The battle in the throne room was over. The merchant’s guild was routed, and Blink was chasing them. I felt her rage and hunger mixed with hate and pleasure as she thrashed and killed her way to the arch.

I reached out to her. “Kasidy is alive right now. She’s been cursed; try to keep at least one of the guild members alive. I need to know what they know.”

Blink thought back to me a jumble of both joy and anger and everything in between. Then I got her vision as she latched her now ridiculously huge mouth around the midsection of a fleeing cleric. The woman was flailing every which way as Blink started to back up.

I couldn’t help but snort a little at the awkwardness of the whole situation. Blink thrashed her body back and forth, almost like a snake, as she pushed with her legs. The end result was a very slow, very comical backward crawl. As she backed up, the woman kept hitting Blink’s nose with her fist and never stopped screaming.

I reached out to the lich. I almost felt dirty every time I linked my mind to his. I almost felt that if I wasn’t careful, I would feel all of his dark deeds, and they would leach into my already darkening soul. I didn’t want his darkness on me. I was still pondering if I needed to remove him for good so I wasn’t holding him from justice. I was sure there was some rule someplace that this was breaking or almost breaking, but for now, I didn’t care.

I needed the lich to hold the gate until I could close it. Then I would need him to gather up all of the undead wandering around the city. But for now, I slipped into his mind.

As I did, the boy lich asked. “Master?”

I thought to him. “How many more can you control?”

It was only a moment before he replied. “I can claim over 1000 and directly control actions of over 75 at once. I currently only have 20.”

My mind wandered for a moment. I needed to keep the guild bottled up, and right now, he was the one doing it, but I also needed to finish off the rest of the building. Then I needed to figure out a way to shut the gate down.

I thought back at Eric. “I’ll send more guards your way, then reassign you.”

“As you command, Master.”

Kasidy shifted on my lap slightly, sending a shock of pain through my whole body. As the pain ended, I reached out to the undead guard I had in the hallway. I commanded them to come toward me, capturing all of the living. Then, the charging beast undead, I pulled back to the start of the hall. I wanted to give them enough room to stampede if I needed them to again. I also wanted them out of the way of Blink’s wiggly butt.

Quickly I moved all but a handful of my casters down and around to the gate room. I didn’t even bother to try to send them down the hall as Blink was taking up all the space. So much so that I had to stop trying to have the undead beasts get out past her; she just wanted back with her still screaming prize. So I sent my casters the long way around using the secret passage that Eric had shown me.

Renfry came back into the room a few minutes later, holding the blade of Adite almost as if it was a live snake. He held it with just two fingers holding on to the ring like a pommel and his arm away from his body. As he walked towards me, I watched the sword almost angle back at him.

As he got close, Renfry said. “My lord, this blade is cursed. Even now, it is looking for more life to steal. I fear that the owner is still alive, which is why it is trying to draw my blood.”

I nodded as I looked at the thin blade. It wasn’t what I would typically think of as a sword. The sword itself was just over four feet long. It didn’t have a noticeable guard, just enough to not slide a hand down but not enough to lock a sword. The handle itself was all a grayish brown but had some carvings on it. The blade was slightly wider than an inch at the hilt and slightly narrowed toward the tip. If you tied a tassel to it, I would have called it a tai chi sword.

As Renfry got closer, the tip swung out and pointed towards Kasidy. She didn’t see it move since she still had her head buried on my shoulder. However, she felt me tense up, which caused her to look around. When she saw the sword pointing at her, she yelped and tried to jump. Her jumping shoved her knee where my thigh used to be. That, in turn, caused me to yell in pain, and then she jerked again. Once again, causing pain to shoot through my body as she jumped fully off my half-lap.

As Kasidy got up, she backed away from the sword, now pointing directly at her. The blade was also pulling away from Renfry, who had slid a knife into the ring pummel to get a better grip. He had both his feet braced as the sword slowly pulled him across the ground toward Kasidy. She screamed and ran behind the throne, which turned the point directly at me.

I gave a grim smile. I knew that the throne should be able to stop just about anything. But, more than that, I needed to get a look at the sword if I was going to try to break its curse.

As the sword slowly pulled Renfry toward me, I said. “Try to angle it a bit so that it comes beside me and not through me. I don’t want the same curse we are trying to fix.”

Renfry gave a slight nod. “I agree. No need for three of us to die today.”

“Right as we’re linked.”

When Renfry’s feet got to the edge of the throne, he braced them to keep from moving any more forward. The sword itself was sticking into the throne, unable to move more. Or at least not showing that it was able to move anymore. The thing vibrated right next to my head, giving off a slight black glow.

I wasn’t sure how black could glow, but that was what it was doing. I wanted to reach out and grab the sword to get a better inspection, but I was worried that if Renfry thought it would do something to him, it might also do that to me.

As I was looking at the sword, I asked. “Anyone know anything about this?”

Kasidy answered from behind the throne. “It’s a blade of Adite. There are hundreds of them, if not more floating around. They steal the health and experience from those they kill and transfer some of it to the person using the sword. The thing is, they are cursed to have to use the sword at least once a week to kill someone, or the sword will try to kill them.”

I scrunched up my eyebrows and asked. “But you aren’t dead.”

Renfry said. “Not anymore, but she died a few times as Irwin’s healing took root.”

I sighed and asked. “Think we can break the sword and break the curse?”

Renfry straining against the sword, answered. “I don’t know if the sword can be broken.”

I nodded. “One way to find out.”

Kasidy yelled from behind me. “Don’t touch the sword. If it’s still linked to someone, then it will shock you. If not, it will link to you and force you to kill weekly.”

I shook my head and called over a skeletal guard. “I’m going to have one of the skeletons hit it and see if they can break it.”

The skeleton came in from my left. I had drawn over one with a war hammer. It wasn’t one from Earth that weighed just a few pounds and was meant to be swung all day. Nope, this thing had video game written all over it. The head was at least three times the size of a sledgehammer. The only thing it had in common with what I was used to back home was the pick end.

Even in my non-legless state, if I had tried to swing the hammer, it never would have happened. But since this was a level 53 skeletal guard, it used the dumb thing with just one hand. The other still had its shield in it. So when it teed up, I watched the swing more than where it was hitting.

That was right up until the hammer hit the blade. There was a massive plume of sparks and a loud clanking. It was so loud that I felt it in my jaw, and even my nub foot reacted. Worse even, the sparks were so large and numerous that the Protective Shroud activated momentarily. I hadn’t told the guard to stop, so the next swing hit, and again, the sparks flew.

Three hits later, I pulled the guard off. The sword showed no damage, but the head of the hammer had deep groves running down its face. As I looked at the sword, it seemed to glow even brighter.

I grinned at the blade and started to reach for the handle. With a sword like this, I could rule the world. As I moved my hand forward, my right pinkie started to hurt. I glanced down at my glowing ring and yanked my hand away from the sword.

Glancing over at Renfry, I said. “Don’t let me claim this sword.”

He smiled and nodded. “I was worried for a moment there.”

Kasidy, still hidden behind the throne, asked. “Did you get it broken?”

“Nope. Did your status change?”

“No, I was just hoping something was happening.”

I nodded to Renfry as I reached into my shirt. “I got an idea, but I don’t know if it will work.”

I laid the necklace of cores onto the sword and then triggered “consume”.

With that, the sword started to scream.

* * *