Blood of the first age Chapter 19

 

Chapter 19 The Reaper of Vahsravia

The fortress of Kharos Keep was dying from beneath. Above ground, the war still raged across the dunes: thunderstorms tearing through the desert sky, inferno artillery shaking ancient walls, siege beasts screaming beneath black lightning.

But below the fortress something worse had begun. Kharos Keep stood upon the edge of a massive canyon carved into the desert centuries before the rise of Baalania. Its black stone walls overlooked endless red dunes while giant iron braziers burned day and night against the storm-dark horizon.

For three months the fortress resisted Dragun’s advance. Three months of bombardment. Three months of starvation. Three months of watching the skies blacken beneath unnatural storms.bThe defenders should have surrendered weeks ago. Instead they vanished.

Entire patrols disappeared inside the lower tunnels beneath the fortress.Supply routes stopped responding. Soldiers sent underground never returned. At first the Baalanians blamed eastern infiltrators. Then survivors began crawling back out of the darkness. Mutilated. Mad.Terrified beyond reason.

One burned soldier staggered into the command halls trembling violently while inferno priests attempted to restrain him.

“There’s something down there…”

Blood poured from the man’s mouth.

“It isn’t human…”

The commander grabbed him roughly.

“How many eastern soldiers breached the tunnels?”

The man stared upward with shattered eyes.

“Just one.”

Far beneath Kharos Keep the Reaper walked. The underground fortress tunnels stretched endlessly beneath the canyon like a buried labyrinth an ancient prison chambers of forgotten crypts, collapsed mining routes and catacombs older than the fortress itself. Most were flooded partially from the Black Rain. The rest drowned in darkness.And within that darknesssomething breathed.

A squad of elite Baalanian soldiers moved carefully through the lower corridors carrying inferno lanterns and flame-spears glowing red within the black tunnels.

These were not ordinary troops.They belonged to the Sultan’s Iron Flame Guard. They were veterans of twenty campaigns,executioners of rebel kingdoms and killers trained since childhood. None of them frightened easily. Yet even they whispered nervously underground.

“It’s slaughtering entire squads.”

“Quiet.”

“We should collapse the tunnels.”

“The prince ordered us to find it.”

Another soldier tightened his grip on his weapon.

“What if it finds us first?”

Nobody answered.

Because somewhere ahead

something heavy moved.

The sound echoed slowly through the flooded corridor.

THUD.

THUD.

THUD.

Like enormous footsteps dragging through water. Then silence. The soldiers raised weapons immediately. Inferno flames illuminated ancient stone walls covered in old blood and claw marks gouged deep into black rock.

One guard swallowed hard.

“That’s not possible…”

The claw marks were too large.

Far too large.

Then the lights went out.

Every inferno lantern extinguished simultaneously.

Darkness consumed the tunnel instantly.

And from within the blackness

came breathing.

Deep. Animalistic. Wrong.

One soldier panicked and reignited his flame spear. The corridor illuminated again. Bodies hung from the ceiling. Their missing patrol. Or what remained of them. Torn apart. Drained. Twisted unnaturally into the stone above like broken dolls. Several soldiers vomited instantly. Another whispered a prayer. Then the Reaper descended.

Mordecai fell upon them like collapsing death itself. A gigantic black mass of muscle, claws, and living shadow smashed through the ceiling in an explosion of stone and blood. Crimson eyes burned within darkness while black smoke poured endlessly from his monstrous body like a living funeral shroud.

The first soldier died instantly. Mordecai’s claw removed half his torso in one strike. The second vanished into the flooded darkness screaming.The scream ended abruptly.The tunnel erupted into chaos. Inferno weapons fired wildly through darkness while elite guards attempted desperately to surround the monster.

It didn’t matter. Mordecai was too fast. The Reaper slammed one man into a wall hard enough to crack stone before tearing another apart with his bare hands. Inferno spears shattered uselessly against living shadow armor while blood flooded through the underground corridors around their feet. The soldiers realized quickly: This was not battle. This was slaughter.

One captain managed to wound Mordecai across the shoulder with sacred fire steel.

For a brief moment the monster stopped moving.The captain smiled nervously. Then watched in horror as black shadows stitched the wound closed instantly. 

Mordecai slowly turned toward him.

The captain’s courage broke immediately.

“Run!”

Too late.

Mordecai crossed the tunnel in a blur.

The captain never even screamed.

Only blood hit the walls.

Far above the tunnels, the fortress shook violently from ongoing siege bombardments while thunder rolled endlessly across the heavens.

But underground

another kind of war unfolded. Primitive. Personal. Monstrous.

The remaining Baalanian soldiers fled deeper into the catacombs desperately trying to regroup near the old prison chambers beneath Kharos Keep. Some were crying now. Others dropped weapons entirely.

One young guard whispered repeatedly:

“It’s a demon… it’s a demon…”

Then the shadows moved again.

Mordecai emerged from the darkness ahead of them.

Waiting. Silent. Towering so large his head nearly scraped the ancient tunnel ceiling. The inferno soldiers froze. Because they finally saw him clearly. Not merely a monster. Something worse.

Fragments of humanity still remained beneath the horror. A vaguely human face buried beneath scars and shadow. A black goatee barely visible beneath monstrous jaws. Eyes filled not with rage but emptiness. As though the creature standing before them had once been a man long ago.

And whatever remained inside him now suffered endlessly. One trembling soldier lowered his weapon slowly.

“Please…”

Mordecai stared silently.

Then the shadows behind him split apart.

Two more Reapers stepped from the darkness.

Lesser copies of Mordecai formed from living shadow and blood mist, they were thinner and faster but equally horrifying.

The soldiers broke completely. The tunnels became a nightmare. The Three Reapers moved through the catacombs like hunting beasts while screams echoed endlessly beneath Kharos Keep. Men vanished into darkness only for pieces of them to return moments later through floodwaters stained black and red.

No escape routes remained. No reinforcements came. Only darkness. Claws. And death.

Hours later  the lower fortress tunnels finally fell silent. Eastern soldiers cautiously entered the underground corridors after sunrise expecting resistance. Instead they found carnage. Bodies lined the walls. Armor ripped apart like paper. Ancient stone flooded entirely with blood.

And standing alone within the deepest chamber was Mordecai. Motionless beside piles of dead elite guards. General Zerafin descended slowly into the chamber with several knights behind him. Even hardened vampire soldiers looked disturbed by the scene.

One knight whispered:

“…how many did he kill?”

No one could count them.

Mordecai slowly turned toward Zerafin.

Blood dripped from monstrous claws while shadows twisted endlessly around his gigantic frame.

Yet despite the horror he remained perfectly calm. Waiting. Obedient. Like a weapon awaiting its next command.

Zerafin stared at him silently.

Then finally spoke quietly:

“Sometimes…”

The general looked around the massacre beneath Kharos Keep.

“…I think even Dragun fears what you’re becoming.”

Mordecai said nothing.

Because the Reaper no longer possessed a voice.

Only hunger.

And war.