Heart of Leoth: [HAITUS]

Part I ~ Theodan

Rage and war licked through him, burning like vengeance. A black broiling thing inside him. It swam through his veins and licked up his spine demanding blood and death, demanding destruction. He could barely breathe around it, the power of it was blinding.

Valdr of Calate would die. He would ensure it.

Gods, Fara. How could you return to it? Why? My love, I have broken my promise to protect you. I have broken so many promises to you.

How brave she was to him then. The bravest soul he'd ever known. Had it been why she'd married Galyn of Azura under those circumstances? To escape her brother? Gods it made sense. He hated the lick of relief he felt from that notion. That perhaps she hadn't married him out of love, but necessity. No. She'd loved the prince - he was sure of it. Had seen the pain in her eyes when she spoke of him. It could have been guilt, certainly, but there was love burning there in the golden embers. He remembered the night he'd mentioned taking the memory of him from her; and how desperately she'd wanted to cling to them. She'd loved him because he'd saved her. He'd saved her and Theodan had killed him for it.

Guilt and pain and rage clawed at him. It dulled his senses so that he was late to notice the movement behind him.

Two Zybar rushed at him from behind a gilded panel adjacent to the king's throne, swords and axes aloft. As he rose and turned fully to face them he saw the glimmer of recognition in their eyes.

Speech seemed beyond him then. His tongue incapable of it. He wanted only blood. Pain. Destruction. Every cell in his body hungered for it.  He lunged toward them and swung both blades in an upward motion, smooth and deadly. Too fast for their attack to turn to a defence. Their torsos peeled open under the Leoth steel, blood pouring onto the polished gold floor. They fell forward and he shifted past them, swiping his blades backwards to remove their heads. Heavy thumps sounded on the floor as he moved toward the open balcony, the night breeze cooling nothing of his rage.

With a look at her he leapt from the balcony down into the courtyard and strode toward the gates, ignoring the shouts from behind him.  This had not been the plan. Once securing the palace gates, they were to remain inside the palace grounds and await aid from the sea tribes or Calate. But now there would be no waiting, he would kill every enemy on Azura's soil before the sun rose, and when Calate came with aid, he would send them back with a single demand. Valdr of Calate's head.

As he climbed the inner curtain wall towards the barbican, there was but one voice he heard above the din. His mother's.

You are destruction. We are destroyed.

oOo

How many he killed as the sun rose slowly above the sea, he could not say.  The Zybar army had all but fled, and it was those left behind he slaughtered. Some cowered in alleyways, some in the broken buildings of the City, some in the pleasure houses that had been established since Zybar took control of the once glittering metropolis of Azura. They came at him fattened and slow from weeks of rest and they all died the same way; screaming. There was a power and strength in him like he had never felt before, it was loud in his ears and hot in his blood and it was as though he watched it all outside of himself, above himself.

He heard the battle cries of Draden, Vala, the other Leoth who had followed him beyond the palace gates despite Corryn's commands, but it was as though he was entirely alone. A trail of blood and death fanning out behind him as he went.  He thrust his sword between their legs, through their skulls, drew his claws across their open throats. He gouged eyes from their sockets, and snapped spines in half as though they were no more than tree branches in his way. He saw the Azurians cowering in fear, running from him in terror and he did not blame them. He never had. For he was destruction.