A Crowned King (Complete)

Chapter 28

Kevin Pale marched at the head of over ten thousand men and women, his head held high. The men at his back were all under his command and that was thanks to Xavier Merlin, the Lord of Magnus. The Lord had ordered him and his ten thousand men to march for Three Towers. Because of their magical abilities to create portals to cover large distances at a time in mere minutes, they were less than five minutes out of Three Towers. They could see the towers themselves as well as the gates and walls that surrounded the military installation that Star had created for them.

The General was tall and whipcord lean, almost feminine in his build. He had short cut red hair and a matching red beard that was bushy on his face. His eyes were the color of coral and were intelligent as well. He wore The ordinary Battlemage dress of black robes with a breastplate of steel armor over the top, gauntlets, bracers, and fine leather boots.

Looking behind him, Kevin saw the platoon of Battlemages behind him clad in the same and smiled. Each and every man and woman was under his command. They had to do what he told them to do as long as it followed his orders to defend Star. This was his first command and he was quite enamored with the feeling of it.

Every man and woman of Magnus went to the college of the arcane as young ones. They trained in the arts of magic early on and the exceptional were accepted into the ranks of the Battlemages. Because of this they were by far the most powerful and dangerous soldiers in all of Star. There wasn't a force in the Nation that could stop them from doing what they wanted to do.

It wasn't long before they were in front of the gates, but the gate didn't lift at all. It didn't seem like there was anyone inside and he hadn't seen anyone on the battlements either. The scorpions had been abandoned and there were no archers on the walls. It was quite obvious that no one was there, and If they were, they were in no place to open the gates.

Unsure what was happening, Kevin felt a tingle of worry fill his body. He narrowed his eyes and He lifted a hand, blasting the gate open with a telekinetic blast of energy. The steel gate bent inwards and went flying inside end over end. The men behind him seemed confused by his actions, but he didn't have time to tell them what was happening.

"Swarm the place. Find out if there's anyone still here. If there is, bring them to me. We need to find out what happened here and why this place is abandoned." Kevin told the men at his back. They did as he bid, moving out into Three Towers, swarming into the buildings and through the courtyard to search for signs of the garrison.

The General stood at the entrance to the Towers looking out at the courtyars. He caught sight of something in the sand there that caught his eye and he approaches it slowly. With a frown he crouched down and examined the spot that he'd noticed from more than ten feet away. Using his bare palm he moved the sand around a little and he cursed when he saw what had caught his eye.

The sand was suppoaed to be a white brown, but it had been made duller by the mixing of a liquid into the sand. Jusging from the crimson tint to the liquid, there was only one thing that it could be: blood. Considering the courtyard was likely used by the men of the Towers as a training yard this wouldn't have normally been that unusual. Blood was regularly shed even during sparring matches, but this amount of blood and in such a short amout of time...this was no sparing match that had caused this bloodstain. Someone had died here.

Looking around more, Kevin found other spots around the sand. He moved around, sifting through the sands and found them much the same. The blood had soaked through in these spots which told him one thing.

There had been some kind of slaughter here.

The question was why and who had done it? Besides that, where were the soldiers that were supposed to be at the Towers? Had they been the ones slaughtered and if so by who? Had the Gaals moved already? Had they managed to breach the Towers and kill everyone? He shook his head at that thought. No, if they had done it the gate wouldn't have still been intact. It would have been knocked down and the Towers would have been in ruins. Besides that he doubted that they would've bothered to hide the bodies. This was war and they wouldn't have time for such things.