He was so tired… he just wanted to rest. He couldn’t now. His work wasn’t finished. Cole took a slight breath as he turned to survey his troops, all looking ragged and tired. As he gazed on each of their weary faces, the stress he saw written there was all too familiar; he could feel it carved into his own visage. Months of tension with Roam had worn on him. Months more of fighting had broken him down. The familiar ache in his still-healing eye throbbed as the sun beat down on the citizens of Falton and he absentmindedly rubbed the scars running jaggedly down his face. He silently cursed the blasted Warboys that had left him that particular memento, turning to face one of his citizens as she stepped up towards him. Her worried look pained him, especially since he was the one who had let Roam settle next to Falton – the very act that had caused all of this. “Your majesty,” she began, “do you think we’ll win this time?”
The king couldn’t answer her; he didn’t know himself. Yes, he had beaten back the Warboys. He’d sated his thirst for revenge against the werewolves. He’d even fought a band of pirates. He had not, however, seen circumstances more ominous than the ones in which they currently found themselves. “I’ve fought for Falton, and I’ll die for her, you’ve my assurance of that. I just hope it’s not today.” As the words left his mouth, Cole knew they lacked conviction. He knew, then – he knew that today, one way or the other, he would not leave the battlefield.
Gritting his teeth and steeling himself, he turned to his troops. “Men and women of Falton!” He thundered. “The Roamans have stolen your banker and your funds. Even now they sit comfortably in their palisades, planning our deaths. We have fought for our lands before, and now we will do it again! We will not allow them to come in and steal from us; we shall beat them back as we have so many threats before! We have defeated immortal barbarians. We have defeated inhuman monstrosities. A few men in chainmail are nothing to us!” A soft ripple of laughter through the crowd lifted his spirits a bit, and he continued prepping the troops as he heard the distinct metallic clanks of Roam doing the same. His prince – Lukos, one of the bravest men in his kingdom – stepped before the troops and raised his blade as Cole strapped his shield to his arm. “Faltonians!” the young man cried. “There may come a day when the courage of men fails, when we forsake our friendships and break all bonds of fellowship. But it is not this day! I bid you stand, Falton! For the west!”
Cole felt a familiar fire burn in his breast as he saw the sun glinting off distant Roaman armor, the comforting rage he felt as he always did when his citizens came under threat. “For the west! For Falton! We come back with our shields or on them!” he roared, snarling at the oncoming threat as he charged towards their line. He glanced to his right, where he saw the Grey Warden, and to his left he found Lukos. Glad to have his friends with him in this battle, he ran his gaze back to the Roaman defenses and hefted his shield in front of them. He laughed aloud as he saw them readying their trebuchets, their throwing knives, the very rocks from the ground. None would reach his citizens. None would pass his shield!
All he could hear before their lines crashed together was the fleet beating of his heart. He saw men’s lips move, but did not hear their cries. He saw the trebuchet swing, but the whistle of its projectile was lost to him. “Behind the shield wall!” he cried to the forces behind him, sheltering himself behind his shield. Even his own voice was muted in the din, apparent by the falling of soldiers further behind who did not hear his warning. He halted his army’s march there, spending what seemed like an aeon doing nothing save feeling the pounding of rocks and knives against his shield. Finally, almost suddenly, the ranged assault stopped. The battlefield hummed with an eerie silence for a few beats of the heart before Cole locked eyes with the pirate captain, Beauregard. Their eyes narrowed simultaneously, and their cries of “Forward!” were as one.
The watch quickly gathered around Cole as the two forces clashed into one another, merging into a confused mess of blood and steel. His personal guard had been ever-loyal since the Warboys’ attempts on his life; he could only hope that their loyalties would not lead them down with him. The battle began to fall into a deadly monotony, becoming nothing more than the moves he had executed so many times before. He could feel his body moving almost on its own accord, muscles remembering the battles he had fought, as he fought against wave after wave of the seemingly endless Roaman horde.
Stab. Block. Hack. Stab. Block. Hack. Cole could hear his breathing become ragged as the pain of many small wounds flared its way into his mind. “Medic!” he howled numbly, pulling his blade from the body of a pirate that had wandered too close to him. He had lost count of how many he had felled, or how many cuts they had rendered him in the process. He leaned on his shield to rest a moment as the medic healed him, appraising the battle around him.
Falton was losing horribly, much to his shock. They had been cornered against the treeline… without him or the watch there to help. An electric bolt of fear ran down his spine as he threw off his exhaustion, yelling to the watch. “Men! They’re cornered; regroup and fall back to-“ he stopped abruptly. As he had turned to face his watch, a flicker of movement at the corner of his eye had seemed too insignificant to notice, but now that he saw the men at his back it had become of chilling import. There the pirate Fat Mike stood over the body of one of the watch, a triumphant grin on his face as he pulled his club from the man’s back. Cole didn’t even hear his own roar of rage as he charged the pirate, though he could see it reflected in the man’s fearful expression. One of the smaller, vocal pirates swung at him as he ran by, but he chased the brigand away with a vicious swipe of his blade. He ignored the minor wounds it left as he charged Fat Mike, blade and club meeting with a horrid crunch. The ensuing fight blurred together as he fought off the two pirates, the Warden coming to his aid, until Beauregard himself entered the fray.
The Warden fell next to Cole, and the king immediately snapped his shield up to meet this new threat. He backed away from the trio of privateers, tripping over an unseen root through a thornbush as he avoided their cruel blades. As he fell back, he felt someone against his back, and whirled to meet them only to find himself face to face with a Faltonian – the same girl from earlier. He felt a pang of guilt as her face lit up with hope, her cries of “The King! The King! Fall back to the King!” ringing in his ears, reminding him of his failure to keep safe the many soldiers he saw on the ground. They did indeed fall back towards Falton, but at less than a quarter of their original number. He knew it was over – but this was Falton. They did not surrender; they would fight unto their last man.
As Roam inexorably gained ground, Cole felt an odd peace come over him. He turned to his Watch, nodding. “Go! Back to Falton! Hold the town should they break through!” His men returned a salute and ran for their home as he turned back to face Roam, now back-to- back with a lone survivor – the Spartan that had helped him time and time again. Roam surrounded them, ten to their two, and he looked to the fearless warrior. “Go.” He said quietly, “At least one of us should live through this.” The fighting suddenly came to a halt as the ring of men closed around him, eyeing him warily as they slowly forced him to the middle of the field. “Ladies and gentlemen of Falton!” came the whining cries of the Roaman ambassador. “Here is your ‘king’.” Cole looked around sorrowfully at the few that were healthy enough to respond, every one nursing injuries that would have them in infirmary for a month. “If you surrender now, you will be spared, and will become citizens of Roam. As for you…” the ambassador smirked, turning to Cole. “You will be brought to Roam for a fair… trial.”
Cole growled, and Beauregard recoiled behind the Roaman. The foreigner obviously did not know anything of the honor they held as Faltonians. “There will be no trial.” The king said, deathly quiet, and had to resist a smile at the Roaman’s shocked look. “But- of course there shall be! You are a criminal of-“ Snapping his sword aloft to cut the man off, Cole glared at the man, roaring, “I said there shall be no trial!” He turned to the frightened conglomeration that was all that remained of his army. “Men and women of Falton!” he cried, holding his sword before him. “I have fought and bled for you. I said I would fight for you, and I said I would die for you. Now I keep my word!” He snapped his attention back to the now- quivering Roaman, advancing slowly and hefting his shield. He would die, but he would not do it without a fight!
“Wait!” came the unexpected voice of Beauregard behind him, “I demand a duel!”
Cole was so shocked that he whirled with the feeling writ upon his face, though it faded when he caught the pirate’s meaning. They both knew that he wasn’t making it out of here; this was simply to make his passing honorable. He nodded at the pirate in appreciation, the man’s usual knowing smile falling away to melancholy as he nodded back to the king. The two began circling each other as Roamans formed a circle around them, thumping their weapons against the ground. No further words were exchanged as Beauregard lunged. Cole snapped his shield aloft and felt the pirate’s dual cutlasses strike the protective metal, though when he swung his own blade around it struck flesh. They swung again – pirate cutlass glancing his off Cole’s shoulder, the king’s katana finding a mark in the other man’s gut. “Good hit!” the pirate complimented, clutching his wound. “And to you!” Cole returned, the combatants charging again to meet one another. In a flurry of blows that wrapped around his shield, Cole felt his sword bite home into flesh and bone even as the pirate’s frenzied blows struck his jerkin and knocked him to the ground.
He felt his numerous wounds overcoming him, and made a final lunge even as the pirate swung down again. Everything went silent. The two combatants stared at one another, then gazed upon their wounds – Beauregard at the sword in his ribs, Cole at the cutlasses in his chest. The silence was only broken by Cole’s bloody cough a few moments later, his weak grip falling from his sword hilt. He gazed up into the sun and Beauregard’s face as the pirate struggled to stand, the feeling fading from his own body. He was so tired… Beauregard said something then, but the words were lost on him. A moment later, he felt the pirate’s cold steel rip into his chest again. He laid back and closed his eyes, drawing his shield up to cover the sun, as he felt the cold spread throughout his body.
He was so tired… he just wanted to rest. He could now. His work was finished.
~Cole Van Helsing