“This is exactly how I imagined it,” Viktor said.
“You couldn’t have imagined it being on a nicer day?” Alexander joked, lunging toward Viktor with a big swipe of his longsword.
Viktor dodged the swipe and swung a sword down toward Alexander’s arms. The king was too quick and pulled the sword back blocking Viktor’s attack. They moved back from one another.
“Let’s try that again,” Alexander said, this time swinging his sword from right to left.
Viktor jumped back just in time to dodge the swing. He quickly stepped forward and slashed downward with one of the swords and caught Alexander in the thigh. Fortunately for Alexander, his black rock armor prevented any penetration.
“It’s one to zero if we’re keeping score,” Alexander said with a smile.
Josiah limped into view. His chest and belly were blood red and his face was pale white. He was near death and would need medical attention soon.
They held their swords up and moved in a semi-circle around each other. Viktor faked an attack and stepped back when Alexander swung his longsword down. He moved forward to swing both swords at the king’s neck, but Alexander moved right and lunged toward Viktor with his shoulder. The blackrock shoulderpad hit Viktor in the chest so hard it knocked him down. Alexander leapt toward him, swinging the sword down while Viktor struggled to get back up. Viktor rolled left, dodging Alexander’s attack, and moved back a few feet to recover from the blow he took.
“It’s one to one now,” Alexander said, breathing a little hard from the attack.
“No use in keeping score. We all know how this ends,” Viktor replied, also breathing hard.
“They still want to see it play out,” Alexander said, lunging toward Viktor.
Viktor held up both swords and blocked Alexander’s attack. Once he had the king in a locked position he bent down and swept his legs from underneath him. Alexander fell to his back, dropping his sword along the way. Viktor stood over him with both swords, ready to swing them down and end all of this for good.
“Well,” Alexander coughed, “looks like you did it. You killed the…”
Viktor thrust one of the swords into Alexander’s belly through the blackrock armor. He then jammed the other sword into his throat. He watched the light fade from the king’s eyes just as he watched the light fade from several of his friends’ eyes along the way.
He stood over him for nearly a minute before he pulled both swords out and faced the troops. “The battle is over. We have won. There is bread and fresh water at the fort. Let’s call it a day.” He stepped away from Alexander’s dead body and walked back toward Fort Asbury, picking up the Firebringer along the way. Troops on both sides watched him leave the battlefield a hero. Marianna ran to his side and walked with him, as did Kelond, and Gideonis. They spotted Josiah limping toward them. “Come, Josiah,” Viktor called out in a voice that was nearly gone. “It’s done.”
Exhausted, bloody, and filthy, the five of them limped back to the gates of Fort Asbury, victorious.
Epilogue
∞
The streets and shops of Demiscus were empty. Nearly half the buildings had been burned to the ground and broken wagon wheels were strewn about. The fountain at the center of town was cracked on two sides and had been dry for at least a month or more. Ravens and crows fought one another for superiority over the rooftops. Weeds and vines had begun to spread between the vacant buildings. It was clear to Viktor that no one had walked the streets in quite some time.
“Aye,” Kelond said, “this is what they call a ghost town.”
“You believe in ghosts now?” Gideonis asked with a smirk.
“It’s a figure o’ talk, druid,” Kelond scoffed.
Yaspar jogged ahead of Viktor and the others. He moved from shop to shop as quickly as he could, shouting Melaina in each empty room. Josiah tried to keep up with him but was a little slow due to the injuries he sustained in battle not long ago.
Viktor and Marianna hopped off their horses and investigated the other side of town. “Melaina is his wife?” Mariana asked.
“Yes, and his daughters’ names are Renn and Rileya,” Viktor replied, yanking a door from its hinges and tossing it aside. “They’re hiding somewhere if they’re still here.”
Gideonis and Kelond walked from shop to shop and entered a few small cottages along the way. “At least they did not burn this township to the ground,” Gideonis observed.
“Aye, what they did to Capernaum is unforgivable,” Kelond said.
Viktor and Mariana moved through a large shop on the eastern side of town. Patches of the floor consisted of dirt instead of stone which struck Viktor as odd. Towns in the east were usually constructed the same way; builders lay cobblestone for roads and floors before they build shops and cottages. He looked across the room and noticed a large square rug covering half of the floor space. “Marianna, you think it’s interesting that dirt was used for flooring in this shop?”
“No, not particularly. Floors in Avanton are made of wood and dirt,” she said.
“Right, but this is Demiscus. Not some forgettable rural village,” he replied, motioning his head toward the corner of the room behind the rug. “See that pile of cobblestone?” he whispered. Marianna nodded. “I bet that was once used as flooring to this interior…and someone has dug it up.”
Viktor walked over to the edge of the rug and knelt at one of the corners.
“Why would they do that?” Marianna whispered back.
Viktor grabbed the edge of the rug and flipped it back, revealing a large round hole underneath. A dozen or so children and their mothers looked up at him in fear. “To hide,” he said, looking back at Marianna.
“Melaina!” shouted Yaspar from behind Marianna. He jogged over to see what Viktor had found and spotted his wife and two daughters hiding in the hole. Tears instantly formed and ran down his cheeks as he reached into the hole to pull his family out. He pulled them out one by one, their faces dirty from hiding and cheeks wet from sobbing. He embraced them and wept for a few minutes as Viktor reached in and helped the others climb out.
Yaspar kissed his wife a dozen or more times before looking over at Viktor. “I’m sorry, milord. I’ve just missed them so much.”
Viktor smiled and moved toward Marianna.
“Melaina, this is Viktor,” Yaspar said with a smile and wet face, “our new king.”
She smiled at Viktor and Marianna and then buried her swollen face into Yaspar’s chest. His daughters did the same.
∞
Viktor jumped onto his steed and waited for Josiah, Kelond, Gideonis, and Marianna to join him. He watched Josiah nearly fall to the ground as he struggled to climb atop his horse. “You’ll be back to normal in no time, friend,” Viktor said to him. “I have faith.”
“Whatever you say, Vik,” Josiah wrestled out, still getting used to calling his friend Vik instead of Viktor.
“What next milord? To King’s Square?” Kelond asked.
Viktor looked at Kelond and then back toward the thousand or so men that survived the battle outside of Fort Asbury. He turned and smiled at Josiah and Gideonis who smiled back. He looked over at Marianna, as beautiful as ever, who could barely contain the joy in her heart over what was to happen in the coming days. “Well…what else are we going to do?” he shrugged. He grabbed the reins of his horse and gently kicked its side before riding north through town and towards King’s Square.
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The Warrior Prince (The Tragedy of King Viktor Book 2) Page 10