The Story of Evil: Volume I - Heroes of the Siege (12 page)

Steve knew the two fierce fighters in the center of the throne room recognized what was happening at the same moment he did, but they were too focused on each other to do anything to stop it. The large observatory window that supported two thirds of the tower had started to crack badly from holes in it. The frost only furthered the glass splintering.

The Hooded Phantom backed away from the king, who was outmatched in the sword duel and was breathing heavily from defending himself against the vicious blows. The villain’s sword was covered in hard stone. He waved it in a horizontal arc towards the golden doors and the tower wall on both sides of them. Stones emerged and ejected from the sword and pelted the wall, furthering the damage that had already been made.

If the attack was any lower, it would have hit Steve and killed him. The stones flew over Steve and through the lower part of the curved wall, badly damaging the entire length of it.

The Hooded Phantom parried a wild strike of attacks from the king before once again backing away from his enemy, who was even more winded from exerting so much energy. The Hooded Phantom raised his brown glowing sword made of stone and stuck it down into the marble floor. The throne room began to shake violently. Steve felt some of the debris shake off him. A couple loose stones from the destroyed top of the tower fell down from the quake. One smashed through a frozen knight encased in ice.

The breaking glass window spider-webbed faster and faster until the tiny lines of cracks met each other and the entire window shattered into a million pieces. On the opposite side of the tower, the wall near Steve had a horizontal crack from the stones that had hit it. The shaking of the floor further damaged the weakened wall. There was an awful creaking sound as the wall began to pull apart at the crack. The low creaking turned into a grumbling ripping as the wall broke and separated into two parts.

Since the observatory window was two thirds of the room, it had been supporting the majority of the tower above it. With the window gone and the wall disconnected, there was absolutely nothing supporting the top part of the tower.

At first, Steve thought he was moving as he lay helplessly, looking up at the white, cotton ball clouds through the hole in the top of the tower that Nightstrike had created. Then he realized it was not him that was moving, but that the tower above was tilting. It fell down on the heavier window side. The wall above where the window had been, crashed down to the floor. On the other side, the broken upper wall was lifted up and away from the floor.

Steve heard an even more awful noise than the creaking and ripping he had just heard. As the tower began to slide down, it made a bone jarring screech of stone on stone. Steve realized he was in a giant, hollow tube that had been diagonally cut in two and the top part of the cylinder was sliding down the incline.

A jagged piece of the tower wall caught the huge stone pinning Steve to the floor and knocked it off. Steve watched as the wall slid over top of him and then crashed into the ice sculpture of Sir Titus Thatcher, breaking him in two and then carrying the pieces along. The other frozen knights also broke when they were hit by the inside wall of the descending tower. The king and the Hooded Phantom both dropped to the marble floor and lay as flat as they could on their bellies. The wall came narrowly close to squeezing them both to death.

The top of the tower disappeared, falling over the edge of the floor and crashing through part of the castle roof far below. Steve heard part of it fall into the moat because there was a slight splashing sound.

Hopefully it crushed some monsters waiting outside the castle
, he thought. Steve looked around and saw that there were no more Guardian Knights. If the men hadn’t been hit by electricity, crushed by debris, impaled by the Hooded Phantom’s blade, or frozen by Nightstrike’s freezing vapor, they were killed when the falling tower took them down with it.

Only the Hooded Phantom, the king, and the Supreme Commander had ducked and dropped flat to the floor in time. In addition to Steve, these were the only four men that had survived. The golden throne and the model of Celestial were still in the room, but they were knocked over.

Those things are worthless compared to the lives that were just lost, especially my father’s life.
Steve knew it was not time to get emotional over the loss he had just suffered. All he could do in the moment was vow that he would kill both Nightstrike and his rider for killing the man who taught Steve everything he knew and made him into the man he was.

Steve wiggled his way out of the smaller and lighter debris, now that he had been cleared of the main weight holding him down. He stood up, but was almost knocked back down to the marble floor. There was a strong wind whipping over the open circle platform high in the sky with no walls or windows to block it. Steve got on his hands and knees and frantically searched for Brightflame in the rubble. He had dropped it when he was crushed.
It has to be around here somewhere.

Meanwhile, the king and the Hooded Phantom fought back and forth, swinging their swords at each other, while their weapons kept turning different colors. They were both fighting with all five of the elements, fire, wind, water, electricity, and earth. Flashes of elements filled the air. The king’s red cape and the hooded man’s black cloak flapped behind them as they fought in the high winds.

King Zoran’s attacks and defenses were getting slower with each deepening breath. The Hooded Phantom rained down an array of blows which the king defended, but it backed him up dangerously close to the edge of the floor. Falling off the side would mean falling to death. The king rolled out of the way, dodging an attack. The genius move positioned the Hooded Phantom in between the king and the drop off to death.

But it was the Hooded Phantom who got the upper hand after he dodged Zoran’s aggressive attack meant to send him flying off the edge. The Hooded Phantom stabbed the off-balanced king straight through his right pectoral. If it had been the left side of his chest, the sword would have pierced his heart.

Zoran loudly grimaced in pain when the Hooded Phantom pulled the sword back out, covered in blood. The Hooded Phantom then capitalized on the king’s blinding pain and swung his sword in a downwards arc. It went through the king’s golden armor and more than halfway through his thigh. There was a loud snap as the force dislocated his femur from his pelvis.

King Zoran fell to the marble floor, writhing in pain. He suppressed his screams with a grimace. The Hooded Phantom stood over him, peering down at the king through his leather mask.

“Why don’t you kill me already?” Zoran asked, trying not to sound like he was begging for a favor.

“I already have.” The Hooded Phantom had barely finished the sentence when the Supreme Commander almost impaled him through the back. The Hooded Phantom turned around just in time to block the attack. Steve found Brightflame and quickly ran to the king’s side and crouched down next to him. Behind him he heard the clanging of steel on steel as the Supreme Commander used all his energy to battle the villain.

Seventy name days.
Steve, as well as Sir Lambert, knew he wouldn’t reach seventy-one the moment he picked a fight with the leader of the monster army. At some point earlier in his life, he might have been a worthy challenge, but all he could do now was grant the king an extra minute of life.

Kneeling down beside King Zoran, Steve looked at the man sitting with a pale and blank look on his face. Blood ran down his golden armor from where he had been stabbed through the chest. One leg was straightened out, the other lay crooked and broken. Steve examined the wounds and gulped.

There is no way he will be able to survive.
Steve wished there was something he could do to heal the king so that this great man could live to fight another day, but his life was quickly ending.

King Zoran turned to look at Steve. With his uninjured left arm, he grabbed the warrior by the armor and pulled him close. The king squinted, trying to get a closer look at the young man.

“You have the same blue eyes. I remember now…I remember who you are,” Zoran said with the brightest of smiles. The expression was uncharacteristic for a man who had just been mortally wounded.

Steve was confused by the king’s revelation. Before he could ask, “What?” the king said, “We have met before, but you don’t remember.”

Chapter 11

A puzzled Steve turned around when he heard the metal clanging stop and a man yell out in pain. The Supreme Commander’s sword arm lay on the marble floor, disembodied, with his weapon still gripped in the fingers of the hand. The Hooded Phantom savagely grabbed him by the throat and held him up into the air with one hand. Supreme Commander Lambert hit the Hooded Phantom repeatedly with his left hand, trying to break the hold. Sir Lambert twisted, turned, and kicked, but could not escape the death grip. The Hooded Phantom wasn’t trying to slowly choke him to death; he was trying to crush the man’s throat with his hand.

And he succeeded.

Steve saw Sir Lambert’s eyes bulge out of his head and his throat cave inwards and collapse under the pressure. The Hooded Phantom tossed the dead Commander over the floor ledge. In less than five minutes, the twelve famous Guardian Knights had all been killed.

The Hooded Phantom casually walked over towards Steve and the king. Steve stood up to meet him in attack stance. With Brightflame out in front of him, he looked at the Hooded Phantom. From where Steve stood, it looked like there was nothing but shadows and darkness under the hood. He could see no face. It was concealed by the creepy black leather mask. Steve couldn’t imagine what was behind it. The only thing he saw was moving, piercing eyes behind the slits in the mask. One was brown; the other was a milky white. Steve could only see a little of what was below the mask. There was some viewable flesh on his neck. He had white skin, like Steve, but it was bruised and damaged in ugly purple and red.

Steve was afraid for his life, but he did not let an ounce of fear show in his face. He tried not to cringe at the hauntingly deep and chillingly slow, raspy voice.

“You’ve seen what I’ve done to your warrior brothers. Yet you would stand against me? You would die for this king?”

“I would die for this kingdom,” Steve said, surprising himself by the power in his own voice. Without thought, he swung Brightflame. It reached dangerously close to slitting open the throat of the Hooded Phantom. The enemy did not flinch in the slightest.

“Then die you shall,” he said coldly while his sword turned to fire. Steve felt the heat of the blade on his face as he deflected blow after blow. The speed of the enemy’s attack seemed unreal. Steve felt like every swing of his opponent’s blade was going to cut him. He didn’t know how he blocked the attacks, but he knew if he was even a tenth of a second slower at any moment, he would be dead. He also knew to watch out for the man’s kicks with his black leather boots. The Hooded Phantom had caught the king off guard with some of those powerful kicks.

Where did he acquire these skills? At some point he must have been a warrior, but his skills are much more advanced than what we are taught.

The Hooded Phantom switched over to green, and the already strong wind picked up around Steve. He swore that when he fought, there were times he felt his feet begin to leave the floor. But Steve held his own, blocking attacks while digging his foot under some of the debris to keep himself grounded.

The man’s hits were so hard that each one sent a jolt through the ringing steel of Brightflame and pained Steve’s arms. There were times he didn’t even feel like he was gripping the red leather handle as his fingers and forearms were turning numb.
I’m surprised one of these hits hasn’t knocked Brightflame out of my hands.

Steve managed to surprise himself by parrying a couple attacks. The opening allowed him to swing his sword at the Hooded Phantom, but the elusive man easily ducked and dodged out of the way.

Steve was hoping to land a lucky deathblow. He needed to kill this expert swordsman sooner rather than later. Steve was confident in the swordsmanship skills he had learned in Warrior Training, as well as what Titus Thatcher had taught him, but he knew he was no match for the skill of this enemy. He would not survive a technical duel. His chances of landing a killing blow were a long shot, but he would not give up.

Steve tried everything he could. He threw rocks and debris. He bull rushed, trying to get the Hooded Phantom to take a misstep and fall off the edge. The last tactic he tried seemed to work the best, but it didn’t help in the attack at all. He picked up a fallen Guardian Knight’s shield to help defend against attacks while he swung Brightflame with one hand instead of two as he had been. The sword and shield was his most comfortable set of weapons in battle.

Nothing was working for the young warrior. All he could do was prolong the battle and hope for a misstep by the Hooded Phantom. Even that was a bad strategy because Steve would probably make fifty mistakes for every one that his talented opponent made. The odds were stacked against him as the Hooded Phantom remained in complete control and composure.

Steve reached a point when he could not physically take anymore. His attacks and defenses were slow. His arms, legs, and torso ached, and he could not catch his breath. Luckily, a man walked up onto the circular floor from the tower stairs. King Zoran called out the name before Steve broke concentration to see who it was.