The Grimhold, King Goorm's quarters

Age of Prime - Spring, year 1889

9th Schmelze, Dawn

With dawn already a bloody promise on the horizon, Craven's finished his mission report. Unlike many lesser men - or men less burdened by fear - the lich hunter had given the king a precise and accurate account of their adventure, obscuring and embellishing nothing, not even how he let two of Ferdinand's bodyguards walk into certain death.

"A regrettable, but necessary sacrifice," Craven told the king after the monarch's thick eyebrows drew together. "Your nephew seemed to be confused as to who was to lead the mission. Thus, I had to set him straight. Which begs the question, why did you endanger such an important mission by sending him along?" He smiled. "Why, I would almost think you did not trust us."

The king's frown deepened. "Not that it is any of your business, mercenary, but the discovery of the book has been foretold long ago and the Blood of King's played an important role in it. I couldn't go, so that only left my prick of a nephew."

"A prophecy? What did it say?"

"None of your damn business! Carry on."

Craven inclined his head. "As my lord commands."

King Goorm listened attentively, drilling him with questions as Craven came to the Tomb of Magic. The hunger in the monarch's eyes was all too palpable. After all, there were enough artifacts, relics, and magical wonders still stored deep within that vault to equip a whole army. The greed in his eyes soon turned to shock though as Craven told him about the puppet masters that had been waiting for them.

"The Thirteen?" he hissed. "The Thirteen are behind all this?"

"It certainly seemed so, though they are not the people you might have known. The term people might actually stretch the definition too far already. Deathlords... That's what Borgar claimed they were now, rulers of the undead. He and that witch Adelia did not look like your average zombie."

King Goorm slumped back, the delicate divan protesting under his weight. "You are sure? You are absolutely sure it has been Borgar?"

"Definitely," said Craven. "Our paths may have crossed a long time ago, but if anything, he seemed even more formidable. Death has not dulled his wits either, which I can assure you is unusual in an undead. He is still loud, boastful, proud, and obsessed with honor."

"Undead? You are certain of that, too?"

"Beyond doubt - except maybe for the legion of bugs that infested his body." Craven shrugged. "Then again, maybe the bugs are undead, too."

The king said nothing for a long time, beady eyes roaming over dying embers, his black beard twitching, teeth audibly grinding together. When he finally spoke, a strange sorrow had crept into his voice. "Borgar... you dumb bastard."

"You were friends?"

The king nodded slowly. "Yes. I last saw him and his companions when they came to Stonefall about two years ago, been their host for a week before they headed off into the direction of Mount Nocturn. I almost beat him, back then... almost. A test of strength, you see. My spies informed me that they headed down south into Than territory, hunting some madman that murdered most of his village. The Ravager of Ravendale, that's what they called him... He left a trail of corpses all the way through the Tannebog Wilds and into the Cemnok Mountains. They followed him, even with winter closing in, and then vanished without a trace."

Craven nodded. "I've heard as much while we were in Liegeland. My contact also told me the Ravager was actually seeking out heroes, felling quite a few before he made his way into the mountains. Almost like leaving breadcrumbs, come to think of it..."

King Goorm snorted. "Still couldn't believe it, couldn't believe that some crazed woodcutter could have murdered the Thirteen. Yet when months without a word passed, I've sent word to the dwarves to look for them with their airships. Nothing. When the roads were passable again, I sent out my Ridge Rangers to search for them as well. Nothing."

"I take it you were very good friends then?"

King Goorm balled his fists, knuckles popping. "You don't know the half of it. He was a hero to me when I grew up. Did you know that the big bastard is almost a hundred years old? I first met him and the original Thirteen when I was but a little kid and that meeting changed my life. I must have been going towards ten and was the embodiment of everything people hate when they see nobility: spoiled, arrogant, prone to temper tantrums..."

The king chuckled. "And fat! When I see the portraits of myself from that time, I can't help but think of butter-balls. I was cruel too: to our servants, my tutors, hell, even my pets. I didn't even have respect for guests and visiting nobility. As long as their station was beneath mine, I loved to walk up to them and disgrace them. Wipe my snot at their hand, spit at their feet. Damnation, once I even punched some dignitary of Morgenheim in the balls because I heard somebody say he was a eunuch and wanted to see if it was true!"

"Was he?"

The king chuckled. "No, he was not. He just took it, wincing and trying to make it look like taking a bow to the future ruler of Solden, as if the whole thing had been his idea." King Goorm snorted. "Maybe he was sacless after all. Borgar on the other hand..."

Craven could not help but raise an eyebrow at the mental picture of little prince Goorm walking up to the giant barbarian and subject him to the same treatment. He tilted his head. "You didn't..."

"Oh yes, I did. See, back then the Thirteen were just another bunch of vagabonding adventurers come to grovel before my father - at least I thought so. The understanding of what they strove to embody, of what they stood for only came much later. Back then I thought it perfectly within my right to walk up to the biggest and meanest looking of the lot and show him how small and insignificant he truly was. After all, who would dare to lift a hand against the prince of Solden? I thought myself invincible, even though I realize today that it was nothing but a cry for attention."

Craven almost felt a smile tug at the corner of his mouth.

The king scratched his beard thoughtfully. "Well... I was not invincible. The Thirteen were waiting for my father who so far had turned a blind eye to my shenanigans and I walked up to him, snotty as snotty can be, and punched him in the nuts."

"I suppose that didn't work so well?"

"No, it bloody didn't. And wipe that insolent smile from your face, mercenary! As it turned out, warriors do a much better job of protecting their nether regions than dignitaries. I only managed to bruise my knuckles on his codpiece, which pissed me off even more. Therefore, I started pummeling him. He just stood there and took it, as so many had before, not showing any reaction. Fat little tub of guts that I was, I soon was out of breath. You know what he did then?"

"Knowing the customs of his people, I'd say he answered your challenge."

The king burst out laughing. "Aye! Aye that he fucking did!" He lifted his hand and made a snipping gesture with his middle finger. "With this! He bowed down, then gave me a nose snip with just his middle finger, yet even a mere finger-punch was powerful enough to break it. Break it! Can you imagine that? Knocked me from my feet and onto my fat ass! In the middle of my father's throne room! With guards all around us!" Bellowing laughter followed. "Balls of steel, that one."

Allowing himself another calculated grin, Craven said, "I suspect if anybody would know, it be you, my king. What happened then?"

The monarch leaned back, making the divan groan like an overburdened pack animal. There was a smile on his face now. "Well, after the shock of seeing their prince manhandled like this, the guards came chasing towards us, bellowing orders and rattling their weapons. Immediately the remaining Thirteen formed a protective circle around Borgar and me. Then he bent down just as I was working myself up to a good cry. He pointed that club of a finger at me, fixing me with those winter-sky eyes of his and said the one thing that would forever change my life. 'Don't cry.'"

Craven raised an eyebrow.

"Aye, not much, I agree, but it was what I saw in his eyes. He really saw me. Gave me his attention in a way nobody had before. Maybe it was even respect there, I don't know, but whatever it was, I knew I would lose it if I cried. So I didn't. Oh, I was oozing tears and gushing blood from my broken nose, but I didn't cry."

The king tabbed a meaty finger against his crooked nose. "I never even had it healed, so that it would always remind me of that day. Once Borgar saw that I wouldn't cry, he nodded and asked me if honor was satisfied. Ha! A challenge indeed! I was just bobbing my head through an answer when my father came bursting in with even more guards."

"What happened then?"

King Goorm made a dismissive gesture. "What you would expect. My father was furious, almost ordered his guards to attack, but Borgar - calm as the Cemnok Mountains themselves - said he merely replied to an honorable challenge from his son."

The King leaned forward. "You see, beyond the Kruk Mountains it is perfectly normal for a young man to challenge older warriors to battle. It's considered honorable, a rite of passage. The big bastard actually praised me for my courage. Me! My father probably would still have them killed - or at least tried to - if I had not interjected and thanked Borgar for his lesson and for answering my challenge. I even bowed to him. Not sure I ever did that before, arrogant little brat that I was. He... He made me want to be more like him, to make a difference."

"Yes... He had that effect on men."

"He had the right idea, too. Unification! Talked to my father about it that day, his ideas of making the Empire strong again, end the Brother-War. He already had set an example, each of his Thirteen a hero from one of the warring states. He pulled them together, made them a fighting force that was making the world a better place, showing us all that we don't have to be at each other's throat. That we could be great again! He had the right idea, although on too small a scale."

"I think he is past the point of thinking small..."

The vigor and enthusiasm drained from King Goorm's face then, like blood gushing from a mortal wound. He let out a long sigh, slumping against his protesting divan. "You sure it was him? Absolutely sure?"

"I'm afraid, yes. As you can imagine, there is nobody quite like him."

The king let out a long breath. "Then we are in deep shit."

"Aye, I suppose we are."

The King remained silent after that for a long time, his eyes drawn again to the fire's dying embers, occasionally running a meaty finger along the length of his crooked nose. A frown heralded another question. "Deathlord? What does that even mean?"

Craven shrugged. "An undead the likes I have never encountered before, that much I can tell you. I have fought many a Lich or Vampire over the years, but he and his kind... They seem to be an altogether different breed. The Bloodmaws serve them, as do the undead. Borgar and Adelia were able to control them. Combine that with their apparent ability to cause Risings and we have quite the foe on our hands."

King Goorm muttered.

Craven said nothing, storing that little snippet of what he supposed was another part of this mysterious prophecy away for later research. He had a very strange feeling when the king uttered these words, close, but not quite between goosebumps and a feeling of pleasurable anticipation.

Wordlessly, the king rose - and Craven could have sworn the divan sighed in relief - and walked to the fireplace, throwing in a few logs. Soon new flames kindled, devouring wood. The king remained where he was, staring into the flames. Craven was well aware that behind that brutish face a keen mind was at work, a mind that was dissecting all the information and deciding his fate right now.

Unable to feel anxiety, Craven made himself comfortable in his armchair and rested his eyes. He was well aware that the monarch most likely had already decided upon their fate even before he stepped into his chambers. Actually, Craven had been counting on it. That King Goorm was thinking now meant he mulled over that decision.

"So, after going through all this," the king began slowly, "why risk your life and that of your men by reading the book?"

Craven let his head fall to one side. "I had the book for hours. Would you really have believed that I did not somehow manage to take a sneak peek? Maybe pick the lock or bend the cover so that I could read the text on the corners?"

The king shrugged. "Maybe."

Craven smiled. "Considering the knowledge within these pages, would you have let me walk on a 'maybe'?"

A gust of flames and sparks shot up, illuminating a thin, approving smile half hidden by the king's black beard. "No."

Craven opened his hands. "I rest my case."

The room was silent after that, the cracking of the fire and the shallow breathing of the two men the only sounds.

"I can't quite figure you out, mercenary," the king said eventually, "but the one thing I can tell is that you are not stupid, far from it. You would not simply throw away your life on a whim. So what is your angle? What do you want?"

Craven gave him his most genuine smile, crossing his legs and clasping his gloved hands around his knee. "The question, my liege, is not what I want, but what you need."

"It is too late to talk in riddles," growled the king. "Speak plainly."

Craven inclined his head. "You need me. Need us, the Skulltakers, now more than ever."

"Is that so?"

"Indeed. Judging from what I have learned from this book, there are but two things its knowledge can be used for. Sowing turmoil by revealing to the world that one of the chief deities of the Church was nothing but a man with some very powerful trinkets..."

The king's face remained frozen.

"... or taking his place and uniting the Empire to its former glory."

The slight twitch in the kings' eye almost made Craven smile. "If it is the latter you will need men who know their way around a grave. Men who can keep their quiet. Professionals. You cannot trust your own soldiers with that knowledge, nor with the actual task of finding the Eternal Emperor's grave. Besides, from what I have seen, even your best men come not to par with my warriors, decimated and wounded as they may be right now."

"Go on."

Craven leaned forward, coating his next words with just the right amount of eagerness. "I will get you what you need to unite the Empire, to become the Eternal Emperor reborn. I will get you Kemdor's Crown, will slay and murder monster and man to do so, and will gladly sacrifice my men and my life if it means getting the job done." Smiling sardonically, he added, "I will also lend all my powers to the task of getting you out of this mess alive, naturally. In addition, with an opponent like the one besieging us, you have the perfect enemy and cause to unite the Scarred Empire: an army of the dead, commanded by the corrupted champion of the Thirteen. It's almost as if it is out of a tale... or prophecy, perhaps?"

The king smiled lopsidedly. "I don't assume you would do all this out of the kindness of your black heart? What could a sellsword like you want? Gold? Power? An unlimited amount of those black pills you are so fond of?"

Craven opened his hands. "The only thing I want from you is one skull."

"Is that so? And whose skull would that be?"

"I want the head of the Black King."

King Goorm narrowed. "Him? Why?"

Craven smiled, leaning back. "To fulfill a promise I have given to a dead man in another life. Do this for me - and I don't care what happens to me and mine." He made a dismissive gesture. "Kill us once we are no longer of use to you if it pleases you. I would gladly murder them all by myself and then blow my own brains out if it means the death of the Black King."

The King's frown deepened. "That's quite a sacrifice you are willing to make for a promise given to a corpse. Is your revenge really that important to you?"

Craven opened his hands. "I have turned myself into a weapon so I could eventually take this revenge and I have bound other weapons to me to do so. Now, I am offering them all to you. Just point us in the right direction and pull the trigger. As long as I see the Black King dead, no sacrifice will be too high, no deed too dirty."

The king pondered this for a long while, studying Craven. Eventually, he slowly nodded. "You shall have the head of the Black King. After I am Emperor."

"Then you have my loyalty," Craven said, standing up, walking to the king and kneeling down. He also bowed his head in apparent supplication - though it was only so the king would not see the hint of a cold smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

The best lies are still the ones with at least a grain of truth...