Drake felt POWER. It was a power he hadn't felt in over fifteen years, but this power felt different. It felt RIGHT.
His wounds had closed, his bones had reknit themselves together. He felt as though he had woken up from a long, refreshing sleep.
There were two men in front of him. He recognized the big man, the leader, who had spoken to him and smashed his head with his heavy mace. Next to him must be the man that Drake had broken his arm and ribs. He had a makeshift sling on.
Drake was striding towards them with a murderous purpose, justice.
Drake hadn't taken three steps when the man beside Lewdric dropped his cudgel, broke, and ran from this blazing eyed fury. Lewdric went to take his big mace from the sling on his back.
As he brought it out, his hands over his head, he tried to just go for sweeping downwards blow onto the head of this impossibility. Drake stepped in quickly. He grabbed Lewdric's hands while they were still raised, stopping them above their heads.
"We, we can go, we'll leave," Lewdric stammered out at Drake, his mouth suddenly dry.
Drake's vicious smile hadn't left his face. "Oh, we are well past you leaving here alive, friend. You've caused chaos and sown murder in this peaceful place. Not just here, but to my neighbors, who did no harm to anyone." Drake tilted his head slightly, his eyes peering through the other man.
"My Lady says your punishment is death, for if people are to live in peace," Drake's eyes refocused, and his words took on a wolfish tone. "Then a man must be prepared to do violent acts to defend that peace."
With their hands still locked in place above their heads, Drake gave a swift wicked headbutt to the shorter man. Lewdric let go of the mace and grabbed his shattered nose as he staggered away dazed from the surprise blow.
The three men who had been holding the other end of Drake's noose had fallen and tumbled together after the unexpected breaking of the heavy rope. They were now drawing weapons and staggering into a ragged line to come at Drake from behind.
Drake turned to face them, then saw to his right one of the archers stand from where he had been arranging the corpses of the men who had died upon coming to this place.
As Drake brought his gaze back to the three men in front of him, they got a look at his eyes for the first time. It was the same man in the blood-stained torn shirt that they had pulled up, but the face that stared at them was different. Earlier, Drake had attacked them in a hot fury, careless and reckless. The man that stalked towards them now was cold, calculating, and his eyes blazed with a righteous wrath, spiking an icicle of fear into them.
"If the farmers are the sheep, and you are the wolves, then the Lady is the shepherd." Drake intoned as we stepped towards the petrified men. "And I," Drake stopped a weapons length from the man on the left, who still stood frozen, his longsword half raised defensively. "I am her hound, set to guard her flock, and pursue the wolf packs that may come to take them."
Drake whipped the heavy mace in a swing from his left to right. The man attempted to put his sword in the way. Just before the two weapons met, the mace head blazed alight in a green fire, the sword shattered, and the head impacted into the man's side. There was a sickening crunch and a sizzle as the fiery head broke through the leather chest piece and broke the flesh within like one might an insect under a boot heel.
Drake turned to the next man in line, who stared wide-eyed at this paragon who was coming towards him. The first man hadn't uttered a sound as his lungs were collapsed, thumping lifeless to the ground, smoke, and an acrid smell arising from the burned spot in his side.
YOU ARE READING
Paladin of the Peaceful Lady
FantasíaDrake had put adventuring behind him, now living with his family on his own farmstead he would be torn away and thrust back into a life he had thought he had left behind.
