Edward Crichton - To Crown a Caesar

Helena had the orb in her hands now, having torn it from Agrippina’s grasp as she had lain stunned on the ground. Not wasting any time on tricks or fancy moves, I watched as Helena’s smashed it into Agrippina’s beautiful and terror stricken face over and over and over again.

The first thing to go was Agrippina’s nose. That had caved in after the second impact of the orb. Helena’s expression grew angrier, and even though I was busy beating a Praetorian across the face with Penelope , I saw her tears and spit and sweat flinging all around her as she pummeled the empress relentlessly. Years of searing, pent up rage and frustration were finally taking over.

I watched as she slammed the orb again and again, turning Agrippina’s eye sockets into an indistinguishable crater in her face. Another blow and her upper teeth were shattered. Another blow and the orb was now halfway deep into Agrippina’s head, past her none existent face. She’d been dead after the third blow.

Helena’s rage was dwindling, but not before one more blow, this one slamming into the floor, having gone completely through Agrippina’s skull. The mother of my unborn child reared back from Agrippina’s lifeless corpse and her arms fell to the floor beside her. She sat upon Agrippina’s stomach as blood covered her from head to toe, arched her back and screamed, releasing everything she had in her. She slowly composed herself a few seconds later and turned to look at me.

Her eyes were vacant, distant, and blood streamed down her near perfect face.

It felt like the battle around me was dying down, but I couldn’t be sure.

My night vision scope had broken off with my melee attack, and the darkness was so deep that I had no idea who was still alive and who was dead. I made my way towards Helena, determining it was time to extract ourselves as quickly as possible. She simply sat there, waiting for me, when her eyes opened wide.

She noticed, before I did, a previously unknown Praetorian emerge from the shadows and take a swing at her with his gladius . His attack hit her square in the chest, pitching her backwards into a slab of rubble, but the blow had been with side of his sword, not the edge, so instead of slicing her chest clean open, it only knocked the wind out of her. It was enough to disorient her however, allowing the Praetorian the chance to place his foot against her neck and push her over the rubble. She fell down a slab of concrete, and I lost sight of her when she tumbled into the darkness.

My fear for her disappeared when her attacker noticed me out of the corner of his eye and instead of finishing her off, stepped around to leap at me instead, his sword held at his side. He thrust for my abdomen, but I sidestepped left. The sword grazed my ribcage and I felt pain race through my entire right flank. I stumbled as I turned, clutching at the wound, but it wasn’t enough to slow me down. This mother fucker was going to die. I found a broken gladius on the ground and picked it up. I reached out with my free hand and motioned for him to bring it.

He did.

He came at me hard and fast, putting me on the defensive almost immediately. Block. Block. Stab. Block. Riposte. I did everything I could to stay alive. As long as there was still a chance Helena survived, I would too. But he was clearly the better swordsman. His face was mature and hardened. He wasn’t some young rook, fresh out of boot. He knew how to fight and he was fighting for his survival just as I was.

He stuck to his training, stabbing with the point, rarely slashing with the blade. He made another jab at me, which I managed to block downwards and to the right. He stumbled from the force of my parry and his sword jabbed itself between fallen slabs of concrete, temporarily jamming it. I took advantage and stepped down on the blade, disarming him in an instant.

But the bastard wasn’t going to give up so easily.

While I had his sword pinned, he threw an open palmed smack into my flank, right where he had slashed me earlier. A fucking sissy boy slap, but it hurt like hell. I grunted in pain and stumbled backwards, giving him enough time to retrieve his sword. He came back at me with a downward slash, easily defendable with my upraised blade, but the force of the strike was so great that I wasn’t able to keep him from slicing it into my shoulder. His blade cut deep into the muscle, maybe an inch or two, and he yanked it out. My right arm immediately went numb.

I switched my sword to my off hand and he smiled, knowing I was done for.

He took only a moment to pause for a quick breath before rushing headlong at me. In the second it took for him to close the distance, I did the last thing he, me or anyone would expect.

I dropped my sword.

His expression of confusion was exactly what I was looking for. In his hurry to kill me, he hadn’t noticed a piece of concrete in front of him, precariously balancing on another. I’d noticed it earlier before I had temporarily disarmed him, somehow managing to avoid it.

The Praetorian fell into it, and he went down hard, something snapping in his leg. I didn’t bother reaching for my sword, for it was too inaccessible. Instead, I grabbed one of the few remaining torches from a pillar and leapt at my foe. I brought the torch down in a stabbing motion, impaling him through mouth. The flames barely even sputtered and I watched as his face melted away.

But he somehow managed the last laugh. Whether it had been a planned attack, a gut reaction, or merely a wayward spasm, he managed to bring his gladius up and stab me in the stomach with it. It didn’t go too deep, but I could almost feel it tear up an organ or two. It got me a few inches above my bellybutton, and a few to the right. It could have hit my liver, probably my stomach, I didn’t know.

I figured I was dead anyway.

My only thought was to find Helena.

I left the Praetorian to sizzle behind me and found the rubble she’d fallen down. I crawled in after her and found her at the bottom, lying on her side, her left arm splayed out and her head resting atop its outstretched bicep. I crawled next to her and reached out for her cheek with a bloody, shaky hand. She wasn’t moving, and it wasn’t until I bumped into something hard and sharp, that I discovered she’d been impaled through the upper chest with a piece of metal shrapnel.

She was still breathing and I wasn’t going to lose hope yet. I’ve seen her come back from the dead before.

Hope for myself, however, was quickly becoming scarce.

Her eyes were still open and moving, but foamy blood seethed from her mouth, and her chest wound sputtered noisily. My own wounds were not faring much better.

My eyes moistened.

“Not again, Helena,” I said through tears. “I can’t… I…” but I wasn’t sure if she could even hear me.

She couldn’t move. Not even to lift a hand like she had the last time. All she could do was take one last breath and go still. My hand continued to tremble with growing severity. I touched her stomach, hoping for something. Anything. But I felt nothing. Nothing to indicate that life remained in either of the two people that shared this wonderful body and soul I loved so much.

I started to cough. Blood came out this time. My vision started to narrow and the edges got hazy. I fell to my side, right alongside Helena.

This story couldn’t end now.

Wang could still show up.

He had to show up.

He always showed up.

But, before he did, I felt my own last grasps of life slip away as copious amounts of blood from all three of my wounds pooled around me.

It was only a matter of time.

I reached out and closed Helena’s eyes with a brush of my fingertips, closing my own eyes at the same time, feeling both death and hope try to claw their way to the foreground of my consciousness. I groped for Helena’s hand, hoping to hold it one more time as we made our final journey together. Finding her right arm hanging behind her back, I slowly slide my hand down her bare arm, slower and slower, death’s twisted joke gaining the upper hand with each passing second. I could feel her skin slowly begin to cool, but when I finally reached her wrist and found her fingers, just before I felt no more, my hand felt something hard and round.