“I’ll get used to it, as I have one already,” said Valverno, placing a hand on his right eye. Then he flapped his wings and he slowly rose into the air. “I can fly once again, but my inner spinal cord is feeling some pain. I’m going have to fly slower than usual.”
Valverno drifted back to the ground. He could feel some twitching aching going in his back. He discovered Sora’s healing power can heal flesh wounds, but she can’t heal aches that comes afterword.
Marina walked over Valverno and looked at the healed scar. She brushed her hand on Valverno’s skin. “Another one like your eyes,” said Marina.
“And I could be looking at many more in the future. Now that my body doesn’t have the upgrades Belverda gave to me, I am back to the demigod I once was.”
“Two-thirds that,” said Flavius, stroking his horse to the family of three people standing together. “I was told you only found two the three. You have one more to go. Is that right?”
Valverno nodded his head.
“That is right. Before we go to that, we should get back to the camp. The leaders who brought their armies must be toasting to our victory. They would want to hear of the enemy leaders. And give a proper farewell to one of our own.”
Flavius gave Valverno an ill look. Then Flavius strode his horse and trotted away. The horsemen followed behind their leader. After the horses disappeared, two horsemen came up to Marina and Sora. Valverno told his two female family members to get on their horses, as his flying ability was in a weakened state.
The two girls got onto the horses and they rode off, with Valverno walking behind them and flying at the same time. He was only flying a few feet from the ground.
W
The group traveled back to the encampment of the united army. It took them several hours to travel back to the camp, which they saw the tents set up. Going through the hills Valverno created, the armor and the weapons of the enemy army had been piled up. The metal of the weapons and armor was rusted and dulled it could not be reused or refurbished by any experienced blacksmith; they were junk ready to be deposed.
Valverno soared about thirty feet in the air and saw thousands of tents set up. There were a few hundred large tents big as Geraldus’s house. He could smell the scent of flesh wounds polluting the air he was flying in, and he couldn’t hold his breath for very long as he used to in the past.
Valverno landed to the ground and walked about the army’s camp. He saw wounded soldiers from both sides covered in white bandages in every small tent there was.
In the big tents, stretching out wide enough to fit a hundred people, were beds for soldiers who lost a foot or an arm in the bloody battle. But most of the beds were covered with dead bodies.
Valverno made his way to the center tent; the opening was decorated with gold drabs and the roof of the tent sparkled in emeralds and rubies, unlike the other tents that were just plain white. Inside he looked at a row of dead soldiers lying on each bed. Valverno looked at the few people he didn’t recognize, and he assumed this one special tent was for the leaders of each army.
In one corner he saw Monico sitting over at one bed with a shining goblet with orange diamonds. He drank from the goblet to the state he looked like he was near drunk. Of the body he was drinking near was Wasso with deep cuts across his face.
Valverno grunted at the dead body of Wasso, and from the smell he smelled coming from the room, Wasso had the worst wounds of the dead people in the tent.
Then he turned to the left corner by the entrance and he saw the body of no one else than the man he mostly respected: Geraldus.
Geraldus’s body had lain across the bed if it was asleep. Valverno placed his hand on Geraldus’s chest plate. The man who had raised him lies dead before his eyes. The White Knight of Loyalty was dead and now the title would have to be passed on the next successor: Flavius.
A few tears dripped down from his eyes. This man he looked up to and the closest man he had close to a father laid dead before his eyes. At one point, the man was alive and fighting alongside the hybrid, and the next point he had been stabbed by Belverda by a sneak attack that caught them both unguarded.
The witch killed a White Knight that Valverno thought would have been stronger, but it seemed the staff she had made her equally powerful. But now the witch is dead and Geraldus had been avenged.
“White Knight of Loyalty, you have shown me the greatest loyalty. You have raised as a son and you have been the closest thing I had to a father. Belverda could have raised me, but it was her mistake to have left me at your doorstep.
“Now, she is dead as well as the king. I am thankful of the deeds you have done for me. I was thinking of repaying you back. But since you have passed from the Mortal Realm, the deeds you have done for me I can never pay back. I just hope, in the Realm of the Gods, or wherever you may be now, it must be a paradise. At least, you can be with Alaric. Farewell, Geraldus and thank you for being the father I needed you to be.” Valverno turned and exited the tent.
As Valverno left, his ear picked up the sound of loud cheers coming nearby. It was the
