There will be generations because of you

Winter of 1607

Killing is but second nature to a knight, but to kill a king, is it possible? Should it even be attempted? That didn’t matter right now; they were already deep within the castle walls and on their way to dethrone his incompetent majesty. To lose focus now would bring and untimely death. They already had the support of the village behind them after the unnecessary increase in taxes and levy on crops cost the poorest and most vulnerable their lives in the recent months leading up to the unwelcoming, frigid weather. Their fear, however, took control of their very lives, creating an uncertainty within their minds that was so deeply embellished it put an end to all thoughts of a revolution. They were afraid of neighbouring kingdoms and bandits challenging their way of living. They were afraid of disorder, mayhem and carnage ruining the natural order of man. Most of all, they were afraid of the Kings Guard, an elite front of highly skilled and heavily trained knights tasked with the order to protect the king and the king alone. They enforced every law the king imposed with absolute force and strict judgement. King Cuthbert’s unforgivingly merciless nature had become a burden to the village and a significant weight in terms of trade and possible allies with neighbouring towns.

“It has to be done” Helios whispered to himself.

They slowly marched down the corridor of the castle, leading to a staircase, atop of which would be the throne room. His team consisted of just two friends; Alice and Peter. Peter was a large and stoic fellow of strict earnestness in his late forties. He was built like a mountain and as strong as one too. He hated the king with every fibre of his being and disapproved of him the moment he came into town, funnily enough this idea was brought to them by Peter himself, though none could even believe it was his. Alice on the other hand, was strong, fierce and calculated. She was young, around her mid-twenties and one of the best knights the Kings Guard had to offer, she even trained a few of the recruits from time to time. She didn’t think too highly of the king, but she did enjoy the work she did. and wanted only to hone her skills to their fullest, under Peter’s guidance of course. He had taught the both of them everything they’d learned from a young age. Lastly, Helios was a broadly built solemn man of diligence and respect. He was nearing his late twenties and despised the king’s unlawful treatment of the village folk. They were the only ones with the courage to stand up to king Cuthbert, ironic, considering they were all tasked with his protection.

The floor was lined with an unevenly smooth sandstone, creating a dull brownish-grey accented with rough grey limestone walls. Clear windows with thin fixtures sat in an arched mortar frame with a flat base. The light from the moon illuminated the corridor from the left, every few meters or so, giving glimpses to the shimmering silver plate armour and basket-hilted broadswords sat at each knight’s hip. Embattled banners of Cuthbert’s reign matched each window on the right wall. A deep blue hand-woven cloth outlined with gold. In the center, Cuthbert’s insignia; a lion’s head outlined in silver framed by a golden heater shield. It symbolized his strength, his tyranny and fortitude. It defined how the burning ember of his rule would be visualized in the hearty cheers of the village folk.

The clanging of metal came to a halt at the weathered stone stairs. They looked at one another one last time, the desperation that had once plagued their eyes had hardened into a fearsome will. After this, nothing would be the same. No one knew who would take the throne. No one knew if this would even resolve the issues with the neighbouring towns, but it would be for the better, regardless. They began to climb. The stairs spiralled around a large, almost ancient central column. Its beaten stone, misshapen, yet firm, followed them to their awaiting battleground as they reached the top of the staircase. A large, bold, oak brown door greeted them. Its polished steel fixtures and gilded handle opened up to a grandiose room.

The throne room was spectacular. Only the king’s most trusted guards had ever seen the throne room, and thus, neither Helios nor Alice had ever seen it. A hand-loomed blood red cotton carpet led straight to the king’s throne from the stairwell. There were heavy stone columns, ending in arches, accenting the sides of the of the room, adorned with small firepits cut halfway into them, like baskets of fire. Cuthbert’s embattled banners hung between each pillar as a show of power. The night sky spilled moonlight through the massive and vibrantly rich, stained-glass windows that were embedded deep into the thick outer castle wall behind the throne. It leaked the spirited hues of the windows onto the floor finished floor in-front of them. The throne itself seemed as if it was etched from marble. It sat, slightly elevated from the floor, accessible only by a few deep steps in-front of it. The entire room, a symbolic declaration of the unearned riches that the king had marshalled, now was the time of reckoning.

Occasionally, on late winter nights when the king would have trouble sleeping, he would sit in the throne room, contemplating the activities of the next day and what laws may or may not be passed. Four fully armoured guards sat as pairs of two on either side of the king’s throne as they entered.

“Halt, what reason do you have to see the king at this hour?” The first guard boomed.

“We are here to end your reign, king Cuthbert, you will no longer terrorise this village and you are no longer welcome in our lives.” proclaimed Helios, his words echoing throughout the entire throne room.

This was it, there was no turning back now, whatever came next would change the course of history forever. As the words of Helios’ claim reverberated within the hand-carved mahogany rafters of the roof above, the king rose from his throne, speaking in a soft and meaningful tone.

“I have known for a while now that the villagers had plans to execute me.”

Helios’ heart sank at this realisation.

“Which is why I had arranged for them, to be put to an end.”

The room fell to a deafening silence, with all but the king in an eye-opening stupefaction. Moments of nothingness that seemed like hours passed, as if the moonlight illuminated the definition of treachery in a beautiful oil pastel still life, crafted by a master of art. Finally, Helios stammered on a single word

“W-Why?”

“Kill them.” Cuthbert ordered, with a sway of his long narrow right arm.

The life rushed back into the guards as they looked at each other in confusion. The forwardmost guard on the king’s right-hand side bellowed a fearsome battle cry as he charged forward towards Helios. Alice and Peter rushed at the left side guards in unison, each with their own unique roar, taking them as they stood in shock at Cuthbert’s previous statement. Alice swung the sleek metal of her sword into the first guard’s head, sending him into a powerful nose-dive to the hard sandstone floor. His head ricocheted off of his helmet, causing him to lose consciousness. Meanwhile, Peter had his blade brandished and was charging at the second guard, aiming also to behead his victim. Unlike Alice, Peter had the advantage of experience, size and weight on his opponent, and did not need the element of surprise to win a duel. Fortunately, the guard was also comparatively skilled in the art of swordsmanship and dodged Peter’s strike with relative ease, returning to a stance reflective of his skill, as he stood off against Peter in an intense one-on-one. A good fight Peter thought to himself, he couldn’t help holding back his smile.

Helios reacted instinctively to the first guard charging him down, dodging to the right narrowly avoiding the blade of his enemy whilst bringing a powerful counter-strike at the stocky guard’s mid-section. A thunderous clash of steel echoed throughout the room as the guard stumbled to the left.

“Hey, get over here and help me!” The first guard implored.

The second guard, struck with a new sense of purpose, charged toward Helios, blade in hand. He wasn’t sure if his actions were right, but after hearing the king’s decree, he wasn’t really sure what he should do anymore. Helios and the first guard fought evenly, with occasional blows landing on both knights. A gleam of steel shot by in the corner of Helios’ eye as he backstepped to avoid a likely fatal blow. The second guard had joined the fray. This was becoming cumbersome, it was strenuous already, fighting the first guard, but two would prove to be deadly. He quickly studied his opponents, the first guard stood tall, and had a broad, sturdy build; a pillar of strength. While the second was of average build and slightly shorter than his former guard, clearly and apprentice. A clear target had shown itself and Helios darted for him, landing a robust and precise strike on the small gap between his helmet and chest plate before he could react. Scarlet blood poured from the wound as his sword hit the ground in an inaudible clatter. The guard fell to his knees, hands on his neck, gargling on his own life as it slipped away in the breaths he couldn’t grasp. A pool of sanguine liquid under a fallen guard was the result of Helios’ work, as he looked the first guard in the eyes awaiting the next clash.

Alice pierced her sword through the leather under-armour of the unconscious guard, breaking his neck and allowing the cherry-red blood to flow onto the smooth brown sandstone. The clash of colours, humble and kind to each other’s significance. She turned to see Peter in battle with a short, well-built guard, with Cuthbert’s insignia painted onto his cuirass. She interrupted their conflict to aid her friend but was easily overwhelmed by the guard’s physical prowess and was knocked off her feet. Before the guard could land the killing blow, Peter blocked his strike with a swing of his blade causing the guard to jump back. Peter told Alice to help Helios, he would find a way to best his enemy, he willed it so. Feeling uneased about this conclusion, Alice had no choice but to listen to Peter as this opponent was too skilled for her to even approach, however, she couldn’t leave Peter alone. She thought of a different angle to act on to help but was interrupted when a blood-curdling scream erupted from behind her. She turned to see Helios on his knees, with a blade embedded through his armour. The king’s sickly wide smile turned into a sinister laugh, as the battle neared its climax.

Alice stood unable to move, as her friend, her love, knelt motionless, head fixated on the ground beneath him.

“Alice!!” Peter screamed at the top of his lungs, as he parried an attack and moved onto the offensive.

Alice’s eyes widened as she dropped her sword and charged at the large guard in-front of her. The guard looked over to inspect the rest of the battle as a great force ploughed into him and knocked him down away from Helios, his blade still submerged deep in his chest. Alice started beating hefty punches onto his helmet in a fit of anger, a frail attempt to subdue the guard. She ripped off his helmet as she was thrown to the side of the room. Looking for his sword, the guard had turned his back to Alice and she took her chance to take his life with her concealed dagger. Leaping toward the guard she latched onto his back stabbing furiously into his neck, everywhere and anywhere her blade could reach that wasn’t covered by armour. Flailing arms acting in revelation to the peril of the guard’s life attacked her in a desperate attempt to rescue himself, but Alice held on tight. Screams flared up from both knights until the voice of one stood in triumph over the corpse of the slaughtered. A violent crimson dripped from the hands of a knight in anguish. Alice stepped towards Cuthbert in an anger-infused trance, eyes fixated on ending his life. She had never felt this type of anger before, it burned like agony deep within her, branding its name on her body, her body. Controlling her and taking as it pleased, it was a cruel sense of destruction, impossible to overcome, and if she was going to release it on anyone, it would be on the king himself. She trudged over to her sword and bent down to pick it up, all while maintaining eye contact with the king’s fearful gaze. She dragged her blade across the featureless sandstone, creating an ear-wrenching sound as it marked the floor with each step that brought it into contact with its dull roughness. There was no stopping her at this point.

Peter lunged forward with a flurry of fast offensive strikes, each hitting harder than the last. The guard stumbled to catch himself and countered the last attack, dashing around his target trying to focus on an opening, anything that would give him the upper hand. Peter spun around meeting his opponent and deflected a quick strike at his legs sending his adversary’s broadsword into the air as he thrust his own blade though the guard’s mid-section. In disbelief of his defeat, the guard wretched as the sword was retracted from his body. As he lay dying on the ground, Peter apologised for his death.

“We’ve lost another master of the blade” he explained sorrowfully “I’m sure we might’ve been good friends, in another life”

“p-Perhaps” the guard wheezed, as he held the hole over his armour. “Do- - Do right, by our people. Do not squander what you’ve fought for here so valiantly” he coughed, as the light in his eyes dimmed to an empty nothingness.

Alice lumbered over to the king, who sat on his haughty throne in fear of his inevitable demise.

“ha-Hahaha, foolish woman, without me you canno-“

thud

Cuthbert’s head hit the cold stone floor. his body, unmoving in its throne as blood trickled down itself. Alice dropped her weapon and sprinted over to Helios.

“There will be generations because of you.”

He felt a sharp pain blossom throughout his chest. Looking down, he eyed the blade impaling his torso. His breaths turned haggard and strained. He stared off blankly into the distance for a moment still, the words penetrating the haze of death not quite yet. No, he could only feel the slowing of his pulse, the extinguishing of fire, his fire; that had burned pandemonium within his body, his very bones since birth. Its scintillating sparks, its intrinsically vivid colours had diminished into a sombre flame of its former flare. It would soon be gone. It fell out of his body with every drop of crimson, with every beat of a drum that made no sound.

If a drum beat, but made no sound, did it exist?

…Did he exist?

“There will be generations because of you, my friend”

A roar of noise, indecipherable, echoed in the quiet landscape.

“Sons, daughters, mothers, fathers… They will exist because of you. You saved us all.”

He blinked, as a sort of clarity fell over him that turned a dull roar of odd syllables and strange hitches of empty space into, not noise, but… words? Words… The words, his words, his…friend’s words? They nestled around his ears, thrumming warmly beneath his deathly cold skin in a mockery of mortality. For death was a cold, cold place to be. Unfeeling… empty… nothing.

He felt his body, cold and still, but warmer now, shake. As something… No, his love gripped his shoulders. Yes. that was what-!

"Yet... You couldn't save yourself, Helios" Alice bent down, and took the helm of her dear friend, off his face for one last time. She smiled a horribly sorrowful smile as their foreheads touched. He was cold. "And I... I can't save you either. I can't-..."

He felt warm, then. As tears that were not his own drenched his face.

But his heart was horribly cold.

"I'm sorry that I couldn't… Helios. I'm so sorry."

He felt the warmth increase, as her body wrapped around his in a final embrace, but his heart was frozen now.

He ached to make the words form in his throat, but despite himself, he couldn't get them out.

He ached to talk to her, to smile with her, to laugh with her again as they had done not so long ago.

He ached to say 'I love you.' His body no longer capable.

And yet, almost as if she knew, as if she understood, the hold around his body grew tighter, as her whispers of 'I love you’ peppered his skin. He felt his body, cold, still, and no longer his own to control, sink into the feeling, into the warmth of his one true love, who loved him evermore, even if he couldn't say it back. Evermore, even if he wouldn't be there to hold her hand during the chilly nights. Evermore, even if he wouldn't be there to kiss away her tears… Evermore, even if he wouldn't be there as she grew old.

“It was supposed to be they.” he thought to himself. “Supposed to be, supposed to, supposed to- "

He felt a warmth of his own flood down his face, his eyes gleaming, crying out for the life he would never have, as the last of him flickered to a slow fizzle of hissing smoke, and then.

He felt nothing.