Enlightened Empire

Chapter 413: Cotton

Finally, it was time for Herak to enjoy his revenge. However, when he pulled on the axe to retrieve it from the recently slain soldier, he could feel the weapon brush against bone. The axe was stuck. He had never liked using axes, and this was the reason.

Time is of the essence.

Rather than try for the axe again, he instead grabbed for the first thing in his view that looked vaguely like a tool for murder. His right brushed past the shocked eyes of the dying commoner, into his hair and up in the air, as Herak ripped the helmet off the commoner's face. Their armor was almost non-existent, but the southerners still wore solid helmets of metal. When Herak stood up and turned again, only a few seconds had passed since he had thrown his dagger.

In the meantime, the second commoner was still struggling to get up while holding onto his comically long weapon. His pretty white costume was stained with mud. Now he looked as ridiculous as his attempt to kill Herak. Before the commoner could react, the lord had jumped onto his body. Both landed on the ground, with Herak on top, as he brought down his helmet-covered right onto the commoner's face again and again.

"You dare stand in my way!? Do you!?" Herak shouted at the mess of red underneath him. "None of you shall obstruct my path! None! Your merchant will die! And I shall return home once more! Arcavus be my witness, I will escape this god-forsaken land! You dare prevent me!? Dare harm me!? Are you satisfied with your reward for bravery!? Is this what you wanted!?"

Finally, Herak woke up from his mania, and looked at his work underneath him. The mixed up mush of flesh, brain and bones no longer resembled anything human. Even for him, who had seen and done many acts of barbarity, it was a repulsive sight. With heavy breaths, he tried to control his pumping heart, to limited success.

When Herak got back up on his feet at last, the helmet in his hand had been painted red, and his right shoulder felt sore from the repeated strikes at the ground. Even so, there was still work to be done. He had wasted too much time on a corpse already.

To catch his breath and reassess his position, he finally looked around again. All this time, his focus had only been on his immediate surroundings, so now he had to check for more enemies who may have appeared in the meantime. To his surprise, most commoner soldiers in the immediate vicinity had been cleaned up already.

While he had been busy turning his five commoner opponents into pulp, more and more of his knights had managed to make their way past the walls as well. The obstacles the merchant had put in their way had been great, but not great enough to stop his army of elites. Once they had passed the wall and trench, they also got involved in combat with the readied commoners, but most of them had resolved their own fights by now.

Apart from a few who were still stuck in combat or holding back the sporadic enemy reinforcements at the edges of their position, the others had begun to form around Herak again. All in all, he still had about two dozen men to work with.

"Spread out! Buy us more time," Herak ordered, before he turned towards the head knight of the group. "Taarken, your group follows along and helps me break through to their command tent!"

Although he would have preferred to have Felian Northdale here with him, his usual head knight was still fighting against pirates on the western islands. Thus, he had to make do with Taarken. However, all his knights had been carefully selected, and were more than capable. Thus, the men were organized quickly.

In response to the orders, most of the remaining knights rushed into the enemy camp, to create as much chaos as possible. None of them needed any further instructions. They would make the best decisions on their own. This was real training, and real loyalty, unlike the machine-like nonsense the commoners of Saniya had been instilled with by their merchant king. For once, Herak thought, he would be the one to teach the merchant a lesson, though it would be the last of his life.

As the men spread out, Herak picked his broadsword back up - as well as the bow that he had dropped at some point during the previous scuffle - and made his way into the camp as well. Unlike his knights who would enter and then search for targets to disrupt, Herak's goal had been clear right from the start. Even in the camp, surrounded by tents to block his view, the tall flag atop the southern army's command tent was still clearly visible. There, he would find his nemesis, and finally slay his demons.

The camp of the southern army was clean, and well put together. In contrast with the state of a typical military camp, none of the tents were put up randomly. All of them were built in straight lines, with clear and straight corridors to connect them. Everything had order. Surely, this was a great system for quick mobilization, and it would make managing the troops much easier.

However, it also made it much easier for intruders to spread chaos within this order. Even more, it also made Herak's path remarkably straightforward.

Another lesson to teach the merchant.

Without any interruptions, Herak and the five remaining knights around head knight Taarken simply marched north, towards the tallest hill within the camp walls. Over there, he could already see the large command tent of their merchant king, and his ostentatious, purple flag that smelled of copper even from here.

So close. Almost there.

Unconsciously, Herak's feet sped up, all his mind bound by that tent atop the hill alone. Like a maelstrom it pulled him in, towards his destiny, towards freedom. Yet from one second to the next, the world turned and he lost his vision. By the time he came to his senses again, there was a buzzing in his head, and he lay on the ground.

What happened?

His ears rang, so he couldn't hear anything, and he couldn't see from his left eye anymore. Confused, he looked around and saw that his knights had already killed another one of the southern soldiers. Another axe wielder. One of his knights helped Herak back up on his feet. With his vision blurred, he couldn't tell which one.

Once he stood again, the duke felt for the side of his head where he had been hit. By the time his fingers ran across sharp, jagged metal, he finally realized what had happened.

He tried to take off his mask but it was stuck to the left side of his face. A bit more force removed it, and pieces of his skin and flesh with it. Finally, he held the mask in front of his good eye and saw that the bronze had been completely ripped apart along his left temple. This wasn't the kind of damage a commoner could cause, not even with leverage. This attacker had been a cultivator.

Clearly, the enemy warrior had waited around one of the tents and then hit his head with an axe when he had rushed past. In the end, Herak had paid a heavy price for his carelessness. His vision was blurred by now. One of his eyes had shut as blood from his head wound had gushed over it. However, despite the severity of the wound, his head barely hurt. Instead, it felt as if the entire world had been covered in cotton, dampened, as if he was about to drift away.

No, not yet.

The mask that had protected the duke for so many years, the one that had been both a curse and a relief, finally slipped from his fingers. Once more, Herak stared at the tent atop the distant hill as he squinted through his blurred vision.

Almost there. So close!

Determined to see things through to the end, he turned to his men.

"Charge," he shouted as clearly as he could, in order to reassure them. He wanted to say more, but had trouble thinking straight. All that kept him going was that tent at the end of his vision. The group sped up, and soon began to charge up the hill. Immediately, Herak saw his final obstacle: Another four guards stationed in front of the tent's entrance. How many final obstacles had that been? Would there be another one? He didn't know, though he barely knew anything by that point.

Again, warriors.

As if on instinct, Herak pulled his bow off his back. His best weapon to face a worthy foe. As he nocked the arrow and took aim, everything in his vision began to slide around, like they were fighting on a ship's deck. Only the tent alone remained in focus. He fired a shot, but wasn't sure if he had hit anything.

One left. Need to save it.

From the beginning, he had planned to save one last arrow in case the cowardly merchant were to run away and he had to chase him down. However, by this point, his thoughts weren't so clear anymore. Herak operated merely on instinct.

While he had been busy trying to steady his arm for the shot, his men had charged ahead and engaged the other warriors. Thus, Herak had the chance to simply run past everyone, towards the tent's entrance. In truth, he barely noticed the enemy warriors anymore, so focused was he on his goal. Had he noticed that the guards were the newly established grenadier troops, who were more than a match for his knights, maybe he would have supported his men instead. However, his mind no longer noticed such details.

In fact, their counter attack was almost pointless by now. They had lost all of their elites in the attempt. He alone entered the tent, heavily injured, to fight a cultivator who was still in good health. And that was the best case, in which he would find the merchant in his tent by himself.

If Herak managed to take the king hostage, he would have been in no state to make it back out of the camp by himself. If he killed him, then he would never make it out of here alive, let alone return back to Borna. However, none of that mattered anymore. There was only one thought left for Herak.

Kill

Kill

Kill

Like a curse, the one word kept swirling through his mind, once for every time his head pulsed from the dulled pain. Finally, he had reached his goal, finally, he would give the merchant his just deserts.

With all his remaining, considerable strength, Herak gripped his broad sword tightly and charged into the open tent. Yet what greeted him was not the terrified face of the fat merchant. It was a deadly boom that cut right through the cotton and hit the beast like thunder.

"Huh?" Herak uttered a single noise, as he looked at the man who knelt opposite him, a long rifle in his hands. He didn't know who this arcavian in the white uniform was, but he certainly wasn't the merchant king. At last, he understood that Corco had never even been here. Everything had just been a delusion, he had never had a chance.

Finally, Herak looked down at his own body, and the large hole that had opened up in his chest, the one breached by the rifle. At last, the fog lifted and his mind cleared. He thought back to his home, to his brother and his lands. He wanted to return, smell the air of Balit's forests again. He wanted to warn his brother, and his fellow nobles, about the danger of this southern kingdom, about the unstoppable threat they would pose soon if they couldn't be stopped now. However, everything was too late, and no more sounds left the duke's lips.

At last, Herak sank to the ground, never to open his eyes again.

Thus died Duke Herak of Balit, hero throughout his life, beast in his final days.