dead rhinn soldiers in his wake. The guards surrounding the building readied themselves as he approached, but Kax didn’t intend to enter through the front door. The library was a squat, two-story stone building with plenty of open windows to choose from. Kax jumped, landing on a soldier’s shoulder and used him as a springboard to leap into the air and dive through an open window on the second floor. He skidded to a stop at the scene before him.


    He expected to crash into an assembly of top rhinn officials. Instead, he’d stumbled on the scene of a gruesome murder. A rhinn man in decorated military garb lay in a pool of his own blood, his body mangled into pulp against the stone floor. The Emperor, Kax guessed.


    Standing over the Emperor was a monstrosity with pieces of torn flesh in its clawed, crooked fingers. Blood streamed down its face as it chewed with obvious relish. The creature looked brutishly strong, with bulging muscles covered in fur the color of rust. Its face looked like a bear’s, except for the human-like nose and eyes.


    When it turned to face him, Kax saw a humanness in its features. Corrupted and twisted, but not completely obliterated.


    Four pyromancers huddled in the corner of the room and a second creature stood by the door, its thin lips curled up in a knowing smile. The one by the door still retained a proper human shape, or rhinn-like shape, judging by the eyes and the mouth, but its skin was covered in purple welts and bulging lesions, weeping a clear liquid. The monster''s arms were long and thin. Something was terribly wrong with its eyes. They were a deep purple that pulsed. A thin trickle of blood oozed from a tattoo in the middle of its forehead. The same tattoo he’d seen on the priests of Wyndemir.


    "Another human," the creature purred.


    Kax manifested both his swords and looked from one monster to the other. The pyromancers, he ignored. "You’ve killed your leader," Kax said, keeping his back to the window. "Why?"


    The being that had once been a priest pointed at Kax. "Make the human submit. He’ll make a fine specimen."


    Kax faced the monster who was busy gorging on the Emperor''s flesh. It hesitated, then a purple color washed over its eyes.


    "Hold on a moment," Kax said, but the creature did not listen. Before he knew what had happened, Kax was flying through the air and crashed against the far wall. He slid to the ground but found his feet quickly.


    The monster was fast, terribly so, but Kax had the advantage now that he knew what it was capable of. He accepted a blow to his face, which allowed him to hack at his opponent with both of his blades. Kax crashed into the wall again and actually felt the stone crumble and crack against his skull. It dazed him for a brief moment, but no more attacks came. The monster lay bleeding on the ground, cut to pieces.


    Kax shook his head to clear it, then raised his sword to the corrupted priest. "Tell me why you killed your Emperor."


    "He died for the same reason that you will, for being a nuisance."


    The priest turned to the pyromancers. "Burn him to dust!"


    The pyromancers were too scared to disobey. Fire bloomed from their hands and shot out at Kax. The heat was terrible, but he avoided the worst of it by throwing himself to the floor.


    He leapt into the air as soon as the fire died down.


    The priest growled. "I have need of them yet."


    Before Kax could slice into his opponents, a gateway opened in front of him. With no way to redirect himself, Kax hurtled through the opening and into a pile of snow.


    He landed softly on his feet and spun around only to find that the gateway was gone.


    Icy cold wind whipped at his clothes and hair without mercy. Kax saw nothing but snow at first, but then he recognized a trio of peaks in the distance. He''d been deposited on the mountain range between Eldsprak and Loft, left to die in the cold and the snow. What the priest didn''t know was that his body could withstand anything now. This would not be the end, but he did not look forward to long hike that awaited him.


    With his arms wrapped around himself, he set off walking southeast. If he remembered his geography lessons correctly, he would end up on the border between the two kingdoms, where the mountains turned into a hilly landscape. He just needed to make it a few days without turning into an icicle. Kax vowed to end that deformed, purple-eyed priest before this was all over.


    First, he would need to find Goslin and tell him the rhinn had murdered his father.