Chapter 9 - Shadows

He was so desperate to lay in bed, that he almost accepted instantly, but the shreds of his rationality gripped tightly to the ledge that was his mind, "No. The Duke of March will handle it, as has been their duty for three generations."

She stared at him, and blinked, her eyes, losing that ethereal glow like a light switch being turned off.

"The brothers and sisters have been whispering about the Duke being incurable. Something is eating him from the inside." 

He wanted to snap the quill, too tired for this.

But he knew instantly. 

This damn prideful South.

They had really gone and done it.

Duke March had ripped out their heart, so they sabotaged the Dukedom through their trade routes, merchants refused to deal with them, and they were effectively hard locked out of other counties, even his own people held a bone-dry hatred of him to boot.

The Duke had won, at the cost of the whole South.

And now he fell ill, likely to a poison that had at last slipped through, after months of attempts.

They would rather see House March lost to history, than led by the current Duke.

Such was the Pride of the South, which was inscribed on every wall, and told in every story.

His head hurt at the implications.

If it was a poison that had touched his lips, which the church could not cure, then, he had an idea of what it was, and knew there was no cure magic or divine could fix.

Made from the root of a Lyn's Eye, aged twenty years, and mixed with Rudol's Heart, created a medicine that could detoxify Aura, Magic and Divine damage from a wound, but when concentrated heavily, it created poison, that would sap someone of soul, mana, and divinity. 

Southern Comfort, was the colloquial name amongst those who knew.

It was slow but unstoppable.

The stronger the person, the longer the pain would last, as they were eaten up bit by bit.

If the Duke was coming down sick now, he had likely been inflicted with it some time ago.

He didn't rule out his sister acquiring it to frame the Southern Nobility, so she could put in the current Duke's young son on the throne of March, and groom him into a fine pawn.

But he also couldn't at all rationalize out the high likelihood that the nobility had actually pooled together to kill him.

The current Duke was in a horrific position.

Though he had earned this karma, Argo did not wish it upon anyone lightly.

If the defense failed, Loch would be overrun instantly, with no questions about it.

Everyone would die.

And so he rubbed his temple, trying to wake up some more.

To begin with, how would one even go about saving the South?

The politics were steeped in generations-long grudges and turmoil, submerged in an unshakable pride, they only tolerated one another in reverence of the Late Duchess, who had through her own strength and character, brought them together.

With the Duke's illness soon to be known, with his visit, they would have no more reason to continue to cooperate, and the splintering would speed up, especially with an opportunity like the Invasion coming.

No doubt, they would all send their everything to fight the invasion as their pride dictated, but with no head, a Lion was just claws and no way to use them.

Dead weight.

There would be a rush to claim the spot of the supreme commander, and they would naturally vote for no one but themselves.

It would result in a civil war for the sake of their prides.

He grabbed a map, and unfurled it across his desk.

Constance had, at some point, moved the whole stack of documents to the completed section, and had been staring at him quietly while he thought, for the last few minutes.

He had completely voided her presence.

She moved, watching, as she put those documents into different envelopes, labeling them as she had seen him do before and putting them away.

On the map, Loch was near Conch and Bayezaid, as well as March's Subsidiary family, the Grantry's, which had worked in the territory since the dawn of their family.

Loyal Knights of the Ducal House of March.

Assuming that the houses that support March would still do so, from their generational ties, then March could at most, withstand for a week.

If his sister was leading them, maybe two.

But it was unlikely she would be anywhere in the South when the invasion began since she would know better than to stand in a den of hungry lions.

To prepare a defensive line in such a short time, when the yearly invasion had already begun to show signs, would be near impossible, without the noble's support.

It would require an army in the tens of thousands, mobilized immediately, to go out and begin refurnishing old forts, and manning their walls, to hold out until the southern nobles got their wits about them.

His lips curved down a little.

There was one place, he had quite a few gathered up, that he could call on short notice, but, it would be expensive.

"...Can I help?" He looked up, at Constance, who had her elbows on the table, staring straight at him, with her wide icy marine eyes. 

She had a suffocatingly ingratiated look in her eye, that screamed, how right she was in asking him, and so he looked back down, "No." 

The place they would have to go would be dangerous, and below board in terms of legality and morals. 

It was not a place for a Hero to go, and he didn't want her having more on him, than she already did, lest she ask for something outrageous again.

She scrunched her nose.

He marked several places down the map, old ruins and forts that had been abandoned or lost to the invasions over the years, with the Duchess, they weren't needed anymore.

He connected the lines and started writing up supply lines that would be attached and to where, with numbers next to them specifying the number in each group, as well as the number of fighters required for the whole system to hold.

"Can't we strike at the source? Do we know?" Constance sat on his desk, staring at the map and the numbers and routes, intrigued. 

He responded absent-mindedly, as he scrawled out several X's, places with no retreat options due to geographical allocations, "The Endless Sea is named such because of the nature of the invasions. Their numbers stretch to the horizon rising from the tide. Some say it's an underwater dungeon, that had grown incomparably large. Others say it's the wrath of a dead god. But no one knows."

"Do they only attack Karlan? What about Knabing? Hacury? Thetesia? Albleham?" She devoured the information on the map like a sponge.

He had roughly marked out three defensive lines, with the City of March in the center, as the crux point of the entire defense. 

No forts were anywhere near March, and thus, they couldn't inhabit them, meaning March was the sole defense in that region, and if it fell, the nightmares from the ocean would walk right past, and everything would be ruined.

March alone, had been the only people to never need forts and extra defenses, for their lands, and so, they would have no forgotten or abandoned forts, for him to take over in secret since they never had them to begin with.

But how could they have known this day would come, or so soon? 

"Hello?" Constance spoke again, and Argo snapped back into his own head.

He responded as he started writing down names, and more numbers, flicking her a quick glance, "Ah? Come again?"

"Knabing? Hacury? Thete-?" She raised a brow.

He connected several lines, that looked like a predator's teeth, jagged and rigid, the defense lines were like wave breakers, "....Right... Karlan takes the brunt of it each year. It's not worldwide as far as I know. Everyone in the gulf is struck. Knabing has more adventurers than people. Hacury is a mercenary state. Thetesia has enough pirates to clog every port in the country, and Albleham has a kraken roving its coast. So they come here." 

"Wouldn't that suggest that something intelligent is sending them here?" Constance, started to smile a little, as Argo's quill slowed down.

It stopped.

He stared at the map, if he wasn't so tired, he wouldn't even consider, it, after all, what if it was just that whatever was producing them, was just closer to Karlan's shore, than the others.

Like with Mage Lightning, they take the path of least resistance.

Yet, it was a hero, that had said it, and she had shown to be able to see through things.

A sign?

His eyes stung, staring at the map, trying to dredge up as much information as he could.

"..."

There was an extremely powerful Lich that was killed here in Loch, nearly six hundred years ago, during the dawn of Karlan's line, by the Heroes of that era, that had cut it apart, and sent its pieces to every corner of the four lands.

But why?

Why would they do that? 

If it was dead, then those pieces would be sacred treasures with intense magical strength, able to act as batteries for countless things.

It could have made Karlan unstoppable, back then.

But that magical energy could only be harnessed if the Lich was dead.

But if it wasn't dead, then the energy would still have a mind of its own.

A curse from a Lich powerful enough to give several Heroes a run for their money, and still did not die.

He rolled up the map, and stood up.

Constance followed him quietly.

He had said that to experience the full range of emotions was the right way, and that it would make her stronger, so while she wasn't killing them on purpose, she was now trying to fan them on purpose.

She felt a strange sense of excitement, and as it was beginning to die in her chest, she gave kindling to its little flame.

They arrived at the estate's library, a place with massive mahogany stairs, leading to it's second floor, which they went up rather quickly.

He headed to the back of his personal library and grabbed out a well-maintained, but clearly aged book, flipping through the pages.

If there was a Lich killed here, and its parts were strewn across the lands, then, those places should also be suffering from something, if it was really the Lich's curse.

It would stand to reason…

"...Karlan is the only nation affected so much."

…Which means if it is the Lich, waking up every year to retrieve it's bones, that the history was doctored, and the bones weren't split up, it's undead army coming to resurrect him, at his will, every year.

But, that didn't make sense.

Surely, someone else would notice.

Lich's bones were precious things, and in very short supply, such powerful bones as that lich which took the Heroes of that era years to finally reach a point, where they could defeat it, and be raised from the dark ages, was impossible to find any like it.

Loch had been the site of a Labyrinth belonging to that very Lich, within which tunnels lead thousands of meters underground, where there was no air left to breath, opening into catacombs, built by undead for undead.

The Heroes had only managed to find the Lich down there, by wearing sacred treasures of breathing, which were also, not common at all, at least, so go the legends.

The other heroes also wouldn't have allowed a single person to keep all the precious bones. It was unthinkable.

He turned the pages.

And paused.

A thought was trying to emerge, but it was stuck.

He stared at the page.

Something was here.

Something had grabbed his sight.

What was it?

What grabbed him? 

"Five Heroes descended into the Catacombs… five… six?" 

His pupils shook slightly.

There were five heroes drawn in the book itself, but only one of them had a shadow, Karlan's Hero, had a long, pervasive shadow.

Why?

Why did they have a shadow, where others didn't?

Was it some sort of prideful act by the creator, to say that Karlan did the most?

He checked another text, from that time, and Karlan's Hero had a shadow there too, throughout the literature he always had a shadow, where the others did not.

Was it mocking them? 

So many different authors?

Constance watched him take out and flip through book after book, creating a high standing stack of them, he was reading through at a rushed pace.

He checked the books from the times afterward, during the reign of the First Hero, as they began to develop Karlan from a nation of small villages and towns, into the powerhouse it was today.

But, no shadow.

Before, there was a shadow, but after they came to reign, it was erased.

Five heroes, but only one carries a shadow.

Is it alluding to another hero? 

"...You can see the validity of writings, right?" He half turned to Constance, and was blinded by her burning gaze.

While he had been using enough calories thinking to kill a horse, she had been busily fanning the flames of curiosity and excitement, to keep it as alive as she could, to experience it.

She nodded, and her lips parted, as the lights in her eyes began to dance, "It's very old. So it's a bit… strange, but, it feels murky. Something is wrong with it. It's… I don't know. It's all murky."

The catacombs far below, no one knew how big they were, nor what was still down there, after so many years, if anything, because of the lack of air, it made it impossible to know.

If something was beckoning the dead to ravage the living, they would be awake soon.

The signs of the awakening were few, but lasting.

Withering leaves in the middle of summer.

The ground drying up, yellow grass.

Wells going dry and fetid.

The sun falling as if it was winter.

The last of the signs, was the covering of the sun by the moon.

He looked out of the window, at the forests beyond the walls.

The leaves were still green there, but some were yellow, a sea of austere colors as if it was fall, but it was minuscule.

He had never paid it any attention, since it was just a matter of fact of life in the South, that the dead would rise to invade.

If someone could do something about it, they would have a long time ago, at least, he thought so.

There was no way he was the first to realize this.

He turned to Constance, who had brought up the idea, born out of innocent curiosity, he was willing to give the benefit of the doubt but still asked, "Why did you ask if it was an intelligent force? Did you hear it from somewhere?" 

"I had a feeling."

A Heroes instinct had told her that it might be so.

If that was the case then…

"...Is that feeling pointing anywhere?"

She pointed at the window.

It was as he feared...

...The Sea.