The court parts like a wave before the advance of the Silver Warrior, his dark boots leaving muddy prints on the pristine marble floor. The Royal Guard, fanned out before the Crimson King’s Throne, bristle, their hands going to the hilts of their weapons.
‘Thou dare approach the throne,’ snarls the King, clad in his resplendent armour. ‘Thou art nothing but a reaver, a madman. Thou art nothing more than a walking corpse.’
The Silver Warrior halts in the centre of the floor, his final footstep echoing up to the high ceiling. He stands braced before the cadre of Royal Guard, Knights all from baronies minor and major. Trained to kill. To impose an iron will. They are the King’s Right Hand. The Silver Warrior has seen many such arrangements, in many other, distant places. Some rules don’t change.
‘Turn over all you have to the people,’ says the Silver Warrior. ‘You castle, your riches, and your crown. Go now, and you may yet live out the rest of your days in peace.’
The King grins. ‘Be gone, despoiler.’
The court mutters behind the Silver Warrior.
‘Are you sure that is your answer?’
A singing of steel as the Royal Guard draw their blades. They have him a dozen to one.
‘Die,’ the King commands.
The Royal Guard barely raise their swords before the air around them is ripped apart with a screaming cacophony the likes of which this world has never heard. The pulse rifle in the Silver Warrior’s hands rips through the Knights in a clean arc.
Their armour, mangled with their flesh, clatters to the tiles of the room. The courtiers behind to scream and howl in terror. A bright red fan of blood spreads out across the white floor and the smoking corpses of the Royal Guard lie at its base.
The Silver Warrior looks up at the King, who sits panting with wide eyes of wild fear.
‘How about now?’
Paddy Dobson
7th March 2022