Romulus

  It took a couple of days to organize and find the supply base, but when Romulus crept through the woods, avoiding any sticks on the ground with his ears perked for any sounds, he heard it. Pushing a couple of branches aside, he saw a ten-meter descent into an artificial divot in the forest where he saw men moving boxes of material out from a tunnel. They were either sending out supplies or relocating the base, and judging by the number of people, it was probably the latter.

  Romulus counted the people and found it to be around thirty men outside with an unknown amount inside what seemed to be a network of tunnels. Romulus had about fifty fully armed men, so taking out thirty poorly armed terrorists by surprise wouldn’t be much of an issue.

  When he reached the end of his count, Romulus stayed for a minute longer to judge the mood of the place. It was relatively calm as if they would never expect someone to catch them in the open, but that’s what was going to happen as he saw a Dymish turnaround and saw a scar around his jaw. Noah was here. Romulus had to put the branches back in front of him and step away from the supply base because if he hadn't, his eyes would have stared so hard that Noah wouldn’t have been able to resist the feeling that someone was looking.

  Romulus waited at the rendezvous until everyone was done with their patrols. Amazingly, none of them had any issues with predators that roamed the dark spots of the north, but isn’t that what he hired the men for? Eventually, they slowly trickled in, and Romulus told them that he found where the supply base was. In between the time, he came back; and everyone else was still on patrol, he came up with a plan to attack the base. Everyone listened as Romulus pointed to a scrap piece of paper with a crudely drawn map of the area. “Sergeant Kosta shall lead forty of you to attack the people outside the tunnel with Captain Smith, with ten of you, and I going inside the tunnel.”

  “Why wouldn’t we just concentrate our forces on the people outside and then go inside the tunnel,” one of the men asked.

  “What is faster? A group of fifty men or one man?” Romulus asked. Everyone said that one person is faster. “So that is our problem. We can’t go after one man with the fifty of us bumping into each other. Gentlemen, I saw the scarred man outside the tunnels, and if he has gone back inside, no doubt he knows those tunnels well and can outrun us. We will do our best to catch him by surprise.

  When all the men positioned themselves around the supply base, the sun was coming up. The People’s Lord was still moving crate after crate of supplies out of the way.

  The base was in a rough circle shape, with the tunnel facing north toward a small trail. There were few trees as space was needed to store the crates when they were moved out, and so Romulus’s men had plenty of covers. Romulus, Smith, and ten men waited on the other side of the supply base waiting for the attack to commence. Kosta would order the troops to attack at 6:20, with Romulus and his men sneaking into the tunnel shortly after.

  Romulus looked over at Smith and found him to be calm. His eyes slowly scanned the base as he checked if anyone could see them hiding in the bushes. However, Romulus was amped more than any other man in a ten-kilometer area. He had the opportunity to take revenge on behalf of his mom and Titus. His hands became sweaty and slimy, and he held onto the hilt of his sword with all his might, his eyes only looked at the entrance of the tunnel as people hauled out what was probably stolen goods and would be used to tarnish the Qar family name, but no more. After today, the People’s Lord would now crumble.

  Romulus checked that his armor was properly fitted. He looked down at his plain metal armor and thought that it no longer was the type of armor a royal deserved. He promised himself after this, he would get new a set of armor that was dyed a deep purple in honor of the royal family.

  The heir to the throne thought about checking his watch, but before he could reach for the pocket lodged in between his armor, a whistle sounded, and the men charged down onto the supply base. Romulus’s group waited about twenty seconds before continuing so all the terrorists would divert their attention onto Kosta’s group.

  Romulus would have sent Captain Smith to help as his swordsmanship skills were something he had never said before, but the risk of hundreds of men in the tunnel was too great to not have Smith by his side.

  And so, they went, crouching behind the action and dropping into the tunnel. It had about a thirty-degree slope and lasted for about twenty meters before it reached the tunnel. Slowly, all the men made it through without too many people noticing, but the terrorists who did notice were easily terminated by Smith. Though he hadn’t even seen Noah yet, Romulus’s breathing sounded like a fish out of water.

  The tunnel was dimly lit, and they decided to split up. Romulus would go with Smith while everyone else went together. There seemed to be no one in the tunnel, and the group went in opposite directions. It seemed there were endless turns with nobody in them. This should have made Romulus more at ease as there wasn’t much resistance, but Romulus couldn’t shake the thought that Noah had already made a run for it deep into another tunnel system.

  They walked for another two minutes until they walked into a room of five men. They sat at a table playing a card game when they snapped their heads up and found two Captains of the military staring at them. However, before they could move, Smith and Romulus launched forward. Romulus sliced a man’s head clean off of his body while Smith stabbed through a man’s heart before his sword came out the other end of another terrorist sitting behind him.

  Three men were down before the other two stumbled back and reached for their swords. Smith through a knife before one of them could get back up while the other held his sword stiff in front of his body waiting for the captain to make a move. The three of them stood there for the longest seconds of the terrorist’s life before Romulus fainted a move and sliced the man’s legs. He fell to the ground and dropped his sword. Romulus stepped up to plunge his sword into the man’s heart, but before he could, Smith advised him not to. “If he doesn’t bleed out, we could question him.”

  Romulus gave a weak laugh. “God, you are the luckiest man alive. Well, at least for now.” The terrorist became at ease as one could be in that situation and laid his head down on the cold ground.

  The two captains moved to the next room and found nothing. It really began to seem that Noah had made a run for it, but before they lost any hope, they heard shouting further down the tunnel. The two of them gave each other a glance before running down the tunnel through rooms, hallways, and twists where a terrorist could have been waiting with his sword extended, but luckily for them, no terrorist was so smart.

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  The shouting became stronger, and so did Romulus’s hold onto his sword. Smith picked up a sword from one of the dead terrorists and now held two longswords. Suddenly, as if they teleported hundreds of meters they saw a short hallway with Noah lecturing another terrorist. Some men would have smiled at the sight. The man they were chasing was exposed and was ripe for the killing, but Romulus took a deep breath, and all expression left his face. His mother died to this man, and the thought of him getting away haunted Romulus.

  Noah turned to see who the two men were, and his eyes lit up in panic. Noah’s arms dropped, and they stood silent. He didn’t know if he was supposed to smile or frown as he stared at the two men with three swords. The terrorist next to Noah, on the other hand, had made up his mind on his expression. Pure fear rang across his face, but before he could get over it, Noah pushed the terrorist in front of him and slowly walked forward. Noah pulled out a sword and began a conversation. “Gentlemen! I hope you are having a great morning.”

  “Oh, yes,” Romulus responded as he slowly walked passed the speechless terrorist. Smith followed behind Romulus and not wanting to take a risk the frightened terrorist suddenly grew a pair, and decapitated him with a swift swipe of his sword. The now-dead terrorist fell to the ground with blood squirting across the three-person-wide tunnel. Noah continued to slowly walk backward, and soon, the three of them passed a couple of rooms on either side of the tunnel.

  “There is nowhere to go now,” said Romulus. “Now be a good terrorist and make this easy for me.”

  “I’m sure we can make a deal,” responded Noah. His voice was exactly what Romulus expected it to be. A man who was scared shitless, trying to remain calm and find a way out. “I’m sure—”

  But before he continued, a sword plunged into his stomach, and he flew back onto the ground. Romulus turned around and saw that Captain Smith was now only holding one sword in his left hand. He gave Smith a polite nod before turning back to Noah. The scarred man pulled the sword out of his stomach and slowly crawled away. “Captain Smith,” Romulus said. “Go make sure that Kosta is doing alright outside.”

  There was a brief moment of silence before Romulus turned around to see why Captain Smith wasn’t speaking or moving. It seemed that the captain wanted something else to happen, but now seeing the choice of leaving or disobeying the heir to the throne, he chose the latter and made his way back through the tunnels.

  Noah was wincing and tried to put pressure on his wound with his hands, but there was too much blood, and it was obvious that he would die of blood loss. However, Romulus didn’t want such an anticlimactic death and looked around. For some reason that Romulus would never figure out, the dead terrorist was hauling around a sledgehammer. Romulus calmly sheathed his sword and picked up the sledgehammer. “God, this a good sledgehammer,” he said. “I might just keep it. Now, tell me,” Romulus said to Noah. “What were the final moments of my mother like?”

  “She died like a human, like any person sentenced to death should be. Yes, she was a royal, but she got a clean death. We are not the monsters you think we are.”

  “That’s good to hear. It would be respectable if my mother deserved it, but she did nothing wrong! You’re not monsters?!” Romulus’s voice cracked, and his facial expression seemed to be stitched on as he tried to remain calm. “No, I’ll show you how a monster would kill a person, but this is a one-time performance, so I hope you are paying attention.” Romulus leaned forward, and his grip on the sledgehammer could have killed someone if his hands were around a neck. “You see, I need your face, so I can prove that you are dead, but like my mother, your body is fair game. If you have a family, they shall suffer the same fate as mine. Your body shall cease to exist.” Noah’s face became gray, and his time was running out, so Romulus commenced with his monster performance.

  He raised the sledgehammer and smashed it into Noah’s abdomen. Blood flew everywhere, and Noah screamed out in pain. Romulus would have gone for the heart, but the script didn’t allow him to do so. He was an actor right now and the script told him to start at the stomach and make his way down the body until everything from the lungs down was indistinguishable from ground meat. The script also called for Romulus’s face to stay calm so Noah could feel like an audience member and gaze up in wonder about how a man could stay calm during such a performance. Surely, only a monster would stay calm while smashing them with a sledgehammer.

  The performance seemed to be working as Noah yelled out in pain and begged Romulus to stop, but like the monster that the People’s Lord thought the royal family was, Romulus stayed true to the script and smashed away with more and more blood flying through the air. Noah’s scream became louder at first, but as his body slowly came to a pulp, the scream lowered in volume.

  Romulus paused for a moment and bent over to ask one question. “Last words?”

  It took a moment for him to respond, and when he did speak, it didn’t seem like he fully understood, instead, he said: “Rhys…It’s Briar…It’s been so long,” like he was talking to someone else. His body then gave out and he lay there dead. Romulus thought for a moment that this Rhys might be a People’s Lord, but he made a mental decision. If he is real, let him show himself. I am chasing no ghost.

  The performance was over, and the audience felt what the playwriter wanted. Now, however, Romulus was on his own time, and he lifted the sledgehammer over his head, yelled, and smashed the legs to a pulp. As Romulus yelled, he thought the people outside the tunnel could hear him, but he didn’t care. His shouting slowly became tears as humans slowly became meat, but he was no longer a monster anymore. He was human, and like all humans, he could only swing a hammer so many times.

  He stopped for another moment before dropping the hammer and pulling out his sword. He grabbed onto Noah’s cold shoulder and slowly sliced his head off of his body. Noah’s eyes were still open, so as he picked up his head, and closed them, he didn’t have to look into his mother’s murderer’s eyes again.

  He sheathed his sword and picked up the hammer. He started to make his way back outside until he stopped next to the two rooms he passed by while he walked Noah down. The one on his left was open, and he turned his head to see two pieces of paper and a candle in between them. Kosta’s theory rushed back into Romulus’s mind. The urge was too strong, and he entered the room. He first checked to see if anyone was hiding and after confirming there wasn’t, looked over the two letters, and he saw it. Kosta’s source was right. It was the same handwriting, but one was signed as the People’s Lord. Noah was the People’s Lord.

  He put down Noah’s head and the hammer and folded the two pieces of paper. He wedged it between his armor and clothes before searching the two rooms for more documents. He found more letters that confirmed the same thing. They all have the same handwriting. It should have made him happy, the People’s Lord was no more, but Kosta’s theory rang too true. If he was right about this, what about the other thing? What if Lia was also the People’s Lord? What if the two of them were impersonating the People’s Lord, and he was still out there? Romulus sat on a chair and thought it over. He would have plenty of time to think it over, but what would he tell Kosta and Smith?

  In the meantime, however, he made his way outside and addressed his men. “Boys, we got him.”