181 Chapter 18The excitement look on Lord Angun’s face as he detailed the plans of the war clearly showed he missed those days when he was in charge of advising King Luca Arteides whenever they would go to battle. He may be in his sixties now but when he was in his prime, Lord Angun was appointed Master of Wars before rising up to be the Hand of the King.
As Master of Wars, he brought so many victories to the realm even though during the reign of Luca Arteides, the King did everything he could to avoid wars. Luca Arteides fought three massive wars ever since he was sworn in as King, to which he won two of them until the third one took him to his grave, and it’s because they weren’t fighting humans but poisonous elves.
In terms of swordsmanship, Luca was so skilled and good with his swords. Perhaps even better than his son, during his reign, the Maldonians referred to him as “The Slayer King” and that’s because of his impressive skill on swinging his swords sideways, frontwards and back and forth with speed.
“Prince Ambrose will be defeated once and for all if he will decide to fight Prince Amabel with weak and starving men. It will be his end, and Amabel will rule happily ever after” Lord Angun exhaled sofly after delivering such massive speech. He went back to sit on the chair and looked at his friends, one by one.
Both Lord Balrus and Lord Akirbus seemed to agree with his plans and they praised Lord Angun for still having the same drive and sharpness that he had when he was still in his prime. The next day Lord Balrus wrote two letters; the first one was sent by a very special trained raven who was tasked to deliver it on a Miranda ship which sailed alongside the Sunset Sea making it’s way towards Prophis. This letter was for Aprophil, Lord Balrus told him of the plan he thought he should go with and that was to wait until Aryan takes her armies to fight off Prince Ambrose.
Then just when she leaves the capital, they should invade the city and take it. Lord Balrus also told him that he shouldn’t wait any longer as soon as they take the city, to which he made it very clear in the letter. “Take the city and anoint him as soon as possible in front of masses. When the Queen returns she’ll find a King on the throne”
Aprophil read the letter slowly as soon as it arrived on the ship, good thing he was so familiar with the raven because it was the same one Lord Balrus used to send it when he wrote letters to him in Whitebridge. When he finished, he ordered his servants to take care of the bird and feed it before allowing it to fly back.
Katarina saw the whole thing, and she asked, “Who is it from?” and her tone showed how eager she was to know everything. But she was also scared for her son, the one thing which scared her way too much was the possibility of one of Amabel’s allies betraying him just before they reach Prophis.
Aprophil didn’t utter a single word, he just gave Katarina the letter. They were outside and it was the golden hour, the sun was setting and the clouds went from being dark blue to orange ─ as if it was set on fire. Prince Amabel stood firmly upstairs of the ship looking down at his mother and Aprophil having a conversation, he wasn’t eager to know what they were talking about because he trusted them more than anyone else inside the ship.
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After reading the letter, Katarina sighed softly and then returned it to Aprophil. “Do you trust him? This eunuch?” she asked Aprophil.
“With my life, he raised me and protected me from harm. If he says he will warn Aryan so she flees the city, then that’s what he’ll do”
Katarina was still anxious, she kept on asking, “And what if she doesn’t? What if she sees Prince Ambrose’s army and still chooses to remain at the capital? What will we do then?”
“Then we attack! It’s what we came to do, we have a huge army while she has what… twenty thousand remained soldiers? It will take a moon for Prince Ambrose to make it to Raven, or more because of the winter. While we have just a week before arriving in Prophis, our men are well fed and taken care of, we have warm tents and weapons. This war is on our side, we will win it” Aprophil told Katarina and he urged her not to worry about anything.
Yet as a mother, Katarina was always worrying. She had her sons with her, both Amabel and Barkis and the youngest of King Taelin’s son, Frost Taelin. These three were the most important people in her life, they held such a huge space inside her heart and she didn’t want to let them down nor did she want to see them dead.
The only thing she wanted was to see her son on a throne, it was his by rights and even the gods knew the throne belonged to him. Hence to the gods she prayed, and she prayed to be saved from the upcoming war and for her son to be granted strength and life.
Suddenly, they heard a scream and it was loud. Then the screams kept on increasing, they came from the sky and this alerted everyone on Miranda, and the rest of the fleet. Two dragons, one black as sooth and huge like a mountain, while the other green as grasses and also huge ─ the green one was bigger than the black one.
Aprophil’s eyes widened with amazement when he looked at the skies and saw his half-brother riding a dragon, and of course he was accompanied by his Queen. From where Aprophil stood, he couldn’t see the riders since the dragons were far beyond the orange clouds, but he knew that Artemis rode the black dragon while Aurora the green one.
The presence of these mythical creatures created terror on Aprophil himself, Prince Amabel, Katarina, the generals and all the men on their ships. By this time everyone was aware of the massive destruction of the Lawsend’s City, and the sixty thousand men who were barbecued to the point they turned to ashes, and those who didn’t, turned into black bones.
Not even the vultures and hawks ate their corpses because they were burned to the point not even their fleshes attracted these corpses eaters. That’s how dangerous dragons were and it scared Aprophil to his bones, not mentioning the fact he had never seen one before.
Artemis and Aurora took their dragons for a short flight, they didn’t expect to encounter a fleet sailing towards Prophis. They only knew about Prince Ambrose who was marching towards Ravem because Lord Balrus told them, Aurora noticed it immediately that Lord Balrus chose to opt this information. And he did so because Aprophil was leading this fleet in support of Prince Amabel, Aurora’s powers were growing and she saw Aprophil’s face even from up high in the clouds.
It was Artemis who didn’t know to whom the fleet belonged to, nor did he even suspect that it could be Prince Amabel. “I wonder who owns this fleet” he said looking down while hanging on tight to his saddle. “I count more than one thousand ships, and they all sailing towards Prophis. Could it be that Aryan has recruited more men?” he asked Aurora.
“I… maybe, I mean you burned all her men and she is seeking another army one for her safety” replied Aurora, she didn’t want Artemis to find out about her half-brother who was the true heir to the throne. Not now when he had a dragon, only she knew what he was capable of. “We should keep going” she hastened her dragon to keep flying.
Artemis didn’t seem to oblige to this, “Or we could burn the whole fleet and save ourselves from the upcoming war to which I’ll be dead, and Aryan would be the one cutting me in half” he suggested, but with a smirk and it was clear he was just trying to make a joke.
“If she wants to kill you, then she must get pass through me and I’m not easy to kill” replied Aurora and patted Vizoro to fly faster. Behind her Artodo followed and they kept on flying as if they hadn’t just seen the biggest fleet of men sailing towards Prophis while the Queen was honeymooning in Sweetfish Retreat.
After seeing the dragons disappearing, Aprophil let out a deep breath he didn’t even know that he was holding. Then everyone else who panicked found their calmness and then it was Aprophil who had to let them calm down. “They were just passing, let’s get back to work! It’s Prophis we want not Maldonia” and the last joke made the men laugh.
The journey continued in peace again. Now onto the second letter which Lord Balrus wrote to Queen Aryan, now this was sent with a seal ─ a yellow seal with a foreign sigil which didn’t indicate that it came from Maldonia.
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