Collection of Stories

King

A grin rips across their face.

They've thought they've won.

A blade collides with the blackened alloy of my armour, though it completely shatters down to the hilt. And their grin turns to confusion, to agony, to anger.

I stumble back, a laughter beginning within me.

"You? You thought... didn't you?" A mocking voice leaves my helm as I straighten up.

Their face crumbles into fear as I slowly bring my blade above my face. The light of the sun gave the blue metal an unworldly glimmer against the clarity of the sky.

"'No sword could possibly defeat me.' Or so the saying goes..." I look down at the adventurer with little care for whether or not they were listening. "See, I heard the legend of an ultimate sword which can kill even the Gods if willed to do so."

The pathetic human looks at me with a face of interest lurking within their fear. Though I couldn't tell if they understood what I was getting at.

"Without it, I'm undefeatable..."

"But no one can find it, right?" the adventurer smirks.

"Quite right, indeed." I bring the blade to my side. "So, what will you do now? Run, try to search endlessly? Will you send your kin to finish what you started? Because trying to fight against me now will only cause your own demise."

They pull a small knife length blade from their hip and ready themselves.

A smile rises across my face as this sight befalls me. I flourish my blade before landing it upon my shoulder.

"Come."

He darts within an instant.

Though I merely evade around him while flinging my blade to the side to spin alongside me.

His head hits the floor before his final gasp left him.

"Bold, but arrogant," the breath which finally leaves me creates a small cloud as the chill of winter finally hits me.

Just how long have I been doing this?

I turn to the mortal I had just slain. A suit of decayed armour remained where he use to lay.

"How...?" A gasp left me. "Has it been a year, two, three? A decade maybe? No... no, no, no... that, that isn't possible! I would have known, have I been just waiting? Waiting for the next? Will there even be one? Why has no one come?"

I try to take a step; the quick realisation that my feet had sunken, or had the ground risen?

"How many years?"

My gaze rises to the walls of my castle, a collection of cracks and moss coated it as if no maintenance had been done for decades.

"Why?"

I break from the ground with a step towards my gates. Though they fall with the slightest nudge. Crashing with a cloud of snow and dust.

My kingdom lay bare.

I had failed in protecting them.

What had I been doing all those years? Why can't I remember?

My hand instinctively falls to my side, catching itself upon a hilt. Though not of a sword at the hip, a knife's hilt sticking out of my side.

I rip it free. It glows a faint yellow, an enchantment. My body turns back to the fallen adventurer, interest lining my voice.

"Was this your plan all along?"

The silence left no answers, and now I was truly left... Alone.

"Am I to suffer alone?"

I turn to the winter covered city. Another adventurer with a larger creature following crossed through the snow.

"Another?"