Despair
960 Words
The attack was unexpected, but Kuvira should have seen it coming.
The arrows had come from behind her, from the front riders who were still a distance away.
Before Kuvira could fully process what was happening, the second round of arrows lunged forth.
‘N-no!’ Her thoughts echoed.
She twisted her body and raised her blade to slice through the projectiles.
A few hit her shoulder and sides, but she was able to protect her vitals as well as the baby she carried so delicately.
However, the moment she was able to do so—most of her strength already gone with that—she heard the squishing of flesh behind her.
Someone had been pierced, and a stream of blood was spraying out of their body.
That someone was her.
She felt the heat of her body leave her as three blades impaled her from behind.
Even with all the pain and certain death, she made sure her child was safe from the metallic reach of the lethal strike.
It was a useless move, considering the fate of her boy once she was gone.
Still, Kuvira could not ignore her motherly instincts.
“Gurgh!” She collapsed on the ground, her baby still stuck in her bloodied hands.
As blood stained the floor, it soaked the blanket that covered him.
‘My… lovely… boy…’ Her thoughts slowly faded as she looked at his face.
His handsome, pale face.
The baby wasn’t crying, in fact he wasn’t even awake. Her child’s eyes were closed, showing how he was sleeping.
Kuvira felt a warmth unlike any other as she looked at her child for the very last time.
‘I’m happy you don’t get to see this…’
No other would want that.
More than anything, what Kuvira hoped for was that he would not die with her.
“Please…” She croaked out with her dying breath.
“… Live.”
And with that, Kuvira breathed her last, dying while looking at the comforting image of her child.
********
“What a b***h!”
“Stubborn till the very end!”
The surviving soldiers kicked Kuvira’s corpse aside as they approached her baby.
Her body was inflicted with wounds from the arrows and her attire was stained with blood.
“She was strong, though. If we hadn’t caught her off guard, I don’t think we would have won.”
“Keke! Never underestimate anyone from the Imperial Household… not even a woman.”
The beauty she once had was now ruined—marred by the unexpected violence that cost Kuvira her very life.
The same violence that would soon be inflicted on her child, and the rest of the villagers
“Let’s kill them all now. Saves us the hassle later.”
“True that!”
Before the villagers could even beg for their lives, blades began to fly in the air.
The merciless soldiers pierced their speeds through the faces, the stomachs, the chests… even the rectums of their victims.
They couldn’t care less about the bloodshed.
Screams and pleas filled the air as the villagers were butchered without mercy.
Women… children… it didn’t matter to these men.
This was a festival of bloodshed.
And before long, it was completed.
“Hehe! It didn’t take too long at all.” One of the men grinned.
“I guess we didn’t need backup, after all…”
The approaching men were the 100 that the Emperor sent to their aid in case of backup.
They were elite warriors that far surpassed them in strength, but their help was no longer necessary.
Other than the arrows they had shot at the woman, there was nothing else they did.
“We’re gonna have all the rewards to ourselves!”
“Haha! Damn straight!”
“Oi, guys…”
One of them was holding Kuvira’s baby with one hand, and a blade with the second.
“I saved the best for last. Who wants a shot?”
The six men chuckled as they huddled close. Their depraved expressions were filled with such malice that it practically contorted their faces into a mask of ugliness.
The child was placed on the ground, at the center of the circle they made.
“Sorry, kid. But this is just how the world works.”
“Hehe! You only spent two months in this shithole, and now you’re going back to where you came from.”
“Send my regards to your mother for me!”
They all chuckled as they drew their b****y blades and got ready to impale the boy.
But then—
~WHOOOOOSSHH!!!~
A third, overwhelmingly bountiful wave of arrows suddenly shot through the air.
The depraved warriors didn’t even realize it when they were all slaughtered by the hundred men who they conceived to be their allies
It happened all too fast, and they all collapsed, mostly unaware of what had happened.
… What had killed them.
“Serves you right…” Before they died, they heard a very soft voice echo in the air.
It sounded like the words of a child, but something about it felt off.
“I would have told you to send your regards yourselves, but I know you won’t be going to the same place as that woman.”
The voice contained a calm element to it, but there was an underlying hatred about it.
Like repressed rage.
“So die and wait for the rest of your comrades to join you.”
Those were the final words the soldiers heard before they lost too much blood and gave in to the darkness.
They died that day, not knowing what killed them, who the voice they heard was, and most importantly…
… The horrors that were about to ensue.
- Writer
