Shadow Slave

At first, Effie had believed that Azarax would order his soldiers to nail her to a cross and install it in front of the camp, in view of the city. That would have been quite ironic, considering his eventual fate. The ancients seemed to love crucifying people, as well — it was their favorite form of execution, by far, at least in this era.

However, in hindsight, that wouldn't be very fun for the warriors of the Steel Horde, since there was little they could do to her on a cross. Having their nemesis nailed to a pair of wooden planks would limit their actions, and she wouldn't be able to offer any resistance either — which was the most amusing part, as far as Azarax was concerned.

So, he had gone with a wooden post and a dog collar instead.

Wounded and shackled as she was, Effie couldn't do much. But when the first batch of soldiers rushed forward to get her, she still managed to kill them.

Did she need to be able to stand to kill these vermin? Did she need her essence? Did she need a weapon?

The answer was no, which the warriors of the Steel Horde learned very soon.

Effie used her legs to topple the warriors, crack their skulls, and break their necks. Those who managed to reach her, after all, learned how sharp her teeth were. One even bled to death as a result, crawling back and clutching his torn throat in horror.

Effie spat in disgust and glanced at the wary observers with a grin.

“Who's next?"

Actually, she would have preferred if the last soldier survived. He was of more use to her alive.

There were some who survived after that, but eventually, the soldiers ceased their attempts to punish her, frightened by the fates of their predecessors.

So, Effie enjoyed a few days of relative peace.

She was not sure how much time had passed since her surrender, having lost track of it during the torture, but the world was still in motion.

Judging by the movements of the Steel Horde, they were preparing for another assault. There had been rain recently, so even the most stubborn fires that still burned in the city would be all but extinguished by now — so, nothing prevented Azarax and his warriors from attacking the Stone Castle.

In fact, there were far fewer soldiers in the encampment than there used to be. That meant that many of them had already scaled the walls of the city and established forward bases there, clearing out the way for the main force to pass through.

Effie did not know if this would be the first major assault on the Stone Castle after the defending forces surrendered the city, or if her friends had been fighting for their lives all this time. She did, however, know that they had not been defeated yet — Azarax would not have missed the chance to throw their bodies to her feet otherwise.

Another mystery that Effie could not solve was what had happened to Jet. Her friend seemed to have escaped Azarax's rage on the day of the ambush, but there had been no news of her since. The soldiers of the horde seemed both hungry and frightened, though, hinting that Jet was still a threat.

In fact, Effie had surmised why they were so wary of Jet by hearing bits and pieces of conversations happening in the encampment. The cause of their fear was not the ambush on the supply caravan itself — rather, they were afraid that the eerie and elusive wraith would continue decimating their supply lines. But most of all, the soldiers were afraid that she would aim her dreadful gaze elsewhere.

They were afraid that Jet would leave the city and journey into the heart of the Steel Empire instead.

Why attack the supply caravans, after all, when she could attack the settlements producing the supplies?

With Azarax locked by the siege and the Dread Generals dead, there were few warriors in the empire who could kill that demon. If she decided to rain terror on its heartland, it was very possible that nobody would be able to prevent her from razing entire cities to the ground.

And while the soldiers of the Steel Horde were safe on the frontline, under Azarax's watchful gaze, their families back home weren't. All of that added to the tense and anxious atmosphere in the vast encampment. Ironically enough, Jet's absence was doing more damage to the morale of Azarax's army than her blade had ever done.

The Stone Castle still stood. The Mason was still clinging to life. Kai and the other members of the cohort were still holding the Steel Horde off, buying Effie time to complete her mission.

Her mission...

Throughout the days of abuse at the hands of Azarax, Effie had not made a good showing of her resilience and indomitable will. It was partially because of how skilled he was at visiting pain upon living things, and partially because she was weakened and drained of essence, stealing her powers away.

But in truth, there was another reason why Effie had ended up in such a pathetic state — and most of her efforts during the torture went into hiding that reason from Azarax. It was that she was being weakened by a far more sinister affliction than essence exhaustion.

Sitting in the mud and chained to a pole, her hands shackled behind her, Effie could feel them trembling uncontrollably. Acting as if nothing was the matter, she looked at her side, where a fresh wound had just scabbed over. A bit of blood was still seeping from the cut, mixing with the grime covering her skin.

Her blood had been turning darker and darker over these past few days. Soon enough, she won't be able to hide her condition anymore...

She would not be able to hide the fact that she was carrying the plague.

Back when Azarax had diverted the river and invaded the city for the first time, Effie realized that they would be defeated eventually. So, she gave Seishan a morbid task — she told her to make the plague stronger instead of learning how to destroy it.

The sorcerers of the Steel Horde had created the plague, so they surely knew how to combat it as well. Effie could not just toss diseased corpses over the wall and hope that the adversary soldiers would be consumed by the same curse that had been unleashed upon the peaceful city.

But she had something that Azarax did not possess... she had Seishan, the descendant of Beast God — the God of Blood. So, she told Seishan to take the plague that the Steel Horde had created and turn it into a much more dire, much more virulent, much more dreadful curse. A curse that Azarax and his sorcerers had no cure for.

After that, Effie and her companions had been patiently waiting for Seishan to nurture the superior strain of the mystical plague within herself. The daughter of Ki Song had almost perished while attempting it, but in the end, she succeeded.

What she created was a profane masterpiece of curses, a mystical pestilence so ghastly and grotesque that even a Supreme would not be able to escape its jaws.

The only obstacle in their path was actually delivering it to Azarax's doorstep. He was not a fool, after all, and he was especially ruthless. So, if they weren't cautious, the King of Kings could detect and destroy their carefully engineered plague before it could really spread among his soldiers.

Luckily, Effie had a perfect delivery system in mind.

It was her own body.

Azarax had a fixation on the War Maiden, after all. She was the only one whom he would not kill immediately and keep close to himself, trying to break her spirit down slowly. Effie herself was the tantalizing lure that Azarax could not resist, and therefore, she was the flawless trap to destroy him.

She had come to the camp of the Steel Horde to surrender, which turned out to be a distraction to lure its elites into a trap. But, in fact, Effie herself was the true trap. Even if she seemed like a human, what she truly was... was a guided warhead carrying a heavy load of a lethal, virulent bioweapon. She was a weapon of mass destruction disguised as a person, engaged in the ghastly act of biological warfare.

And with each day that Effie stayed alive, the plague she had brought with her was spreading wider and wider through the vast encampment of the Steel Horde.

Azarax had been exposed to it the most, since he had spent a lot of time with her alone and came into contact with her blood on countless occasions. The soldiers who had touched her, had been close to her, or survived trying to accost her were next. Everyone whom they had interacted with since were most likely infected by now, as well. All the people the secondary carriers of the plague had talked to must have caught it, too. It must have spread far and wide in the camp of the Steel Horde, claiming innumerable hosts.

The plague was in its incubation period, for now... but it would begin to reveal itself soon. If even Effie, a Saint, was starting to show symptoms, then mundane and Awakened soldiers would follow at any moment now.

Then...

Then, the third part of her plan would finally be complete.