Chapter 26 The Battle of Warshire #3
“Say no more, bosom brother.” Rapunzo was at his side one moment, and the next he was tearing across the yard at the building.
The soldiers in his way were shot with flying stuffed animals, which, despite being made out of cotton, were enough to violently maim their midsections.
Then he leapt at the building, which he grappled onto like a spider and began scaling up three stories towards the bell tower, yanking and throwing people from windows on his way up.
“Why didn’t we have him on our side from the beginning?” Bronwen balked.
“Because I didn’t know he was capable of all this.” Morfran gestured furiously in Rapunzo’s general direction.
Rapunzo had reached the bell tower and begun clanking the bell to the jingle of the rebellion—ding, ding-ding-ding-ding, ding-ding!
He continued doing this until a flood of rebels came pouring through the streets.
They were all on horses, likely pilfered from Lestershire’s royal stables, and leading the charge, right atop Skullthrasher, was Brim.
“Take ground!” Brim was screaming, his blue eyes gleaming with energy. “Hold the line! We must take Mestershire! Fight through the pain!”
After getting another lathering of Special Paste from Drezella, Morfran began urging her behind the rebel horsemen. “Get back, clear back, and stay out of harm’s way—”
“But I need to help keep everyone alive! You understand! You’re a Fleet Foot member, too!”
Just then Rapunzo was back at Morfran’s side, bouncing from one foot to the other in earnest. “What task can I do now?”
Morfran paused. Looked between the two. “Rapunzo, take Drezella and—only behind rebel lines—go heal those who’ve fallen. Quickly, though. Quickly!”
Drezella grinned, glad to be put to use with the stuffed-animal-equipped one-man army, and darted off.
He turned to stare at the third wind of battle.
Bronwen had joined her father’s side, absently tossing knives this way and that, managing to land each throw on an enemy soldier.
Brim had taken another arrow to the shoulder; he merely laughed at it and proceeded to crack his helmeted head against the noggin of a soldier he’d lifted from the ground with one arm.
Bill and Theodore, mounted on their horses, were plowing through soldiers by clotheslining them with a thick rope they held taut between the two of them.
He saw the Fleet Foot Club’s parents, fighting back-to-back, smeared in blood but holding their ground in the midst of archers.
Even Hugh was in the square, lying belly-first on a tree branch and swiping at soldiers passing beneath unawares.
They were doing it. They were taking it.
They were taking the second city of Warshire, and it appeared that many citizens had joined the fray as well, helping tip the three-to-one ratio to a two-to-one instead.
What was more, they had heart. They were not fighting to keep territory.
They were fighting for their homes and their families.
There wasn’t anything more worth fighting for.
It was here, dazed in his disbelief, that he realized it.
They didn’t need him. They could take the two cities and use them to bargain with Ravana, who Morfran knew was hiding in Castle Atrago after setting Warchester aflame.
She was not a negotiator. She was not a strategist. She was just a nasty woman, and for the first time since joining the rebellion, he felt confident that the rebels could take her down.
They didn’t need him for that. They didn’t need him any longer.
But he needed them. Their goodness. Brim’s boisterous, encouraging leadership. Bronwen’s grit and resilience. Bill’s and Theodore’s good-natured humor, the Fleet Foot Club’s blasted wholesomeness, even Hugh’s drive to be of use. He needed all of it, because he had none of his own.
But he couldn’t stay. He’d taken someone who’d once been as good and naive and kind as Ravana and corrupted her until there was nothing good left. He couldn’t, wouldn’t, do the same to them.
You’re changed now, he heard Beni say to him, from so very far away. You’re not that same man.
The rebels won’t think that once they find out who I am.
That was his greatest fear now.
Even if he was changed, the actions of his past weren’t. They’d never forgive him.
He would leave, and without him the Elmswood Rebels would overthrow Ravana, and they’d restructure the kingdom, place someone good on the throne.
That he was sure of. And it was now that he felt decently at peace—not completely at peace; he didn’t think he’d ever feel that again—but he felt that he’d done enough to repair the damages he’d incurred in the kingdom.
He, Morfran, Dark Lord, and all his dark deeds, could be forgotten and fade into nothing but a bad memory for the people of these lands he’d grown to love.
He was fine with that now, even if it was a torture of its own kind to leave it behind.
And it was with this last thought that he let the rebels advance forward without him, and then he quietly slipped away.