Chapter 1.27
Romulus sat on his armored horse. In front of him stood 500,000 soldiers ready to make their move at a moment’s notice. Nearly 70,000 of those men were dedicated to the operation of the cannons.
It was nearly July, and a year after the People’s Lord first rose, they faced annihilation. Five of the earldoms had been liberated from the People’s Lord, and any threat of their rival government being recognized by a foreign government now became an impossibility. Dicon wouldn’t dare to threaten the status quo and risk a war with their neighbors to the north.
Lia only had about 30,000 soldiers, but when shortly after the rebellion first erupted had nearly 100,000. There were many skirmishes around the grasslands of the south with calvary numbering in the thousands and cannon balls flying in the air just to land in the dirt hundreds of meters away.
General Pluto sat on his horse next to Romulus, and he sat proudly while Romulus sat there with rounded shoulders, tired of the events of the last month. A faint orchestra played behind him that was meant to pump up the troops but only made the situation feel like it was the beginning of the end. Romulus wanted to end the war fast, and when Lia Meyer first murdered the earl of Birdmouth and took up his residence in the castle, he stormed it with only a couple of thousand men. The attack failed, and nearly three-quarters of the men died.
When Maximus heard of the news, he pulled Romulus from being in charge of the operation alongside General Pluto and made the heir to the throne answer to the now most important general in the military.
It wasn’t like Romulus was the only one to suffer from Lia’s southern rebellion as General Smith requested to be reassigned to the south to aid in the fight, but to Romulus’s surprise, the king denied him. Romulus knew that all that Smith was looking for was a chance at personal glory, but that’s not why his father denied him. The only two reasons that Romulus could think of were either what Kosta said or the more likely option that Maximus didn’t want to put too many chefs in the kitchen. However, it didn’t matter as the kitchen was already on fire.
Liberating five earldoms was a victory, but they came at the cost of thousands of lives. Oftentimes, the city would be cleaning up bodies for the rest of the week, and the People’s Lord would stage multiple counterattacks, it didn’t help that of the five liberated cities, Pluto was in charge of four of the liberations. It seemed that war games didn’t translate well to real combat. Troops were rarely in the right position, communication constantly broke down, and sometimes the men would run away.
Now was the time to change that. It was time for the People’s Lord to meet its fate.
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Two days later, Romulus walked the halls of the castle. The latest reports estimated that the army suffered 100,000 casualties, with around a quarter of them dead. There was blood on every surface from the floor to the ceiling, and it would be a miracle if you could go one second looking at anything undamaged. Parts of the ceiling were gone and let in sunlight. Romulus would always look down when one of these makeshift sunroofs showed up as there was often a cannonball right under it waiting for someone to trip on them.
The previous day's battle and siege would have been labeled a massacre by an outsider who didn’t know better. There were so many cannonballs flying through the air that the sun seemed like a suggestion to some of the defenders. However, the numbers didn’t reflect that story. The number of casualties the Qar military suffered was inexcusable, and Romulus partly blamed himself for letting General Pluto screw up the siege.
The crackle of fire served as white noise as Romulus stepped over burning rubble. The battle was long over as Romulus only came onto the battlefield when the city was successfully taken back. He inspected the damage and looked around for Lia. She might have escaped, but if she didn’t, Romulus wanted to make sure that she died today and, in the castle, she tried to keep. He dragged his sledgehammer on the ground with it creating a scraping noise that echoed throughout the castle.
He felt as if he was a great disappointment not only to himself or his father but to the country. If things were only his way that this could have been resolved faster and with fewer deaths. If the military’s chain of command was more established, if the soldiers didn’t fear death, and followed their orders that this catastrophe could have been avoided.
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Minutes passed, and the sounds of his sledgehammer created scars in the halls of the castle. Corner after corner, it seemed that he was alone till he heard a cough behind a door. Romulus turned, and when he turned the knob, he felt resistance. Instead of fighting with whoever was behind the door, he decided to back, lift his hammer, and strike through the door. The sledgehammer burst right through the door, and he felt and heard a thud followed by what felt like soft tissue.
He once again turned the knob and found a Borzor woman slumped over with blood pouring out of her chest. “Hello, Lia,” smiled Romulus. “Found you.”
Lia tried saying something as he lifted her head, but Romulus didn’t understand a word as he didn’t speak Borzor. “Sorry, Lia, I don’t have time for your shit. Follow me.” Romulus easily knocked the sword from Lia’s hand and stood her up. Though it was a blunt strike, it knocked the wind out and almost killed Lia. Her eyes gazed all around her and fell if she didn’t look at anything particular. Romulus practiced his fake smile as he comforted Lia. “Don’t worry, this will be over soon.”
When he got outside, a group of about 100 noticed that Lia had been captured and gave out a cheer. Romulus walked Lia to his horse which was right outside the building, but instead of mounting her on to be brought in front of the other generals, he picked up his hammer and hit her in the stomach forcing her to the ground. Romulus put his sledgehammer into the saddlebag on his horse before pulling out a rope and tying Lia’s foot to the saddlebag mounted on the horse. Realizing what was about to happen to her, Lia squirmed and tried to reach for feet, but Romulus grabbed both of her hands, clasped them together, and stabbed them. She screamed in pain as the men stared in a mix of horror, excitement, and curiosity.
Romulus kneeled and shushed Lia. “Don’t worry; I told you this would end soon.” His smile disappeared and was replaced by a death stare and a mouth slightly open. “You killed my mother, you destroyed my career, you killed Titus, and now you have killed eight earls. I think you should be punished accordingly.”
Lia started to say something in a panicked voice, which Romulus assumed was begging, but Romulus shushed her once again. “Gala told me about how you said that Nero was a good kid and wasn’t going to be killed. That was nice of you, but unfortunately, he’s the one who told me about this method of execution. It comes from Teoland and the Libo Sultanate, and they always did it to each other when they fought their wars.” Romulus stood up. “And to think it was all for nothing. Cayo is going to fuck you up, then, and you should hope that it’s Cayo and not Mydrazan, or else you’re double fucked.”
Romulus turned to his men. “Let’s hear it for the champion of the Borzor people!” The soldiers gave out a cheer, and Romulus mounted his horse. He grabbed onto the reins and felt a wave of euphoria as he whipped his horse and felt a force dragging on the back of the horse.
Romulus rode out into the fields outside of Birdmouth, and each thud he felt from Lia only made him go faster, and every time he passed by a group of men, they gave out a cheer. After about twenty minutes of riding around the city, Romulus stopped at the fork of the Wine and Golden rivers. He dismounted his horse and found Lia to still be alive, and Romulus gave Lia some credit for lasting so long, but it would all be in vain as he untied the now disabled Lia and dragged her about fifty meters.
He stopped next to the edge of a field hospital and found a campfire next to a small plank. The injured men under tents looked in awe as their general took the plank and held it over the fire until the plank caught alight. Romulus waved someone over from the hospital and told them to make sure that she didn’t go over there until he came back from his horse.
Romulus came back with a sledgehammer in hand and told him to pick up the plank of wood and told him to follow him to the river. When they reached the edge of the river, Romulus looked at the back of Lia’s head and smirked. Two down, he thought. “Alright, give me the plank,” he told the man as he put down his sledgehammer.
With all the might of the nation, he threw Lia from the waist up into the river and pushed her head down with his foot. He then took the plank and lit Lia’s legs on fire. Romulus looked up to see what the soldiers in the field hospital’s reactions were, and they didn’t seem excited or mad but in pure shock and awe. Surely, they had never seen anything like Lia’s legs slowly catching on fire, Romulus stepped into the river so he wouldn’t catch on fire, grabbed his hammer, and waited for Lia to jump up, trying to snatch her life back.
Of course, she did, and when she did, Romulus swung his hammer at her chest, and she fell back down. This repeated about six times, and every time Romulus hit her back down until she stayed down. Romulus backed up and watched the two sides of her body, experiencing the two worst deaths that someone could experience.
The man who handed Romulus the plank walked up to the heir in shock and asked why he didn’t just stab Lia. Put her out of her misery. Romulus stayed silent for a moment before answering. “When people think of me, they shall think of this.”