The Books of the Shadows II - The Broken House

4

10 years ago, the war of the south started.

The sun had not yet risen, and the fog was already rising at the foot of the hills. 

A shadow woman, hidden in a long, dark cloak, with a hood covering her head, was on her way to a forest road, full of old stones, which seemed wild, too little touched by the man's foot.

The lady hurried to the large solid wooden gate that guarded the entrance to the Coven. It was known to be a sanctuary for any unwanted child or any children left all alone in this world.

She dismounted in a hurry looking over her shoulder as if she expected to be followed by someone and took out from under her rich cloak a package which she placed down at the gate. She was crying, and took her time to stop touching the child and take her hands off him. She then took out a medallion which she had worn by the neck, and wrapped it around the package, lovingly touching it. She knocked hard in the wooden gate and threw herself in a hurry on the horse, disappearing in a great rush, returning to where she had come from.

The big wooden gate opened slowly, and a monk passed through it, looking around until he saw the package. There was nobody around, so he lifted it up and looking in the distance, on the road that was now only covered with the flying dust that the horse arose in its path, he just took the package and closed the door as slowly as he opened it. 

Thus, the Lord of Lundun had his firstborn son join the Monks Coven, in a strategic move thinking it was the only way to protect him and declared him lost to the world. He had no other heirs as his four wives were all bided assassins at the orders of the king, so he was taking his days one by one in the fortress of Lundun, waiting for death along with his mistress. 

Today, at 10 years old, Sei was already standing out in front of all his brothers that were aiming for the Shield positions. Becaming the king’s Shield was the greatest honor a monk could receive.

The shield was the last one standing between the king and death itself, and the greatest honor for the monks would be to give their life in order to save their kings’s.

Every Royal Blood that had some self respect would take a shield for themselves, and those shields did not come cheap. That was actually how the Coven could survive, from the gold and silver the kings were willing to pay for their monks.

Usually, there was only one monk distributed to each royal blood out there, and they only took the name of the kingdom in which they were received. The monks never had names in the Coven, and they would only address to each other as “brother”. Once taken to a king’s court, they were tasked with enriching the library of the Coven with new information that gave it true power. Of course, no king would know the real role their monks would play. Because, it is known, information is power, and the Coven had such a well-developed database that the monks were the best informed pawns in the world.

Sei was standing in the library that had actually became his personal room at some point – nobody knew when, but either way…he was reading all the time, learning about everything, as if that was the last thing he would ever do in his life.

10 years ago, the war started; the cold, invisible enemy of life itself. Internal fights and plots, causing the king headaches every time he would hear about them all.

Sheng Zung was not the man to look for peace, and as the others would fight amongst them, he thought that would keep them all busy and not allowing them to ally against him and bring him down.

Well, soon enough the war council required a bride, as it required the king to provide an heir to the throne. The War Council was formed of all his War Generals: the weapons, special tactics and strategy, information and war funding, internal and external affaires, the crafts, the Lords of every House, the army commander, and the royal guard commander. 

The war council room was actually a cave-like room with only three walls and an opening you could see the whole valley through it. It was a big room, with a big table in the middle of it, on which was built the geographical model of the entire territory inhabited by shadows and the map contained information that crossed the borders.

The light kingdoms territories were complete and detailed represented, with all their natural resources and even the lands beyond that. All this intel was gathered in time by the House of the Shadow Assassins, who were always sent to map and discover new ways of increasing the shadow kingdom power in the light people's world.

All this fortress was “a wonder, having breathtaking views around, and being build within a mountain, carved in the stone, that was the crown jewelry of the shadow kingdom.

The fortress itself was the capital of the kingdom and it was surrounded on three sides by the waters of the canyon which was uniting Shiran with the city of Lothar. “, Sei really loved to read all the descriptions made and all his brother’s comments about the shadow kingdom.

The waterfall that would just caress the walls of the mountains surrounding the Shiran fortress and the waters falling in front of his window offered a soothing spectacle and with all the noise of the water carving the walls of the mountain, it occupied the king’s tireless mind. This way only he would manage not to hear his own thoughts, and also the thoughts of the others. Because he could hear them as well as he could enter the thoughts of others.

He was a Warchild Lord, and his power was the mind control, but he never bothered to master it, because he could not control it it seems. He was better controlling his war skills, rather than his mind. He was so strong-willed and very imposing in stature.  His stature was so imposing, that even his guards were afraid to train with him, because he was tall and well built.

He had beautiful features, and not even the traces of the war left on his fine white skin could not take away his alluring appearance. When he was walking, men and women alike would turn their heads impressed by his looks. 

The king was also a very intelligent man, who always thought in advance of any movement. There were mistresses, but he would always kill them after spending the night with them. He wanted no heirs or some say, he was defying the war council that would require him to obey the laws of the shadows. And that was really the first law: the duty of the king was to secure the bloodline. All he had to do was to provide an heir to the throne.

Yet he had none, for some reason he was not doing his duty as royal blood and the council called an emergency meeting to ask him to consider obeying the first law, otherwise the entire House would be in danger. He was, actually, The Lord of the House of Warchild, not to mention the king of this kingdom.

He actually did not care, it was not important to him. Life skills were just not his thing. All he was living for was war. He would breathe it, dream it, plan it, live it. Everything else was nothing. 

His private royal guard was a detachment of demon berseker. 

“The Berseker were the elite squad of the royal guard, and they exist only under the King's command. They were feared as people thought they were demons from hell. And they really were the fastest, the strongest, the better of the entire army detachments. One alone could kill 10 people within seconds, even if those 10 people were skilled fighters. Their faces were always masked so they would not be recognized as they had no weakness,” so that would be the only one. Outside the fortress, when they were sent in missions, they would always take the appearance of a beggar, dressed in ragged clothes, gray, ragged. They used the mask because when they were transformed to the simple unspoken wish of the king, no one knew their true face.

People say they “turn into demons the moments they touch their swords, and when they become the Berseker they go into a trance that allows them to feel no pain if they are hurt, no hunger or other human feelings and needs, and they will remain in that trance for as long as they need to complete their mission.”

Of course, no one really knew the truth, and not knowing it made the stories spread only fear amongst the commoner light people Sei thought.

All this must only be a fairy talle, as people tend to exaggerate so much when speaking about thigs they could not understand, or things they would be afraid of.

“It linked this elite squad to the King's mind and desires and that is why they would only serve him and they could not betray him?” Nonsense… everyone had a price… there was nobody unable to betail fi given the right motivation…

“The transformation would take place at the king's internal command with only him thinking and focusing on it, and on his willpower. The shadow body would turn into a demon…” indeed, just like the light people were speaking about, because their entire internal anatomy changes in a way that they could not understand because their body was not transformable in any way. It was not as if light people could increase the height or length of their arms on-demand, and such a thing was not normal in their realm!

Yet the news had come into the light kingdoms that there were such transformations in the world of the shadows, when the human silhouette of the shadow changed in a few seconds, increasing in height and muscle mass, and those who could transform in this way instantly covered themselves with armor coming out of nowhere, an armor that covered their bodies like a second layer of the skin and folded on the new look. To sustain the transformation, even their horses would be protected from the armor fasting covering their body, because used in a war, the Berseker would go rampant and their horses were also in need of protection.