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He pulled the brown handled sword out of the elf’s chest at last. The elf has stopped screaming five minutes ago since Valduir kept roaming the sword inside his guts while smiling. It was not Valduir’s first time, but he felt a much sweeter feeling this once.
The dead pointy-eared creature was tied up with shiny steel cuffs which glittered against the rough wall of this darkness of a cave. Two days he has been here, beaten, bloodied, and tortured before that noble man finally put him out.
Prince Valduir had long hair that obscured glittering green eyes. Nobility did leave a mark on his face, a mark of courage, handsomeness and elegance. He picked a small piece of iron that had light shining off a circle in its middle, it had a handle attached to it like a spoon which Valduir filled with blood from that elf. The light then was very faint and white in color. The light failed to grow any deeper and then the elf was finally put to the brown handled blade ferociously and heartlessly. The noble prince spat once he pulled out the sword. This’s the fourth time this keeps happening to him. Failure after failure to achieve his will.
“Damn this, isn’t there one accursed elf of you left that is still useful?” He shouted at the corpse which was still tied up, the elf was only in his black underwear that got tainted in red instead.
He sat with his back to the wall looking at what he had done, and cursing again. A shadow then struck the corpse black making it much darker and harder to see. The shadow was moving, it was a man coming, a tall man with long hair similar to Valduir’s only it was tied into a small ponytail, he knows this man well.
“Reyes! That you?” He looked at the opening to his south to check if his thoughts were right.
“What’re you doing, brother?” The man said now facing Valduir who got up and let a sigh without speaking, his looks now grimmer than before.
“This’s the fourth one isn’t it? The last three elves weren’t found dead as father and you told me, you gutted them too.”
Valduir was not enjoying his brother’s analysis, he never did. “You here to defend dead elves, brother?” Valduir got up and gazed him in the eye.
“Dead justice more like.” Said Reyes with a crack of desperation on his face.
“Justice?” Valduir laughed, “spare me your nonsense, I’ve had enough of it that I had to travel all way to the other edge of the capital.” Gulmond’s mountain laid at least a quarter day ride from the capital of Nizradil.
“What you’re doing is wrong. The war is done, we won it, why’re you still killing them? And in this…” Reyes approached the helpless body; his head was resting on his neck relaxed and cold like a cut leaf off a tree, “in this horrible way,” Reyes carried on. “What are you trying to accomplish with this…”
“Because I’m goddamn smart!” Valduir shouted to his brother’s silence and surprise, “I’ve an experiment that I must conduct.” Valduir walked to the metallic device and picked it up looking at the faint light that failed to grow any deeper.
“Experiment? What bloody experiment is that? For you to kill innocent…”
“They’re not innocents, they’re our enemies, they’re those who always thought of us as a lower specie, as an abomination on the face of this kingdom, on the whole world.”
“They did, and we waged a war that we won. It’s over.”
“I have to do this.” Valduir went to the body again, he used his underwear to clean the blood off his sword, then he picked the tool with and pooled the blood back on the elf again. It came down on his golden hair slipped upon his yellow skin down to the black rocky floor.
Reyes was enraged upon this sight, came forward, “you don’t have to brother. Whatever done is done.”
“Nothing is done until I find the ears of a fully pure elf.”
“I won’t let you do it.” Said Reyes with a now roughened tone that surprised the older brother, he knew Reyes does raise his voice over him from time to time when they disagree, but this time he looked much more seriously offended. He could not blame him, he knows his brother was soft on these matters, he always thought his brother had the myth of a ‘perfect world’ that does not exist anymore, that he was young and stupid in that sense.
“Leave this cave, Reyes.” His tune was almost commanding.
“I won’t let you go along with this butchery; I have laid off what I’ve been feeling in the past month as false doubts. Now I know what is going on, and I won’t just stand aside.”
“Our father knows about it, brother. The king stands with me. What are you expecting to do?” Valduir shocked his brother whose eyes stopped blinking for a while. He always thought of his father and older brother as the idols of sacrifice, of valor in battle, of honor and bravery that won the War of Dynasties. Only now he figures they are a team of murderers who lay schemes in dark caves against the helpless.
Valduir kept asking his brother to leave, only Reyes moved forward. “I won’t.” He shouted as he attempted to lay Valduir off the body by grabbing his emblemed top, but Valduir brought his sword up forcing Reyes to get back. When they argued back in the day, Valduir would know that his brother won’t be waving something at his face, but after what he had just seen, he didn’t really know how far Reyes’ ‘honor’ would take him, but he thought he must be ready.
Reyes raised his sword again to now parry his brother’s attack, Valduir then made Reyes’ sword taste many hits until it nearly steamed and so did his carrier. Reyes’ hits failed to even get near Valduir, who suddenly directed a sword which forced his brother back, quick hits followed then which ended in disarming Reyes with a sideway attack. Valduir then put the sword’s shining intense tip to the middle of his younger brother’s neck which had his throat galloping up and down in shock. He was never someone who would be scared, but seeing what his brother just did to a corpse made him uneasy about that.
“Leave here, Reyes, and let me do my job. I will even say please.” Valduir finally sheathed it and got back to the body. He had to do what he always does to elves, dismembering and burning. He let the cuffs loose then laid the elf on his back and tied a piece of cloth around his arm to prevent the splattering of blood.
He already began cutting the elven arm when the silence and surprise of Reyes broke out. “You’re doing this because of her, aren’t you?” Reyes said calmly.
Valduir only blinked before he kept his eyes closed and kept cutting eagerly as blood spilled all over the sword and the ground. His mouth frozen as he tilted his head in agony. “Don’t ever bring her, understand?” He said half-looking back to his brother as he was crouching beside the corpse.
“You’re channeling your love for her in the hatred for her kind, since she left you for them.” Reyes analyzed to his brother’s incarnate anger as he urged him to shut up, only he did not. “You think that what she wants you to do?”
Valduir got up, closed his face with his brother’s “I don’t give a rat piss about her anymore, she’s gone, and I do this for science, as the king’s trusted mage.” The prince shouted as hot air came rushing in front of his mouth. When he was angry, one could feel his steaming breaths off a distance.
“That anger of yours, only proves me right.” Reyes said before taking a breath. “Nevertheless, I will talk to him about this.” Said Reyes before turning to the cave’s exit which was intercepted by a small black raven pecking at some thrown seed’s remnants.
“About what?” his brother’s anxious question made him stop as he smiled, then turned back. “When you told me that you were in love with an elf, you said it’s a brother’s secret, how would I be a brother if I broke it out?”
Relief was on Valduir’s face when his brother continued. “I will talk to him about allowing you to kill whomever you want though, for I won’t let that pass, not while I live. I won’t let you slaughter more unarmed elves for your trials.” Then Reyes turned to leave in a haste making the raven fly high up smelling the clouds as it flew south.
“He won’t tell you anything more than what I did, we’re in agreement. The king demands and needs what I do, brother.” Valduir kept shouting as his brother rode his horse and hasted along the rough mountaintop going down the sloppy spiral ground down, not thinking that his brother is wrong about the king.
ns 15.158.61.8da2
