Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king-Chapter 980: A royal gift
"Well, here we are," a man grunted, his voice echoing hollowly against the cold, stagnant air of the sepulcher. He let his heavy frame lean against a stone pillar, the dampness of the tomb seeping through his tunic.
"Keep your mouth shut. Stop blabbering and wasting the air we have left," another hissed. He gestured sharply to a third man, who was fumbling with a flint and a steel-tipped rod. With a sharp, rhythmic clack-clack, a spark finally caught. The torch bloomed into a violent, orange flower, its light clawing back the darkness to reveal the edges of the holy place they were meant to desecrate.
The flickering radiance danced over vaulted arches and weeping stone, casting long, distorted shadows that looked like specters retreating into the corners.
"Are you serious, Begric?" the first man asked, his voice a strained whisper. "We’re about to make enough noise to wake the ancestors. If the guards haven’t heard us by now, what difference does a bit of talk make? Does the wise one know a secret the rest of us don’t?"
"I know many things," Begric replied, his eyes fixed on the path ahead. "One of them is that Luck is a fickle bitch who loves to eavesdrop. You’ll learn that once you’ve survived more than one season in the dirt. Until then, shut your trap."
The younger man opened his mouth to retort, but the sound of heavy, armored boots striking the stone floor silenced them both. Marcus, their superior, emerged from the gloom, his face a mask of grim urgency.
"If you have breath to waste on bickering, use it to move faster," Marcus growled. "We are about to commit a ruckus that will echo all the way to the capital. I don’t intend to spend a single heartbeat longer in this hole than absolutely necessary. To work."
"Aye, sir," Filer muttered, snatching the torch from the third man. He began to lead the way deeper into the sanctum, the light bobbing rhythmically as he walked.
"Mh, sir?" the torch-bearer asked, his voice trembling slightly as they passed a row of weeping icons.
"What is it now?" Marcus snapped, his irritation peaking.
"Don’t you have... any qualms? About this? Desecrating a holy place?" The man’s eyes darted toward the altar, his face pale with a burgeoning religious dread.
Why did I put a pious man on a grave-robbing detail? Marcus wondered, though he knew the answer. Despite their superstitions, these were the only men he trusted with a secret this heavy. In a world of turncoats, a man with a conscience was at least predictable.
"What, you want to stop for a prayer?" Filer mocked, pushing past the trembling man. "There’s the bench, lad. Make yourself at home while the rest of us earn our pay."
Filer pioneered the way into the darkest recess of the sepulcher, the torchlight licking at the walls until they reached the dais. The air grew colder here, smelling of ancient dust and stagnant incense.
"Shame we can’t take the credit for this," Filer continued, his voice echoing with a hollow bravado. "When in history has a job like this ever been done?"
He lowered the torch, the orange light washing over a pristine marble sarcophagus resting atop the dais. The flame illuminated the name engraved into the plaque.
MAVIUS KANTAZOUKENES.
Filer couldn’t help himself; a sharp, irreverent whistle escaped his teeth. "Look at us, lads. In the presence of royal meat. Why aren’t you kneeling, Rosh? Show some respect for the dead."
"I still think this is a curse in the making," Rosh whispered, his eyes wide and darting toward the shadows.
"What? You want to be the one to tell the Prince his orders were a bad idea?" Filer scoffed, hefting a hammer. "Come on, lighten up. You know what this bastard did. You think a man like him deserves a holy roof over his skull? He’s lucky we’re just here for his skin and not his soul.Though that must be already burning"
"Filer is right," Marcus muttered, his voice gravelly and low. "It is a holier act to drag this piece of shit out into the light than to let him rot in a sanctum. Rosh, since you’re so skittish, get to the door.
The nobles might be drowning in wine, but that doesn’t mean a pair of guards won’t take a midnight stroll to clear their heads. You see a torch, you give the signal."
Rosh nodded meekly, retreating toward the back doors. He stood there like a shivering ghost, staring out into the moonlit courtyard.
With the pious distraction removed, Marcus stepped up to the dais. He ran a gloved hand over the cold, polished marble of the sarcophagus.
"The Masked Bastard thought he found a loophole," Marcus said, his voice dropping down. "Thought he’d cheated the Fingers only to find a soft bed in the East. Too bad we didn’t get to plunge the knife ourselves. I hope he’s watching from whatever hell he’s in, witnessing just how far unwashed hands can reach inside him."
"Is this personal for you, sir?" Begric asked, setting his tools down with a muffled clink.
"It is a mission," Marcus replied, his eyes cold. "The fact that I find it satisfying is merely an afterthought. Filer, Begric, to work. We have a turd to exhume."
"Don’t need to be told twice," Filer muttered.
The silence of the sepulcher was shattered.
The rhythmic, violent thud-crack of hammers meeting scalpels echoed off the vaulted ceiling like a heartbeat in a panic. Marcus felt every strike in his own chest; his heart hammered against his ribs in time with the steel. He scanned the dark, expecting the stone saints to descend from their pedestals at any moment.
For a moment, he wondered whether his soul was in danger, but he calmed himself, thinking that if a piece of shit like him was what got him to hell, then the gods could go and fuck themselves silly.
He had a job to do.
Finally, with a sickening groan of shifting stone, the upper slab of the sarcophagus gave way. They heaved together, the marble screeching against marble until the seal was broken.
The lid tilted and crashed to the floor.
There he lay. Mavius Kantazoukenes, revealed to the world once more.
"By the Star, the smell!" Filer hissed, recoiling and covering his nose with a sleeve. "It’s like a sewer gave birth to a swamp."
The torchlight flickered over the corpse, and the sight was no better than the stench. The skin was the example of decay, with oily black patches mottled his face and neck like a spreading ink stain.
"They botched the handling," Begric observed, leaning in with clinical detachment. "The embalmers were either drunk or hurried."
’’Either that or he war really disliked.Hell can’t help but think the cunt he was to get such treatment’’ Filler said, throwing his two cents in.
"He looked like that while he was still breathing," Marcus informed them, his voice devoid of pity. "The rot started in his heart and worked its way out. Enough talk. Pull the piece of shit out."
They didn’t use gentleness. Filer and Begric reached into the marble hollow, grabbed the Usurper by his stiff, expensive funeral shroud, and heaved. With a wet, sliding sound, the body was hauled over the lip of the sarcophagus.
They let go, and the great usurper hit the stone floor with a dull, wet thud. He lay there in the dirt, uncrowned, unmourned, and stripped of the dignity he had spent a lifetime stealing.
For a fleeting heartbeat, he paused as he realised what was happening.
He was an unwashed peasant, and he was about to lay profane hands on a royal scion. The ancient, ingrained fear of the "divine blood" flickered in his gut, but it was snuffed out instantly by a far more potent sensation: anticipation. He felt the sharp teeth of the bone-saw bite into the palm of his glove, and his hesitation vanished.
"Filer, Begric. Get a hold of the bastard. Hold him steady," Marcus commanded.
They obeyed , their hands clamping down on the cold legs and stiffened arms of the corpse.
"Hey, sir?" Filer asked, his fingers digging into the Usurper’s shoulder, feeling the expensive silk of the shroud bunch up under his grip.
"What?" Marcus snapped, leaning over the body, his focus narrowing on the mottled, black-patched flesh of the neck.
"You knew him well? The lord, I mean. The one this piece of shit butchered?" Filer gave the corpse’s head a mocking, light punch, a jagged grin splitting his face at the sheer blasphemy of the act.
"I met him three times," Marcus replied, his voice distant.
"Yeah? What was he like? I figured he must have been a real comedian or a great friend if the Prince sent us all the way into the lion’s den just to collect the bill. I mean, the cunt was already dead. Is it really worth the risk, dragging us here for a trophy?We just survived the hell of the Fingers, figured we were finished with the cunt."
"Are you getting cold feet, Filer?" Marcus asked, not looking up.
"Hell no! These eastern bastards owe us blood. We lost too many good men on that damn Rock at the Fingers. I’m happy to be the one to collect the interest in their stead."
"Well, for your information," Marcus said, his grip tightening on the saw’s handle as he aimed the blade at the base of the throat, "the man he killed was a strange one. I didn’t know him well enough to mourn him as a brother, but I knew enough to know he was different from the rest. He had a spark."
He looked down at the ruined face of Mavius, the torchlight reflecting in the saw’s steel teeth.
"The thing you have to understand, however, is that our dear Prince is a profoundly vengeful man. He doesn’t believe in the finality of the grave.Hope you never earn his displeasure."
With that he began to saw.
When he was done he held the head by the hair, as the other started working on the rest of the corpse.
Filer was right. He realised, it was too bad they wouldn’t get the credit for the art,
