As soon as Azrea saw her man, she immediately meowed in displeasure and jumped out of the Master’s hands. In two leaps, she reached Hadjar, scrambled up his legs, then his torso, bit his ear, and slipped into his clothes, resting against his chest, where she soon fell asleep.
“I would never have thought it possible, my Prince, that communication between rebels can be accomplished with the help of a kitten.”
“We are not rebels,” Lian said resentfully. “We’re fighting for the legitimate heir.”
Despite dozing, nestled in the clothes of what she considered to be her ‘bipedal vehicle’, Azrea meowed angrily. Apparently, she wanted to express her dissatisfaction with being called a ‘kitten’.
“What now, General?” Lergon asked in between giving orders to his people.
The soldiers deployed siege mortars, prepared spike barricades against the cavalry charge, and placed sandbags around the square to fortify their position. The Palace, despite its accessibility, remained the strongest fortress of the Kingdom. The first, central Palace wall had been built thousands of years ago. Throughout the years, it had been strengthened and expanded, finally becoming the most reliable defensive fortification in the whole country.
“We’ll probably have to blockade the Palace,” Lergon mumbled, scratching his short beard.
“The troops of the Empire might come while we’re doing that,” Lian said.
That’s how their arguing began. While they bickered, the Moon Army dragged away the bodies of the legionnaires and those that they’d managed to take with them to the next world. Redoubts were built. The cannoneers put cannonballs in the mouths of their cannons. Hadjar felt happy as thousands of soldiers awaited his order. It wasn’t because he felt powerful, but rather nostalgic.
“No siege will be necessary,” he said.
The officers looked at their General, clearly puzzled. He gestured toward the opening fortress gates. They were being opened by blood-drenched, regular soldiers and guards of the Palace. Dozens of their comrades lay dead behind the gates, but there were also many soldiers in green armor lying alongside them. The Master had done his best during the time given to him and had trained the Palace guards well.
Hadjar turned to the Army. All of them were waiting for his order to storm the Palace. He should’ve probably given them some sort of pretentious speech, full of determination and nobility. Unfortunately, he’d lost all his willingness to indulge in such things while chained to the post. Therefore, the Mad General did what he always did. He raised his fist into the sky and roared like an enraged dragon.
Hundreds of thousands of soldiers did the same. Their fists were raised, and the walls of the ancient castle and houses started to crack from the force of their roars. Hadjar, raising his sword, ran toward the Palace first. The Moon Army and the Balium corps, which had come at the Mad General’s call, followed right behind him. Together, they rushed into the Palace garden and several thousand legionaries immediately appeared to challenge them. The narrow paths of the garden didn’t allow the army to maneuver easily, but that wasn’t necessary.
Hadjar’s sword seemed to be everywhere at once. The legionnaires had no chance. A dark shadow flashed between them. Each swing of Hadjar’s blade took several lives; each of his attacks conjured a whole wave of ghostly blades that turned people into little more than mincemeat.
A bloodthirsty grin gleamed on the General’s face. The sword in his hand sang and danced. Like a spirit of death, he rushed through the garden, and by the time his people had barely managed to send a couple dozen legionaries to their forefathers, he’d covered the paths with over fifty bodies.
Pausing for a moment, Hadjar held his blade in both hands. A vortex of steel energy sprang up around him. Assuming the ‘Spring Wind’ stance, he swung Moon Beam. The thin line of a sword strike cut through the air. Fast and almost invisible, it left behind a trail of red petals. When the attack disappeared, cutting down trees, statues, and fountains, the red trail lingered in the air for some time, but it wasn’t made up of flowers. A hundred legionaries had been cleanly cut in half. Their torsos fell to the ground and they died without understanding what had taken their lives. What was a simple practitioner to Hadjar, after all? No more than an annoying mosquito crawling along the edge of his clothes, something that could bite him, certainly, but not end his life.
Hadjar was reminded of the Tree of Life’s prediction. Involuntarily, the Mad General started to repeat a passage from the ancient poem: “But where is the one who wasn’t born to a woman?”
Hadjar drove his blade into another legionnaire’s chest. With a roar, he lifted him above his head. The blood flowed straight over Hadjar’s face as the body was still twitching in its death throes.
The General swung his sword down forcibly and the legionnaire, flicked off the blade like a piece of trash, landed on his comrades that had been hurrying to try and rescue him. They fell and were immediately swarmed by hundreds of the warriors of Lidus.
“General!” Lian shouted, fighting several legionnaires at once. “Enter the Palace! We’ll follow you!”
Hadjar nodded and continued to cut his way into the Palace. His opponents stood no chance. They fell like autumn leaves, paving his way with blood.
The main Palace staircase was covered in broken pieces of armor, blood, and flesh. Hadjar, walking up to the ancient doors, simply kicked them open. One of the doors, unable to withstand the force of the kick, flew off its hinges and, after flying a few yards, fell to the marble with a booming echo.
“I’ve always wanted to do that.”
Hadjar hadn’t been the one to say that.
Nero stood in front of him, wearing a lightweight jacket and the stupid helmet with ‘ears’ on his head. He held his heavy blade that had been immortalized in dozens of bards’ songs. Next to him stood Serra, holding a staff shaped like a dragon’s maw,
