NOVEL NEXT Chapter 238: Execution.
My brother and I walked into the room to meet the commander, although my brother leaned against the wall just inside the door, making me take the lead again… ‘I can’t tell if he’s trying to push me out of my comfort zone, or just being a lazy prick…’ I growled one last time, still remembering how embarrassed he made me just moments ago. ‘No, you know what, I’ll just ensure that he has to fight this guy, and they are probably going to fight anyway, but this way I sound way cooler than if I tried to negotiate…’ I paused. ‘Although… Sounding cool doesn’t even matter since Lu isn’t here… And she’s the only one that really appreciates that stuff…’
I let out a heavy sigh as the commander turned from the window to face me. ‘Screw it…’ “Here’s what’s going to happen. I’m going to tell you the problem, then I’m going to tell you how we are going to fix the problem, and you are going to disagree. My brother is going to beat you up, and then we are going to follow my plan… Any questions?”
He let out a growl much deeper and louder than mine. “I’m all ears…”
Letting out another sigh I explained the bandits, and how we were planning on letting them take the fort so that the Kraken could deal with them before we retook the fort and finished it off. Of course… This plan involved retreating from the castle, an action that… according to him… would be worse than cutting off his own head with a rusty butter knife, which was sharper than you might think in that world. Airsidh stepped forward and a fight ensured, which he then won… Although it was a bit close, making me more than a bit nervous at times…
Still, everything played out just as I said it would in the end, so I felt pretty good about myself as we all pulled out with the guards, leaving a white flag mounted atop the eastern gate… well, where the eastern gate was supposed to be.
I laid down on top of the carriage as we pulled away and set up camp, hidden in the darkness and making sure not to light torches. ‘Less than an hour left now… It’ll all happen soon.’ Although nerves had been building up till that point, for some reason knowing it would happen at any moment, everything felt completely calm. My heartbeat slowed and I felt like I was ready to take on the world.
A wolf suddenly howled from the castle walls, no doubt one of the bandits had tamed it.
“Siya…” Lu said with a shaky voice. “You don’t think Grama followed us out here do you?”
“You know she’s not actually a wolf right…”
She let out a small groan, feeling silly from asking before rolling over to her other side.
I quickly tapped her on the shoulder though. ‘I know why the wolf howled now… I can smell it…’ “Lu, it’s here…”
She groaned. “People always talk about sleeping when they die… But then they all stay awake after they die too… They could at least stay dead long enough for me to sleep…”
‘Oh no… She’s mad again. I forgot how much she likes going to bed on time…’ “Just don’t blow everything up this time…”
Word quickly spread among the troops and once the Kraken showed its face absolute chaos ensued just like we planned. Manny made a break for it right away, many of the ones that didn’t were slaughtered, thrown, or pancaked… It was even angrier than last time, and more violent now that we took an eye… It was hard to watch, even from the distance… So I didn’t. “You guys remember the plan right?”
The commander nodded. “I doubt they messed with anything too much in the short time they’ve been there. Let’s just wait a bit longer.”
‘I knew he’d come around.’
The bandits actually managed to wear it out. Even though it was undead its injuries piled up, restricting its movements, and as they both showed signs of weariness the commander led us straight through the courtyard on horseback, showing no mercy to the bandits… Witnessing a true loss of life gave me even more chills up close and made my stomach twist, but it only lasted for a moment as I focused my attention on readying the lines and the ballista.
In less than a minute we had retaken the fort and routed the brigands. “HEAVE!” The guardsman shouted as they began wenching the Kraken up into the courtyard.
‘The same tactic might not work twice in a row on a human… But a monster… And an undead one at that, this should go pretty smoothly.’
Having survived countless battles with the monster already, the guards were more than adept at surviving in the thick of things, they pulled it all the way up without a single casualty and all got back to a safe distance. But things had only just begun.
“NOW!” I shouted and the oil dropped from the construction cranes, others through casks from the walls that shattered on impact and doused its entire body before we lit it ablaze with one of my brother's arrows coated in the same stuff.
It screamed and wailed, devastating what little was left of the fortress and toppling over the war room. Before long even the tower I was standing on began to slip out from under me. ‘Why can’t anything just go according to plan…’ Feeling the stone slip underneath my feet I kicked the base of the ballista and shattered the wood holding it up, ripping it off the mount and hauling it across the wall on my back, running just in front of the collapse until I made it to another tower that was still stable, even farther away from the beast. ‘I hope I can still make the shot from here…’
The fire subsided, and although the monster’s hide was too thick to cut through it had slowed significantly, making it much more manageable. ‘Come on eyes… Show me what I need to see.’
The longer I stared the deeper I focused, and the more I began to predict its movements as if I were seeing into the future. Then something in my mind snapped and my vision changed with an orange tint. ‘There it is!’ The magic crystal was stuck in one of its tendrils, unable to move. ‘I got you now.’ With a slight pull of the trigger, the limbs of the ballista screeched and cried at the release of thousands of pounds of weight that almost jerked it out of my hands and sent a heavy metal lance directly into the monster's tendril, cracking the crystal and making over half the beast fall limp. ‘You’ve got to be kidding… I get that it’s a zombie… But can’t it just die already? Do I have to do everything my—’
I looked down to see Lu jumping off the construction crane and slamming the flat of her blade into the bolt from the ballista, sending it that one inch deeper and shattering the crystal completely, killing the Kraken for good and putting an end to it. ‘Ok… So I don’t have to do everything myself… But now I feel like I got my thunder stolen…’