Gae bolg, ancestral weapon of the Fabii clan and passed on to each patriarch. The spear body is hollow and filled with Inland Taipan snake venom which secretes through the tip and into the wounds.

Smart, opportunistic and audacious. Luciel Fabii has a side to him no one knows about. Not even his closest friends. He is deeply critical of the world he lives in and observes everything profoundly. That observation extends to his race and their policies, both civil and martial. The oldest of the generals, he has spent the past 6 decades in office controlling the gold mines of his province capital Urgench. Which some say has made him the richest man in the Empire.

Luciel had heard the Imperator often remark that the measure of a man is what he does with power. The Imperator was a tall burly man with golden curled hair and a peculiar tattoo on his back. He was quite the heartthrob in his prime but regardless of his physical and mental gifts he had never understood the Imperator in the 7 years at his household or throughout Luciel’s service in the army. To Luciel, the imperator was a polarizing man. His mood switching from cold and distant to conciliatory and benign on a whim. Luciel thought perhaps he was bi-polar but he never dared say that aloud. After all weren’t all kings madmen? but he would not be like those that came before him. He had promised himself this, when he had decided on this course of action decades ago. The Empire must be allowed to heal. That is why Luciel had told himself he would try to avoid the bloodshed to come. His province Ctesiphon was impenetrable unless you were willing to scale the 5000-feet Pik Talgar between Ctesiphon and the other provinces. With the coming of winter, he knew no fool who would try such endeavor. No, he would sit at home and wait for the fruit to ripen before snatching it away. The true prize was the Empire’s capital after all. Not only was Menes the military and civilian headquarters but it also contained the ETC without which he would not be able to control the Empire’s budding soldiers which in turn would cost him the ability to drive imperial propaganda like the all the Imperators had done. After all it was your schooling which decided who you would become. Luciel knew because his time at Menes and the Academy had shaped who he would become. Even if he was young at the time, he cursed himself for allowing himself to believe in his instructors views and agreeing wholeheartedly. Why shouldn’t we rule the world, we were gods after all. Why shouldn’t we treat humans as if they were insects, we are predators after all. The whole farce made him sick now but his younger self had went along with it. Was he that stupid or did he suppress his rationality?. Luciel was a bookworm and sooner or later bookworms figure it out. It wasn’t until his 3rd decade of service that he realized what they were doing was plain evil and ever since, he had tried to be better but half a lifetime of pillaging and killing had left him with a guilty conscience. His position as the northern general and patriarch of the Fabii family had made that guilt stake right through his heart every time he held his daughter or whenever his team looked at him in respect. He could not take it anymore.

That is why, he would take the capital. Not for himself or for his family but to rid himself of this guilt. Ironically he would do it for the humans the Einherjar despise so much and in the process become a traitor to his descendants. He knew life was give and take, push and pull, yin and yang. That is why the humans must be given more, to restore balance to the world. That was his duty. The first thing he would do as Imperator would be to allow more humans to visit Menes. It was their holy land after all. The current regime would only allow humans the chance to visit Menes after you had paid 36 years of tribute and even then many applications would be rejected. Come to think of it, what did the common folks call Menes?, Luciel searched his memories. Ah yes, Persepolis where they worshiped the golden winged one. He never understood human loyalty to gods, they were so fickle and undeserving of worship but then again it had allowed the Empire to control most of the human population. Perhaps it was their dubiousness of themselves which led them to believe in such delirious garbage. It didn’t matter he would bring order to their lives. With the capital in his hands, the human population would also be under control and then he could get on with the task of rebuilding the fractured Empire.

The crown jewel of the Empire had to be Leptis Magna, where all the residential villas of the Einherjar were situated. Made entirely of marble and inlaid with lapis lazuli, the entire city looked majestic when he had first seen it as a child. That was when had spent his life’s second and third decade in Leptis Magna as a hostage of the 4th Imperator. First as a ward in the house of Cornelli and then as a student at the ETC. All the royal families had villas fashioned after the villas of the ancient Roman empire that once existed near Ciudad Perdida but very few spent time there. The royal court was full of prying eyes and even the walls seemed to have ears. It was a city of deceit and royal ass kissing. Luciel snickered to himself remembering his great aunt kissing the Imperator’s behind. It had shamed him then, it made him laugh now.

Luciel sat alone in his office. The windows covered. His team was not here. He had loaned half of them to strike a deal and the remaining three had been sent to his coin mint in Vijayanagara. He would need all his finances and resources for the winter. He thought about the favor Baretta had asked for. His niece was unpredictable. Capable and driven enough to kill him for the patriarch seat if not for his other subordinates’ absolute loyalty. Luciel had kept her from overreaching her boundaries but soon the time would come to settle this affair. Baretta had asked him for the generalship of Ctesiphon after his ascendancy to Imperator. He was still unclear on how to proceed. If he refused and instead gave her some other province, will she be satisfied?. Luciel was not sure for he knew, if she were to gain a sympathizer among his general staff then the balance of power could very well shift. He had not loaned her out but instead made sure that she were always in his sight, never giving her the time or energy to scheme. The rest of his group were certain in his coming victory. He had already assessed his competition. Amon and Lucretia would be dealt with and Baraka was as stupid as they come. The pessimist in him thought of the four generals before them who had fought the same fight they would. All of them had been confident too just like him. Just like his father. He had never liked the bugger and he had been only been 7 when his father was killed and him taken as hostage but that was their culture he told himself. Their future would be better. He would make sure.

Luciel rose from his chair and walked towards his cabinet where he kept his finest wine and took a long sip. The flavor refreshed him and he enjoyed the taste while the bitterness it left in his mouth was exquisite. He felt rejuvenated and headed home. The midnight sky glowed above him and the streets parted, making way for him. His spear Gae Bolg was with him but he knew he had no use of it tonight. The human folk of Ctesiphon certainly did not love him but they respected his fairness and policies. No, there were no assassins in the shadow of this beautiful moon. Luciel turned a corner and continued towards the Rigamortis gate, one of the four gates into his capital to get some fruits for his daughter. As he passed through an alleyway, he saw a tall, lithe and black haired Asiatic man with a long stick covered in black wraps at the other end of the alley. As the man drew closer Luciel knew what he was immediately and rather than wait for an attack, lunged at him with full speed and covered the 9 meters between them in one/tenth of a second. He saw his spear’s tip pierce through the fabric of his assailant’s clothes but felt no flesh as the assassin had moved his torso to avoid the tip so Luciel jumped back tearing part of the cloth and revealing the assailant’s naked torso. Luciel gasped in shock when he saw the same tattoo as the Imperator’s on his stomach and before he could react or even know what had happened, he felt a huge blade in his gut making him gasp in pain. He saw the nodachi tear through his innards. His blood streaming down his pants, his assassin wrenched the sword out of his stomach making him scream in agony. The assassin readied himself for his second strike, a clean decapitation but the sentries were already there. There were five of them but the assassin was too skilled and faster than anyone Luciel had ever seen. His leaking blood had made him delirious and he felt he saw a war god dance his way through enemies with blood splattering all around him. The assassin had already killed 3 of them and he knew unless his general staff came here within the next moments, he would be finished off. Holding onto his innards from spilling out side with one hand, he tried to aim at the assassin with his other hand but slowly felt his consciousness fading away. He thought of Mari and the fact that he would leave her just like his old bugger had left him. He remembered the tattoo, what did it mean?. Was he set up or was the game rigged from the start?…….