The Story of Evil: Volume I - Heroes of the Siege (13 page)

“Prince Silas.”

Silvanus (Silas) Zoran was the son of the king’s late daughter. He was the one and only heir to the throne since the king’s only daughter had been murdered. The prince looked similar to his grandfather but better in every way. King Zoran was known as a big, strong, and good looking man, but his grandson took those three characteristics to a new level. If anyone had what was considered a man’s body, it was Prince Silvanus. His body was immense. He was not fat; he just had a huge frame. He was stocky with broad shoulders and wide hips. The prince was taller than even Sir Lambert, a mighty tower at 6’8”. Muscles naturally rippled his body without the need to work out to maintain them, but he lifted weights anyway, making himself even stronger.

Few men were as physically blessed as he was. Also similar to King Zoran, was his hair. They both had dark black hair. His however, was wavy instead of straight and slick. He wore it at a medium length. He parted his hair down the middle of his head, having it fall to the sides over his ears and away from his brown eyes. It stopped at the line of his wide and strong jaw. The prince had a wide face and a large, strong chin. He grew out a goatee which gave him a sense of attitude and superiority, further adding to his already enhanced ego.

Prince Silas’s ego was his main attitude problem (out of many). Silas Zoran was physically similar to King Zoran, but morally and as a person, he was the complete opposite. It was a running joke that the prince was so wondrously gifted physically that the good god must have forgotten to give him an attractive personality or discernment in making morally good choices. He was an absolutely horrible person. He was selfish and impatient. The smallest inconvenience would awaken his wild and violent temper.

Steve never cared for the prince. He had met him a couple of times before in his life. Most recently, the prince had come to meet Steve after he won the Celestial Qualifiers. The meeting was not pleasant.

It happened just a week and a half ago; on the same day Steve had had his party after winning the Celestial Qualifiers. The prince always jousted against Celestial’s winner in a friendly exhibition match the weekend before the tournaments began. Everyone knew the match was fixed. Since Prince Silas started the tradition at the age of twelve, he had not lost once. Steve had not accepted the castle’s invitation to hold his celebration there, so the Prince had to come and find Steve to schedule the match.

That night, after the community celebration, Prince Silas came to Steve. The warrior was putting Clyx to bed in the stables, who had just spent the whole day giving rides to children. Steve knew the prince had not come to politely introduce himself and meet Celestial’s winner. He came so he could set a time to joust and command Steve to take a dive, as he had told every warrior prior. Prince Silas wanted this year’s exhibition to have the same outcome as the past seven.

Steve could tell how strong the prince was from his size. Silas probably could have defeated Steve without needing him to purposely lose. But the fact that Silas had to ask Steve to lose meant he had no confidence in himself. All he cared about was how he appeared to the civilians of Celestial. Silas thought he always needed to appear strong and powerful since he would be king someday.

“Is this the famous Clyx?” the prince asked Steve as he walked over to the horse. When he went to feed Clyx a carrot, Clyx bucked and smashed his front legs into the prince’s chest, causing him to stumble backwards and fall into a huge pile of horse droppings.

Clyx always acted mischievous around people that he sensed were evil. He strongly felt this way towards Prince Silvanus. The prince angrily pulled himself out of the pile of feces. His white cloak and tunic were covered in the stinky brown mess. He swiftly walked over and punched Clyx in the jaw and then drew his sword to kill the horse. Steve quickly reached for Brightflame, but realized if he did draw it, he would be cut down by the five Guardian Knights protecting the heir to the throne.

As the prince brought his sword down, Steve jumped in front of Clyx with his arms outstretched, guarding his horse. The prince stopped his downward swing just before hitting Celestial’s jouster. He spat in Steve’s face and yelled as he hurriedly walked away, “I hope that horse receives a sharp lance through its head during the tournament.”

Before that incident, Steve had heard many stories of the careless prince. He was always drinking, gambling, and sleeping with loose women (and it was rumored men as well). The spoiled child, who was exactly the same age as Steve, had no respect for authority and acted as if he were entitled to anything and everything. He treated all of the civilians as if they were below him and did not deserve to be in his immaculate presence.

Steve didn’t like the prince because of the things he had heard, but the moment Silas pulled his sword out to kill Clyx, Steve hated the man. It was time someone taught him a lesson.

Before the prince walked out of the stables, Steve yelled out, “If you want to joust, we do it tonight!”

When the Hooded Phantom saw Prince Silas come up the stairs in his full suit of shining white armor, he swung his rock encased sword upwards at Steve. Steve blocked the attack, but the force was so hard that it sent him flying backwards, airborne through the air. He dropped Brightflame as he painfully crashed down on his butt and back. The marble floor didn’t stop his movement. He continued to slide. There was nothing to catch on to, nothing to stop him from sliding off the edge of the platform. Steve’s eyes widened as he began to fall.

He reached up his hand and caught onto the ledge before he fell. His feet were dangling and the wind felt like hands wrapping around his legs, trying to pull him down to death.

The whole time he was testing me, playing around. He wasn’t even using the full extent of his powers.
Steve felt like a fool for even briefly believing that he was actually holding his own in the fight. He tried to lift himself up, but could not find the strength to pull his body all the way back up onto the ledge.

Steve looked down from where he hung and saw where the broken tower had smashed into the castle ceiling below. His hands almost slipped as he felt dizzy from the height. He quickly took his eyes off the ground and stared straight ahead.

“I shouldn’t have done that. I shouldn’t have done that,” he said repeatedly, vowing to himself never to look down again.

The strong wind picked up and began whipping his body around like a flag.
I can’t hold on much longer.

Prince Silas walked over to his grandfather, the king, who looked even more ghostly pale, sitting in a pool of his own blood. The prince removed the king’s two-piece plate armor as well as his chainmail. His white undershirt was drenched in blood, making it stick to his chest. The prince smiled as he examined the wound.

“Get out of here, Silvanus! This enemy is too powerful.”

“I know, old man. I know of his power and I know his identity. I found out everything. Why did you never tell me? Did you think I wouldn’t eventually find out?”

The prince’s deep and manly voice had an annoying quality to Steve. Steve hadn’t thought about whether or not he realized the voice was annoying until before or after he had decided he disliked the prince after he attempted to kill Clyx. The voice was a mixture of the prince trying to sound authoritative, while also having a bit of cockiness.

Silas picked up the king’s Aurelian Sword that was lying on the floor next to where King Zoran sat. Steve pulled himself up just enough from the ledge so he could see eye level with the marble floor.

“You told me as a child that you believed I would be the one who would eventually fulfill the prophecy hidden in this sword,” Silas Zoran said as he looked up and down the sword, admiring the beautiful golden design. “After all these years, I finally get to see what it says.”

Silas stared at the blade of the sword and looked closely to see what the prophecy said. The prophecy could only be seen by someone who was a bloodline heir to the throne or the king himself. Silas and King Zoran were the only two people in the world that fit those qualifications. Zoran had decided never to allow the prince to see the prophecy until the boy took the throne and became king. Prince Silas was frustrated and annoyed every day that the secret was kept for him. He didn’t have to be kept in the dark any longer.

After the prophecy appeared to him sentence by sentence, the prince finished reading, and a look of disappointment filled his face.

“This can’t be true! THIS CAN’T BE TRUE!” he yelled.

“It is,” was the only two words the king said back.

“You’ve known this all along! Tell me who he is,” Silas commanded of the king.

The king offered no answer in response. The ends of his mouth turned upwards in the faintest of smiles.

“TELL ME WHO HE IS!” Silvanus screamed at his grandfather, hating to see that the king knew a part of the prophecy that remained a mystery to him.

Zoran shook his head sideways. “Never,” he defied, putting an abrupt end to the requests. “I will never give away his identity.”

Steve could have sworn that for the briefest of seconds, King Zoran’s eyes flashed over and looked at him.

“It doesn’t matter. The prophecy still speaks of me. I will find him, and I will kill him. It is my destiny to lead the monsters to victory. Nothing can stop me,” Prince Silas declared, sounding as if he was trying to convince himself as much as he was his grandfather.

“That may be..,” Zoran said grabbing Silas and pulling himself close to the prince so that he could whisper in his ear. He wanted his grandson to be the only one to hear what he had to say. “But you and I both know what the prophecy says: whatever happens, you are going to die.”

“Then…at least…I will die as the king,” the prince stuttered. The shock of the prophecy’s revelation of his death was written all over his face.

He reached up and took the crown off Zoran’s head. Prince Silas had dreamt of this moment since he was a boy. Becoming the king was going to be the happiest moment of his life, but he had no joy as he placed the crown on his head. He couldn’t stop thinking about the prophecy. Its revelation robbed him of his happiness.

Silvanus glared at the king, making sure that his dying breath would be knowing his grandson betrayed him to become the new king. Silas turned the Aurelia into ice and went to stab it through his grandfather, but for a brief moment, he hesitated. He looked back at the Hooded Phantom who stood and watched him. The mask showed no emotion except for the sparkle of anticipation in his only working eye.

“Kill him,” the Hooded Phantom said impatiently. The command came from years of pent up anger towards Oliver Zoran.

The realization that his grandson, the heir to the throne had turned evil was hard to bear for the dying king. He felt more pain from the weight of that fact than from the pain he was feeling from battle damage. Zoran then said something aloud which no one in the room fully understood except for himself.

“I chose the wrong one.”

“Kill him,” the Hooded Phantom commanded again before Silas could question what the king had said.

When the prince continued to hesitate, the Hooded Phantom began to walk forward to finish off the king himself. He had already inflicted enough damage to Zoran that he would die before the day ended, but he didn’t want to give him the luxury of extra hours of life.

Prince Silas turned from the Hooded Phantom and back to Zoran. Silas had requested that he be the one to deliver the killing blow. The Hooded Phantom couldn’t have made the killing any easier for the prince; Zoran was about as dead as any live man could be.

The prince placed his ice sword onto the king’s injured and unarmored chest. Instead of stabbing him straight through, the prince pushed the blade downward at an angle. The blade went ever so slowly into the king, ripping open his internal organs and cementing his already inevitable death. His grandson was torturing him in his final moments, but King Zoran was already beyond the point of feeling any pain. To him, his body felt numb. If his eyes hadn’t been open, he wouldn’t have even known he was being stabbed again.

Zoran reached up and knocked the prince’s hands off his sword, the one that he used to win the most important battle in known history. King Zoran put his own hands on the hilt and pulled the sword the rest of the way into himself.

As he did, he spoke with strength and confidence, “If you want to kill me, do it quickly. The sooner I die, the sooner someone will rise to defeat you.”

This time there was no denying that the king looked directly at Steve as he spoke. Then the king said one more thing that Steve would never forget.

“As long as there is darkness, there will be light to fight it.”

Those were the last words that King Oliver Zoran ever spoke.

Steve watched as the king’s eyes closed and his head and shoulders slumped forward. The king was dead with his own sword punctured through his front and out his back.

“Well done, prince. Well done,” the Hooded Phantom rasped. The prince grabbed the handle of the Aurelia and pulled it out of the dead body. The sword, the crown, and the throne now all belonged to him.

A rage filled Steve like none he had ever felt before. Adrenaline gave him the strength to pull himself up and over the edge of the platform. He stood up and sprinted straight for the prince, not slowing down as he bent down to pick up Brightflame.