Chapter 15
Lucian and Cotinus came charging at me like they always did, and it was so easy to just leap out of the way. The red warhorse slid to a stop and reared up, and he did that cool pivot thing. His hooves kicked through the air a few times before they came smashing down.
“I’ll be right back, okay?” I said to the horse as I dodged to the right. When Lucian commanded the horse to rear up again, I turned and headed for the first wedge of spearmen. “I’ll free you from your evil master very soon, Cotinus!”
The spearmen always situated themselves into a nice organized front line for me with the first wedge under Sir Terrowin more to the left, the younger guys with burly Sir Reynald’s group in the middle, and the little greenies under Sir Saerus on the far side of the army.
“Terrowin!” Lucian roared from somewhere behind me. “Kill him! Sir Owin, get your swordsmen into formation!”
“I don’t know why you’re telling them to kill me, Loser Lord,” I taunted Lucian as I came up on the first group of spearmen. “I’m pretty sure that’s the obvious choice.”
Sir Terrowin and his men advanced on me with their spears filling in any gaps in their formation. Each man was probably glaring at me from beneath his helmet, but I wasn’t close enough to really read their expressions.
“Good morning, Sir Terrowin,” I greeted the lead spearman, and the man looked utterly confused when I bowed to him. “May I ask that you have Tedric step aside? He plays a very important role in this fight, and I need to be sure he is not injured by one of your men.”
The man standing just past Terrowin’s left elbow straightened out of his attack stance. Terrowin himself ignored his soldier and sprang forward with his epic battle staff moves. The two spearmen on his left followed after their leader and jabbed their spears at me. The remaining spearmen stepped around the still very confused Tedric to close me in on the right.
“Left!” I shouted at Terrowin as his attack came in on my left side. “Now to the right! Over the head and down at an angle from the right!”
It was like I was using voice commands or something. Even when Terrowin tried to switch it up and pull a move that was probably his “ace in the hole,” I was able to guess correctly.
I slammed my shield down on the two spears jabbing at me on the left. The first broke easily, but the second required three hits before it splintered. The spearhead spun through the air, and I snatched it as it started to fall. The first spearman was too stunned by my epic feat to even react when I plunged the spearhead through the open part of his helmet and into his face.
Blood and brains splattered everywhere, and I leaped to avoid getting showered in the hot goo.
I drew my dagger as I whirled on the second spearman and sliced across his throat. I spun away from both the spray of his blood and the downward swing of Sir Terrowin’s spear.
The two spearmen closed in on my right, but I deflected their jabs with my shield and danced away from them.
“Yoohooo, Lucian!” I called to the Loser Lord just a few yards away. “Can’t catch me!”
“Block him in!” Lucian shouted as he urged Cotinus forward.
“Tedric, get back into line!” Terrowin barked as he reformed his little wedge.
The first wedge of spearmen was much smaller than before and really didn’t look like much of a threat. The second wedge was a few yards behind them and closing in fast.
“Into position men!” One of the crossbowmen shouted. They were hidden behind the mass of swordsmen approaching from beyond the spearmen, so I knew they couldn’t get a good shot on me just yet.
“You guys have to wait your turn!” I shouted to the crossbowmen.
There was no response. So rude.
As Cotinus thundered closer, I dropped my dagger and grabbed the spear from the man to the left of Terrowin. It wasn’t Tedric, of course, because I needed him for later. He tried to shake me off the weapon, but I kept a firm grip, and when I knew Cotinus was close enough, I yanked the soldier forward and spun him around.
“Augggggh!” he screamed as Cotinus ran him down. Those big hooves came down with a crunch, and I knew he wasn’t going to be getting back up.
“En garde!” I shouted at Terrowin as I swung my new spear at him.
The man blocked easily, and for a long time, we exchanged blows like two young boys playing with sticks in the forest. These spears were so much stronger than a pair of sticks, though, and no amount of smacking them together would cause them to snap in two. After a few exchanges, I shifted so that my shield was between us, and I rammed him back several steps.
Before he could recover and pounce at me again, I adjusted my grip on the spear and hurled it at the other not-Tedric spearman. The weapon sliced right across the man’s neck, and from the blood that came gushing out, I knew it had struck the carotid artery.
It had only taken me a dozen attempts to get that move right.
I turned as Terrowin came rushing at me with his spear down like a jousting match, and I drew my sword to knock his weapon away. I curved my sword around and brought it up across his face. His helmet went flying and so did a big chunk of his nose.
Sir Terrowin dropped his spear to clutch at what was left of his nose and blood seeped between his metal-covered fingers. He did nothing to protect his throat, and when I slashed my sword across the exposed skin, blood sprayed everywhere and ran in rivulets down the front side of his breastplate.
The man was dead long before he hit the ground.
Tedric let out a yelp like a kicked dog and dropped his spear. When he tried to run, I hooked two of my fingers into the back of his armor and tugged him back.
“No, no, don’t run, Tedric,” I cooed at him. “You’re very important, and I need you!”
“Stay where you are, Terric!” Sir Reynald barked from the approaching second wedge.
The young man was advancing from the far-right wing of the formation and the spear in his hands was quivering dramatically in the air. He was just about ready to charge, but he wouldn’t break formation until I killed his big brother.
“All in good time, my friend,” I muttered, more to myself than to Tedric, who merely whimpered in response.
Lucian was trotting Cotinus behind the line of crossbowmen, and I guessed he had retreated after accidentally trampling one of his own men.
“Slow him down!” the Loser Lord barked and pointed his sword at me. “Fill him with bolts!”
The crossbowmen couldn’t ignore a direct order from their commanding officer, so even though there were plenty of men between them and me, they pulled their triggers.
“Oh, come on,” I grumbled.
Tedric wasn’t even trying to struggle from my grip which made it easier to jerk him around and out of the way of the bolts. I shifted and brought my shield up to cover us both, and from the way the older man looked at me, he must have thought I was saving his life and that I was going to let him free.
“Oh, you sweet summer child,” I quoted from Game of Thrones as I swatted one of the last bolts away with my shield. “I had to keep you alive because of your brother over there.”
I pointed with my shield at the young man holding the quivering spear as if Tedric didn’t know which man was his brother.
“When I kill you, your brother will come rushing to avenge you, and the entire second group will fall like dominoes,” I explained to him.
“Y-You don’t have to do this,” he whimpered.
“I do, though,” I growled. “And I’m not sorry at all.”
I released my grip on his armor, and as he begged for his life, I thrust my sword through the back of his throat. He was wearing one of those helmets that protected the front of the neck, so when my sword went all the way through, the tip scraped against the metal with a “nails on a chalkboard” kind of sound.
It was a beautiful symphony.
“You bastard!” Terric roared as he broke formation and sprinted toward me.
“Get back here, Terric!” Sir Reynald shouted after him.
“Can’t you at least give me a second to wipe your brother’s blood off my sword?” I complained as I withdrew the sword from Tedric’s throat and flicked it to get some of the blood off. “But if you insist on making this quick, I won’t argue.”
The young man thrust wildly several times, and I just stood there and parried the attacks with minimal effort.
“I’ll kill you for this!” he bellowed and thrust at me again.
“You’re not the first person to say that to me today,” I replied as I shifted sideways to dodge, and then I smashed my shield down on the shaft before he could pull it back again.
The wood splintered with a loud crack, and Terric promptly dropped it and came at me with fists flying. I had to admire the depth of love for his brother, but I had no time to deal with a grieving soldier.
I dodged his first attack and then smashed my shield against his face. The crunch of bone against wood was followed by a groan, and his body collapsed right next to his brother’s.
“Oh, look at that!”I exclaimed when I looked at the front of the shield. “I knocked out a few teeth this time!”
I put the young man out of his misery with a sword thrust through the face. Blood pooled around the two brothers and turned the ground a deep burgundy.
“Form back up!” Sir Reynald barked at the men of his wedge.
“Why can’t you idiots kill him?” Lucian screamed. “I want his head!”
“Guys, those are obvious orders,” I informed them. “You should say something like, ‘Galeren, Gifford, shift back so there are two of you on each side.’”
The two men I named halted in their advance for a moment and even looked back at Sir Reynald as if they thought they should follow my orders instead. Sir Reynald gave just the slightest shake of his head and pressed forward.
“You really should have listened to me,” I sighed as I flicked my sword again to clean off some of Terric’s blood.
The swordsmen had broken into two groups and were fanning themselves out around the remaining wedges of spearmen. I knew they were going to surround us and try to force us even closer together, but I ignored them for now. They would get their turn in a minute, but the second set of spearmen needed to be dealt with first.
I waited until I could see the lead man’s eyes glistening behind his helmet before I lunged forward. I swung with my sword to the left, and when he lifted his spear to parry, I pulled back and spun around to the lone man on my right.
This was the left-handed spearman, and his jab had excellent form, but he extended his arm just a little too much. His eyes filled with terror as I ducked down and swung my sword upward through the joint where his arm connected to his body.
Blood sprayed everywhere as the limb detached from the spearman’s body, and the spear fell from the nerveless fingers. The man’s screams of agony told me that at least he wasn’t a berserker like the goblins in the mine.
I put him out of his misery with a quick slash to the throat which only added to the growing marsh of blood squelching beneath my boots.
“Ruuuarrrrggggh!” the powerful Sir Reynald roared as he brought his spear down in an overhead attack that was all too easy to dodge.
The remaining three spearmen in his group were a little slow to realize I was standing right beside them. They all started to turn their spears inward, but the guy in the middle of the line got his spearhead caught on the back of the left spearman’s thigh armor. The left guy stumbled and completely lost his footing. He didn’t even get a chance to beg for his life before I brought my sword down through his throat.
The wound turned into a bloody fountain perfect for a Halloween decoration.
The middle guy was staring in horror at what he had caused, and it was so easy to sidle up to him and thrust my sword through the gap in his helmet. As his body slumped to the ground, the remaining spearman jabbed his sword at me.
I ducked down to avoid it, and I thrust my sword through the man’s groin. His goods were protected by a metal cup, but he tried to catch the sharp blade with his thighs and merely dug my sword in deeper. Blood gushed out, and his screams of pain and terror rang through my helmet like the tolling of a bell.
Sir Reynald swung his spear down on me again, and I blocked it with my shield. He was always the most annoying of the army since he was built like a fucking sumo-wrestler. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he had come at me with a section of a tree trunk as his weapon instead of a spear.
But I hadn’t spent all those attempts twiddling my thumbs. I knew his every move, and dodging his attacks was a matter of ‘when,’ not ‘if.’ I let him get super close a few times just for the hell of it, and I saw the glimmer in his eyes when he thought he had me beat.
That glimmer faded pretty quickly when he started choking on his own blood from a slash to the throat.
“Kill him!” Lucian screamed. “What is wrong with you idiots? He’s just one man! I want him dead, and I want him dead now!”
“Patience, my lord, patience,” I said in a calming tone. “There are still forty-two men left in your army. Do you have so little confidence that they can defeat me?”
“I am going to cut out your tongue so you may never speak again!” he barked as he urged Cotinus closer to me.
“I thought the point was to kill me, not maim me?” I questioned him. “And if I had to choose, I would definitely take death over having my tongue cut out. There are so many wonderful things I still need to use that tongue for, and I won’t have you ruining fun times with my new wife!”
“Line up!” Lucian shouted to the crossbowmen at the rear. “Form up and fill him with holes!”
The swordsmen were finally in position and had formed a wide circle around me, Lucian, and the remaining spearmen. They started to close the gaps, and each man had his sword and shield at the ready.
It was so cute that they thought they had me beat.
The poor green spearmen were quivering where they stood, and it looked like Sir Saerus was going to burst an artery trying to keep them from turning tail and fleeing for their lives.
“Form up, damnit!” the ranking spearman barked. “We will attack as a unit, and he will go down like a squealing pig!”
“That wasn’t a very nice thing to say,” I scolded Sir Saerus. “I’m more likely to go down laughing than squealing, and certainly not like a pig.”
Sir Saerus made some kind of scathing remark, but it was drowned out when I whirled around and leaped on Lucian in Cotinus’ saddle.
“Wha--Arrrrggggh!” the man choked as I yanked him to the ground.
And like I had done so many times before, I leaped into the saddle of my new warhorse and urged him into a rear.
“There’s my big brave boy,” I cooed at the warhorse as I patted his armored neck. “Did you miss me? I missed you.”
The horse responded to my commands like he remembered every attempt we had been through to reach this point. He turned and tore through the converging circle of swordsmen. The one on the left jumped out of the way, and I slashed my sword at the one on the right as we raced past. He managed to dodge, but at least we weren’t surrounded on all sides.
“Do not harm my horse!” Lucian shrieked from within the circle of swords. “I want that man off of Cotinus! Sir Saerus, see to it!”
“He is so bossy, isn’t he?” I asked Cotinus as I urged him toward the crossbowmen.
Since they had just been commanded not to harm the magnificent horse, the crossbowmen were just standing there like bowling pins just waiting to be knocked down. The three in the front were too slow to avoid being knocked over by Cotinus, and the metal crunching beneath his massive hooves filled the air like cannon-fire.
“Form up, men!” Sir Owin, leader of the swordsmen, bellowed over the sound of the dying men in my wake.
I brought Cotinus down to a trot and was nearly unseated when he bucked at a crossbowman that got a little too close to the horse’s rear end. One of his hooves crushed the man’s breastplate in, and I could hear him gasping for breath when he landed several feet away.
“Oooh, that’s gotta hurt,” I laughed.
The remaining crossbowmen dropped their crossbows in favor of swords and were closing in on Cotinus and me.
“Get him off my horse!” Lucian screamed from somewhere behind me. “Get! Him! Off! My! Horrrsssseeeee!”
One of the men approached me on the left so I drove the point of my shield down on his exposed neck. Blood splurted out when I dropped the shield, and as it clattered to the ground, I opened the wound up even more by driving my sword down with my full body weight. The man’s body slid right off my blade with a sickening squelching noise, and Cotinus sidestepped to keep the bloody mess from falling on him.
I finally had a good vantage point of the battle, and I allowed myself a few seconds to glance around. The sun had made it over the tree line and was shimmering down on the massacre as though it totally approved of the bloodshed. Lucian and Sir Owin had split the swordsmen into two groups, and they were spreading out to try to hem me in again.
“Look Cotinus,” I muttered to the horse. “They’re all so full of hope and happiness right now. Isn’t that so nice?”
The horse’s ears pinned back and pranced a bit as one of the crossbowmen grabbed my left leg.
“Oh, there you are,” I said to the man as if I had been expecting him because obviously I had. “Ready to dance?”
I pulled on the right side of the reins and urged Cotinus to spin around. The man was able to hold on for a bit, but as the red horse picked up speed, he started to stumble. At one point his feet even left the ground for a moment, and it only took half a spin for him to lose his grip and go flying off.
Right into one of his crossbow companions.
The two went down in a screech of metal against metal, and I quickly urged Cotinus toward them. The horse pulled out of his spin like a champ, and when we reached the fallen pair, I pulled him into a rear.
“Aaaaaaahhhhhh!” the two men screamed as a pair of heavy hooves came down on them.
“I’m gonna have to give you a good washing,” I said to the horse as I looked down over Cotinus’ side and saw that his reddish legs were splattered with blood. “You deserve a good pampering after this nonsense. Maybe some apples or carrots?”
Cotinus snorted a grateful sound that I assumed was a “yes.”
The remaining five crossbowmen took several steps away from Cotinus and looked very wary about trying to unseat me again.
“Looks like I’m gonna have to do this the old-fashioned way, my friend,” I said to Cotinus as I removed my feet from the stirrups. “Don’t wander too far, though, because I don’t want your former master trying to tear us apart again.”
I leaped down from the horse’s back and faced the remaining crossbowmen with a grin. I wondered if I looked like some kind of God of Death coming to take their souls or something.
“I suppose God of Time, God of Sex, God of Death, and God of Winning works,” I assured myself as I approached the five men. “I can have all the titles.”
Now that I was on the ground, the five crossbowmen got over their fear and surged forward as a group. Their battle cries were soon joined with the clashing of metal as I parried two attacks in rapid succession. Another came from behind, but I knew it was coming, and when I spun around, I grabbed the blade with my armored hand and yanked it from the man before turning the sword on its master.
His screams of pain faded into gurgling as he choked on his former weapon. Blood stained the tip of the blade, and when the man’s body hit the ground, blood oozed from his mouth and soaked into the ground.
“This is more like it,” I said as I spun my two blades around. “I like the shield, but dual-wielding is the best way to go, don’t you agree?”
I don’t think the remaining crossbowmen agreed with me, but they couldn’t withstand my flurry of attacks for very long.
One poured blood out of his face as he fell to the ground, and another got to be a one-armed crossbowman for about thirty seconds before I shoved my sword through his neck. The last two tried to run away, and I guessed that they must be a pair of newer recruits. It was almost a shame to cut them down from behind, but I couldn’t let them run crying back to their liege lord, now could I?
I tapped the blade of my feather sword and saw that its durability had dropped into the ‘teens, so I dropped it and grabbed a fresh blade from one of the fallen crossbowmen. I didn’t get a chance to check the stats as I noticed Lucian was heading for Cotinus.
He was probably expecting the horse to just stand there so that he could mount him again, but I had learned a cool trick while training the magnificent animal.
I pursed my lips and let out a piercing whistle. Cotinus’ ears perked up, and his head swung around to me. He trotted away from a very stunned Lucian, and he nudged me on the shoulder when he reached my side.
“How did you--That’s impossible!” Lucian sputtered.
“You taught me that trick, I’ll have you know,” I said to the man as I nudged Cotinus away from me. “He’s such an obedient warhorse.”
Lucian let out a scream of pure rage, and I ignored him in favor of the remaining soldiers at my back.
The swordsmen were forming back up under Sir Owin’s leadership, and the spearmen led by Sir Saerus had come within striking range. The green boys on either side of their commander quivered when I turned to face them.
“Guess I should take them out first, huh?” I asked Cotinus.
I leaped forward and easily dodged Sir Saerus’ jab. The green boy on his left followed up with his own attack as the leader was pulling away, but when I dropped my left sword and grabbed the shaft of his spear, he let go of it immediately. He took several quick steps backward to get away from me and fell to the ground with a whimper.
“Get back on your feet, Asher!” Sir Saerus spat at the poor kid.
“You could at least say please,” I scolded the man as I smacked him upside the head with my new spear. “Honey gets more flies than vinegar, you know.”
Sir Saerus glared at me and jabbed his spear at me again. I darted away from him and swung my spear in a low sweep at the green boys on the right side of the wedge.
One managed to leap over the attack, but the other two were too slow and dropped to the ground like a pair of rocks. The one that dodged the sweep tried to help his friends up and didn’t even notice the spear that suddenly sliced through the side of his neck.
“Aaaaaaahhhh!” the two downed boys screamed as blood rained down on them from their dead friend like a summer sun shower.
I silenced them with a quick thrust of my sword, and I grabbed my spear again from the growing pools of blood.
“Surround him!” Lucian commanded the swordsmen. He was still trying to mount Cotinus, but the big warhorse kept stepping away from him. “This is impossible! He is one man! Take him down already, you idiots!”
Sir Owin’s head jerked slightly, and I had to wonder if he was getting annoyed by Lucian’s back-and-forth commands. One minute he was leading a group of swordsmen and the next he was more interested in getting back on his horse. Any decent commander knew better than to change tactics without good cause.
Sir Saerus thrust his spear at me again, and since I no longer had my shield, I had to rely on my sword to break the shaft. It had taken me several attempts to make sure I struck the same spot each time I blocked his swings with my sword. The effort paid off after eight blocks, and the spearhead spun through the air as the shaft splintered.
I dropped my spear and replicated the spearhead kill from earlier. The point buried deep into Sir Saerus’ face, and I had to yank my head back as blood and brain matter came splurting out of what was left of the man’s nose like a firehose. I waited until his leg stopped twitching before I leaped to my feet and pounced on poor Asher who was still on the ground.
“Aaaaahhhh!” the boy screamed as I plunged my sword through his inner thigh. He lost consciousness as blood poured from the wound by the pint.
The final spearman was practically pissing himself, and he gave a very pitiful display of trying to stab me with his spear. I quickly ran him through with my spear, and the blood seeping into the ground around the last group of spearmen made it look like this one spot on the battlefield had been hit with rain.
“Only twenty-four of you left,” I sang to the swordsmen formed up in front of me. Then I whistled to Cotinus and leaped into the saddle when he reached my side. “Let’s finish this quickly, shall we?”
I urged Cotinus into a gallop and raced for the formation of swordsmen.
To their credit, they didn’t immediately break apart as Cotinus bored down on them. Their swords were essentially useless in stopping him, and since Lucian had already commanded them not to hurt the horse, they couldn’t slice his legs and bring him to the ground as I had so many attempts ago.
I was riding a living battering ram and there wasn’t anything the swordsmen could do to bring him to a halt.
The first man in the formation leaped aside as Cotinus reached him, but the men inside the cluster didn’t have as much room to move around. The horse knocked them to the ground and trampled several in that first sweep. Bone and metal crunched beneath his hooves, and there was a distinguishable streak of blood left behind as I pulled Cotinus around.
“One more time!” I called to my warhorse as I urged him after a group of three men.
The formation was completely broken. More than eight men were dead or dying from our first sweep, and although Sir Owin was trying to get them to form up again, it was clear that more than half were ready to desert and run all the way back home.
“Kill Cotinus if you must!” Lucian finally relented as he pointed his sword at me. “I would rather he die than remain in the hands of this monster!”
“Wow, some owner you are!” I shouted at Lucian as I urged Cotinus into a faster gallop.
We ran down the three men trying to flee, and I brought Cotinus in a wide turn to the left. Then I dismounted in the tall grass several yards from the back of the army and gave the horse a pat on his armored shoulder.
“Take a break, bud,” I said to him. “I’ll handle the rest.”
I raced toward the bodies of the crossbowman and easily located my shield. I didn’t even slow my pace as I kicked it up into my hand, and then I leaped over several bodies as I made my way to the final dozen swordsmen intent on killing me.
They were back in a proper formation with Sir Owin at the head and Lucian probably hiding somewhere in the back. They came roaring at me like a pack of wild dogs, and I couldn’t help the grin that spread across my face.
“I really am the God of Death,” I laughed as the line converged.
I met Sir Owin’s attack with my shield and shoved my sword into the face of the man to my right. Blood droplets soared through the air as I whirled it around and sliced at a man trying to get behind me. He dodged away from me so I turned my attention back to Sir Owin and shoved him back with my shield.
He met my attack with his own shield, and the low thud drummed through the air like a single heartbeat. He thrust his sword at the same time as a man on the left swung downward.
I watched as Sir Owin’s wrist fell to the ground in a spray of blood.
“You didn’t train that guy very well,” I pointed out as I parried a man on my right.
His shriek of pain easily drowned out the sound of metal on metal as I parried and blocked several blows from each side.
“Oh, will you shut up?” I complained to the man. I brought my sword down on his shield and then swept his legs out from underneath him. “It’s very unsporting to shriek in pain when the whole thing was just an accident!”
Sir Owin knocked two men down as he fell, and I quickly thrust my sword up under Sir Owin’s exposed armpit. A sword was thrust at me from the right, but I was expecting it and was able to lean back at the last second.
My breath fogged up the steel as it darted past my nose.
I lifted my shield to deflect an attack on my left, and I thrust my sword into the groin of one of the fallen swordsmen. While he squealed in pain, I slashed the other downed man’s throat before rolling backward to avoid an overhead blow coming down on my right.
“That leaves us with eight swordsmen and whiny boy Lucian,” I said to myself as I rolled to my feet. “Eeny, meeny, miny, you!”
The man on the right barely had time to lift his shield before I was on him, and we went down in a clatter of metal-covered limbs. His sword fell out of his hand when we hit the ground, and I was able to keep his shield-arm down with my foot as I plunged my sword up through his armpit.
“Seven,” I said as I selected my next target.
The man let out a squeal and dropped both his sword and shield as I lunged for him. He attempted to keep me at bay by chucking his helmet at me, but that just gave me better access to his throat, and his blood sprayed across the trampled grass as his body crumpled to the ground.
“Six,” I counted down.
The next swordsman came in swinging as if he didn’t want to be known as just a number. I deflected his attack with my shield and knocked him backward with a shove. I followed him and rammed him several times until he finally lost his footing.
“No, please, no!” he begged as I brought my sword down.
The pool of blood splashing against my boots got even deeper.
Swordsmen five and four went down when they both turned and tried to run and slammed into one another. They both fell face down, and all I had to do was plunged my sword into the back of their necks like poor Tedric.
Swordsman three had dropped his shield to pick up another sword, but he clearly wasn’t as skilled as a dual-wielder as I was. His left-handed swings had very little weight behind them, and when I parried the second slash aimed at me, the sword went flying out of his grip.
“That was just sad,” I said to him before slicing my sword across his face.
The smile permanently etched on his lips spilled blood and brains all over the already soaked ground.
“The buzzards are gonna feast tonight,” I said cheerfully as I turned on the final two swordsmen. “Just think. You could be fed to a bunch of hatchlings in just a few hour’s time!”
They obviously didn’t like the idea of being turned into vulture-baby-food, but it wasn’t like I was giving them much of a choice.
They didn’t give me a choice. The fuckers should have just gone home after I killed Lucien.
They both tried defending themselves in vain and after only a few exchanges, their bleeding bodies joined the pile at my feet.
Fifty-four soldiers laid strewn about the field, and the one who mattered the most was standing in the middle with his sword and shield hanging limply at his sides.
“Th-This can’t be real,” Lucian stammered out as I approached him. “H-How is this possible?”
“Haven’t you been paying any attention?” I asked as I strolled closer. “I am the God of Time. I can do anything.”
“B-But that’s--You can’t be a god!” he sputtered. “Only charlatans claim to be gods!”
“Then explain this to me,” I said as I gestured at the carnage all around. “How was I able to kill every last one of your men all on my own?”
“I-I-I-I-I...I don’t know!” The whites of Lucian’s eyes were visible even through the grating of his helmet. “Th-This can’t be real! It must be magic!”
“I haven’t learned how to use magic yet,” I sighed. “And don’t you think I would have destroyed you sooner if I did?”
Lucian began to laugh like a deranged man. His eyes scanned the blood-soaked field around us as if it was all just a terrible nightmare.
“I’m gonna end this now,” I said to Lucian as I took another step forward.
“N-No!” he cried. His sword and shield clattered to the ground as he dropped to his knees. He tore off his helmet, threw it aside, and held his hands up in surrender. “I surrender! You must spare me! I will give you anything you want!”
“And why would I do something like that?” I questioned him as I brought my sword up.
“My father is very wealthy!” he announced as if it was news to me. “If you let me live, I will take you to my father and tell him what you have accomplished here.”
“And you don’t think he’d be a little pissed off that I killed fifty-four of his good men?” I asked.
“Well, he might,” Lucian admitted. “But I will make him understand your power, O Great One.”
The duke’s third son bowed his head so low that the grate of his helmet was resting in a pool of blood.
“I can make you the richest man in the entire world,” he assured me. “All you have to do is put your sword down.”
It was hard to believe that this sorry excuse for a human once had me dragged from my wedding and hanged me in front of the entire town. That Lucian was filled with confidence and anger while the one before me now was just desperate and cowardly.
I could never see myself begging for my life the way this man was, and any respect I might have had for him during our fight fizzled away like mist in the sunlight.
“I don’t need anyone to make me rich, Lucian,” I said, and the man lifted his head to look me in the eyes. “If I want to be rich, then I shall be rich. I am a god, and you are of no use to me.”
Lucian lifted his hand to try to block my attack, but I merely swatted the hand away with my shield and swung my sword. Blood sprayed everywhere as his head slid from his shoulders.
The Duke of Bullard only had two sons left now.
Then I made a save point, because I sure as hell didn’t want to do all of that over again.