CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

DARK TERRITORY, NOVEMBER 380 HE

1

The dark knight Lipia Zancale leaped off the back of the dragon before it even came to a stop, and she took off at a sprint down the elevated walkway that connected the landing platform to the Imperial Palace.

Immediately, her breath came up short, and she reached up to rip off the helmet that covered her head and face. Her long blue-gray hair flew wild until she tossed it behind her back with her other hand and was finally comfortable enough to speed up. She wanted to get the heavy armor and cape off, too, but she had no intention of giving those scheming consuls that skulked around the palace even a glimpse at her bare skin.

As she raced down the curving walkway, the sight of the dark, looming palace jutting through the red sky came into view between the pillars on the right side.

Obsidia Palace was easily the tallest object—aside from the hateful End Mountains, of course—in the endlessly vast dark wasteland, carved out of a rocky mountain over a period of a hundred years.

From its throne room on the top floor, one could supposedly see the faint sight of the End Mountains on the far western horizon and the vast gate carved into them. Of course, no one actually knew whether that was true or not.

The throne of the dark nation had been empty ever since the first emperor, Vecta, the god of darkness, had descended into the void beneath the earth in ancient times. The great doors to the top floor were locked with a chain that had infinite life and would thus never open.

Lipia tore her eyes away from the top of the black castle and called out to the ogre guards at the gate she was rapidly approaching.

“I am Zancale, eleventh knight! Open the gate!!”

The wolf-headed, human-bodied guards were mighty, but slow to think, and it wasn’t until just before Lipia reached the cast-iron gate that they finally began to rotate the crank that opened it.

She waited until it had ponderously rumbled open with just enough space to squeeze through sideways and slipped inside.

The castle welcomed Lipia on her first time back in three months with its usual frosty ambience. The kobolds kept the hallways absolutely spotless with their daily cleaning. Her boots pounded against the obsidian floor as she ran. Eventually, two scantily clad women with bewitching proportions appeared ahead of her, walking over so silently that they seemed to glide across the floor.

The large, pointed hats that rested atop their long hair identified them as dark mages. Lipia kept running, intending to pass them without eye contact, but one of the women called out in a loud, teasing voice: “My goodness, what rumbling! Are the orcs stampeding nearby?”

The other one screamed with laughter. “Why, not at all. I recognize this vibration: It’s a giant!”

If it wasn’t forbidden to draw your sword in the palace, I’d cut their tongues out, Lipia thought, racing past with no more than a flare of her nostrils.

Human women born in the land of darkness typically joined the dark mages guild after they graduated the training academy. It was a hedonistic group, where one learned excess instead of discipline, and all it produced were people like them, interested in nothing but their appearances.

And yet, they had a fierce rivalry with the women who chose to be knights. When she was a child in school, there was one magician who was her worst enemy, and the girl had put a horrible poison-bug curse on her. Lipia had gotten her back by cutting off her beloved braided hair, however.

In the end, the people of this land were all idiots who refused to look ahead.

Organizations and individuals were constantly bickering. A land that only knew how to separate good from bad through strength had no future.

For the moment, the Council of Ten maintained a fragile balance, but that would not last long. If one of the ten lords who made up the council died in the imminent war against the human land—what the orcs and goblins called the Ium Nation—the balance would be lost, replaced by chaos and bloodshed once more.

It was one of those ten who painted this picture of the future for Lipia—her direct superior, the commander of the dark knights brigade, and her lover.

And it was at this moment that Lipia carried the top-secret information he’d been waiting for. So she didn’t have a single second to waste with the taunts of stupid mages.

She rushed straight across the empty hall and up the great stairs, skipping two at a time. She was in excellent shape, but even she was starting to run out of breath when she reached the proper floor at last.

The Council of Ten that collectively ruled the entire Dark Territory consisted of five humans, two goblins, an orc, an ogre, and a giant. After a hundred years of internal strife, they had finally reached a treaty of sorts, with the official understanding that none of the five races were above or below the others.

So the ten lords had their own private rooms on the eighteenth floor of Obsidia Palace, close to the top. Lipia ran down the hallway, trying to moderate the sound of her footsteps, turning to one door near the end and rapping on it three times with the back of her hand.

“Come in,” said a deep voice.

She glanced both ways, confirmed that no one was watching, then slipped quickly through the door.

Inside the room, which was minimally decorated, the air was musky and familiar. She went down on one knee and lowered her head.

“Knight Lipia Zancale, returning from travel.”

“Very good. Be seated,” said the deep voice. Conscious of the quickening of her heartbeat, she looked up.

Sitting on one of the lounge chairs facing the round table was a man with his legs raised and crossed—the dark knight commander, or general of darkness, Vixur ul Shasta.

For a human, his size was tremendous. While they might not be similar in breadth, his height on its own was comparable to an ogre’s. His black hair was cut short, and the whiskers around his mouth were well-groomed.

His simple hemp shirt rippled with muscles so burly, they threatened to pop the buttons clean off, but there was no extra flesh around his waist whatsoever. His body was perfect, especially for a man over forty, but few were aware that it was the product of a vigorous daily training regimen that he’d continued dutifully even after becoming the highest of knights.

Lipia sat on the sofa across from Shasta, fighting the urge to jump into the arms of her lover now that they were finally together again after three long months.

Shasta straightened up and gave one of the crystal glasses on the table to Lipia before opening a bottle of aged wine.

“I snuck it out of the treasure repository yesterday, thinking I’d share it with you,” he said with a wink, pouring the fragrant deep-red liquid into the glass. He always looked like such a scamp when he made faces like that. Just like the old days.

“Th…thank you, my lord.”

“How many times must I tell you not to do that when we are alone?”

“But I am still on duty.”

Shasta shrugged in exasperation. They shared a quiet toast, and she downed the rich wine in one gulp, feeling her exhausted life value begin to recover after the long journey.

“And now,” said the knight’s commander quietly, his own glass empty and expression sharp, “I must ask you about the nature of this emergency that you sent a familiar to warn me of.”

“Sir…”

Lipia couldn’t help but glance back and forth before leaning over. Shasta was a bold and open man but also a scrupulous one. The chamber was placed under a number of defensive arts, such that even the “witch” who headed the dark mages guild would not be able to listen in. Even still, the importance of the secret information she was carrying forced her to speak in hushed tones.

Lipia stared into Shasta’s dark eyes and said, “The supreme commander of the Axiom Church in the human realm…is dead.”

Instantly, the general of darkness’s eyes flashed. He broke the silence with a long, heavy sigh.

“If I were to ask if that was the truth…I would only be shaming you. I do not doubt your information…it is just…That undying one…”

“Yes…I understand your feeling, my lord. I found it hard to believe and took a full week to confirm the information. It is the truth. I sent an ‘ear bug’ into Central Cathedral and heard it for myself.”

“That was a reckless move. If they’d traced the art, you would have been trapped in their city and torn to pieces.”

“I know. But given that they could not even detect my art, I think the information is accurate.”

“…Hrm…” Shasta sipped from his second glass of wine, his menacing face downcast. “When did it happen? What was the cause?”

“Roughly half a year ago…”

“Half a year. Yes, around that time, the security in the mountains was more lax than usual.”

“Correct. As for the cause of death…well, I find it hard to believe on its own, but it was said to be defeat by sword in combat…”

“By sword? You mean someone cut the undying one in two?”

“It is not possible,” Lipia replied, shaking her head. “I believe she must have finally reached her natural end, despite her reputation. But in order to preserve the holy reputation of their supreme pontifex, they must have spread that false story instead…”

“Yes…I suspect you are correct. But still…Administrator, dead…”

Shasta closed his eyes, folded his arms, and leaned against the backrest. He was silent for a long time, until his eyes snapped open again.

“It’s an opportunity,” he said simply.

Lipia held her breath, then asked hoarsely, “For what?”

“For peace, of course,” he answered immediately.

It was a dangerous word to speak aloud in this castle. It instantly faded into the air of the room.

“Do you think…it is possible, my lord?” Lipia whispered.

Shasta concentrated on the red liquid inside his glass and slowly but firmly nodded. “Whether it is possible or not, it must be achieved at all costs.”

He downed the wine and continued. “The life of the great gate that has separated the lands of humanity and darkness since the time of creation is finally running out. The armies of the five races of darkness are like a kettle about to boil over just before the invasion of the Human Empire with its bounties of sun and earth. At the last Council of Ten, there was great debate about how to divide the lands, riches, and slaves of that realm. Sometimes it is hard to fully fathom their greed,” Shasta said bluntly. His tone made Lipia tense.

Unlike the Human Empire, where a great text called the Taboo Index reigned supreme, the Dark Territory had just one rule: Take what you want with strength.

That meant that to the nine lords who had nearly limitless greed, which drove them to the very heights of success, Shasta, with his thoughts of peace with the human realm, was an outsider, a heretic.

But it was because of those strange, alien thoughts that Lipia felt herself so drawn to him. And unlike the women who served the other lords, Lipia had never been taken by force. Shasta had knelt and offered her flowers. He had wooed her with sincere words and feelings.

Shasta had no idea that his lover was lost in reminiscence. He continued, his voice deep and heavy, “But…the lords overlook the humans. Particularly the Integrity Knights, who have protected their borders for three hundred years.”

Lipia nodded, feeling her mind sharpen at the mention of that name. “Indeed…They are all fearsome opponents.”

“Warriors worth a thousand men, as the saying goes. Countless members of the dark knights brigade have been slain by them, but never has the reverse been true. Their combat is shrewd and precise, and the divine weapons they utilize are peerless in strength…Even I have never fully bested one in combat, although I have been close on multiple occasions. And I have had to retreat many, many times.”

“But…that is only because of their bizarre abilities to shoot fire and light and such from their swords…”

“Perfect Weapon Control arts, you mean. I had the knighthood’s articians study them for a long time, but we never reached a full understanding. You would need more than a hundred goblin soldiers to counteract even a single one of those attacks.”

“But still, our military numbers are over fifty thousand. And there are only about thirty of those Integrity Knights. Couldn’t we win with sheer numbers…?” Lipia wondered.

The edges of Shasta’s manicured mustache curled sardonically. “Warriors worth a thousand, as I said. We would lose thirty thousand of our number by that calculation.”

“You don’t think…they would fell so many?”

“Perhaps not. While I don’t like it as a tactical choice, if we stacked our knights, ogres, and giants along the front row and hurled dark arts remotely from the rear, even the Integrity Knights would eventually fall. But I can’t imagine how much damage we would suffer to slay even a single knight. It might not actually be thirty thousand, but I would believe half of that number.”

He set the crystal glass down loudly on the table. Lipia made to pour another cup, but he motioned her off, then leaned his broad back against the lounge chair.

“…And the result of that, naturally, would be unequal distribution of power among the five tribes of darkness. The Council of Ten would be meaningless, and our equal treaty would be a shell of its former self. The Age of Blood and Iron from a hundred years past would return. In fact, this would be worse. In this case, the gates to the sea of milk and honey that is the Human Empire would be thrown open. A hundred years would be too short to end the fighting over control of that prize…”

This was the worst possible future: the vision that Shasta had feared and explained to Lipia time and time again. And none of the other lords saw it as the worst option—in fact, they seemed to welcome it.

Lipia looked down at the full-body armor that she’d been given in exchange for her knighthood vows. Its scuffed but polished black surface shone in the light. She had been a small child, and during the Age of Blood and Iron, she would never have been made a knight. She’d have been sold to slavers or dumped in the wilderness outside town, where her short life would have come to a miserable end.

But thanks to the peace treaty (such as it was), she’d spent her childhood in the youth training academy rather than in a slave market, and it was there that her late-blooming skill with the sword had been discovered, and she’d reached what was about the highest status that a human woman could possibly hope to gain.

Since becoming a knight, she had spent nearly her entire monthly salary on gathering abandoned children in the outer regions where the slavers still reigned, running something like a nursery for them until they were old enough to enter school.

She hadn’t told Shasta about this, much less her other comrades. It was because even she couldn’t exactly explain why she was doing it.

It was just…a feeling that made its home in a corner of her mind—a sensation that something about this land, where the mighty were meant to seize what they wanted, was wrong. Unlike Shasta, she wasn’t knowledgeable enough to put her doubts into clear, concise words, but she most certainly felt that there was a better way for this land—and for the entire Underworld itself—to be.

Lipia had a vague sense in her mind that this new world she envisioned probably existed far into the future of the peace that Shasta sought. And of course, as a woman, she wanted to help the man she loved.

But…

“But how do you intend to convince the other lords? And…would the Integrity Knights even entertain a negotiation for peace?” she asked, her voice quiet.

“…Mmm…” Shasta grunted, closing his eyes and rubbing his smooth mustache. When he spoke, his voice was laced with bitterness. “I sense that there is ground to be made with the Integrity Knights. If their pontifex is dead, then it would be old Bercouli calling the shots over there. He’s a shrewd fellow, but he can be reasoned with. No…the problem is with the Council of Ten. This might seem to be a contradiction, but…” His eyes lifted, gazing into space with a fierce glint. “They might need to be killed. At least four of them.”

Lipia gasped, and against her better judgment, she asked, “When you say four…you mean both goblin leaders, the orc leader, and…?”

“The head of the dark mages guild. She is hoping to find the secret to Administrator’s longevity and one day rise to becoming empress. She will never accept a pathway to peace.”

“B-but—!” Lipia protested. “It’s too dangerous, my lord! I’m sure the goblins and orc are no match for you…but I cannot imagine what sort of wicked tricks the dark mage will use against you!”

She stopped there, but Shasta did not reply at first. He held his silence for a long while, and when he finally did speak, it was not what she’d expected to hear.

“Say, Lipia. How long has it been since you came to me?”

“Huh? Er…w-well…it was when I was twenty-one…so four years.”

“That long already? I’m sorry for leaving things so…uncertain for all these years. What do you think…? Is it time, at last?” His eyes wandered, and he scratched his head. At last, the head of the dark knights muttered brusquely, “Will you…officially be my wife? I’m sorry I can’t be younger.”

“M…my lord…”

Lipia’s eyes bulged—and she felt something hot blooming around her heart, growing until she was ready to leap over the table and into the arms of her beloved on the other side—

Beyond the thick, heavy door, a tense, high-pitched voice cried, “Emergency! It is an emergency! Oh, this is a disaster! Come quick, my fellows, come quick, come quick!!”

The voice was vaguely familiar to her. It belonged to the head of the commerce guild, one of the ten lords. Lipia remembered a large, broad fellow who looked the picture of wealth—only now his voice was shrieking and panicked, unbefitting of that mental picture.

“It is an emergency!! The ch-chains! That seal the imperial chamber! They tremble!!”