“I am the reckoning. I am the final hour. I am the dawning of doom. I am the dark tower. I am the lion’s mane. I am the world’s bane. I am awakened. I am uncreated. I am unbound. I am death.” The chant escaped Kane’s lips without him ever speaking. His eyes were rolled back so that only dull gleaming milky orbs stared wide into the nothingness of the hall to the throne room of the Imperial Palace in Jong Kabur. It had been thirty-six hours since the demons had invaded his soul; a three day journey, restless, stoping for nothing as he walked the many leagues to the apex of evil: the heart of the Imperial Dynasty. His coat was drenched in dust and washed in rain, dripping as he walked with no regard to his surroundings: a dead pace, straight for the door to the throne room, and woe to the man who stepped in his way. Such hatred and contempt for human life churned inside of Kane. He had never been so overwhelmed with a washing of a sick feeling of hate beyond what a human could contain. A hate so deep that it was rooted in the essence of a demonic bloodlust.
Kane’s feet left wet footprints on the marble floors as he came close to the door. The two guards charged with allowing no man into the throne room took steps the bar the way, hands on handles of their sheathed swords. Kane felt himself being pulled as a puppet on a string, with no control over his own actions. He went from a dead-stared stroll straight ahead, to diving forward into one of the guards, faster than sight could track. Kane swiftly unsheathed a dagger from a forearm sheath and sliced the man’s neck clean across before his own feet hit the floor or his target had the chance to pull his weapon.
The other guard would’ve stared in shock, but there was not even time enough to react to the events which had just transpired. His comrade had been slain in the matter of a few moments, before he could take notice of this fact, three quick slashes across his chest and face and stab to the heart felled him beside his fellow guard. Kane stepped over the corpses, dagger in hand, continuing his morbid walk to the throne. Pushing the massive doors open with ease, the entire room turned to look at who had invaded their pomp and circumstance.
Kane’s eyes faced forward observing everything, seeing nothing. The Imperial Ruler, seated comfortably on his throne sensed the presence of evil, even more pungent than his own awful odor. The sins of his black soul were many, but they could not begin to compare with the generations of debauchery and villainy of the host that dwelt within Kane: a living devil in the king’s court.
“Who dares enter the presence of the Imperial Ruler uninvited!” The Imperial Ruler projected a dominance he did not feel, it was a front for the benefit of his loyal patrons present. “Guards. Bind the intruder.” The Imperial Ruler commanded with authority, though the move was one of desperation. He knew what he was up against. He had flirted with evil and gone too far. The devil had come to claim his rightful throne.
Kane’s voice sounded like a thousand men speaking at once as the army of demons combined their very essence into one foul spirit and spoke in unison from Kane’s mouth. “You have served your purpose, puppet King of Kodia. But you sit on the throne as merely a forerunner for your master. He has now arrived to claim his own.” Kane walked forward as guards closed in from the sides, rushing to detain him at spear’s edge but warily. They sensed the power within this man and none of them wanted to throw their life away needlessly. Kane ignored the spears and the guards seemed to walk along with him, keeping spears at his throat but not engaging.
“Kill him!” The Imperial Ruler screamed. Panic rose in the man’s heart. He had been little more than handed the throne and power: the son of the former king, and had never known consequences or loss of his way. For a man accustomed to having his every word obeyed, he felt utterly powerless in the presence of true strength.
The guards charged Kane at spear point. Kane ducked the initial thrust of the clumsily slow palace guards. The real fight had not begun, and this was little more than practice. A single demon could dispatch an army of such men. Festus Kane, under total control of the evil spirits leaped into the air as the guards pulled back their spears for another thrust. Kane’s eyes glowed red, thought their eerie colorless stare remained. Drawing a knife from his boot mid-air, he slung it at one the guards, dispatching the man with a perfect throw into his eye. Kane landed on the shoulder of another of the guards, leading with his knee. The man fell over, letting go of his spear as he fell, the demon reflexes snatched the spear before the both of them fell to the ground.
Spinning the spear around himself in a whirlwind, Kane leapt at the next of the four guards. The man brought his own spear around to block the wild twirling of Kane’s weapon. Fear glinted in the palace guards eyes, he swallowed hard and winced, standing his ground in the face of death. It was over quick. Kane cut the man’s spear in half with the force of his stroke, stabbed the man through the heart, careful to bend the spear head at such an angle so as to pass cleanly through the man’s ribs.
The fourth guard cowered in fear and attempted to run to the throne and escape the protection of the Imperial Ruler. But the power of his king could not save him. Kane hefted the spear and threw it like a javelin at the escaping man, the spear was hurled with such power that it pierced the man’s leather armored vest and shot straight through his body. The guard fell face first in his own blood at the foot of the Imperial Ruler’s throne. The king of Kodia could do nothing but swallow the fear in his own throat and fight the impulse to run. He knew death was inevitable. A life of indulgence and pleasure seemed wasted when there was nothing left of worth in the end.
The second guard still breathed on the floor, his bones broken from Kane landing on top of his early. The demon possessed intruder walked to the downed guard and placed his boot on the side of the man’s face as he lay helpless on the floor. Hatred sparked in Kane’s dead-eyed face.
“What do you want!” The Imperial Ruler cried desperately. “Do you want to the throne? Take it. It’s yours.” The overweight, gaudy dressed king stepped away from the throne as if inviting the demon to end this and simply take the throne.
Kane was not a man to be reasoned with. He was hardly a man at all. There was so little left of humanness in his. Kane grimaced as he forced his foot to the floor, crushing the guards skull between his boot and the floor. A crunch that stilled the spirit of the entire throne room echoed. Kane cracked his neck casually, blood gushing from the man’s fractured skull and seeping into a pool on the floor around his boot.
“The throne….” Kane’s voice was like a mountain of noise it roared through the throne room. A few of the nobles and well-dressed guest in the palace snuck to the door, then all of them in unison rushed for the escape from this nightmare. Before the first one could reach freedom, The doors doors closed themselves, trapping everyone inside. The Imperial Ruler swallowed hard as the creamy white eyes of Kane looked slowly up, directly at him. “The throne was always mine. I’m here for your soul.” The voice shook the very foundations of the hall. “And to return the blood of the thousands you’ve slaughtered back to your hands. You cannot escape your sins, O Imperial Ruler. We will find you!”
As the voice of the demons ripped through the halls of the throne room, they seemed to open a portal above the Imperial Ruler out of which gushed a river of blood, the blood that was upon his hands for his many sins. Amid the flood of blood, a shard of blood like a knife fell and pierced the king’s crown and through his skull. The blood on his hands was upon his own head. Sin had found him out and repaid him for his crimes in kind: pain for pain, fear for fear, death for death.