The pail mage stood in front of the woman who ordered his villages destruction. Her hair was disheveled the crown on her head slanted on her head. Her makeup was a running mess. She could not fix her hair or crown as her arms were trapped around her clearly magic child by the giant tail of a black dragon.
"Your highness," hissed the mage. "It has taken me close to two months and thousands of lives to get here. I wonder which of us has a hire body count?"
"Until tomorrow your orders have only killed a few thousand soldiers and a few hundred civilians," answered War Mind. "You will make it to the casualty generated in Yourz until the dead have tonight and tomorrow in the city."
The pair of broken humans looked at the woman in the throne. She stared at them concerned but she did not have the eyes of someone who had given up.
"I don't know if you are too proud or too arrogant to speak," spit the mage. "when I imagined this moment and I have thought about it for a while I imagined you saying something, denying involvement, or justification. Your silence is a bit disappointing."
"Perhaps she is waiting for you to introduce yourself," suggested War Mind.
"Oh!" agreed Albie. "My name is Albie Miller moon mage of a village that paid its taxes to Yourz. The royal army killed everyone in my village including my wife Cat Miller. I am here to take my vengeance on you for ordering or permitting the slaughter of my village. I know you are behind what happened in Yourz but I knew no one there and would have been hard pressed to care if Yourz was destroyed and my village was left alone. But you are responsible for what happened there, and it gave me everything I needed to destroy you."
"Moma did it to save my family!" cried the mage boy in her arms. "You can't blame moma the school you would found would start a revolt that kills my son!"
"It seems you are the root of your family's anti monarchy sentiment," affirmed the queen in a determined voice. "It seems our only real falling was in failing to kill you."
The mage laughed hysterically.
"In a way you are right," mocked the mage. "My children do seem to hate you. Or they can't seem to get enough of you."
Albie threw his arms wide gesturing to the dead men eating the palace guards.
"Although most of them are not pikey eaters!" laughed the mage.
The mage felt the room grow colder as he turned to see Scab and milled enter the room. Both had a retinue of guards either living or dead with them. Scab stood next to Albie as its guards began to feast. Milled climbed onto Twenty-Eight and began to check for wounds that might need fixing.
"What do you think about all this Scab?" asked the father. "have you gotten your fill of the royalists?"
"I'm afraid this tongue tastes very little father," replied the corps. "I suppose that makes it tolerable to eat such tasteless people."
"I would have thought the nobles would have tasted better," commented War Mind "All the Palace Guards come from noble families. Softer meat and all that."
The master of corpses huffed.
"How does Twenty-Eight looked?" asked the mage.
"You are right father," responded Milled. "Not a scratch on these scales."
"That is strange I was sure that cannon hit me," smirked the dragon.
"That's because I fixed you to heal like the dead," replied the mage. "The unlife in your body will keep you alive as long as you have life force to absorb. You might live to see Scab rot to nothing."
"Hmph!" responded the corpse.
"So back to you," declared the mage looking back at the pair trapped on the throne. "Truth is I'm going to die soon. I have touched the other side, so I know a little bit about what's over there. Honestly, I don't want to see your highness on the other side. Of course, that means I will not allow you to die."
The mage touched her and spit unlife in her face the woman began to change. Her body was clay in Albies hands. Her skin grew pail, and her eyes became red. The queen's hair fell out and her mouth rounded into the shape of a leach. The gold crown began to burn her skin.
Milled pulled of the crown claiming it for Twenty-Eight.
The mage stabbed the boy with his knife and stepped back.
"I have made some changes to you," explained the mage. "You have an allergy to precious metal it can't kill you just hurt perhaps scar. Of course, your body will heal if you eat. By the way you no longer need to eat food in the traditional sense you now live on human blood like the leach you are. Owe yes and you won't get to apologize to the boy until you die."
The mage stabbed the vampire in the chest. The woman lurched and screamed in pain. Her body acted on its own and she began to drain the life out of her son.
"Starving yourself to death will not work either," declared the mage. "You will sleep but you won't die. Also, the sun does horrible things to those of us who have such pail complexions. Once again it wont kill you but it is going to be painful for a long time. Of course, there is a way to kill you of course everything must die at some point that is the way of things. I will be dead in about two days and I will tell nobody how to kill you but worry not someone will know how and they will decide the when of your death."
By the time Albie finished his explanation the prince had been drained of blood and died.
"Time to go everyone," declared the mage. "my death bed is waiting."
The parade of monsters left the palace. the living beasts escaping the city while the dead many beyond Scab's control began to rampage across the city.