Warlord of the Beast Legion

The Weight of Steel

"Look me in the eye and tell me you didn't do it, Jesse." Jack Cole choked on the words, blood bubbling at the corner of his lip as he pressed a heavy hand against his ruptured side.

Jesse Grey didn't look up from the edge of the precipice. Below them, the fog of the Whispering Woods swirled like a sea of milk, thick and swallowing. The elite guards stood in a perfect, suffocating semi-circle, their swords drawn, blocking the only path back to the capital.

"Does it even matter anymore?" Jesse asked, his voice barely carrying over the howling wind. He finally looked at Jack, his knuckles white against the hilt of his own clean, unused blade. "You always had to be the martyr, Jack. You just couldn't let the council have their peace."

"Their peace is a lie built on the bones of our men," Jack spat, taking a agonizing step forward. He stumbled, his knee hitting the jagged rock. He looked at his adoptive brother, his mind refusing to process the cold metal of the spears pointed at his chest. "We bled together in the trenches. I carried you across the frozen wastes. Jesse, look at me. It's me."

"That's exactly the problem," Jesse whispered, his face twisting into something ugly and frantic. He stepped closer, his boots crunching on the loose gravel. "It's always been you. The great Commander Cole. The savior of the realm. Do you know what the king said to me when we returned? He asked if I was your shadow."

Jack shook his head, a sickening sense of dread pooling in his stomach. The physical pain of his wounds was nothing compared to the sudden, hollow emptiness opening up in his chest. "I gave you half the credit for every victory. I told them we were equal."

"But we aren't equal," Jesse snapped, his voice cracking with a lifetime of buried resentment. "We never were. You're a freak of nature, Jack. People don't love me when you're in the room. They just tolerate me until you speak."

"So you sold me out?" Jack gasped, a tear cutting a clean line through the dried blood and grime on his cheek. "To the high council? For a title? For a seat at a table that doesn't care if you live or die?"

Jesse paused, his breathing shallow. For a second, just a single second, the mask slipped, and the terrified boy Jack grew up with looked out from behind those eyes. "They offered me the entire northern command, Jack. Everything you threw away because of your pride."

"I threw it away to save lives," Jack said, his voice dropping to a desperate, broken whisper. "I did it for you, too. If they find out what we discovered in the archives, they'll execute both of us. Come with me. We can leave the city behind. We can disappear into the outer rim. Just tell them to put the swords down."

Jesse looked at the guards, then back at Jack. The defensive panic in his eyes slowly began to harden into something terrifyingly rigid. "There is no disappearing for someone like you, brother. You're too loud. You're too heavy. As long as you breathe, I am second best."

"Jesse, please," Jack breathed, reaching out a hand, his fingers trembling. "Don't do this. We're family."

"Family is a luxury for people who don't want to rule," Jesse said. He stepped directly into Jack's space, his movements smooth, almost practiced. He reached out, his hand gripping Jack's blood-soaked shoulder.

Jack looked up, expecting a pull, expecting a rescue, expecting the nightmare to end. But Jesse just leaned down, his breath warm against Jack's ear.

"The kingdom can only have one savior, Jack," Jesse whispered, his voice completely steady now, devoid of the frantic anger from a moment before. "I really am sorry about this."

Before Jack could even draw a breath to scream, Jesse's hand shifted to his chest and shoved.

The world went inverted.

Jack's boots lost contact with the solid rock. The horror didn't hit him until he saw the expression on Jesse's face as he fell backward into the open air. Jesse was smiling. It wasn't a manic, evil grin, but a small, quiet smirk of absolute relief. The person Jack had protected since childhood was glad to see him fall.

The wind tore the scream from Jack's throat as the white fog swallowed him whole. Branches cracked against his spine, tearing through his leather armor and opening fresh, agonizing gasps in his flesh. The canopy was a blur of gray and green, a violent, chaotic descent that seemed to last an eternity.

Then came the impact.

He slammed into the damp, rotting floor of the Whispering Woods, the air exploding from his lungs in a wet gasp. For a long time, there was only the sound of his own erratic, shallow breathing and the distant, mocking rustle of the leaves far above. He couldn't move his legs. The pain in his side had gone completely numb, replaced by a cold, spreading sensation that told him he was bleeding out fast.

He lay there on his back, staring up at the canopy that blocked out the sky. The betrayal felt like a physical weight crushing his throat, making it impossible to swallow. Jesse had pushed him. Jesse had smiled.

A low, vibrating rumble shook the earth beneath his ear.

Jack blinked, trying to clear the mud and blood from his vision. The silence of the forest was gone, replaced by a heavy, suffocating presence.

To his left, the shadows between the massive, twisted trees began to shift. A pair of glowing, crimson circles ignited in the darkness. Then another. And another. Soon, the fog was alive with dozens of blood-red eyes, all focused entirely on his broken, helpless form.

A massive silhouette stepped into the dim light of the clearing, its jaw dripping with a thick, viscous saliva. Jack could hear the wet clicking of fangs against fangs. He closed his eyes for a fraction of a second, a bitter, breathless laugh escaping his lips.

He wasn't just dying in the woods. His own brother had served him up as a meal.