The Gift of Battle

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Darius knelt at his father’s side, cradling his head in his hands, and felt overwhelmed with emotion as he watched him die. Blood poured from his chest where the elephant’s tusk had speared him, and it trickled from his mouth as he looked up at Darius with the look of a man breathing his final breaths.

Darius felt wracked with despair as he watched his father die in his arms. Here lay this great man who had risked his life for him, who had saved his life, the greatest warrior by far Darius ever met. After his whole life of longing for him, finally, they had had a chance to meet, were reunited here, on the battlefield. And yet as kind as fate was, it was also cruel, as it had snatched this man away from him before they’d barely had a chance to know each other.

Darius would have given anything to have a chance to get to know his father, to find out how he had become such a skilled warrior, how life had taken him here, to the capital arena. He would have loved to get to the bottom of the mystery of his life, and of his absence in his own life.

But now, that would never be. Taking his father was the cruelest thing the Empire had ever done to him—crueler even than taking his own life.

“Father,” Darius said, holding back tears as he held him in his arms. “You can’t leave me. Not now.”

Darius heard a great rumble as he waited for a response, and out of the corner of his eye he saw the elephants circling the stadium, their great footsteps rocking it, as they prepared to come back for him. Darius knew he didn’t have much time. But he didn’t care about that now. He was ready to die at his father’s side.

His father reached up and grabbed his wrist, his grip surprisingly strong even as his life force began to ebb.

“I am proud that you’re my son,” he said, his voice raspy, fading. “So proud of all that you have done. You are a greater warrior than I could have ever been. I see it in your eyes. I live on in you. Fight for me, Darius. Fight for me.”

His eyes closed as he went limp in his arms.

Dead.

“NO!” Darius shrieked, leaning back, feeling waves of grief wash over him.

Darius wanted to take it away, to change the world, to go back and make everything happen differently. He wanted to curse at destiny, to curse at his life, which had been hard and cruel since the day he had been born. But he knew nothing could bring him back now, this man he had loved, and the only man left who had loved him.

Darius felt hot tears pouring down his cheeks as he held his father’s head, feeling empty, feeling as if he had nothing left in the world to live for. He could feel the ground trembling as the elephants finished their circling and charged for him—but he no longer cared. Some part of him was already dead.

As Darius knelt there, laying his father on the ground, slowly the grief within him morphed to something else.

Rage.

Darius looked up, cold, calculating, and as he did, he tightened his grip on his sword. He thought of what they had done to his father, of his father’s final words. They rang in his head like a mantra, like an order:

Fight for me.

Slowly, Darius stood. He faced off against these beasts, and he prepared to make his final stand. He burned, more than ever in his life, for vengeance. He would die trying—but he would not go down without taking somebody with him.

The ground shook as the two elephants neared, awesome, magnificent beasts, all black, being ridden by Empire soldiers. They gained speed, as if hoping to trample him, and as they did, Darius felt all the grief within him morph into cold, hard fury. All the rage he had ever had in his life—at the Empire, at his life, at his village, at his father’s absence—it all bubbled up. It was a rage larger than the universe, a rage he could not control. A rage that turned his whole body hot.

Here Darius stood, a boy who had become a man, a man, finally, with nothing left to live for. His friends were dead, his father was dead—everything and everyone he had ever known or loved was lost and taken from him. And now, he was about to die too. He was a man with nothing left in the world to lose.

But there was one thing he still had, and he had that in abundance: a desire for vengeance. Vengeance for his father. Vengeance for his life.

Darius faced the elephants as they thundered down on him, feeling no fear for the first time in his life. Feeling free. He looked forward to taking them on.

As he stood there, time seemed to slow, and something happened to him he did not understand. The rage bubbled up, overtook him, became like a cancer in his body. It was so powerful, unlike anything he had ever felt. Waves of energy overwhelmed him, from head to toe, so intense he could barely feel his own skin. He felt his hair standing on end, felt as if he might explode.

And then, it happened.

For the second time in his life, Darius felt himself overwhelmed by a power, a power he had no control of, a power he had been terrified to acknowledge, and to embrace, up until now. It was a power he did not understand, and a power that had scared him.

Until now.

The power surged within him, and Darius found himself dropping his weapons. He knew instinctively he didn’t need them anymore. He knew that the power within him, at his fingertips, was greater than any power, greater than anything forged of steel.

Instead, Darius raised his palms. As the elephants charged toward him, he raised them higher and higher in the air, aiming one at each elephant bearing down on him. They intended to kill him, Darius could see that.

But Darius had other plans.

As he raised his palms, Darius felt a searing ball of energy emanate from each palm. And as he raised his arms, the craziest thing happened: he felt the weight of each elephant in his palms. It was as if he were holding them.

And as he lifted his arms higher, he saw the most shocking sight in his life: the elephants, charging at him with fury, began to rise off the ground.

The elephants trumpeted as Darius lifted them higher and higher into the air. They rose five feet, then twenty feet, then thirty, then a hundred, their legs flailing. They hovered high in the air, helpless, at the mercy of Darius’s power.

The crowd fell silent as they gasped, looking up at the sight, no one knowing what to make of it.

Darius did not give them time to react. As the rage coursed through his arms and shoulders, he quickly and decisively lowered his arms, thinking, as he did, of his father, of all his friends he had lost on the battlefield. He felt their blood calling out from the grave. Now it was their time. Now, it was time for vengeance.

Darius felt a power surge within them, a power that could move mountains, and he tapped that power for the first time in his life as he lowered his arms and hurled the elephants. He was amazed to watch them go flying through the air, end over end, trumpeting, flailing, as they headed, like comets, for the stone bleachers in the stadium.

The crowd realized, too late. A few rose, tried to run, but it all happened too quickly and there was nowhere for them to go.

The two beasts smashed into the stadium with a tremendous crash, shaking the arena as if it had been struck by a comet. The impact took out entire sections of stone, killing hundreds of people at once. The Empire cheers of cruelty and glee had now morphed into cries and shrieks of terror.

The crowd ran, trying desperately to get away, but the elephants tumbled through the bleachers, rolling and rolling, crushing thousands more.

The arena fell into chaos. People shrieked and ran as the weight of the elephants collapsed entire sections of stone, the avalanche killing hundreds more.

Darius stood there, the last one left on the battlefield, shocked at his power. The world, he felt, was his.