The Fall of The King

War in The Drylands

Chapter 23

The sun woke me up before the sounds did. The heat burned my side and face, and I could feel the morning air being heated by the rising sun. I sat up to feel the dust from the night gusts fall off me. Amicia lay next to me looking comfortable, yet she seemed to be bothered by the heat of the sun. I looked over to see Artur staring at the sun in his full suit of armor. I stood wondering how he could stand the heat when he is wearing armor built to keep him warm in the cold of the frosts. I stood up and walked towards him, but as soon as I started to approach he quietly, almost inaudibly, said "Don't move." I stopped in my tracks and whispered back to him, "What's wrong?" "Don't you hear it? The scuffling of legs, the sounds of something around us. They are mostly alerted by sound, and well they were almost gone till you woke up." Artur said as we stood in the heat of the sun. I could feel the sweat dripping from my brow, but I didn't know if that would disturb whatever was near us. The scuffling was almost like scratching against stone, but it was hardly audible in the sounds of the morning wind.  "Why are you guys standing over there?" I heard, and when I turned to look at Amicia I knew it was a mistake. One moment I saw Amicia standing before me with a questioning look on her face, then the world was nothing but dust.

"All you need to do is listen to the sounds, don't think or look just listen." I heard Artur shout. I listened to the sounds, but all I heard was the wind blowing. Then I felt the ground shake and I saw the giant claw come my way. Without thinking I summoned my spear and sliced at the claw. It came off without a problem and fell to the floor, but then I was rewarded with a deafening screeching sound. Another claw swept at me and I leaped over this one. Soon the dust began to settle and I could see what was assaulting us. Before me was a giant scorpion that was missing one of its claws. I barely had time to look around before it jabbed its stinger right at me. I had no time to react and thought for sure that I was done, but something flashed before me and I heard an angered screeching sound. It took me seconds to realize what happened, but Artur had leaped in front of me and taken the blow of the stinger for me. He stood holding his chest plate as if it was a shield and I could see that the stinger had gotten stuck in the armor, but along with being stuck in the armor it was penetrating Artur's arm. Artur looked at me and said with a smirk despite the obvious pain in his arm, "So Lord King Slayer, you going to kill this thing before it rips my arm off?" I jumped into action with these words and leaped at the scorpion's face and stabbed straight down with my spear. As I did this a wave of familiarity rushed through me, as if I had done this all before. The scorpion screeched and fell, and I triumphantly jumped from the body. Then I heard Amicia's voice in a worried tone, "Kai? It doesn't look like that thing was alone." I looked around to see that there was at least hundreds of them standing there before us. I readied my spear, but I saw Artur was in no shape to fight with the wound in his arm. He had removed the shield and was holding his arm, which was rapidly swelling as a yellowish fluid poured from it. I walked to him and thought deeply about healing him, and my hand began to light up with energy as I placed it over his wounded arm. His arm mended itself, but the poison itself had already began to take effect and he was falling unconscious. I looked to Amicia and pointed to the mountains, "Take Artur there, I will meet you there." She nodded and kissed my cheek as she began to shed his armor and carry him as best as she could.

The scorpion's approached me all at once and I looked at them ready to fight without pause. The first scorpion charged me and I leaped at it with my spear pointed for its face. As I penetrated its face I used the force of my leap to quickly bounce off of its face and jump to the next one as its claws swept towards me. Landing on its moving claw I thrusted its stinger and used the force of its own claw to sever it. Then leaped form its dying claw to the next one. I continued to jump from scorpion to scorpion slicing and killing, but it was quickly stopped when the ground was hit with an incredible force. I flew from the newly dead scorpions body and hit the ground. Quickly standing again I looked to see what had impacted so hard, only to see my brother with a smile on his face as he stood on a pile of scorpion bodies.