At first, Matthew had laughed at the soldier who paraded around him in a slow circle scraping a chunk of white clay across the rocky earth.
“What, you think you can hold me here, fatty?” he sneered at the soldier, a fat boy with blushing, raw cheeks and an attempt at a mustache smeared across his toady mouth. The boy had to be fourteen years old, and already his gut bulged dangerously against the creaking leather straps that held his armor in place. Matthew growled internally; he had always hated the Ircanian people, plastering their fat bodies over armchairs and ordering others to die for their own gain.
Had King Rhonas listened to Matthew, the Ircanian people wouldn’t have invaded in the first place, but Rhonas was a man under the constant impression that ill-trained, portly soldiers were no threat to the kingdom. Ten thousand unchallenged Ircanians had swarmed down the mountains and had laid the kingdom to ruin. Only one city remained, Carthas, and at that moment its stout towers gleamed against an flawless sky with a hint of smoke rising from the wall-tops. The battle for Carthas had begun.
The fat boy flushed scarlet and fumbled with the chalk. It was a strain for him to bend over his voluminous stomach.
“Shut it, yew,” He muttered in his disgusting accent, “Yews en’t goin’ anywheres, naow. Yews stay in dis ring. Douch a doe o’er dat line, an’ sev’n men’ll kill ye.”
“Oh, yes?” said Matthew, rising to his full, impressive height. At thirty-seven and heavy as ten sacks of grain, Matthew cut quite a gallant figure in the shimmering heat. The boy, whose name was Rewes, shuddered backwards out the range of Matthew’s sinuous arms – if Matthew stayed in the circle anyway.
“Yis, ‘tis.”
Matthew charged the line but, up on the hill, he caught the motion of seven bows drawing in unison. Ircanians were slothful cowards, but their archers could pick a butterfly’s wing off on the opposite side of a riverbank.
Growling below his breath, Matt settled back down into a spot where he’d sit, stand, urinate, and sleep for the next two days.
Now, the setting sun burned holes through Matthew’s eyelids and scorched Matthew’s swollen tongue which hung limply from his mouth. Water! The sound of the word filled him with a desperate fury. What right had these soldiers to hold him there? He had to be in Carthas, fighting along with his comrades. Over the top of the hill, he could see the towers. At night, they blazed in fire and in the day they were veiled in smoke, but the bright red banner of Carthas still few – and that meant that Marlene was safe.
“Marlene,” Matthew muttered, hugging his dirty knees to his wide chest. Rewes, who was torturing a horse by planting his fat hind-end in the saddle.
“Whot’s dat?” he asked, eying Matthew warily. Matthew’s eyes rose again to the seven soldiers on the hill, now enjoying a skin of wine and singing some nonsense song. Matthew ignored Rewes and turned back to his left. In the distance, a glittering stream gushed along filled with loving, beautiful water and as Matthew looked at it, its crystalline surface melded with the face of his daughter.
Marlene the beautiful, Marlene the Wise – Marlene was the reason that Matthew had set out to destroy the Ircanians in the first place. He had locked her in the highest tower, like the legendary princesses of the old tales, except she was no princess and Matthew was no evil man. The evil man was Rewes and his piggy, watery eyes scorning Matthew’s every move. Rewes had entertained himself over the past few days by prancing his horse around the circle, just out of Matthew’s reach.
“Matty’ssss gunna die!” he warbled, his armor gleaming - armor bought with the money stolen from the pockets of dying children. “Wawtch as he sits, burnin’ and dyin’, grabbin’ his skull as eet be fryin’, woohoo!”
Matthew told himself to dismiss it, to throw it off, but he wasn’t the type of man to take insult. Ever since Emily died, Matthew had vowed to never let anyone take advantage of his daughter, and keeping him away from Marlene was a thousand times as damaging as Rewes’s foul words.
He had to get out of here, he had to get to the walls and fight, but then again had an army had triumphed yet? Matthew turned away from the cool stream and to the firey sky to squint at the smoky towers. A jolt ran through Matt and his breath caught in his chest. Something was different. Someone was ripping the banner down. A moment later, a spade-shaped banner rose in its place. Rewes noticed Matthew’s distress and it brought him a cruel bout of laughter.
“Awwy, ‘slooks leeke de ceety be gone. Deed, gone.”
Deed. Gone. Dead. Gone.
The red-armored forces of Irca busted through the tower gate and began to stream up the stairs. Towards Marlene. Towards the last island of sanity in the universe.
“Marlene…” said Matthew.
“Hey, down’t be goin’ nowheres,” Rewes uttered, surprised as Matthew rose to his feet.
“Marlene.”
“Stop eet, stop!”
“Marlene.”
“Gards! Garrrrds!”
“Marlene.”
One by one, the archers on the hill lifted their bows as Matthew stepped across the deadline.
“For Marlene,” he whispered, and brought eight men to their doom.