Defense - Short Story (Part 2)

Morning found me in the same doorway where I sat down the night before to rest. With the first rays of a new day, memories came to my consciousness again. I was so tired, so exhausted. Scaled as a cloth after everything that happened.

For days, the city functioned as a barracks. Everything was ready to welcome those conquerors. Two days before that fateful day, all the small jobs and preparations were finished, and all we had left was to sit and wait.

The scouts I sent across the territory have not yet arrived in the same number as I sent them. Only those from the direction that the enemy should be coming back returned. The same reports as before, the great army, the conquerors, without any doubt, are moving towards us. After they explained in detail all they learned, my officers began to consider the current situation. The father, knowing that I was inexperienced, sent some of the best minds and the best warriors with me to this city. They thought that everything was going according to the plan, and that the preparations were done right, it's enough to break their attack here and bring them back from where they came.

I was personally worried about scouts who have not yet returned. They considered that there was no need for additional concern because they were not in their nature, nor inherent in their system of warfare, to attack from multiple fronts. They attributed this concern to my inexperience. But if I learned something from my father, it was to trust my instinct. I have sent even more scouts in the same directions with clear orders to return to tomorrow at dusk.

That night was not peaceful for me. I rolled around on the bed, something strange did not give me peace. But I believed in my officers, the same to those who gained glory in the struggles of the same or similar to this one and some much more bloody than these.

At noon the next day, as I walked the courtyard under the walls near the East Gate, the shout of soldiers drove me out of my thoughts. I quickly climbed to the nearest tower and saw the cause of that shouting in the yard. The horseman was coming by a dusty way, in a terrible state. Blood on his face and armor was clearly visible against the sun's rays. I issued an order for the Gate to open and quickly came down, and sent a mage there. This man first needs treatment.

As soon as he got help he was provided and I went to him. Our uniform, scattered in a thousand places, small cuts all over the body and one big wound on the side. How is this man alive?

"Speak, soldier, everything you can remember." That was all I said, trying not to sound tense or scared. My head was a chaos. How, what the hell is this coming from the direction of the capital? His face was defective, but I recognized him, I sent him in that direction.

The tension on his face was obvious, and the fear. Such a deep fear as if he survived the execution. I saw that the last atoms of the power he invested in the effort to speak. I looked up toward the magician who was in charge of his treatment and saw him shaking his head. So, soon there will be an end to this guy. No matter how selfishly I sound, I hoped it would at least be able to tell me something. Any information, at least what led to it, him being in this state.

"Prince, they deceived us. All these years, they are ..." a strong cough attack interrupted him in that sentence. It seemed as though his life was slowly vanishing in front of my eyes. The waves of agonal pain shook his body. And then a new cough attack.

"They are not what we thought of them ... magic ... great power ... another direction." And then another quake of the whole body of this unfortunate man. The fear I saw in his eyes was now in me. Such a great and real fear, the one that gets caught in the bone and follows you to the death bed.

I ran to the command center gathering my officers along the way. It will be a long night, and every day after it will be even longer.

Image 1