Gregory smiled as his wife took breaths like a repeating crossbow: she was giving birth to their first child. It seemed everything was finally going his way, like all the terrible things from his past were finally being balanced-out.
“Greg?” John touched the shoulder. “There’s some soldiers outside… they want to talk to you. I couldn’t get them to leave.”
Gregory dropped his head for a moment, knowing what was to come, remembering how these things had played out in the past. They weren’t just here to talk. Somehow, that terrible “king” Xavier had found him, and for some unknown reason still sought vengeance for crimes against him. Crimes that weren’t crimes at all.
“Thanks, John. Stay here with Alexandra. I’ll be right back.” He said it without turning, without trying to make eye contact, so as to avoid letting on that he very well might not be coming back.
He opened the front door. Standing on the porch was a man clad in heavy armor, his back to Greg, looking out over his half-dozen grunts.
The man turned, gave a facetious look of surprise at Gregory’s towering figure, and cleared his throat. “My name is Captain Dorril. I am here on behalf of his majesty, King Xavier. I’m under orders to…”
Gregory smiled as he stopped the man, holding his forefinger over his pursed lips, making the “shh” noise. “No. He is not majestic. He is not my king. Now please leave.”
The man drew in a breath, aghast at the patronizing interjection. “Sir! You will stand down now, and submit to his Highness.” He stepped back, grasping the sheathed sword at his side. “I have orders to bring you to his castle, by whatever means necessary. Don’t let this end in bloodshed.”
Gregory stood up, a full seven and a half feet, and shook his head very slightly. “Do you really think these men are willing to fight for you? Or even die for you?” He pointed behind the captain.
Captain Dorill smiled… the expression quickly changed to one of horror as he realized that only one of his men was still there. “Where did…”
Gregory stopped him. “Do you even know how many came with?” He moved his hand slightly, and there were a hundred soldiers. “Not that many…” with another motion, and the army disappeared. “Or, maybe they weren’t even soldiers…” Another wave, and there were a half-dozen rats scurrying about in the field instead of the men. “Or maybe you were right.” He flicked his fingers at the field, and the six soldiers appeared again, as though they had never left.
Grasping his shoulder, he walked in a half-circle, standing where Captain Dorill had previously stood. “Weren’t you ever taught to never underestimate your enemy? To prepare for an encounter instead of blindly going into the enemy’s camp, assuming that your superior numbers will be enough?” Gregory laughed light-heartedly in the Captain’s face. “There will be no prisoners today. And the only ones that might yet leave this place are you and your soldiers.”
The captain stood for a moment, feeling a bit strange, still in awe of what he’d just experienced. He quickly freed his sword from it’s sheath and held it to Gregory’s throat. “I will not go back empty-handed. You will relent!”
Gregory smiled, much to the man’s chagrin, calmly stating, “Be careful. For the next throat you slit might just be your own.”
Captain Dorill pushed a bit harder, opening his mouth to say something… then touched his own throat. He brought his fingers up to his face, and saw the impossible: he was bleeding, in the exact spot on Gregory’s throat to which his sword pressed. “Your tricks do not scare me. And his highness said to bring you dead or…” His words slipped away as the sword pressed into Gregory’s jugular, slicing the veins with his freshly-sharpened blade…
As Gregory ended the spell, the guard dropped his sword, blood rushing from the fresh self-inflicted wound. He knelt beside the fading captain, placing his mouth inches from his ear. “You should have listened to me.” With a wave of his hand, the flow of blood was staunched, and the glaze over the dying man’s eyes faded.
Greg turned to face the empty field, gazing upon the forms of the soldiers as they disappeared into the woods some distance away. “It seems your soldiers are a bit smarter than…” Before he could finish, the man stood and ran in the same direction as his troops, not even bothering to retrieve his sword.
John met him at the front door. “So, uh… does this mean I can call you Thrax again?”
Greg smiled. He’d almost forgotten that name. “Let’s hope not, Johnny.” He’d given up the name decades ago, sometime after he’d lost his first wife. “Let’s hope not, for all our sakes. If that name gets out, or if those soldiers come back—which I think they will, and in greater number—then there may yet be real bloodshed this night.” As the last of the words crossed his lips, he passed into the house, into the room where his pregnant wife had been holding in her screams of pain from labor.
Alexandra looked up at him, the pain momentarily fading from her expression, and a worried calmness washed over her. “What did those men want, honey?”
He shook his head, smiled, and softly let out his lie: “They were looking for somebody else… somebody that died a long, long time ago.”
She opened her mouth to call him on the fib, but instead let out a shriek as the pains came back. She grabbed his hand and squeezed with a strength few men could ever claim.
(hours pass, labor carries on…)
Greg suddenly raised his head, ignoring the crushing grip of his wife’s adrenaline-filled hand, as though he’d heard something. He stood, regarding John and the doctor, feeling the faint vibration of an encroaching army. “You both must leave. The soldiers are back.”
