Blade(Part 1): Dawn

Chapter 8: Alexius

Alexius dreaded the sight of a Skaolan wall built around Savona, the town that he called home. He also felt terror at the sight of the wall itself being abandoned, despite the sun rising over Astros, meaning the guards should have already been either on the wall, or marching through Savona's streets. The Guardian rushed through the gates below the wall, into the town of his birth. There was no one there. No townspeople, and no Skaolan soldiers. There was also no sound. No birds in the air, and no snakes in the ground. There were no gusts of wind, either.

"Mom! Decimus!" Alexius shouted, then he shouted for his younger half-brothers and sister.

"Marcus! Placus! Lucia!" No one answered. When he looked around, he noticed something wrong. A tree in the plaza of Savona that had brown bark now had its bark turned completely gray. It was the color of stone. Alexius tapped on it with his armor-plated fist. It was stone. The Guardian looked around some more, and saw worse than what he feared he would see. They were people frozen in the position of running away from something, but they weren't moving. They were completely turned to stone, just like the tree was. Alexius recognized a few of the faces that were petrified. They were all people that he knew when he was little, before the Skaolans came. They were dead. They were worse than dead. They were frozen inside their own bodies, and couldn't even be buried.

Suddenly, there was a loud ring of metal behind him. Alexius formed his aura blade in the shape of a gladius in his hand and turned around. It was a Skaolan soldier, pointing his khopesh forward. Three others were with him, and they surrounded Alexius with their own blades drawn. The first one must have been their Captain.

"Who are you?" the Captain demanded. "A Guardian, I'm guessing."

"Alexius," the Guardian introduced. "I was born here."

"Were you, now?" the Skaolan Captain asked. "Then how come we have never seen you before?"

"I've been away," Alexius enlightened. "Where's my family?"

"There are a few survivors on the top of the hill," the Captain enlightened.

"There are?" Alexius gasped. That was where his family lived. Alexius prayed to the gods that they were safe. He dropped his aura blade, letting it fade as it touched the ground.

"Take me to them," he said. Alexius could sense a feeling of doubt from the Skaolan Captain, but he lowered his khopesh.

"Follow me," the Captain ordered, and he led Alexius through the streets of Savona, while the rest of his men kept their blades on him. They passed even more of Savona's townspeople, their bodies lifeless and petrified with fear. There was only one kind of monster that was capable of this, and the only one who could fight it properly was a Guardian. Everything depended on whether the Skaolans would believe that coming from the one person who hated them more than anything or not, though. Alexius would never forget seeing the trapdoors of the gallows open below Philip and Christy, or the grin of Lord Nouzari as he saw their lifeless bodies hanging from the nooses. At the moment, he was fighting every urge to sink his gladius through the armor of the Skaolan soldiers. They then arrived at the top of the hill where he used to live. The large house had a hundred small tents in front of it, where the soldiers of the Skaolan Empire rested. There was little doubt that their commanding officer was quartered in the house itself. It only made Alexius angrier.

"When did you arrive here?" the Guardian wondered, to the Captain.

"I'm not the one you should ask that to, Guardian," the Skaolan Captain answered. "General Darius is in charge. He will answer your questions, if you answer his."

"Right," Alexius sighed. "Listen, my mother and grandfather live in this house. Are they alright?"

"A middle-aged woman and an old man?" asked the Captain. "And three young children?"