everyone. Every. Last. Person. If I do not, there will be consequences. Fatal consequences for those who have let me down. Have you seen war, Nanite? Have you felt the blade of your enemy slashing your flesh?”
“Yes, your highness. I have served for ten years in Naxus’ army.”
“My army, Nanite. My army.”
“Of course, sire. Your army. My apologies.” Nanite was starting to sound less and less confident in his ability to remain breathing. Archon was evoking thoughts of war, and with those thoughts of war, the possibility of death for an underperforming sergeant.
Everybody was bold and brave until they heard the screams of the dying and realized that those screams would one day invariably come from their own throats. Then they started to look for reasons to be merciful, in the false hope that mercy might one day be shown to those they loved.
“If someone did escape, they will spread the word of your terror and they will ensure that others know never to antagonize their great king. Was that not the purpose of this exercise?”
“Perhaps, but it was supposed to be a mystery. An attack can quell rebellions for a few years, but a mystery can last for generations.”
Archon had at first thought that making an example of the village which had started the rebellion would be a good idea. Then he had decided that it would be better to simply remove the village and let everybody wonder what had happened to it.
If he could not secure every single one of the humans, then the illusion would be broken, and if the illusion was broken, then real war was inevitable. The humans might possibly believe that they had some chance of succeeding in their rebellions.
Archon wished to avoid war. He knew that once the killing had begun it could not stop until each and every witness, relative, scribe, or bard lay in the cold ground or danced upon the ashes of a funeral pyre. To truly win a war, one had to kill until there was nothing left to die. To show mercy to a woman or a child, to allow them to escape and spread the word of tragedy was to ensure that there would be someone left to grow up and seek vengeance, or to breed a small army of those who would wish to reclaim what was taken.
The best way to maintain control was to be cruel, but if one was not prepared to be cruel, then it was absolutely essential one appear evil.
A flash in the distance caught his attention, a brightness suddenly glimmering among the trees. There she was. He knew she was a she, in the same way he had known she was there in the first place. Instinct.
Archon gave chase without a word, leaving his army and his war machine behind, throwing his body into the task of pursuit. It felt good to use his own flesh. To chase with muscle and bone, not electricity and metal.
It did not take long to catch up to the prey. She was relatively slow compared to him, and she had little in the way of strength. Archon slowed his pace to closer match hers, drawing out the chase.
He got a better look at her as he bounded through the undergrowth. Female, just as he had thought. Young. Weak. Round rumped and long legged.
It would have been so easy to catch her right away, to overhaul her with his longer stride and more powerful body. But where was the fun in that? He liked making his prey run. He liked to savor the hunt. There was no sweeter music than her ragged, panicked breath as his prey came to terms with their inevitable capture.
So many would have given up by now. Archon had been on many hunts, and often the object would just stop and accept the inevitable. Not this female though. She believed she could escape him. What a very human delusion, to think that a five foot female could outrun a nine foot king.
Wait. Where did she go?
It was as if she had blinked out of existence. One moment she was dashing through the woods, the next…
Archon almost fell into the hole his prey had crawled into. He let out a laugh as he realized what a good trick she had played. But the hunt was not over, and her escape was far from guaranteed.
Crouching down, Archon discovered that it wasn’t just a hole. It was a tunnel. When he peered down it, he