by W. C. Jasper
Right before Prince Jared had made contact with his first target, he had also launched three throwing knives with his left hand. These knives were meant for the three soldiers who were hidden from the sight of anyone outside the house, two on the south-eastern side of the room, and one on the south-western side of the room. These throwing knives were specially designed and crafted by King Jeraash for himself and his brother. Their blades were long, square-based pyramids, the handles had thin leather wrappings, and the tails were spheres.
Only one soldier remained uninitiated now, who stood at the western end of the main room, surveilling the western window. Everything had happened at such an inhuman speed that his brain was just then processing the sound from the intrusion. He was about to start turning to see what was happening when he was rocked by a devastating punch to the front of his jaw. The pain registered in his mind only when his head was already flying. Long before which, the bottom half of his helmet had shattered and the pieces scattered. He was knocked unconscious almost instantaneously as Prince Jared’s eyes instinctively glanced at the dane. Based on the positioning, and with only seconds left to take down the rest of the party, Prince Jared knew that there was no need to dispose of this dane at the moment.
At this moment, there were still four soldiers who were conscious and would soon make a move. He had already gained a very good understanding of exactly how strong their armours were, and just as he had guessed, they were strong enough to withstand two powerful blows with a heavy hammer. He made the decision to first neutralise the soldier struck with the arrow.
He lunged across the room and delivered a spinning roundhouse kick that landed on his temple like a metal ball connected to an iron chain being swung at full force. As his foot made contact, the helmet shattered and his face flew off, carrying his body behind it, with his consciousness already shut down when his body took flight. With very little time at hand, and three soldiers still conscious, he knew that attacking the last three soldiers made more sense than disposing of this dane.
The three soldiers had almost recovered and were now reaching for the danes. When his last victim had just taken flight, Prince Jared had already almost reached two of the remaining soldiers on the southeast. He caught the two soldiers by the rear end of the collars of their armours and threw them into the one on the south-west like a hurricane hurling people around in rage. As the three of them fell to the ground, Prince Jared had already reached them and started to remove the helmets of two of them before they could do anything about it. He quickly banged their heads together with just enough force to render them unconscious immediately. The kindness they received as compared to the pain Prince Jared would have liked to unleash was something that the Prince accounted as collateral damage on account of his need for efficiency at the moment.
He then looked at the last soldier with a queer and funny expression, soliciting a reaction. The soldier, quaking in fear, removed his helmet and spoke with a quivering voice, “I… surrender.” The soldier’s mouth had just closed after finishing his words when his jaw received a perfectly calculated punch from the Prince with just enough force to render him unconscious. “You can make your move, My King!” yelled the Prince with a loud, relaxed voice as he now surveyed the room.
The hostages consisted of 14 people, which included the heads of the household i.e., the father and mother, five daughters, one son, one daughter-in-law, and five grandchildren. As the Prince was undoing their bonds, he asked, “Are any of you hurt?”
The mother replied in a shaky voice, “We are fine, My Prince, none of us is hurt, thank you so much, we—” when she was cut off by the Prince sniffing the air like a bloodhound, “I’m sorry to interrupt you, My Lady, but do I smell bread and chocolate pudding?”
In a still shaky voice, she replied, “My Prince, you mustn’t address a commoner like me that way!”
Prince Jared spoke again, conveying a little more urgency in his voice, “Do I smell bread and chocolate pudding?”
“I will get you some!” exclaimed the seven-year-old child in excitement as if there were no aftereffects of the traumatic experience he had just then endured and dashed to the kitchen. Even in a state of being entranced by the seduction of the food’s aroma, Prince Jared noticed that the seven-year-old’s mental resilience and fortitude was extraordinary.
The Prince secured the danes, bound up the soldiers, and proceeded to down an entire serving of bread and chocolate pudding meant for approximately four or five people in a single mouthful, relishing every single molecule with the appreciation it deserved. He thanked the family for the pudding as he took a couple of seconds to register the taste in his mind, savouring the food and the moment.
Just as he was about to move, he noticed that one of the little girls in the family had sustained an injury on her arm. It was a fresh cut (albeit a very minor one) that was definitely caused by a sword’s blade. He quickly scanned the soldiers and noticed that only one of their swords had drawn blood. It was the same soldier whom he had knocked out at the very last with a punch to the face. His nostrils flared as he cracked his neck muscles and his eyes sparkled with a quiescent rage, one that faintly resembled bloodlust. He quickly calmed himself and made a mental note of the soldier and his own intentions about him before he proceeded to drag the bundle of soldiers out of the house.
King Jeraash threw his mantle to Thaymas, who was now standing behind him to his right-hand side. He unsheathed his swords from the holsters in his back unhurriedly as their sound rang gloriously, cutting smoothly through the light breeze of the morning. As a few red and green leaves danced by, floating in the morning breeze, the blades shone like polished platinum in the sunlight. As he gave them both unhurried, single forward spins and brought them down to rest at his sides, they radiated the sun’s light like the moon itself.
“It is time for you to be taken in”, said the King with his calm voice, stating a matter of fact. The Captain from Gessold reached for his sword mustering all the speed he could. But before his hand could reach anywhere near his sword, the King had already reached the two soldiers standing to his right. The Captain’s brain froze in petrification now, wondering how the King could have covered a distance of 15 feet in less than a second. As the Captain turned around and his eyes widened in fear, all he could see beyond the clouds of dust was the silhouettes of his soldiers lying on the ground and the King leisurely spinning around his swords.
The Captain was not to blame of course. After all, the King and Prince were dubbed as gods because of how unjustly greater they were than other humans. The King’s movements were far too fast for the Captain’s eyes to have been able to follow. In fact, the Captain’s eyes could not have followed the movements of any of Jerudia’s elite warriors.
As soon as the Captain had started to reach for his sword; King Jeraash had moved at an inhuman speed and dug the hilts of his swords into the soldiers’ helmets and sent them crashing to the ground like metal planks. When the dust settled, he saw King Jeraash still playfully spinning around his swords and waiting for the Captain to respond. The King’s face displayed no expression. No anger, no rush, nothing.
Seeing that the other soldier and the Captain were frozen in fear, King Jeraash proceeded to shift his twin swords to his left hand. And with his right hand, he picked up each soldier by the collar of their armours. One by one he picked them up with ease, as if lifting a book and threw them towards the bundle of the six soldiers. One of the Jerudian soldiers standing by rushed in and tied up their hands and legs at the Prince’s signal.
The Captain and his only remaining soldier charged at the King with their full might as the King stood motionless with expressionless eyes, as if he was waiting for something to happen. The soldier and the Captain reached the King and their blades started to rejoice when the King suddenly vanished from before their eyes. Like a magician’s disappearing act, in an instant, he was gone! Suddenly, they felt a devastating blow like a metal rod trying to dig into their backs. Both
of them were sent crashing to the ground and five feet forward with holes in the back of their armours. The King’s movements were so fast that even Thaymas’ extraordinary eyes had not been able to track them. And to add to his surprise, it was the King’s elbows and not the hilts of his swords that were the cause of the holes in their armours.
Suddenly, there was a ruckus as the Jerudian soldier who had tied up the two intruders was levitating, lifted clean off the ground by a single hand with ease. One of the two soldiers that King Jeraash had knocked down earlier had regained consciousness and had broken his bonds and attacked the Jerudian soldier who had bound him. With no effort whatsoever, he threw the Jerudian soldier at the fence wall with a great force, rendering him unconscious immediately with a copious amount of blood gushing out. The unbelievable ease with which he had held him up and thrown him into the wall with a single hand was rare, even in Jerudia. All the Jerudian soldiers within sight astounded at this unnatural strength.
The King and the Prince shot a look at each other with no discernible expression for a couple of seconds. Prince Jared sighed, “This is annoying…” and proceeded to get up to deal with the soldier who had broken free. Just as he got to his feet, General Thayman swooped in like a gust of wind. Out of nowhere, the left-handed General Thayman darted at him and stuck his left palm to the left side of the soldier’s head and buried it in the ground as if he were using the soldier’s head as a hammer to drive a nail into the ground. The soldier was already unconscious when the winds caused by the General’s arrival caught up to him. Immediately upon contact with the ground, the soldier’s helmet shattered and what was left of it rolled off to the side.
“I think we’ve played around enough. It’s time to take these intruders to the prison,” declared King Jeraash solemnly and sternly as he sheathed his swords and started walking to his horse, signalling for his mantle. Thaymas was still wondering if there really could be a General more intimidating than his father and the Prince when his right ear spooked him as a whisper creeped in with a queer voice, “Do you really think that the Captain should be brought in by the unranked soldiers?”
Prince Jared was the first person who had ever managed to sneak up on Thaymas. Thaymas was stunned by the fact that someone could sneak up on him. But he quickly snapped himself back into focus and replied, “I think not, My Prince.” The Prince had not really asked him the question for his input, rather to understand how Thaymas’ thought process worked based on his reaction and response. “Hmm… me too,” replied the Prince as he proceeded to carry the Captain on his own shoulders all the way to the prison on his horse.
The prison was ten minutes from the Royal Palace by a horse ride. It was situated underground and had only one entrance through a staircase eight feet wide. As the party arrived at the prison, they met the third General who was already present there with another squad of ten soldiers from Gessold. The King shook his head in discontentment at the sight of the third General’s handiwork and proceeded to survey the prison as the new prisoners were being assigned cells. General Thayman let out a hearty laugh and spoke in his large voice, “How becoming of you to beat them to a pulp instead of—” when he was cut off by General Hana Zivaala in a voice that betrayed her suppressed anger, “I did my best. But they were dutifully dedicated to angering me. They felt that a woman was not a worthy opponent for them. So, I…” she shrugged nonchalantly with haughty eyes that could not even pretend to care, “educated them.”
“Well, that settles it,” said Prince Jared mumbling under his breath in a barely audible voice, “obviously your wrath takes precedence over the cause of the kingdom.”
“Did you speak something?” roared General Hana with a fire in her eyes that made Thaymas almost take a step back.
Prince Jared’s eyes stole away from her and bounced around in fear as he answered in visible panic, “Uh— no— n— nothing— I was just— making a song—.”
Thaymas was stunned. He could not believe that the Prince who was dubbed the greatest warrior to ever walk the Earth could be scared of someone. As he slowly realised that when the King mentioned “the scariest General”, his remark was sincere. Thaymas swallowed his spit in absolute fear. He could now see from Prince Jared’s nervous behaviour that there really was someone who scared the Prince himself. General Hana Zivaala of the GSS Arm (Garrison And Strike Squad) was the second-youngest General in history who became General at the age of 25 and was now 28 years old.
Thaymas was now bewildered at the Prince’s unbecoming behaviour, he could not believe that this man who was a nervous wreck at the moment was the same warrior who had destroyed six armoured soldiers of Gessold in an impossible situation and that too without taking any damage AND without having to resort to kill anyone. General Hana calmed herself down with quite some effort and continued with a voice that was still quite obviously displeased, “Make sure that the Captain you brought in is bound in chains and not just in ropes. The Captain that I hauled in had uncommon strength, enough strength to lift a carriage weighing around 400 kgs by himself.”
“That makes sense,” responded Prince Jared in a serious voice now, “one of the soldiers we have brought in showed uncommon strength as well, this unranked soldier lifted one of our soldiers by the neck with far too much ease… I think it is safe to assume that all of the intruders possess extraordinary strength.” He had returned to being a fearless and fearsome warrior in an instant once again, as if all the fearful dramatics he had manifested a minute ago had been completely wiped out of history.
General Thayman added with a thoughtful expression, “Still does not explain how they came by such strength…. Excluding us, even in our kingdom, we probably only have 17 people who possess strength enough for such feats. This kind of strength isn’t easily developed. Such low-ranking soldiers of Gessold possessing such strength is most suspicious,” as he drifted off into deep thought.
Thaymas was now slowly studying and trying to read General Hana. Her rose-beige skin was bright and light, yet carried a warm shade of peach and was flawless and phenomenally pleasing to the eyes. Her seductively enchanting face with a slightly pointy chin and silver eyes with sparkling light blue in it like shards of sapphires would remind one of a goddess. And the beauty spot below her lips on the left side was placed perfectly on her beautiful visage. Her golden hair, flowing like a wavy river of liquid sun rays carried an individual spell of its own. Her figure was like an hourglass - the most intoxicating female form he had ever seen. Her perfect curves and gorgeously toned body looked like temptation and loveliness took on human form and walked the Earth. She wore a dark and rich crimson coloured qipao-like attire with white linings and golden-silk embroidery, decorated with white and yellow gold that was befitting a warrior and looked becoming of a lady of a noble household. The lower part of her dress had sections like inverted triangles hanging from the waist. They hung out freely, each section separated at the point of origin at the waist. The hangings were shaped like flames of fire, flowing all the way to her knees; and beneath them, she wore skin-tight black slacks. Her long, white boots, reaching halfway beyond her shins, had delicate subtle golden decorations. On her left shin, she wore a leather wrapping that holstered a beautifully crafted white dagger with decorations in gold that looked like a dagger crafted by the angels. She carried a unique two-ended scythe that was 5 feet and 5 inches long, black and crimson in colour, and decorated with scarce but lofty golden designs. Unlike traditional two-ended scythes, the blades on both ends extended to both sides. It was a weapon that was as magnificent as it was fearsome. Not many could even wield such a weapon, but in the hands of someone who could wield it, it was one of the deadliest weapons on Earth. And in the hands of General Hana Zivaala, it is doubtful that any other weapon in all of Earth would have been deadlier.
The first observation Thaymas made about General Hana was that she was a lady who commanded respect and order with her mere presence, and it had nothing to do with how intimidating she was. Her aura p
rojected unbridled power, immeasurable rage, and sheer intimidation. Once again, Thaymas was looking at a person whose body housed a physical strength far greater than her physical form should allow her to. He also sensed a ferocity in her that justified to him what King Jeraash had spoken about her. Something told him that she was the last person on the planet he should ever anger. Thaymas sensed that much like Prince Jared, she also was someone who was born to be a warrior. He sensed her to be far more shrewd and much more mature than Prince Jared which did not make sense to Thaymas based on what he had gotten to witness thus far. For the shortest moment, he sensed that she too was hiding something about the core of her identity. But he snapped himself out of it, “I am getting carried away now… Not everyone is carrying a deep secret… Moreover, she is clearly an extremely private person. So, everything her mind houses is probably a secret.”
“We should start questioning them without wasting any time,” said General Hana.
The King was returning from his inspection of the prison when he replied to her, “Yes, but you shall not be actively participating in this interrogation. Oddly, you can be as much of a hothead as the Prince. Except, even the Prince showed tremendously impressive restraint in combat today, while you chose to let me down. You have disappointed and disgraced me while I boast of you as the shrewdest of my three Generals.”
“I apologise for not exercising better restraint, My King. I will contribute to the investigation with prudence and discretion; if you will allow,” she replied with a hint of shame.
