CHAPTER 010
1146 Words
“Gone, they're all gone.”
A soldier, armed to the teeth, announced back to Zooro from the wreck of Adam's truck.
“What about the water?”
“Wasted,” The soldier screamed. “Evaporated under the scorching sun.”
Zooro wiped beads of sweat from his temple and stared into the horizon, fury tightening in his jaw. “He’s one lucky bastard.”
Far away, beyond dust, fire and water, Adam and princess Hilda walked on, bloodied and alive but his mechanical arm was gone in the wreck.
Once they reached Gamoth, the gate politely groaned open and prodigally ushered them in.
“Adam,” someone cried.
“He's back!” Another screamed.
“How is he not dead?” Someone else asked.
Sara, please stay alive, Adam quickened his pace, dust seeping into his shoes.
Princess Hilda approached a veild woman under a shed. “Where is the Healer?”
“This way!” the woman shouted, already moving.
They ran through corridors that smelled of smoke and beer, and rum. Adam barely felt his feet touch the ground, every step heavier than the one before.
Sara lay pale on the mat, lips cracked, sunken eyes and breath as thin as thread.
“Sara. I’m here.” Adam dropped to his knees and took her hands in his one available arm.
“You look… terrible.” Her eyes fluttered.
He laughed once, shaking. “I brought the healing… the water.”
From his belt, he unfastened the water flask he had managed to secure before their truck had veered off the cliff.
The Healer uncorked the container with reverence that bordered on fear. “Hold her.”
Adam and Hilda lifted her carefully and the healer brought the water to her lips and she gulped hungrily.
Immediately, color returned to her face like a deliverance and she gasped and breathed.
“Why do I feel like I slept for a year?” She sat up suddenly.
“Because you almost did.” Adam buried his face in her shoulder. Relief and joy arched into his heart.
Hilda watched quietly holding back her tears.
Then the doors swung open and many boots marched in. Many of them.
“Aha… Adam, I heared you returned.”
A young man stepped through the doorway like he owned the past and the future equally. Tall and clean armor with eyes sharper than ambition.
“Jethro?”
Adam froze.
The man smiled slowly. “I heared you're now a wealthy commander in…” He turned to a soldier. “...what is that city called again?”
“Whumcastle.”
“Yes…Whumcastle!”
“Exactly!”
Sara stood, heart pounding. “Jethro.”
“You’re alive,” Adam added.
Jethro spread his arms. “Very much so; and so are you. Looks like we both refused to die quietly.”
He glanced at Sara and softened. “You survived too.”
She stood unsteadily. “We thought you were buried with the explosion.”
Jethro’s smile thinned. “I was, but I just crawled out.”
Jethro turned to the soldiers behind him. “This is my family. They ones who thought I had died years ago in an explosion.”
He turned to Adam. “I’m rebuilding Gamoth,”
“Wait, are you now the new Emperor, what happened to Prince Eric's father?”
“He is seriously ill.” Sara replied. “I heared it's the curse.”
Jethro stepped forward. “I want a strong, ruthless army enough to last. And I want you with me, brother. Commander of my armies.”
Adam didn't need to think.
“No.” He shook his head.
Jethro blinked. “You didn’t even ask the terms.”
“I already know them.”
Sara frowned. “Jethro…”
Jethro raised a hand and his face hardened.
“Arrest him.”
But no one moved, not even a sway.
Then something strange happened, the soldiers shifted then, one after the other, they all bowed to Adam.
“He carries the mark,” one said quietly. “The war-god’s mark.”
Jethro’s fist tightened more firmly now and Sara turned to him, eyes burning. “He’s not the only one with the mark.”
“What?”
She met his gaze. “I feel it too; the spark.”
Jethro looked between them, something beoke behind his expression. “So that’s it. The gods scattered their toys.”
He straightened. “You’ll choose. Stand with me or stand in my way.”
“Never!”
Jethro’s eyes darted across to the kneeling soldiers. He felt betrayed and backstabbed. “So this is how it is,” he said. “They choose loyalty over vision.”
Adam stepped forward. “They choose restraint over hunger.”
Jethro scoffed. “You always were afraid to want more.”
“And you always wanted it all.”
Then immediately, the table turned.
Adam turned to his brother. “Jethro of the Fallen Empire,” he said evenly, “you are under arrest for treason, attempted coup, and disturbing a recovering city.”
Jethro’s smile sharpened. “You think chains can hold me?”
Adam didn’t raise his voice. “Move.”
The soldiers advanced.
Sara stepped forward. “Adam, stop. Please.”
Adam glanced at his sister, no regret in his eyes. “I can't allow him take over the city while the Emperor is still alive. Never!”
Jethro flashed them a wicked smile; and as hands reached for him, he sighed theatrically. “You really should have killed me when you had the chance.”
“What chance?”
Jethro grinned. “Exactly.”
His body shimmered and his armor dropped to the floor with a hollow clatter. Where Jethro had stood, an eagle flapped.
Hilda gasped. “What!!!”
The bird of prey fluttered towards the window, zigzagging mockingly. It threw one last glance at Adam, flapped through the window and vanished into the light.
For a minute, everyone was too stunned to speak. It turned out that Jethro had horned his gift as a shapeshifter.
“Did we just lose a war… to an eagle?” A soldier finally found his voice.
Adam stared at the window. “No,” he said quietly. “We just postponed it.”
“He’ll come back.” Sara tried hard to convince herself, but… it was what it was.
Adam turned to the soldiers. “Seal the city and prepare Gamoth, If he’s learned to small, he’s learned to also perch, however long it would take.”
The soldiers nodded, already moving out.
Adam remained still a moment longer, staring at the sky where his brother had escaped, not in defeat, but in promise.
Some stories didn’t begin with armies, some began with wings and water; and this story was one of them.
- Writer
