Read Part 6 here!

Vorgen panicked. He fled down the corridor leaving behind the ruined yet still moving bodies of the tomb guards.

“What are you doing? I told you to destroy them!”

“And just how do you expect me to kill something that won’t die?”

“I did not tell you to kill them. I told you to destroy them.”

“What?”

“It’s like speaking to an infant. Destroy them. Make them incapable of coming after you. They cannot give chase if they no longer have legs. They cannot swing a sword if they do not have arms. Make them utterly useless.”

“Oh.” Vorgen stopped running and paused to think.

“You don’t get it do you?”

“Uh, no.”

“Perhaps a visual demonstration will help you then. Turn around.”

Vorgen turned to see the two bodies stumbling down the hall towards him. One guard trailed behind the other by several dozen paces. It seemed that being disemboweled had slowed him down.

The first guard approached Vorgen, a sword limply held in one hand. Vorgen dropped into a ready stance and waited for Zakroth’s orders.

“Block his attacks and as soon as you have an opening, swing for his knees. Chop as hard as you can like when you split wood growing back on the farm or whatever useless childhood you had.”

Vorgen lost his chance at a comeback when the guardian limply swung his sword overhead, bringing it down at Vorgen’s neck. A quick lift of his sword blocked the blow and left the two locked against each other. Vorgen pushed back hard against the guardian, surprised at the strength of the animated corpse. With a grunt Vorgen flung back his opponents arms and found the opening he needed. He wasted no time in hacking into the creature’s left leg.

It took only two strokes to cut off the pale limb. The tomb guard tipped sideways to its right and smacked its head on the hall before sliding down leaving behind a faint trail of blood. The leg twitched on the floor and the body tried to stand again but fell once more as soon as it tried to put wait on the missing leg.

“Understand now, Vorgen? You must do more than defeat your enemy. You must destroy him and make him incapable of ever rising against you again.”

“I understand now.” Vorgen slashed down and nearly severed the head of the tomb guardian. The body still moved so Vorgen cut harder this time and completely removed the head.

“You do remember there were two of them, right?”

“What?” Vorgen snapped back to reality as a hand reached around and grabbed his helmet. The hand covered the small eye slits of the helmet and Vorgen was blind inside his armor. Vorgen felt his head whipped backward and lost his balance completely falling with a loud clang to the ground. The sound reverberated inside the helmet and Vorgen was left seeing stars.

He blinked quickly to clear his sight and saw the pale lifeless face of the other guard staring down at him, arms raised above its head with a two handed, reversed grip on its sword and ready to plunge. Vorgen rolled to his right as the sword came down.

A sharp clang sounded behind Vorgen as he rolled right in to the wall. He looked back over his shoulder to see the disemboweled guardian slumped over the spot where Vorgen lay only seconds earlier. Vorgen rolled back under the hunched guardian and brought his sword straight up into its skull. Dead eyes continued to stare back at Vorgen as blood dripped from the head wound and splattered across his helmet.

Vorgen put a boot to the guardian and pushed it back off his sword. The body toppled back against the wall and joined the pieces of the other guardian on the floor. Vorgen stood up and looked at the fleshy remains on the ground. He was taking no chances this time. Blood and gore filled the hall when Vorgen had finished his gruesome task. He left behind only a large pile of fleshy and indistinguishable lumps.

“Well done, if a little excessive.”

*********************

Vorgen pushed open the small set of double metal doors in front of him. The doors led to a large circular room with a ring of columns around the edge giving off a soft glow, providing the only light in the room. In the center of the chamber was a dais with a single sarcophagus in the middle.

Vorgen walked into the room and felt his excitement grow with each step. He was finally here. This sword would be worth everything he had to put up with from Zakroth, worth this insane trip to the middle of nowhere, worth fighting those things that wouldn’t die. Finally, he would have power.

He climbed the steps to the stone sarcophagus and looked at the end of his adventure. A stone relief of a man in a crown and holding a sword down his body was carved in to the lid but Vorgen did not recognize nor care who it was. He shoved the stone lid off as Zakroth instructed. It crashed to the floor and cracked in half. Vorgen jumped at the sudden sound.

“Nervous?” chuckled Zakroth.

Vorgen ignored him and instead searched for his treasure. The sarcophagus was filled mostly with the crumbling remains of who Vorgen could only assume was the same man as on the lid. The remains were mostly gone but still wrapped in a fading burial shroud. Vorgen shoved the bones to one side trying to find the sword. Spotting a glint of light he tossed the bodily remains out to the floor and gazed at his reward.

There in the bottom of the casket lay the sword; his sword. He lifted it out of the dead filth and examined his prize. Long, straight, and double sided the blade looked perfect to Vorgen. The handle was long enough that he could hold it comfortably in two hands but not so long that it required him to use two handed.

“This is what we came for? It looks kind of plain.”

“Idiot. A sword is not about how it looks, it is about how it performs. You don’t need a flashy blade to kill someone, you need an effective blade. Stop thinking like a prize fighter and think like a warrior. This sword is not for show, it is for death.”

Vorgen thought about Zakroth’s words and appreciated the sword’s plain appearance a little more. He dug through the sarcophagus for anything else and found a matching leather scabbard, a stylized silver dagger, a golden cup, a hunting horn, and a few other random treasures. Vorgen grabbed everything and threw it in his pack.

“Now, that we have what we came for it is time to leave. Take us out of here, Vorgen. And throw away that worthless sword you brought with you. You won’t need it anymore.”

“But I like my sword. It’s good.”

“It is worthless junk made by a worthless person. You have a true weapon now.”

“I’m keeping it; it’s been good to me,” said Vorgen in a cheery voice.

“Fine, do what you must. But may we please leave now? There is no need to skulk around in this dark tomb any longer.”

Vorgen completely agreed on that point. He did not wish to run in to more of the tomb guardians. Unfortunately, Vorgen did not get his wish. He saw nearly a dozen of the shuffling around the halls on the way back to the entrance. Some he slaughtered and others he hid and waited until they passed him by.

After much longer than it took to get to the burial room, Vorgen was back at the entrance of the tomb and stood facing the barred metal doors. He put his hands against them and pushed but hardly felt a budge. Stopping, Vorgen asked “now what?”

“Take out your sword. No, not that one, imbecile. Take out your new sword. Must I explain every little detail to you?”

Vorgen pulled the blade out and held it in both hands and waited. And waited.

“Uh, Zakroth? Now what?” There was no response. “Hello? Zakroth, are you still there?” Vorgen felt a slight buzzing fill his head followed by a tingling running down his arms and ending in his hands. They prickled and warmed uncomfortably and he flexed and shifted his fingers attempting to remove the sensation. The tingling increased until it began to hurt until Vorgen just wanted to drop the sword and plunge his hands into icy water. The buzzing in his head had increased to a painful ringing. He shut his eyes wincing trying to ignore the pain.

The ringing had reached a high pitch in his head and he didn’t think he could have heard someone even if they were pounding on the door in front of him. And then he saw a light flare through his closed eyes. He opened them to see his sword engulfed in a dark purple flame.

“Holy shit! What the hell?” Vorgen nearly threw the sword to the ground before he realized the pain in his hands had gone.

“Don’t you dare drop that sword, boy.”

“Zakroth? Is that you? Are you doing this?”

“Yes, now shut up. This isn’t easy.”

The flames covering the sword grew in intensity until their dark light outshone that of the glowing walls of the tomb. Vorgen marveled at the flames that burned right above his hands yet did not catch his gloves on fire.

“Cut the door.”

Vorgen was surprised by the order. “What?”

“Cut the door. Aim for where they meet in the middle and are weakest. You need to cut the bar holding them closed and there is not enough power to simply carve apart the doors. Now hurry.”

Vorgen shrugged and did as he was told. Gripping the sword in both hands above his head he swung down as hard as he could, aiming for the seam where the doors met. He braced himself for the resounding clang and the sharp pain he knew would shoot up his arms from the metal hitting metal. Instead he had to stop himself from nearly cutting off his own foot. The sword slid right the doors as if they were hardly there. If there were sparks Vorgen could not seem them through the flames. The sword tip slid all the way down and then carved through the stone floor leaving behind a ragged line a few inches from him.

Vorgen put his shoulder to one door and pushed it open, blinking rapidly against the light from the now setting sun. There stood the two guards that had chased and locked him inside the tomb. The shock on their faces quickly gave way to terror as they saw the flaming sword in Vorgen’s hand. One man fled from the valley away from Vorgen while the other just dropped from his feat staring and stuttering.

Vorgen turned and stared at the man through his helmet. “Are you still there Zakroth?”

There was a moment before the reply came, “Yes.”

Zakroth sounded tired for the first time to Vorgen. “Good,” was all Vorgen said as he pulled the sword scabbard he had brought with him from his belt and tossed it to the ground without a second thought. Strapping his new scabbard in to place, Vorgen Dbow strode from the tomb to show the world the power he had found.

Written by: Garrett