Uther smirked and started back towards the palace. “I plan to save my people,” he said to her as he left her, smoking and destroyed. “I will save them by ruling them.”
In just a few strides, Uther made it back to the palace and began to look for his traitorous friend and Vortigern. This battle would be over sooner than he had hoped and he could put his next plan into action. Camelot needed order and someone to keep it. From the chaos that had consumed his own life, he would save the planet and every race, species, and person in it.
To his delight, Uther didn’t have to search long to find Vortigern or Galois. One last balcony remained intact after the fight and Vortigern perched on it with his massive weapon, searching the skies. Too pleased to oblige his enemy, Uther ignited the thrust power under his Avamech’s feet and flew up to eye level with Vortigern. Malicious satisfaction and glee bubbled up in him to see both men jump from fright when the machine shot up before them.
“Both traitors standing so stupidly in the open with such an army at your gates.” He crossed his arms and began to hover as he spoke to them. “Vortigern, you tired out old man, I expect this kind of behavior from you — Ah!”
Vortigern had not been listening to the jeering young man. Instead he had aimed and fired with his strange missiles. Uther had to lurch ridiculously out of the way, killing all the grace and poise he had mustered to stand before his enemies.
“I was going to give you the option to surrender!” he screamed as he righted Excalibur in the air.
“Uther, please, don’t do this!” Galois called up to him. “We’re all like brothers. This colony needs us to work together to establish a home here.”
“I was!” Uther growled back. “This man whom you stand beside left us, remember? He killed Constans! How can you stand beside him like this? Against me, your friend?”
“I stand here for justice. Bring him back and establish a court. Our laws and courts have not even been created yet and you take this man’s life into your own hands. Look at your people down there. Dead and suffering for following him. If you want to rule, you must learn to look beyond appearances.” He caught his breathe, tearing his eyes from the smashed, bloody field. “We are few, Uther. The human race cannot afford a civil war right now!”
Excalibur’s great hand chopped like lightning down onto the balcony in Uther’s anger. Vortigern leapt back, dropping his weapon and stumbling away just in time. Galois, however, stayed to plead with Uther just a moment too long. The floor crumbled under him and he pitched forward into thin air. Scrambling with his hands, he clutched onto the piping and supports in the broken floor.
“You would have me believe he had some noble purpose in killing Constans?” Uther boomed, flexing his arms. He turned to Vortigern, who now cowered near the palace wall on what was left of a steady ground.
“Hear me, Uther!” Vortigern cried. “Constans was a bad man. He wanted Camelot for himself. He saw his father and you as competition and would have had you killed had I not done it first. He knew how much your father loved you over him. He could not risk losing a new planet to a younger brother.”
Uther only paused in his assault to laugh. “I do not even need to hear more to know that you are lying. Vortigern, you were just the old man who never achieved your dreams while my father was. A sad, old man pitting young men against each other.”
“Uther, help me!” Galois cried from where he hung, his strength waning.
“If you had not killed Constans what would you do? Heartlessly play us against each other like knights in your chess game?” He could not even hear Galois anymore.
“Uther!” Galois called.
“You are the heartless one, boy!” Vortigern sprang to his feet and ran more nimbly than any other old man to the edge where Galois stood.
“No!” Uther shouted. He charged Excalibur at the two men, his eyes finally seeing Galois. The Avamech’s feet hit an adjoining building of the palace. The reverb ruptured the walls and caused the whole place to quake.
With a cracking roar, the last tower of Vortigern’s palace crumbled away and cascaded down onto the remains of the balcony taking everything left away to the ground, meters below. Uther could not see Vortigern or Galois in the mountainous pile of rubble.
10
Conquest and Doom
Excalibur seemed to be frozen to the spot. The Avamech would not budge no matter how Uther screamed at it in his mind to run away from the pile of debris. Looking onto his display, he saw that his fuel light blinked red and his psych-meter flashed as well.
“It appears you are traumatized,” Merlin’s voice said.
“Get this thing to move!” Uther demanded, hot tears burning his cheeks as they fell against his will.
“I’m not in it, I cannot.”
“Then what do I do, Merlin?” Panic edged its way into his chest and the psych-meter began to flash faster now. “What does that mean?”
Merlin hummed in thought. “The only thing I can think of is activating your Avalonian DNA. That will damage the process you have undergone a little though. I think.”
Uther’s breath quickened, he panted so fast now his brain began to spin. “Merlin, I just want away from here.” Somewhere under that rubble laid Vortigern. Buried next to Galois.
“The Mist will help.
