Rusted treasure

Behold The End

Chapter 6

Behold the End

The world shook, the crowd shouted. The beast roared. He screamed out in agony as Reeve slid below him and ripped his belly open. Magnus Cain’s bowels hung slightly out of his body, a gruesome representation of what would happen to Reeve if he tried something like that again. This Reeve, this man. He couldn’t defeat my Magnus Cain! No, I am King Ace! And I will not be embarrassed in front of my people. If he defeats my beloved wolf, I will set upon him all my men until he is subdued, killed, and thrusted onto a pike as a warning to others coming our way.

            I watched as the crowd roared their raucous displeasure with surprising zeal, the ground shook beneath their stomping feet, and the ceiling rumbled amidst the cacophony of screams. The wolf and the man stared at each other, each simply daring the other to try and make a move. Neither would bend, neither would break. Behold, Magnus Cain has finally found a worthy opponent.

            Well, I am in quite the pickle. I thought to myself as I stared into the bloodshot eyes of a wolf twice my size. I had nothing but the sword in my hands to defend myself, because I had lost the gun in the fight earlier. The people watching me apparently thought that guns were unfair, but hey, since when was putting a random guy up to fight a wolf that could crush his skull with a simple glare a fair fight anyways? I was just evening the odds. But now my gun was lying on the ground between us. If I went for it, he would maul me, If I didn’t, he would maul me. Hard choices here. So I decided to go for it.

            I threw the sword over to my left as a distraction. The wolf went bolting after it and I sprang for the gun. Once I had it, I quickly checked the bullets.  Only five shots left, it had better be enough. By now the wolf had gotten wise to my plan and was turning to run at me instead of the sword. Slowly I thumbed back the cocking mechanism, and aimed.

            BAM! The bullet flew into the wolf’s mouth. Nothing, he just kept running. And now he was too close to shoot again. I dove to the side, right before the beast had a chance to snatch me up in his huge jaws. I turned as I slid away and shot another bullet into his hide, still nothing. I only had three shots left.

            BAM! BAM!  This time one bullet flew into his side, and the other flew into his leg. This achieved a small whimper, and he had stopped charging at me for the moment, but I only had one bullet left.

            I’m going to need something big. Very big. I thought in desperation.

            The room shook from the outraged cries, and that gave me an idea. Slowly, I lifted up my gun, aiming at the ceiling above the wolf, thumbed back the cocking mechanism and squeezed.

            BAM! The gun’s muzzle flared and the bullet flew towards the ceiling. It hit a stalactite that was shaking from the crowd’s roaring. The bullet was just enough to pull it from its place in the ceiling. It cracked and fell from it’s place in the sky, flying downwards at an alarming rate. Downward, towards the wolf. It looked up in confusion, and then its eyes widened and it howled as the stalactite smashed into its metallic body and flew through its wiring. It was engulfed in a hail of sparks, which caught the coat of fur on fire.  Quickly, the flames licked away at its fur, and it was revealed for the metallic hulk of wires that it was.  The crowd screamed, shaking back and forth, everyone was spewing out hatred.

            Magnus Cain, the unconquerable wolf, was dead. Everywhere I looked, people were screaming, shouting, crying out the name of their dead warrior. Ten soldiers came marching out in a hurried formation.  They were flustered, angry, and confused. They surrounded me, and grabbed my arms. I didn’t refuse them. I was led to the edge of the arena, and forced to look up, way up. Up there was a balcony with a very angry King Ace staring down at me. 

            “You have defeated my wolf!” He shouted with such vehemence that I could feel the hate drifting down from his little balcony. “And for this, you shall pay! You will be executed!” The crowd erupted in approval—their blood thirsty eyes gazing upon me as though I were a sheep for the slaughter.

            But then something unexpected happened. A man jumped down from his seat in the stands and landed a few yards off from us in the pit. He landed upright and ran towards us with outrage on his face.

            “Stop!” He cried out. He reached me and pulled away the guards that were holding onto my arms. Once he finished this he looked up at the king with pure disgust in his face.

            “You said that if he lived, you would let him go!” Everyone went silent. The king looked around at the crowd, then at me.

            “That is true.” He stated simply. “But I changed my mind.” The man shook his head and spat on the ground.

            “So you go back on your word!?” He shot out each syllable like a ball from a canon, and aimed it directly at Ace. The king looked thoughtful for a moment.

            “I suppose I do.”

            “Then that means that you’re untrustworthy! And if you’re untrustworthy, then why are you king?!” The man turned, he was no longer addressing the king, he was addressing the crowd. “For if we cannot trust our own king, we will fall to ruin! We will be crushed!” A roar from the crowd showed that they agreed, and a thousand hateful eyes came to stare at King Ace. The king no longer had such a powerful voice, rather it cracked and swayed as if carried in a whirlwind.

            “But—I am a good king!” He stared at the ground below him, not daring meet any of the eyes that bore holes into him. “Come people, do not turn on me.” He crooned, attempting to reach their sense of loyalty. They had no loyalty. Not for him at least. Seeing that he would not be able to reach their humanity, instead, he reached for his power.

            “Guards! Get that man!” A second passed, the guards didn’t move. The king stared at them, astonished. They stared right back at him. A chant slowly picked up among the people

            “DOWN WITH ACE! DOWN WITH ACE!” They repeated it over and over, louder and louder. Ace slowly backed away from the edge of his balcony. His eyes were wide with fear, he whimpered slightly. Just as the wolf had whimpered before he died. This was the end of Ace.