Napoleon of Another World!

Chapter 12 - The Riot

Some of the soldiers tried to defend themselves with the bind, but being able to control only one stone at a time was useless if fifty slaves jumped on you all at once, and were immediately lynched.

Oldrick took matters into his own hands, and having regrouped all the survivors, he immediately commanded the retreat, managing to close the gates just in time before Lori and the others could overwhelm them.

When the guards had gone, silence returned. Daemon meanwhile had always remained close to me, holding my hand, and constantly calling me by name.

"Will you stop yelling in my ear?" I told him as soon as I was able to speak again.

"Scalia!? Are you okay!?"

"Of course I'm okay. It takes more than this scratch to take me out."

In fact, I had never told him about my healing abilities, and when I removed the sword still stuck in his body he was speechless to see the wound starting to heal in a few seconds.

"Thank goodness. I was afraid I'd lost you."

"Then you know how to cry after all."

My sarcasm melted like snow when I found myself tightly wrapped in his embrace, which in addition to leaving me dismayed filled me with such a beautiful warmth that I almost lost myself.

Meanwhile the anger among our friends had subsided, and the sight of the slain bodies of Beek and some of his soldiers filled many of them with dread.

Something like that had never happened before in Ende. But we knew that there had been other similar episodes in other ghettos, and in some cases actual riots, just as we knew how they ended up.

"What have we done?"

"I'm sorry, father. It was my fault. If I hadn't provoked him like that..."

"You don't have to apologize for anything. That animal got what he deserved."

"However, Scalia..."

"What we do now?" asked Jack. "They will certainly return. And I've seen with my own eyes what they do to those who rebel."

"I say we fight!"

Those words came out of my mouth almost without me realizing it. But then I could feel that fire that for all those years I had managed to keep burning inside me like never before.

"Scalia, what are you saying?"

"Jack said that too. They have no mercy for those who raise their heads. In that case, why should we sit here waiting to face decimation or worse? And if we must die, then we will do it on our terms! Fighting! To defend our right to live! That right they have always denied us!"

"Be reasonable, Scalia. What you're proposing is insane."

"I know why you say this father. And I understand you when you say that perhaps monsters partly deserve the punishment that has been inflicted on them. But don't you think that five hundred years of slavery was more than enough punishment to pay off what you and our ancestors did fighting for the Dark Lord?"

"Scalia is right! It's time to fight!"

"Passe..."

"Now enough to suffer in silence! Let them pay for everything they've done to us and our friends!"

"Grog..."

"I've really had enough. I won't let them hurt those I love. And I certainly won't let them hurt my baby!"

"Lori, you too?"

"Now stop talking nonsense!"

"Daemon!"