He knelt down in the pool of blood and earth surrounding his comrade’s crushed head. He didn’t think anything could penetrate the shield of numbness he had built in his mind but here it did. Another of his precious few brothers sent wailing to the afterlife. His mouth was extended open and a trickle of blackened blood dripped from it in a steady stream. This was the fourth body he had found. This meant that nearly the entire Golden Pride was extinct. All that remained was him, Rho, and Zane.
The cause of death was the same as the last three. An injury to the back from a morning star, a surprise attack from the way the victim did nothing to stagger or dodge the blow. Then, whilst reeling from the attack, the killer struck them in the head with the same morning star, hard enough to instantly kill the victim in one obliterating crash. The killer attempted to be quick and merciful, needing however the extreme force of a heavier weapon to take down a foe of this caliber. The killer would have to have known the moment a member of the Pride’s guard was down, and have been fast enough to react in the split second of down time between strikes. To do that you need to be extremely well trained. The best trained in all the world.
“You killed them, didn’t you Zane?” He said, removing the insignia from his brother’s cape. He stood and turned around staring his opponent in the face. His boyish rotundness and flowing brown hair striking the eyes like a flash of lightning, unobstructed by any kind of protection. Zane preferred to fluff his hair out as much as he could, to disguise his missing right ear. Lliam could see it however. Lliam could always see it.
“Don’t make this harder than it has to be.” The killer heaved, hardly able to control his breath. Tears seemed to fight at his throat much more than adrenaline did. He was crying? Why? He killed them. If he cared that much he shouldn’t have done it.
“How much are they paying you?”
“Ten thousand a head. For you, they’d pay fifty.”
“Cheap. I’d have thought you couldn’t be bought for less than a hundred thousand.”
“That was before.” He said, slowly approaching, never taking his eyes off his next target. “That was before I lost them all. That was before my wife gave up hope I’d ever return. That was before she wrote to me that she had taken another man. That was before I had to be cursed with surviving the bloodiest war in out nation’s history, where I saw brother after brother beaten and torn to shreds by those animals. That was before I lost every decent and human part of me to this useless conflict. I can’t shit without bleeding, I can’t sleep without screaming, I can’t hear on my right side, I can’t clean myself without cracking open another scab. I am not a man anymore, I am what’s left after you, and your father tore us all apart for your asinine game of political ‘keepy-upy.’ I need the money. I cannot go home and be made a ‘war hero.’ I can’t go home and sleep in the royal chambers, walls covered in plaques commemorating the worst day of my life. I can’t hear in speech after speech about ‘what great things I accomplished for my country.’ It’s too late for me. I need to get enough money to live and get the fuck away from you, and the blinding gold sands.”
The killer circled his opponent once he had reached a distance he was too afraid to close. Lliam never took his eyes off him. Not for one second. He hardly even dared blink, lest his foe capitalize on his moment of weakness. He didn’t reply to Zane’s aggrandized monologue. He just continued staring, his counter-centric combat style demanding Zane make the first move. Eventually the silence became too much for the guilty to bear, so he reopened the dialogue.
“Where’s Rho?”
“On his way home.”
“You’re giving up on the mission?”
“I told him I could do it without him.” Lliam said, resting one hand on his hilt the way he did before removing his enemy’s ear. “I told him that he had more than done his part and I could handle the rest of the rebels himself.”
“And he believed that?”
“He had never been happier. He whispered ‘hold on Lydia, I’m coming home’ and set off at a speed I had never before seen out of Rho.”
Zane kept circling, kept talking. He knew if he made a move it could be his last, but he knew that Lliam never would.
“You really think so highly of yourself?” Zane said.
“I have no idea whether I can handle Nylo on my own or not. That didn’t matter. The last thing I wanted was Rho to be faced with killing you.”
“So you knew, huh?”
“I know you, Zane. If any of my brothers is so weak willed as to betray his own pride it was going to be you.”
Zane was silenced after that. He had never felt such a palpable build up of emotion before. His rage was so strong it shimmered off his scalp like heatwaves, and what bothered him most of all was that Lliam didn’t seem to feel any of it. He really couldn’t admit he was human and afraid just this once? When there was no one left to lead and nowhere left to go? He still had to be the fearless hero above it all and far above you? Zane could never dream of something so pathetic.
“I want you to think for me, Zane.” Lliam said, startling his foe out of his trance. “I want you to think about whether or not this was all worth it. Recall the sting on your face after I lopped off your ear. Recall the burn on your cheek as I backhanded you time after time for disobeying orders. Recall the way your hand beat and crushed when that tree fell upon it. Remember who it was that carried you back to the medical tent. Remember who gave you a second chance after your addiction nearly got you killed. Remember who vouched for you at the trial for your freedom. Remember all of this, and tell me whether butchering your brothers and getting that pile of gold so large you can’t see over it was worth it. Because this is the last time. This is the last time you will be able to remember any of it. Remember the touch of your wife’s lips. Remember the laugh of your son. Remember the evenings drowned in ale and tales of victory around the fire. Remember the rain, the sun, the wind on your face, remember the blood in your veins and how frightened you were the first time it was drawn. Remember it all. Let it live in you. Let it empower your swings. Watch as all of it fails you, as you fall by my hand. Die now, remembering my face.”
He didn’t draw his sword then. Drawing your sword took time. A few precious seconds that your enemy could use against you. He merely set off his opponent into a blind frenzy. One misjudged swing sent his morning star into the ground, and gave Lliam the time he needed to draw his weapon. The fight didn’t end in one clean swipe. Zane was stronger than that this time. It was a long, poetic battle with sparks and steel flying in angle under the sun. Screams and swears passed through Zane’s grief wracked lips, none dared escape Lliam’s. Neither party sustained a single wound the entire fight. They dodged, parried, danced and blocked each other’s swipes like experts, siblings intertwined for the millionth time, force to do battle but knowing each other’s every move. The final strike came at the hands of one wretched mistake.
Lliam guided his foe towards the body of their shared comrade. Another spike downward and a dodge sent Zane’s weapon into the chest of his former brother, impaling and sticking the weapon there. Zane had swung and hit the earth four separate times this combat. He knew that Lliam would be coming to decapitate him with a rotate along the heel and a diagonal slash. All he had to do was wrench the weapon from the dirt and strike back, using the full force of his body to counteract the blow and resume the duel. This was not the earth however. This was the grabbing hands of the world’s most finely made and expensive armor. These were the shattered claws of what once was a ribcage, wrapping around the wielder’s weapon like a curse, and holding much stronger than the emotionless gravel striking before.
Zane attempted the same move that had saved him so many times, applying exactly as much effort as he was used to. This amount of effort proving fruitless, he was left wide open. Exhausted, brimming with rage, and with sweat and tears flooding his eyes, Zane took a moment to process what happened. He thought for a moment about how much additional strength he would need to free the device this time. That moment of thought was his last. It stalled him long enough to allow Lliam to take an effective shot. In a move as graceful as a bird in flight Lliam slashed down and right with his blood-soaked longsword, and sent Zane weeping to whatever after life awaited for him. His body spasmed and flailed, not having the decision making of his mind but having to utilize all the energy it had built up. The head toppled listlessly to the floor, tumbling down the indent in earth his brother had made when he fell, landing on it’s right side, concealing the injury scarring him for so long.
With this blow, the Pride had been reduced to two. Eighty three of the greatest warriors God had ever made now lay dead in a field somewhere thanks to the most pointless war ever started, by the very man who was on the front lines of it. A disaster so destructive that should the people under Lliam’s rule last for a thousand years even then will they tell stories about the darkness of this quest. But did Lliam weep for his brother? Did he mourn, cry and wail at the loss of another of the men he had spent his entire adolescence getting to know? No. No he did not. For this wasn’t his brother. To him, the Pride had already lost Zane, and this was just the strike that made it so. It happened ninety six days ago, with a single shove and a single strike.
Zane would be remembered forever, as the greatest backstabber history could find the name of.
Lliam would make sure of it.
Until then, he had a rebellion to squash.