Ashes of the Sterling Legacy

Chapter 6: The Execution Square

A man who wears a stolen legacy deserves to bleed on it.

Arthur did not draw his twin blades. If he drew the Sterling steel, the crowd would know him, and if he threw his starlight aura, the palace mages would track his location before he could leave the plaza. Instead, he relied on the absolute raw velocity of his physical form, channeling his internal power directly into his muscles until his veins throbbed with a dull, invisible pressure.

He dropped from the stone ledge, his boots hitting the cobblestones without a sound. He became a blur, a phantom cutting through the thick, terrified crowd of citizens who only felt a sudden gust of wind passing their shoulders.

The imperial commander raised the heavy broadaxe higher, his muscles tensing under the silver plated ancestral armor of the Sterling family patriarch. "Die like the rat you are, captain," the commander sneered down at Marcus.

"Look at the sky, traitor," a voice echoed from everywhere at once.

Before the commander could bring the iron axe down, Arthur materialized directly on the wooden platform. He did not use the cosmic starlight. He used pure, unadulterated physical violence. He slammed his open palm into the chest of the executioner standing near the block, sending the massive man flying backward through the wooden railing. The executioner crashed into the stone fountain ten yards away, completely unconscious before he hit the water.

"Intruder," the commander bellowed, spinning around with the broadaxe. "Guards, ring the platform. Do not let him escape."

A dozen heavily armored imperial infantrymen lunged over the wooden steps, their iron spears thrusting forward in a synchronized wall of steel. Arthur rolled under the first wave of blades, his hands sweeping across the floorboards to grab a discarded iron shield. He rose in a single fluid motion, slamming the heavy edge of the shield directly into the helmets of three guards simultaneously. Their armor dented with a sickening crunch, and they dropped like stones.

"Who are you?" the commander roared, swinging the broadaxe in a massive, horizontal arc designed to split Arthur in two. "Show your face, coward."

"I am the owner of that armor," Arthur said, his voice dropping to a freezing whisper.

Arthur did not dodge the incoming broadaxe. He stepped directly into the path of the swing, bringing his right fist downward with the explosive, concentrated strength of his five years of mountain torment. He struck the flat side of the commander iron blade.

The impact sounded like a thunderclap echoing off the stone buildings of the plaza. The massive iron broadaxe shattered into a dozen jagged fragments, raining metal shards across the wooden planks. The sheer kinetic shockwave traveled up the commander arms, fracturing his wrists and forcing him to his knees with a loud scream of agony.

"My hands," the commander gasped, clutching his broken wrists against the silver breastplate. "You are a monster."

"Stand up," Arthur commanded, his hand wrapping around the collar of the ancestral armor.

With a single, brutal yank, Arthur ripped the heavy silver plates clean off the commander torso, snapping the leather straps and iron rivets with his bare hands. He threw the stolen armor over his shoulder, then reached down to scoop Marcus up into his arms. The old captain was light, his body emaciated and bruised from the imperial cells.

"Arthur, leave me," Marcus croaked, his voice cracking as he looked at the hundreds of imperial guards rushing toward the platform from the outer streets. "The main garrison is coming. You cannot carry me and survive."

"Hold your breath, Captain," Arthur said.

Before the secondary ring of guards could close the perimeter or deploy their heavy crossbars, Arthur leaped from the high platform, clearing the heads of the front row infantrymen entirely. He landed on the edge of the square and ducked immediately into the pitch black, narrow mouth of a western alleyway.

The main garrison deployed into the square a few seconds too late, their heavy boots pounding against the stone as they found only their broken commander and a ruined platform.

Arthur moved through the maze like alleyways of the lower ring with terrifying efficiency. He knew the structural layout from the maps he had studied in the vault, turning left and right through the fog choked passages until the shouting of the imperial trackers died out completely in the distance. He did not stop until he reached a deep, forgotten cellar beneath a ruined tannery at the very edge of the slum borders.

He laid Marcus down gently on a bed of clean straw, immediately pulling a small leather pouch of mountain herbs from his tunic.

"Drink this," Arthur said, pressing a small wooden flask of water mixed with crushed roots against the old man split lips. "It will stop the internal bleeding."

Marcus swallowed the bitter liquid, coughing weakly as the warmth returned to his pale chest. "You are reckless, Arthur. You risked everything for a broken old man."

"You guarded my father," Arthur said, using a clean piece of linen to wipe the grime and blood from Marcus forehead. "I do not leave my people to die in the dirt."

Marcus gripped Arthur hand suddenly, his fingers locking onto the young prince wrist with a surprising, desperate strength. His eyes were wide, bloodshot, and filled with a terror that Arthur had never seen in the old soldier before.

"Listen to me, Arthur," Marcus whispered, his voice trembling violently as he pulled the prince closer to his chest. "The armor. The execution. It was all a show to draw out the survivors. But you do not know the real horror."

"Calm down, Marcus," Arthur said, pressing a damp cloth to the captain shoulder wounds. "Victor is a traitor, but we have the maps now. We can systematically destroy his garrisons."

"No, you do not understand," Marcus gasped, his grip tightening until his knuckles turned white. "Victor did not act alone five years ago. He could never have bypassed the ancestral wards of the Sterling estate by himself."

Arthur froze, the linen cloth stopping in his hand. "What are you saying?"

"The treaty I saw in the archive before the alarm went off," Marcus whispered, a solitary tear cutting a clean line through the soot on his cheek. "It carried two seals, Arthur. Not just Victor. The Imperial Crown Prince himself signed the original death warrant of the Sterling family. The throne wanted us dead because they feared our growing cosmic influence."