Why must the King fall?

My father told me of past powers, systematic control, how empires prove worthy and especially- The Sacrifice. This he never explained. Better yet, as I now understand, he couldn’t conjure words worthy of an explanation. And neither can I.

I suppose my son and his sons will come to the same conclusion. It’s crucial they do. One: because it would mean the lessons- no. The riddles live. They continue. Pride deprived, powerlessness of not knowing is discovered. To be humble. And two: disregarding key lessons set by Kings to contain Kings will bring the fall of Kings. Weakness without proper structure. We can’t bare to be seen naked.

But personally, I feel as though I waited too long to understand that. I sit here religiously and think of things I can’t redo. Praying for signs, regretting some fulfilled wishes.

I remember that first sign. Thick air. That’s the first thing I thought of. My wakening question. The switch to my lightbulb. Why was it so hard to breathe in thick air?

We rode to the extents of the south division. Hours of trotting and racing between thickening forests and plains of grass. Like a maze to the Southern Empire of Eldurburg. A place we call home. The bulls eye in the circles of differentiating land. My father and I, accompanied by 13 empirical A guards mount solar Clydesdales. Their camouflaged smooth body panels, dressed in a complimenting leather saddles, and our UV absorbing armor flocked. Scrambled in a V formation, changing positions constantly. A security tactic for any watching eyes.

I remember becoming exhausted, moving under the last stretch of dense, dark green canopies. It was the midst of a cooler than usual summer. The forest floor flourished with harvested vegetation. Bad sign.

The orange sun rise dusting a heavy aura at the incoming break of trees ahead. Birds scattered from the impact of the heavy mechanical horses. I rose my forearm to guard my eyes from the brightness as we transitioned. I pulled back after adjusting to the open plains light. Halting my steed. I was exhausted. I mean, this was my first encircling.

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“We ride further.” The King spun his horse to meet the side of his stretching son. Peering at the eerie dark circle of the trees break as the guards escape, circling the two.

“Five minutes pop. This is intense. We-“ The prince began to speak, only to be cut short by a fierce reply.

“Are vulnerable. Get back on your machine. Ride to the Burgs entrance.” The King glared with intensity, challenging his sons cowering stare.

“Sire!” A guard bellows. A final rider tramples from the gape of bark.

The prince spins, a damaged horse appears with a mangled, spark expelling limbless rider. The King meets his frozen sons glare.

“Get on your horse now!” The King throws saliva as he barks with fear. In a switch grab and drop he snatches his son by the vest corners, tossing him onto his horse. “Do not stop, no matter what until we’re behind those doors!”

In the morning fog the gang of solar horses whine, firing their copper motored limbs. Scalping buckets of earth with every propelling stamp. The King ends the traveling group. Whispering commands to his commanding horse. Overriding all of the nearby Clydesdale to bend to his will.

Bubbling facial perspiration, heavy in breathe, silent in mind, the King disregards the suns intensity within the overcasting sky.

The prince panics, straddling the racing horse by its neck, eyes forced closed, living through blindness, tasting the passing thick gusts of air.

In the fright of an empty mind the king notices a subtle incoming of a stampede of hoofs. He turns to peer at their tail and what he sees sends the protector of Eldurburg into a pray for the East empire bandits.

“Triangle blockade!” The intelligent horses weave together.

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I felt like a pitted 8 ball. Surrounded by these security details. I don’t remember if I even realized I was holding my breathe. I heard the rush of the wind, the smell of heavy aluminum ion and copper heating, wet earth being flung and warming sun rays escaping cloud coverings to heat my left side as I clung to this horses neck like a tree in a tornado. The feeling of losing my grip came after my fingers went numb.

My vision was intensified, zoomed almost. Where I looked had great detail. I began to hear things. Tasting fear. That day, I found my weakness and my fathers fear. His was losing me, mine was losing him.

“11 is gone!” He threw his voice over the passing winds.

I dared to turn. Soldiers, in scarlet and body armor, helmets to match, dragged a sun weapon. The Arc Whip.

These were the Eastern bandits. Land pirates, the last savages in this cut of the territories. Traveling scavengers, brutal tactics, thoughtless brutes, uncivilized hunters. I watched as the trip spread, swinging the glowing whip like helicopter propellers, screaming in a battle cry that sounded like a broken howl. The one in the middle drew his arm back and whipped forward. Cracking the molten line. It broke the metal plate of the rear most Clydesdale leg. The remaining legs struggle, toppling, twitching, powering down, sinking to a halt as the rider becomes a pull toy for the other two riders. The robotic guard screeched with a malfunctioning voice. The whip cutting through his bionic body like a hot knife through butter. That curdling scream stopped my heart.

“8 is down!” My father irritated his neck, surveilling the distance between us and the front gate. He took their time of distraction on the downed guard to code a command on his horses interactive wither. I turned to watch him.

The guard beside him straightened from his leaned over riding posture. It’s legs expanded, opening, releasing fiber optic tips. The riders horses back to muzzle opened in a similar fashion. His bottom segment supplemented within the steeds front legs. Expanding their girth. The head opened in half, creating a skull helmet that protruded from the bots collar bone. The neck wrapped his chest, adding a layer of green and black snake skin armor. His arms sharpened to swords. Turning him into a battle centaur. Peeling off from the group, it darted directly towards the gaining bandits.

I watched as the group of bandits invited the tussle. Mauling the battle guard. Overwhelming the sharpness of its arm swords with snake gripping whips. Two of the rambunctious bandits held and dragged the centaur. Toying with the struggling contraption, burning through the metal, licking at the armored body. Smacking panel after panel. Parts flew in the wind, they beat the drone into a crumbling pile of electronics before the leader dropped his massive line through the crippled machines center. Smiling in content, the trio halted as we pass the threshold of Eldurburg. A devilish grin on his face as a fleet of centaurs pedaled out. The doors shut behind us. And I was assisted from my horse. Rejecting medical service, catered food accepting the pour mead, I found a place to be alone. For a minute.

Within the royal grounds, our perimeter estate, heavy footsteps charged to my quarters. The door was broken in, I refused to look up.

“You stop, you die.” My father scorned.

I said nothing.

“Do you understand!” His yell made me flinch, I fell more into the sitting ball I was in.

“Crystal clear.” I replied with my mouth between my knees.

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Today I woke up, not in bed, in the Kings hall, seated by the side of my father when his right hand barges into the chamber. Carrying a sealed scroll, he paced forward with it dangling in the air.

It took a toll on my father once he read the scribes. The paper fell from his gripping fingers. Suspended, frozen, silent he showed defeat across his face. The air was thick again.

This was a decade post the last time I witnessed fear on my fathers face.

“Get the Centaurs and A-Hawks ready.”

He stormed from the chamber. And I did as I was told.

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From the balcony of the King’s manor, a massive over watching resident circled by guards, housed by the royal family, fell directly in the middle of Eldurburg. It’s capital and its source of power.

The Prince and the Kings right hand found themselves on the observation deck. Overlooking the reading units dispensing from the empires wall. The little specks, refracting miniscule beams of light, wander into the town. A moment too late. To their watching amazement a blur of refracting light push inward at an alarming rate. The tinge of red blinded them as they peered to discover the dust kicking movement.

The flooded in like water through a broke damn the Prince thought.

It wasn’t until they were viewable distance that the duo discovered the passing were Eastern bandits swinging akimbo swords. Slicing unsuspected citizens clean in half. The screams of retreating residents shake the below structure as a nearby group of pedestrians fling themselves in the arms of the surrounding guards. Liquids pool, staining the cobble stone roads. The commotion grows silent as the vessels drop and the fleet of bandits stop unsuspectedly right below the observation balcony. The living beings rushed to safety.

It was spectacular how no one moved. No others died. The scarlet grouping created a runway for an massive solar bull that walked gracefully to the center of the circle. The burly rider, widened with armor, the two black lines whips on either side of its rump, looked up to catch eyes with the Prince.

“Boy!” His deathly deepened voice shook dust from the brick structure. “I come for thee.”

“Leave him!” The King tramples in. His men rushing before him. Dropping half a circle worth of bandits in a single rush. They claim half the circular court yard. Making a entrance gap for the King and his master Clydesdale.

Green and black, scarlet and orange. The two groups face off, readied. Their leaders dance in a sizing up spin within their still most pit.

“How’d the south, brother?” The bull rider smiles through his darkened mask.

The prince crunched his face in confusion.

“Why couldn’t you stay where you were?” The King composes himself, shaking off the family tie reminder.

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My father waiting until he was facing his wall of guards and darted out the way he came in. Forcing the man and the bull to reposition before sprinting. Giving him the opportunity of a head start. The two sides of surround guards charged at each other. Tearing each other to limbs, nubs, metal flakes to circuit boards and chips scattered on the stoned floor.

The two monster of machines chased and evaded each other as my father broke corners, kiosks, wagons, wooden scaffolds, and all passing town infrastructures. Unsure of his tragedy, the right hand and I gazed upon the sight of the chase. After mauling around the town they returned to a graveyard of a courtyard.

My father held a double handed carbon blade to his side, the bulled bandit swung two Arc Whips in each hand.

“How do you continue!” He laughed with fueling joy. Dancing once again, he scraped ruts in the ground as he crack his molten lines against the ground.

“No one does.” My father reached for my attention. We met visually. And that look of fear. It fell behind a giant smile. And I couldn’t inhale again.

From the withers of his horse my father stuck the tip of his blade into the ground. The handle stood by his side. He proceeded to commanded the immediate area bots to self-destruct. A tactic he only approved when one is out of moves .

The lights on the crumbled bots begin to glow in with a lime green, my father grasped his sword and threw it at the bulls chest. Disabling it. The surrounding bots faded to glow with a morning suns orange. The man in black swung the plasma whips. My fathers steed anticipated the lines, Parrying left and right. They charged forward.

With the sword protruding from the glitching bull my father grasped, used his forward motion to impale the bull and the man. The lights on the down centaurs finally flashed red.

The implosion that sucked the sound from the air. The sonic break which smoothened nearby brick walls. A constant yelp of white noise and clouding of dust.

The Prince understood all four points now. The reason for past powers, systematic control, proving your worth. It was all about understand how to fight the war.

And on this day, the King fell. So another King would rise.

The generational sacrifice.