“It’s been months,” General Brackenridge said, looking out at the fields of snow covered death.

David also turned his gaze to the areas around Videlia from the hastily constructed wooden wall. The villagers were of one mind in the protection of those they love, and little Shasta was a blue-eyed doll in the eyes of the feolise villain and the most hard-hearted geezer within the confines of this town. He should know. He had been a bit of both in his time.

The village had put mind and soul into the construction of arts of war, building a two-story wall just inside the moat and outer reaches of the village that was turned into a swamp.

It helped that the Imperial had sent Were with the ability to lift a small tree single-handedly. They moved the wall right along, bumping construction forward by months.

David’s voice lowered into just above a whisper, knowing that whispers carry farther than a low voice. “Our contact has the artifact.”

A whistle. “The kid’s been busy.”

“He has a dragon. What do you expect?” David said, glancing at the grizzled general, and almost jerked in surprise when he saw a smile on the man’s face. It looked remarkably like a scowl on the stone-faced man.

David quickly turned his gaze back to the serene landscape that hid the rigors of war to come and a promise.

A promise for any who came to take the freedom of a small pebble in a big pond. But even a small pebble could choke a big fish.

“Is he truly what we desire?”

David heaved out a breath, leaning against the wooden parapet. “I don’t know. But I believe the Allfather sent us a king who could overthrow a bad one.”

A grunt. “So you think he is not good?”

David could sense the general’s eyes on him, but he chose not to meet his gaze. “There is something in him that is not good. There is a darkness he hides. One does not come through what he did without losing a part of his soul.”

The grizzled man leaned on the parapet beside his old friend, watching the trees sway in the distance. “Are you speaking of him… or yourself?”

David did not have the answer. He let the silence speak.

“I see. Let us not disparage what has been. A battle may well be lost in the coming weeks, but it is not for us to know the outcome of this war.”

“Weeks?” David asked, his voice low. He had hoped for more time.

A pause. “They have been seen. A mighty force. Dragons. Mages. They come from a triumphant war to take the blood debt against us.”

David was a warrior. He knew what such numbers meant. “We do not stand a chance, do we?”

The grizzled old man gave a sigh that was quite delicate for such a big and gruff man. “No. I have already begun the evacuation team’s duties. The Were are prepared, but Roland is not there. He went on a mission to the west and has not been heard from—we may have to proceed without him.”

“Without him and his dragon, we can only buy time. Will they follow us into the mountains?”

The man turned to face David, his yellowed teeth parting in a terrifying grin as his eyes crinkled. “I’d like to see them try, my friend. I would like to see them try.”

An old lady and her crane thwacked down the avenue heading to a debilitated and frankly obscure building. It rose two stories into the air, a monolith for this side of town, but it looked half-ready to kick the bucket and be done with it.

She took no note of such things, grumbling about snot-nosed brats who went and broke their elbow... for the fifth time this month.

She would kill him, but such would go against her oath to the people of this small town. She had been here when it was but a small hovel and a hundred folk. Now, when she looked at it, she saw people, great and small, who came from those first hundred who had run from a war to save the artifacts that would one day, hopefully, usher in an age of peace.

She walked into the building, a strange shimmer that almost appeared blindingly silver for a split moment of time. It would’ve made anyone question their sanity… but then, those in south outer-rims often had little sanity to begin with and were unlikely to raise a ruckus.

The old lady disappeared inside the doors in the moment of light, and then this part of old town was as quiet and dank as it could be with the threat of a storm coming from the distance.

The old lady straightened from her crouch within the building, her back creaking and popping like an old tree as she bent backward then twisted from side to side.

“Being old is going to kill me,” she cackled to herself, twirling the cane like a sword.

Without the need of a limp or a humped back, she strode with purpose deeper into the dilapidated building… that was more, it seemed, than the outside at first portrayed.

The walls around her were no longer wood, but a seamless, glimmering, metal-like substance.

She descended into the bowels of the building, going deeper underground, with the walls all around the same metallic with a rounded ceiling as the stairs deposited her into a long hallway with branching offshoots and glimmering orbs of silver light that clicked on with a word in Old Tongue.

She walked for quite some time, eventually coming to a room. But unlike the rest, this room was carved from stone. She ran her hand over the arching doorway, the cold stone rough to her calloused hands. Chips could be seen where her ancestors blasted their way into this very cavern to hide the Kingmaker.

Very few knew the secrets from that time. Very few knew how the old Kings were chosen. It was not by human hands, and the old lady grumbled about the ways of men and their foolhardy disregard to the laws of the Omnifather. Of the Creator.

She lay her hand on the orb where the dagger once lay in wait for the one who would come to bring peace… or death.

The Kings of old would sometimes turn even though their hearts had been chosen by the Omni. They would lose their way and their trust amid trials—she had also seen them turned by the good times, the times in which they had everything they wanted… and yet they were ever content. Therefore, the last item was oft hidden by her kind until the new King could prove the riggers of war and blessing would not turn the heart by temptation of desire—or ease.

She often saw the most promising of young Kings turned by mere ease from two choices… and one path that often looked easier was in fact much harder and lost him the crown… eventually.

It was the in-between while they still wore the crown that made the nations tremble in the olden days as taxes rose and the king would become a puppet to his advisors—who typically advised him or her down the ‘easy’ path to begin with.

She shook her head, hoping, praying, beseeching that Roland was different. That he might bring the peace her old bones so longed for… and keep it.

As the last of her kind, it seemed a fitting way to leave this world behind.

Centuries she had waited. Centuries she had suffered. Centuries had she seen beloved humans emerge from their mothers, only to die years later covered in blood once more. She longed for nothing more than to meet with her Creator at long last, but she had one last job to do.

She tapped a nail against the orb, and it shattered, sprinkling rain that rung with gentle song as it fell on the rock below.

She reached inside the pedestal encased in preserved wood that she herself had polished yearly for as long as she could remember.

She pulled out a simple circlet made of glimmering bronze. It had words in the old tongue no current human could read, unless there was a prodigy of a scholar somewhere she knew not of. But she read the inscription that she had not seen since her father had placed it within the confines of the shield.

“Born in Fire, Risen From Ashes.

A Peasant, A Prince, A King,

Chosen from among you,

One with No Home,

To on his shoulders bare,

Peace or Death ’til End does he part."

She trailed her finger over the writing on the inner part of the crown:

"Peace from The Phoenix and Strength from The Spirit to all who call upon the Name of the Father.”

She lightly trailed a finger along the words, a sad smile pulling at her lips as her eyes burned gold.

“I hope to crown you the Last of the Kings, boy. Don’t make me regret it.”

With a snap of her fingers, a fire in the far cauldron that had been burning since the last King’s death snuffed out.