They strode through the wide stone hallway that led from the main hall into the East wing of the palace, with Myrl leading the way. He knew he shouldn’t be at the head of this determined column of warriors, and he tried to hide his winces at almost every step as his new stitches pulled under the thick layers of bandages tied about his ankle and calf. Ashe would raise his voice to Myrl about this later, he was certain. But for the moment, Myrl let his mind wander as the rhythm of twelve sets of boots beat a tattoo on the solid stone of the palace.

“A good king leads, but also has his guards move ahead of him so that he may remain a ‘good king’ for more than a day.” Ashe had repeated to him often over their many years as teacher and student. Always in that same deep, baritone voice, dryly reciting the axiom with the authority of a thousand thousand repetitions.

While Myrl believed him, he also would acknowledge that none of these soldiers knew the exact location of the corridor where he had trapped one of the stretched and bloated beast-men, and he didn’t want to look silly telling them something along the lines of “...it’s trapped in that small causeway just off the main corridor… you know the one that the kitchen servants always take? With the small roses carved into the peaked arches that made up the ceiling of the hall…?”

Myrl had cast a shielding ward that had been one of the few spells that had any effect on the things, holding it within a space roughly ten paces long. Then Ashe had shown him how to tie off the spell so that it would maintain itself, drawing magic from the very stones of the palace itself to stay in place until either dawn, or Myrl untied the knots of Will holding it there.

…how far away is the dawn…? He wondered. In all of the excitement, Myrl had lost any sense of what time it was, and so did not know what hour the last bell tone that resonated over the city of Ghlow was meant to indicate. He knew that lack should worry him, but he just didn’t have the luxury to give it too much weight at the moment. That was a problem, he decided, for tomorrow’s Myrl to deal with.

Round the nearest corner on his right, he could feel the gentle thrumming of the Scutum Folior spell he had cast. Several more steps, and he was facing the deceptively delicate layered leaves of his spell holding the beast in the confined space of the small segment of the hallway.

Several long, sharp, bloodied bone shards lay on the polished gray floor outside of the warding wall of Will he and Ashe had cast earlier. The thing had continued to tear at the spell that held it in place, and his bonelike “claws” had passed through the warding, but the flesh on them had been peeled back from the claws, then from the paws, finally from the wrists and forearms.

Myrl, looking beyond the creature to the far wall created by the spell, saw another scattering of twisted and stretched bones. When the monster had been injured by one wall, it had tried its luck on the other. Now, the improvised cell contained a shuddering pile of bloodied flesh made up from the stump-like remains of the hind legs, the torso, and long muzzled, toothy head of the thing.

It keened softly on the floor where it lay, unable to reliably stand upon the shredded ruins of its feet.

“Rhoona, save us all from such horrors.” The stocky High Priest of the Sun Goddess solemnly intoned from beside Myrl as he stood surveying the caged thing that shook in rage and pain on the floor before them.

Myrl half turned to the guards, “This shimmer in the air, it is a wall I have built using my Talent. I will be lowering it.” He paused, and looked through the improvised cell to the shield wall on the far side. “Just the wall on this side, I don't want anything coming at us from the other side while we dispatch this one. Once the wall is down, I need at least three of you to step forward and use your spears to pin the thing in place. I will then finish it off.”

“Sire..” two of the guards and Arne all spoke at once to object.

Myrl turned to look at them. All of them. His stern expression stopped all conversation.

“Sergeant.”

The tall young man took a stiff half-step forward. “Your Majesty!”

Myrl’s face softened slightly, “You and two others.” Then he looked to the priest. “High Priest Roah, I expect your spear has been enhanced in some way my armorer would not approve of… or possibly he will be asking me to acquire another hundred of the things. Whatever you have empowered it to do, please stand close at hand, and be ready with it in whatever capacity you are able.”

Arne nodded at the young king, and moved to the man’s left, while Ruaraidh and two other soldiers moved to the right. With a small, confident smile he would not admit was a lie, Myrl turned back to the shimmering wall of delicate and wavering leaves of force that hung in the air. It didn’t take him long to feel the edges of the warding he had put into place in the passage.

With a twisting of his Will, he pulled at the edges of the nearest parts of the spell, letting them fall back into nothingness, to be reabsorbed into the latent forces of the surrounding world.

He tightened his grip on the scepter, ensuring the ring he wore fully filled the groove set in the handle that was made to cradle it. Through the ring, he could feel the thrumming whine of fear from all of the guards, as well as their determination. He reflected briefly that the fear they all felt was valid, and the resolve they showed in overcoming it was the truest form of bravery. Beside him, Arne stood in a pose of resolute determination, his spear glowing golden like the sun itself upon them all.

And Arne was not using resolve, determination, nor even duty to cover or drown out fear. Arne was angry. He was wracked with a barely suppressed rage, according to Myrl’s ring. Not an ounce of it showed on the older man’s face, however. If Myrl hadn’t known any better, he would have guessed the priest was either apathetic, or possibly just plain bored. But that anger sizzled and popped across Myrls fingers from his ring, and up the bones of his arm.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

As he slowly, cautiously stepped forward, his scepter began to glow, much like the enchanted spear the Sun Priest was holding pointed toward the abomination.

The three guards lept to the front, and thrust with the points of their spears, and each one had pinned the thing in place, holding it as Myrl stepped closer. The creature renewed its shrill screeching, and its mutilated body thrashed and bucked wildly in its attempts to dislodge the blades that now held it in place.

The shrieking was growing so loud that Myrl wanted to cringe away from the sound that was beginning to feel like a physical force in its own right. The guards held the thing as it thrashed, though it was a struggle, all the while the muscular torso attempted to escape the pole weapons that held it in place. The thing’s lower legs, footless and bloodied stumps flailing madly, scrabbled for purchase on the stone floor. Broken ends of long leg bones scraped, and splintered with each impact as they attempted to flip the creature over for a chance at better leverage. Small fragments of bone being chipped off and thrown on hard trajectories as the struggle ensued.

Myrl wondered if he shouldn’t be offering this twisted mass of former humanity a better solution than oblivion. He watched as the elongated muzzle snapped at the guards and flashed fangs as long as his own fingers, and remembered that sometimes mercy was a caring touch, and healing efforts; while other times mercy required a steady hand, and a quick blade. He didn’t have a blade, but as he secured his grip on his scepter, it glowed with the renewed resolution to protect His People.

With a barely spoken “I give you mercy.” Myrl swept his arm up, and then down with as much force as he could muster.

The aura of light and power hummed and spread out in an arc from the heavy weight at the end of the symbol of his royal line and its authority as protectors of His people. The mace-like scepter encountered almost no resistance as it flew through the air, and then through the face, neck and chest of the beast, erasing the mutated flesh from the world as if it was eating the body of the monstrous animalistic creature.

And with that sudden, final movement by the young king, accompanied by a wet spray of black fluids from the now motionless thing on the floor, it was over for this one soul.

In the brief silence to follow, the walls and the ceiling of the corridor sounded with the dripping of the scattered fluids and viscera of the monster. The guards relaxed slightly, and pulled their weapons from where they were lodged in the now hollowed out giant body on the floor. The back of its misshapen skull slumped to the cold stone. Only one eye remanded in the thing’s head, staring off into whatever eternity was left for its kind.

Myrl hoped that the man it had been two days ago was now freed from the torments that had been done to him. He had to remember what Priestess Ord had told him; these creatures were once men, and that mad mage who held the stolen Artifact from the Temple Arluan was the one responsible for all of this carnage. These poor, twisted men were no better than swords in the hand of a madman. Any deaths they had caused, all of those they had killed, and it may be days before Myrl knew the full extent of their killing spree, could be laid at the feet of the mage who held the Artifact now.

“Everyone, move back!” Arne said, iron in his voice. And with a gesture, the tip of his spear, before merely glowing with the warmth of a summer day, began to hum as the light intensified.

As the guards and Myrl backed away, Myrl could see the body begin to twitch. Even reduced to this pile of offal, the magicks that made the thing were trying to pull it back together to keep the thing killing. To maintain it on its course of destruction.

And with a pulse, and a pause, and another pulse, the light from the Sun Priest’s spear flared and the fluids in the hallway began to sizzle, and smoke. The remains lying on the cold stone floor began to shake, and then the skating subsided as the light intensified and ate away at the horribly stretched and changed flesh. Skin, and then muscle smoked and bubbled.

Burning away from the bones faster by the moment, the remains shrank away to nothing but stench and smoke.

As Myrl noticed the coughing of some of the guards, he waved his left arm in an expansive circle, and pushed with his Will, letting loose his Talent to raise a wind that cleared the partially blocked hallway of the black pall of haze and noxious vapors.

There was a clattering as the final wet gobbets of flesh and those poor tendons too long stretched beyond their original intents were dissolved to mist and smoke, and the bones and teeth were released to fall to the stones below.

From behind him, he heard one of the soldiers get noisily sick as they turned away from the group. Myrl renewed his Aetheria spell to keep the corridor free of the added smell of the soldier being noisily ill.

Sergeant Ruaraidh turned with a stern look on his face to the guard, and was about to speak when Myrl got his attention, motioning to the man for patience. He walked over to the shaking corporal.

“Are you well enough to continue, corporal?” he asked.

A red face, tear streaked and snot nosed turned to Myrl, his breathing was coming in hitches and small gasps. Myrl reached down to the hem of his linen under-tunic, and ripped off a swath. He held out the cloth to the young man.

Hesitantly and with a look of mild shock, the guardsman took the cloth, blew his nose, cleaned off his face, and then nodded to Myrl. he stood up straight, and bowed to his king.

“Corporal…?” Myrl asked.

“Macom, sire.”

“Corporal Macom, are you well enough to continue?”

“Apologies, Sire. I…”

“No.” Myrl said. “You came with Us to do your duty. If you can continue with Us, I would be proud to have you here with Us. But, killing is not easy. And it never should be. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Even these wretched things were once men. Rhiadan men.”

The corporal looked like he wanted to run. Myrl put his free hand on the man’s shoulder, and gestured back at the scattered bones behind where the two now stood. “But killing is sometimes the best and only mercy we can offer. It is our duty. And in doing it here and now, we may stop others from having to face this horror. Keep others from having to make this choice. Do you understand?”

“Sire!” The man said.

“Will you be able to continue with us, or will you help the guards in the main hall defending those who have taken refuge?” There was not a trace of judgment in Myrl’s voice as he asked.

“I’m with you, your majesty. To the end.”

Myrl smiled, and nodded to the corporal. Then looked to Arne, where the older man stood, leaning on his glowing spear. The sturdy priest was looking down at the pile of discarded teeth and bones, a profoundly sad expression etched on his usually jovial features, making the man look much older than his fifty or so years in shrap shadows cast from the golden sunlight shining down on him from his spear.

Walking past the pile of bones and teeth, he looked through the barrier at the far end, making certain there weren’t any more of the things waiting for them. With a signal from the Sergeant, the guards formed up, and Myrl lowered the last of the shield spell.

The hunt for more of the things was on. Truly on. now. The men had seen one of them die, and knew that they could be dispatched.

They were ready to clean out this infection now.

He hoped Ashe would be able to complete his assignment, and wondered how his mentor was faring.