Hero by Embra

A decisive nod was all it took to shatter the peace of the dawn. The leading guardsman kicked hard at the flimsy wooden door, and it burst inwards. Following the broken door, crossbowmen rushed into the gloomy interior in a flurry of well-rehearsed movement. They fanned out, steadily covering the lone occupant of the main room. Swordsmen stepped in to flank the door, standing aside to allow their captain passage.

Elfred, Captain of the Guard, looked about the room. A large, crude bed dominated the space, its functional covers ruffled and probably still warm. Various shelves and small tables ran along the wall, cluttered with simple crockery and utensils. There were no chairs, only the occasional stool or small bench. The main fire was cold ash. At the far end of the room, a screen of woven sticks concealed what Elfred presumed was the privy bucket or perhaps just a storage area. It wasn’t important.

Only two things were of importance in the house, and they were sufficiently far apart to be no threat. The first was a very serviceable, double-headed battle-axe. It was leaning against a wall near the bed, just too far away to be of use to its owner. The owner was a man dressed only in boots and trousers. For someone currently at the pointed end of nearly a dozen crossbows, the man looked remarkably relaxed. His muscular arms were folded across his broad, bare chest. He looked slightly bored. Elfred was content that this was an act. The man was dead, in every way that mattered, so the captain would allow him these last moments of bravado. It was the least he could do for a former brother in arms.

'Not perhaps the last stand you might have hoped for', Elfred said. He removed his helmet and ran his hand over the grey stubble on his head. 'Hardly the stuff of legend'.

'You should have been here last night', the caged warrior said with a broad smile, tilting his head to the bed. 'There were a few legends writ then'.

'I’m sure. Do you want to finish getting dressed?' A shirt lay across the head of the bed. The warrior glanced at it, then back to the captain. A wry smile tugged at his lips.

'You taking me in?'

Elfred shook his head, but there was no triumph there. The warrior sighed. Suddenly, both men looked tired.

'I don’t hold you responsible, old friend', the warrior said softly. 'You always were one to stick to the letter of the law'.

'So did you once, Raeff'.

'When the law meant something. When the ones making the laws did so for the right reasons'.

'That wasn’t for us to decide…'. Raeff’s face showed his disgust.

'Oh wake up man!', the warrior barked. A couple of the crossbowmen, alarmed, took a slight step forward. Elfred raised a hand, holding them back. Raeff scowled at them all.

'The law is the law', Elfred stated.

'That’s as may be', Raeff said, 'but right now it has nothing to do with justice, and that’s what we stood for. Well, it’s what I stood for'. He looked directly into the captain’s eyes. 'And I still do. Can you say as much?'

The two each held the gaze of the other for a long time. Finally, it was Elfred who dropped his eyes. Raeff claimed no victory from this. He just looked sad.

'So. What’s next?', Raeff asked, sighing deeply.

'There is no ‘next’, is there father?'

The voice came from near the screen. Several of the crossbowmen snapped around to take aim at the new speaker. The colour drained from Elfred’s face as he too turned. Raeff’s shoulders slumped, his hair falling across his face as he screwed his eyes shut as though in pain and dropped his chin to his chest.

The girl, naked save for the briefest of decorative thongs, strode across the room. She brushed past the stunned guardsmen and, taking his mighty arm, she stood close in to Raeff. Looking to her father, she raised an impeccable, imperious eyebrow.

'Well? Is there?'

'Sh… Shari?', Elfred stammered. 'Daughter…?!'

'No. Not today. I love my father, but today I am Raeff’s lover and co-conspirator. Today and always, I am the one who took a stand with him and many others. I am the one who passed him information stolen from your papers. I am a traitor to the Empire, we both are, and you are Captain of the Imperial Guard'.

Raeff smiled and kissed Shari’s lustrous hair. Slowly, he leaned behind him and took hold of the haft of his axe, dragging it the short distance across the floor. Beside the stunned Elfred, the swordsmen made to move in on the couple.

'No!' Elfred barked. 'No, I… That is…'

Raeff reached down and pulled Shari in closer. She buried her face in his hair. Raeff looked at Elfred, smiling with the reassurance of a man who had truly found his place in the plans of the Gods.

'You know what to do, old friend', Raeff said simply. Then he winked broadly and grinned.

It all happened so fast.

Elfred realised what his friend planned, but too late.

Shari closed her eyes.

Raeff gripped his axe and made to raise it, roaring a challenge as he did.

The guardsmen fired.




The bodies of the two traitors joined their fellows, thrown onto the piles of rotting corpses left at the main city gates as warning to others who might defy the will of the Emperor.

Two days later, the Captain of the Guard stood before his Emperor to receive a bejewelled dagger and promotion to the ranks of the despot’s personal guard for his dutiful service. During the ceremony, the former Captain drove his ceremonial blade into the Emperor’s forehead. He was cut down immediately.

After the confusion of rebellion and the establishing of a new ruling council, the bodies of Raeff and Shari were reclaimed, before they become part of the mass grave of martyrs, and were interred in the former Royal Necropolis amid much ceremony.

Elfred is not remembered.