The Bathrobe Knight: Volume 2 (43 page)

              “You hadn’t returned, so I sent for you.” The Panda was terse as he spoke to the two, still not even bothering to look in their direction.

              “My good King, forgive my impertinence. I meant to ask you, what was the word?” she politely spoke in a weak, submissive tone that belied her confident exterior. Her voice sounded as if she were a waitress who had spilled a customer’s drink, yet her face was one of a hawk who had just spotted a mouse. “Was it as we feared?”

              “It was worse. We expected him to have one or two of the outlying Human factions on his side. We expected him to settle in one of the run down mines with good agricultural reach. Those things would have been well within both our grasp and expectation; but, it is as you said--only worse. Every single Human we know of in the lands has begun to migrate towards the new base at Mt. Lawlheima?. None of our scouts have been able to approach that place. Each one that we send gets killed, burned or eaten by a band of red-eyed drakes. We’ve only had one scout survive to tell the tale of the fiery beasts that descended on his group of six and slaughtered them before they even got halfway to the target destination.” The King’s tone scraped across Qasin’s ear like nails dragging across a steel plate even though the bass in his voice was deep and loud enough to make water ripple.

              “Were you able to prevent any of the Humans from reaching Mt. Lawlheima , or did they all make it successfully?” Eve continued to force details out of the beastly ruler.

              “We couldn’t stop a single one. Our scouts were able to follow the trails while they were all still fresh, that is how we were able to discover their position Lawlheima. When one group failed to report in, however, we were forced to send another to search for them. They found their corpses sprawled out and riddled with arrows. The scouts believe that Darwin sent troops to make sure there wasn’t an issue,” the King continued, almost every word causing an involuntary twitch in Qasin’s eye.

              Qasin stood dazed as he listened to the two. In the formative years of his youth, he had always dreamed of dragons. Each day he had wondered what it would be like to ride one of them, how magnificent it would be to soar through the skies on the greatest beast in the land, yet the mention of them being domesticated went entirely unnoticed. Despite all the excitement of hearing about Blue-Drakes being tamed and domesticated, his mind could only focus on one pair of words: Human factions. This man had come to the land but a few days past, and he had already united every Human in the vicinity. He had pulled them together, built them a home and sent people to defend them on their journey to it. All the while this flea-ridden furball had hoped and wished for his men to kill them.

             
What horrible truth about his plans has Eve hidden from me that would make me want to stand here and not with my own people?
Qasin’s mind raced as he tried to find justifications for the fact that he was currently siding with the enemy of his once great champion.

“Well, it may be too late for this to be a clean and simple battle.” Eve looked over at the troops. “But, if we don’t try, it will be too late for you to ever win anyway.”

              “You were right before about his plotting and scheming. How certain are you that I don’t have more time, that I can’t prepare more troops and study the enemy? We could summon more troops from the surrounding areas and march against him with the full might of the Kingdom.” The Panda King rolled his paws back and forth across the railing as he looked with a somber frown at the men below. “If this goes wrong, if we lose too much, and then the Kingdom might still be lost. The other towns and races are only kept in check by our might and our commanding visage. Both must stay strong.”

              “Did your men not get butchered by a handful his drakes? If he gains the control of hundreds, will all the forces of every Kingdom in all the known lands be enough to stand against him?” Eve chiseled away at the Panda King’s stubbornness.

              “Even the number he has now is worrisome,” the Panda King conceded, taking a deep breath. He was clearly used to always being right, to having the last word, and it showed in his hesitance. Qasin had met his kind in the chambers of his old keep over and over again. They knew more than any man should, and they only struck once they were able to account for every thorn on the stem of the flower. It was a terrifying type of man to fight against if he could find a way around your weapon, but not one to ever initiate action without having something to gain and a clear path to victory. It wasn’t the kind of man to ever stand up and fight for the people.

             
To stand up and fight for the people,
he repeated the idea in his mind.
To stand up for the people . . . That’s what I have always done. This . . . What people . . . Whose people am I standing up for now?
He looked to Eve for answers, but she was still busy playing her game, working her words and jabbering away with the Panda King. They were talking about troops, and she was telling truths in such a simple, precise way that Qasin almost felt like they were worse than lies. She was leaving out her own motivations, neglecting to mention her own personal reasons for turning to the King. She told the ruler that Darwin had to be stopped, but made it seem as if it was only in the interest of the Panda King, that she had nothing to gain from his defeat. Each word dragged out as if it were certain her brother would seek to destroy the Panda King. After having walked the streets of this town, Qasin wasn't even entirely sure that he was bothered by the idea.
This is why killing has always been the answer. The blade doesn’t lie; it tells only one truth.

              “You will not win,” Qasin said, his tongue acting with his temper before his patience could stop him from blurting it out. “Your army is weak, undisciplined, and lacking in cohesion. You could wait for all of the men from all of your subjects to be called to serve you, but he will break you like so many waves against the shore before you can wear down the rock of his force.”

              The Panda King and Eve, who had been talking at some length while Qasin had stewed in his rage, stared at him. “Please, do tell me why you would make such a preposterous claim. Since the unification of Ursine and Panthera forces, our armies have never been broken--even when outnumbered.”

              “And I am certain that was the same confidence the White-Wings shared before facing off against him. An army that would have wrecked the combined forces of the Human, White-Horn and Black-Wing lands was dealt with as if it were mere play-thing by that champion. He waded into the battle with less than a hundred troops and crushed the army without even a single lost man. If one of his men was killed, certainly no one saw it, and no body was ever found,” Qasin said confidently, remembering how Darwin had saved them from the White-Wing invasion on that day.

             
He saved my people.
The thought ran through his head. Before the Panda King could even respond or Eve could shoot daggers at him with her glare, Qasin felt a small smile grow across his face as he remembered how Eve’s brother had helped avert a disaster of epic proportions. During the fray, he had led a force of Demons for the sake of the Humans and the White-Horns and the Black-Wings that he had never met. Yet, despite that fact, Eve stood here now insisting the Demon that saved their lands was an enemy.
What foe protects you from certain death or destruction?

              “Perhaps it is just that the leader of those forces did not listen to his advisors. A wise King builds an army with the aide of his people’s representatives. I had heard that the King of the Human Kingdom was the type of bad King who never once listened to the words of the Human Council, that he didn’t understand the importance of good advice from sagely men who obviously knew better. Perhaps he also had the same approach with the military.” The Panda King’s voice was calm and gentle, but his face was almost snarling as he addressed Qasin. “Perhaps his inability to understand the complexities of men and follow the advice of those who could is why even his closest advisors sought his death.”

              Qasin, staring the panda in his black eyes, felt that familiar bile begin to rise. As he broke his gaze to glance at Eve, he couldn’t help but get even angrier.
This blowhard monarch is the one you are pitting against the greatest champion the Human Race has ever had?
He questioned her again in his mind, his subconscious telling him that everything about this scenario was wrong.
Why did I even follow you out here in the first place?
he started to seriously question for the first time since the journey began. There had been something about her, a magic sort of charm that had pulled and tugged at him like a leash, an allure bolstered by the fact that every word she said had sounded right. That leash, however, was now losing its strength with each passing moment.

              “You can go to war . . .” Qasin almost stopped himself from arguing. Each passing thought told him,
Let him think he is right. Our champion will destroy him, and the Humans in this Kingdom will be free from the tyranny of these oppressive beasts.
The only thing that made him attempt to dissuade the Panda King, clearly against Eve’s desires, was that he didn’t want even one more innocent person to die. “You can try to fight him, but if you wish to talk about listening to counsel, consider listening to mine as well. I can’t stop you, but just as she has wrapped Darwin around her finger, she will use your own desires against you,” he said, pointing to Eve, whose pale complexion was starting to turn red in anger. He hated having to keep a civil tone. It was like dragging a blade across his own skin just trying to be polite and helpful to someone who would sooner kill every member of his species than give them the time of day.

              “He isn’t wrong,” Eve started off by agreeing with him. “He did decimate a force of thousands with barely a hundred men, but one of them was so powerful she could have done it by herself. That one will most likely be absent from this fight if we move today, but she will be certain to return if we wait too long.”

              “Very well. I’ve listened to both of you for counsel,” he growled at Qasin, almost ignoring Eve now. “But, as you said, I can go to war, and I will. We move as soon as every soldier in the town is ready. There is no point in delaying the inevitable. They are but a few hours’ march, and, at the end of those hours, we shall teach. We shall educate the filthy, hairless ape imposters that no King, especially not I, the greatest of great Animal Kings, should ever fear the wrath of a handful of men, who are even less than monkeys.”

              Qasin smiled to himself despite the insults. He should have been mad. He had been completely ignored, insulted, and he knew that good people would probably die today--but he couldn’t stop the rush. There was a feeling of joy because he knew a battle was coming, a battle where his champion would crush this Panda King no matter how great he thought his army was.
No, you shall learn that a handful of Humans, even if they are now turned into Demons, will not be subjugated by uncivilized fiends like you.
He laughed to himself as he thought about the slaughter to come.
When a problem rears its head, Darwin will slay it. That’s how great men solve their problems. They eradicate them.

Darwin
:

              Darwin took a break from farming the Blue-Drakes and went outside to check on the preparations. The Blue-Drakes were of dire importance. They were the only source of renewable troops that would truly make a difference. Since they couldn’t realistically increase the numbers of the other troops, they had only the number of drakes and the strength of the fortifications to improve.

              The mountain was very much just a flat wall at their backs, and Darwin was half tempted to simply take several regiments of archers and camp them inside, firing arrows at anyone who tried to walk through the dungeon’s entrance. The only problem was, it would leave them trapped. He wasn’t entirely familiar with the enemy’s technology, but he knew that if they could erect massive castles, they also likely knew how to destroy them; and this mountain wall was nothing more than a castle. A castle that, if destroyed, would kill everyone inside.

              “Lord Darwin,” one of the workers on the pike-wall said with a bow as he noticed Darwin approaching. “The right one is done, but we need more time for the left.”

              “If it were up to me, you’d have all the time in the world.” Darwin gave a small chuckle. “So how long do you think it’ll take to finish the spike-wall properly? Don’t tell me you’re going to let the actual walls finish before you get those ten-foot spikes in the ground.”

              “They have a lot more workers on their team, Lord Darwin. They are able to move at a faster pace for that reason alone.” The red-eyed Demon moved his eyes across Darwin’s face a few times and then smiled. “But we would never let ourselves be beaten in front of the eyes of the Great Lord Darwin.”

              “That’s the spirit.” Darwin gave the worker a pat on the back that was hard enough to jostle him forward an inch. “After all, we’re the StormGuard Alliance, the best there is, right?”

              “The very best, Lord Darwin!” The worker beamed with pride.

              As he was inspecting the spike-wall and the wooden defense behind it, he started to take note of how perfect the craftwork was. He didn’t know if it was a byproduct of the fact they were in a video game or if it was because they all had rigorous training in woodworking before they arrived. Either way, the end result in terms of both method and finished product was that the entire process from start to finish looked like it was computer generated even though it was clearly being made by people right in front of him.