Spider King ✔️

Chapter 8 - Death

Men are weak, selfish, greedy and power-hungry. I, Damhan, have bested a King. Now my sickness shall spread through this land.

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The battle raged on for two days. Robert stood in a sea of warrior Scots and English Corpses. He fell to his knees as he watched Edward Longshanks turn tail with his personal bodyguard, causing the English defeat to turn into a rout. The Scotsmen screamed as they pursued the fleeing soldiers.

"We have won," he heard amongst the rabble. "Victory is ours." The Clansmen clattered their blades against their shields and raised their pikes in the air in pure elation. Robert did not share in their celebration.

His head spun as the overwhelming noise bore down on him like a portcullis freed from its winch. Robert had barely spoken since the funeral. Tears rolled down his cheeks as he recalled laying his wife and unborn child to rest.

"Lord," he whimpered through the tears. "Take it. Take it all back..."

You have achieved everything you have desired. You are the undisputed King of sovereign Scotland.

"My greed may have made me King in name, but I am King in name alone. All that is left is a husk, a monster." He lowered his head to the ground, as he fell forwards onto his hands.

The sorrow in his heart ripped at its edges, stretching it to breaking point. He brushed his cloak aside, grabbing the hilt of a small blade that clung to his waist. Holding it in both hands, he looked down at his exposed midriff plunging the knife towards it.

No. I am not done with you yet. The blade stopped a hairs breadth from piercing his stomach, as his hands trembled with force.

"Can I not even kill myself? Can I not escape my eternal torment?"

You have surrendered yourself to sin. You belong to Damhan.

"Damhan?" Hearing the name triggered the memory of the spider in the cave. "You?" He spat with seething rage. "You forced me to kill Comyn. Forced me to kill my Elizabeth." Robert remembered the sound of his suppressed conscience, the thoughts he had been hearing since he had left the cave, were not of his own voice.

Not even a King can take responsibility for his actions? Pitiful. Do not blame Damhan for your choices, I merely expressed your deepest desires. But now, I am done with you, Robert the Bruce.

Robert clutched his face, as a sudden jolt of pain seared from within him. He looked through a single eye at his hand: wet with blood. Putting his hand back to his eye-socket, he felt something else; four crawling legs emerging, obscuring his vision. He screamed in agony as the pressure continued to build. "I will not die a coward," he said as he plunged his fingers deep into the socket, ripping out his eye and the arachnid in one motion. Holding the writhing beast between his fingers, he squeezed with the last ounce of his might, crushing the spider.

"Yes, yes, go my children," said Damhan with his dying breath.

King Robert fell backwards, watching the blue sky fade to black. "I will see you soon, my love."

The army continued to cheer, unaware of their King's demise. A single black spec emerged from the bloodied remains of where his eye had been torn from the flesh. Thousands of spiders followed, crawling away from the dead King towards any living man left standing on the battlefield.

Yes, yes.

The end. Cheann-deiridh.

Word count: 5000