As the godly Serich surveyed his helpless foes, his mind burned with the hate and disdain he had for the Vayne. They had broken his greatest friend, and for that, they would die.
His only weakness, his only form of vulnerability was his queen.
As his heart led his eyes back to Rhea standing beneath the blue Soul Cauldron, the king committed a crucial error. Forneus was quick to follow Serich’s gaze, and as he learned of the queen’s position, he rose to his feet and howled out into the night air.
“We are honoured here tonight my brothers!” he wailed. “The queen has yet to withdraw from our presence!”
Wildly, the Serpent stabbed his sword at the queen.
“You were unwise not to lead your queen away from here,” he spat at the king. “You will suffer for your arrogance.”
As the determined king prepared to vindicate his only battle mistake, the Serpent grinned with delight.
“My Vayne!” he cried. “Bring me the heirs of Animus Letum!”
The Vayne, still paying no heed to the king’s great power, rose to their feet and set their yellow eyes on the Queen. As Rhea shuddered and held tightly to my shoulder, the mighty Serich roared in fury.
“YOU WILL NOT,” he bellowed as he raised his hands to the sky, “HARM MY QUEEN!”
Serich’s body began to burn once more, and as the fire raged around him like a tornado, the very foundation of the Throne Room began to tremble. With cracks and splinters, dozens of the giant stone pillars surrounding the Throne Room broke loose, and as Serich suspended the boulders high above his court, his eyes threatened any Vayne who would think to move.
The Vayne would not listen.
As the serpent soldiers continued to rush the queen, Serich plunged his hands downwards, and immediately, the suspended pillars barrelled down and began to crash heavily into the Throne Room. As the Vayne fell in droves, the impact of each massive stone sent swells of thunder throughout Serich’s court.
After the last of the thunder echoed away, the king retrieved his staff and stood ominously over the destruction in his Throne Room. Many more Vayne were destroyed, leaving only a dozen of Forneus’s initial three hundred.
Forneus took note of his casualties but remained poised. With an arrogant wave, he ordered his remaining serpents to continue their pursuit of the queen. As they tore across the court, the Serpent turned his hellish eyes upon the king.
“You will see, Sire, that even your great power bows to persistence.”
Serich made no reply. Instead, while effortlessly defeating every member of the Vayne within reach, he grew closer to Forneus.
As Serich reached him, the traitor grinned in amusement. “You will not find this an easy task,” he grinned.
With a snarl, Serich drove his massive fist into Forneus’s cheek. The Serpent Messiah, in spite of the deep and dripping laceration under his eye, did not seem fazed. His eyes glowed an even more devilish orange, and with a wicked smile he scolded the king.
“Surprised, Serich? How about another?”
The queen and I were in shock. Even the king halted in confusion. Never had an opponent withstood his fist, let alone remain standing, begging for more.
“Come, Serich!” Forneus screamed. “You owe me more than that! Destroy me, oh brother! Strike me down!”
“As you wish,” Serich consented.
With devastating force, the king delivered five furious strikes to Forneus’s body, targeting pressure points that would result in permanent paralysis. As each shot rocked the Serpent’s core, Forneus let out a series of whimpers, and then crumpled lifelessly to the ground.
The Serpent Messiah was silent. Curled in a fetal position, his voice seeped out weakly, whimpering as he squirmed like a wounded snake.
Serich stood over him, his eyes heavy with regret.
“You left me no choice,” he whispered.
A tear fell from the king’s eye as he surveyed the broken shell of his old friend.
“Damn you,” he cursed. “You were of my throne.”
Forneus seemed to be gasping for air through his sobs, but the serpent’s voice slowly turned from a painful whimper into a deep, menacing laugh. With a cackle, Forneus began to rise to his feet.
“Impossible!” the king protested.
Slowly, Forneus rose completely, and as he cranked his neck back and forth, each loud snap of his vertebrae broke the Throne Room’s silence. With menace in his eyes, he turned back to the king, grinning as he tasted the blood the king had drawn from his cheek. Already stunned by his opponent’s recovery from the attack, Serich looked at Forneus with even more confusion. Forneus’s tongue was thin, black and double pronged like a serpent’s.
The Serpent offered another grin, letting his black tongue dart and lash across the streaks of blood on his face.
“You were arrogant,” he spat. “You assumed that all power in this land belonged to your throne. Has it never occurred to you that despite all your efforts, the Dark Pool only grows?”
The king would not hear such blasphemy. “You’re mad. You know the Pool only speaks in deceit.”
“You’re mistaken,” Forneus replied. “The Dark Pool abides by rules older than your house. And as you waited for your heir, so too did the serpents.”
Forneus’s devilish eyes met the king’s. “I, Serich, am that heir.”
“Then you shall die with their cause,” Serich promised.
“I am beyond the hands of death,” Forneus crowed. “Each strike, any infliction of pain against my flesh only grants me more power. I now feed on pain,” he cried. “The Dark Pool has allowed me to feed upon despair. Hit me again,” the Serpent provoked. “Prove my words true.”
Serich held his regal pose.
“You must only build on what can never be taken away,” he said.
“I disagree,” Forneus countered. “I will build on what I take from you.”
With another motion of his hand, fifty more Vayne ascended the royal staircase into the Throne Room. As the Vayne began to surround the king, Forneus lunged several times at Serich, driving his sword at the king’s heart. The king parried each attack and after a quick step, he used Forneus’s momentum to send the Serpent tumbling across the Throne Room floor.
With a furious scream, Forneus bounded back to his feet.
“Enough games,” he roared. “Bear witness to my true power!”
With his eyes raging like coals, the Serpent Messiah cast his hands violently over the Throne Room, and almost instantly the marble floor erupted into a blazing orange wildfire. Amid the flames, the Vayne stood still, immune to the fire’s burn. As the falling debris began to descend thicker and faster, suddenly, from all directions, a cold wind ripped through the Throne Room. The fire swayed in feral bursts, but soon the wind seemed to bond with the fire and two amber silhouettes began to take form.
“Here is the proof of my bond with the Dark Pool!” Forneus screamed.
As the blazing figures quickly assumed their complete form, the Serpent narrowed his gaze onto the king.
“Dragons, my lord. Your forefather Perian would remember these beasts well.”
The dragons stood fifteen feet high and had ebon black talons and fangs. Their massive flaming wings stretched across their backs, and their torsos were like giant pieces of coal held together by veins of fire. As the dragons seemed to unfold their limbs and wings, each movement of their joints released an exploding ball of flame.
The dragons scraped their claws against the marble. The Vayne surrounding the king charged inwards, trying to stun Serich. The strategy was insulting to Serich’s greatness. With a powerful leap, the king exploded into the air and began to use his power of flight as his battle advantage.
As he floated mightily above the court, Serich stretched his hand out over the Throne Room, and with a sudden flare, blue fire began to spring from the marble floor. With hisses and snaps, the blue and orange fires clashed and curled at each other – the Lyran and Dark Pool – in a war of flame
.
As the flames burned throughout the court, Forneus’s dragons rose onto their hind legs, and after extending their long thin necks, they launched up into the skies to face the king.
Serich was ready. Masterfully, he caught the first dragon by its long thin throat and began to squeeze the life out of it. In retaliation, the second dragon spewed its fire at Serich, but the king used the dragon in his grasp as a shield.
Down on the floor of the Throne Room, Serich’s blue fire had begun to overpower its orange counterpart. Forneus’s voice – maddening at the futile state of his attacks – barked orders to his Vayne.
“The queen!” he yelled again. “Destroy the queen!” The Vayne undertook the mission immediately. While still quarrelling with the dragons, Serich managed to call down to me.
“Charon!” he bellowed. “Hold them back! Use this!”
With a lob, Serich tossed his mighty staff to my feet. The staff, unlike the royal crown, could be used by anyone. I quickly retrieved it and struck it into the Throne Room floor. The blue fire instantly burned more intensely, and as it burst and popped over the marble, it consumed all of the Vayne approaching the queen.
I was holding them at bay, buying the king the time he needed. As I used the staff to cast even more power into the blue flames, suddenly a dagger shot through the air and pierced into my right ankle. With a wince, I fell back, and as the staff fell from my hands, the entirety of blue flames extinguished.
No longer held back by the blue fire, Forneus approached to claim his dagger. Shamed by my failure, I watched as the Vayne began to close in on the queen. My heart pleaded and begged for Serich to somehow undo my failure, but the dragons’ relentless attack on the king had left Rhea open to the Vayne’s pursuit. I attempted again to protect Rhea, but the Vayne quickly pinned me to the floor. Acknowledging my defeat, The king somehow coursed his voice, like a gentle thunder, through my head.
“Charon, my friend,” he spoke, “this is not the end.”
Even amid the carnage, the king’s voice put me at ease. That calm was turned to disdain as another voice sounded out in the Throne Room.
“Leave Charon alive,” Forneus ordered as he slowly approached. “He may prove useful.”
With another tongue lash, the villain turned his attention to the queen, pinning her against the Soul Cauldron.
“As for the beautiful Rhea…” he seethed, grinning at the prospect of hurting Serich through the queen. “You, my dear, will embrace a different fate.”
Ashamed of her old friend, Rhea spat in the Serpent’s face.
“You have disgraced yourself,” she scolded.
The Serpent Messiah only beamed with amusement.
“Oh, my queen,” he revelled, “your words mean nothing. Can you not see this is your end? Your world has ceased. Mine has begun.”
“Are you mad?” Rhea cried. “Look at what you’ve done! You were of our house! You were our brother!”
Forneus offered a sinister grin. “Better a king than a servant.”
Rhea looked the Serpent dead in his eyes. “You know damn well that you were more than that.”
“Yes, and today I prove it.”
“You have not earned this world,” the queen said. “Only the worthy will reign."
“Perhaps,” Forneus weighed, “but fortunately, there is about to be a vacancy on the throne. My Vayne!” he cried, “bind the queen’s arms! Let’s see how bravely this heart beats.”
Forneus looked pleased with himself as he waited for his serpent brothers to seize the queen.
Rhea smiled at him coldly.
“Your arrogance has blinded you,” she said.
“My Vayne!” Forneus bellowed.
None came.
With a hiss, Forneus turned furiously toward the center of the Throne Room. His Vayne all lay bloody and lifeless, their heads and appendages strewn across the marble floor. Two giant mounds of smouldering ash, topped with broken and battered wings, lay burning in the center of the Throne Room.
Serich stood ominously over the chaos, blood and ash streaked against every inch of his towering frame. The king’s eyes burned an even wilder electric blue, and as he set his gaze upon Forneus, the Serpent Messiah stumbled back.
In desperation, Forneus clutched the queen by the neck, but even with Rhea in the Serpent’s grip, the king continued to approach.
As the king’s eyes burned at his old friend, a tempest of winds began to rip through the Throne Room,
“Your Vayne are dead,” Serich growled. “Your dragons are dead. And your cause,” he promised, “is destroyed. You have lost.”
“Back!” Forneus hissed as he drew his blade to Rhea’s throat.
Serich slowed his march.
“I still stand,” Forneus cried. “Your victory will only be achieved with my defeat. And as for my cause?” he said as he pounded the butt end of his sword over his heart. “It still beats.”
Forneus clutched his arm tightly around the queen’s frame. “But you, Serich,” he said while tapping his sword against Rhea’s pregnant stomach, “will watch your cause die!”
With another hiss, Forneus wrenched the queen’s hair back, and after exposing her bare neck, he sliced wildly at her throat.
“No!” the king screamed.
With urgency, Serich leapt to the queen’s aid, but Forneus had already completed the stroke of his blade. As the king lunged at the traitor, he quickly summoned his mighty staff, and as it reached his hands, he pierced the weapon through Forneus’s chest. The king’s strike narrowly missed Forneus’s heart, but Serich used it as leverage to volley the Serpent back across the Throne Room. As Forneus sailed overhead, Serich dropped his staff and quickly caught Rhea’s fall.
Forneus’s blade had cut deep. Rhea’s life was dwindling.
With whimpers and coughs, Forneus lay still on the marble. But as the blood spilled from the deep puncture in his chest, the pain, by way of the bond he had made with the Dark Pool, began to make him stronger.
“Brothers!” he raged as he rose to his feet. “Come! Both lord and legacy fall by my hand!”
Dozens more serpents ascended the royal staircase. As the Vayne immediately set across the Throne Room in hunt for the king, Forneus crept slowly behind them, swinging his blade in small maniacal arcs.
Serich ignored them and knelt, holding his Queen in his arms. His electric blue eyes dimmed considerably as he wiped a tear from her cheek.
“Rhea,” The king’s voice trembled, “forgive me.”
The queen, severely bleeding from the deep wound on her throat, could barely speak. As she shook in tremors and her breath seeped out of her, Serich clutched to her hands. Bravely, Rhea forced her gaze up, but as she saw the emotion locked in Serich’s eyes, she began to shake her head.
She could see what her king was planning.
“No…” her strangled voice protested.
The king offered a gentle smile as he removed his crown and placed it on her pregnant stomach.
“We live on,” he whispered.
As gently as he could, the king caressed Rhea’s cheek and then handed her the mighty staff.
“Hold on to these,” he begged, “as tightly as you can.”
The queen nodded as tears streamed down her face.
As he sensed the Vayne growing closer, the king acknowledged their proximity with an unforgiving grimace. With a grunt, his eyes flared with blue fire, and after gathering what strength he had left, the king bowed his head. Suddenly, a thick wave of blue energy exploded from his body, and as the energy scorched back across the Throne Room, it decimated the Vayne close to him and restrained the movement of the Vayne further away.
With another smile at his wife, Serich placed his hand over Rhea’s wounded neck, healing her wound as best he could. It would not save her, but it would buy her the time she needed. The king’s hand then moved over the queen’s heart, and with another sudden burst, Lyran fire emerged from his hand and began to encompass the queen’s body.<
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As the fire lifted Rhea into the air, Serich whispered his last words to her.
“I love you.”
The words seemed to echo in the air, and as Rhea looked over Serich’s shoulders to the approaching Vayne, she said the same.
As the Vayne hacked through the energy, they began to inch towards the king. Inches were not enough for their leader. With a primal yell, Forneus’s madness erupted into a wild sword-slashing offensive, and as his blade hewed through the blue matter, he began to advance directly towards the king’s back.
The queen, still hanging in the blue flame, still holding to Serich’s crown and staff, watched helplessly as Forneus sliced his way closer to her king.
“No…” she cried.
The whole of Serich’s power had been exhausted in summoning his great energy, and with his life force drained, he managed a final smile to his queen.
Then, as the Serpent grew within reach of the mighty Serich, and a wild hiss sprayed from his mouth, the villain struck.
Forneus stabbed his blade into Serich’s back, piercing his sword directly into the king’s heart. As the king collapsed, the blue energy he had conjured evaporated. The fire surrounding the queen, however, grew instantly more intense, and with a thunderous boom the fire imploded in on itself and Rhea vanished into the air.
Forneus wasn’t aware of what had happened. He would forge countless unrewarding searches for the answer, but his mind would never claim the knowledge that mine held: Rhea, pregnant and fading, was sent to your earth realm.
Indisputably, Forneus had killed the king, and taken the throne. However, Serich’s deed would never be undone.
The Sons of Animus Letum Page 2
