That laughter.

That evil, sadistic laughter.

Billa and Diyaka doubted they would ever experience a moment as hair-raising as that. Having Lord Dreck watch them directly, with that evil laughter.

“Well, well, well! Look what we have here! Three for the price of one! Goodness, my thirst for blood came at the right time! This is going to be even better than I imagined!” Dreck gloated, his eyes on the trio before him.

Soayi looked back at the boys. “Stand back! Let me handle him!” he ordered.

He didn’t need to speak twice. They moved away as fast as possible, both trembling with extreme terror.

Soayi then faced Dreck, pulling out his sword as he glared at his master. “You’re going to have to get through me to harm them, you monster!”

Dreck’s lips curled into an evil grin. “Never was going to be a problem for me. They’re just bonus hits. You’re the one I want dead.”

This was it.

The moment Mandeland’s fate hung in the balance.

As the two stood facing each other, swords drawn, their eyes locked in a deadly contest of wills, the tension was thick as could be. The air seemed to crackle with the electric charge of impending violence. Billa and Diyaka cowered a distance away, absolutely trembling with fright.

This was going to be deadly.

Lord Dreck’s bare chest heaved with anger as he sneered at Soayi. “You’re a fool, Soayi, that’s what you are! A disloyal traitor who dares to challenge me! You really think you can challenge my rule and live to tell the tale?”

Soayi snarled back. “And you, Dreck, are nothing but a coward, a puppet with no mind of your own, ruled by fear and brutality.”

Dreck’s eyes narrowed as he slowly moved to the side. “There’s only one coward here, imbecile! And it’s the one who threw a hissy fit because his cousin got dealt with for disregard of his lord’s orders!”

“He was family, Dreck! Family! He didn’t deserve it!”

“Nobody cares about your family, fool! Your allegiance is to me and me alone! Family is irrelevant!”

“Says the man who carries on his big brother’s dreams!” Soayi sarcastically retorted.

Dreck’s snarl grew deeper. “WHATT!” he roared.

“Oh, cut the pretense, you lily-livered lunatic!” Soayi snapped. “Isn’t all this destruction just the dying wish of your disgusting older brother? Of course it is! You told us yourself, didn’t you! You really have no mind of your own! You’re no lord at all, you’re just a puppet of a dead man who deserved to die!”

His teeth gritted, those words really hitting a nerve. If there was anything Dreck despised, it was hearing evil reports of his brother. And Soayi had done just that, fuelling a raging fire within.

He let out a primal scream.

Then he ran toward Soayi, his sword lifted high.

Soayi lifted his.

With ear-splitting roars, their swords clashed with a deafening clang, sparks flying as their blades met with a fury.

Lord Dreck struck again, his sword slashing through the air with a terrifying precision. Soayi deftly parried the blow, their blades clashing again in a shower of sparks. The corridor reverberated with the sound of metal on metal.

Soayi retaliated with a swift strike, but Lord Dreck countered with a powerful thrust, forcing Soayi to step back. The intensity of their duel was frightening, each move calculated and lethal.

This was a fight that would end in only one thing. Life and victory for the winner.

And defeat and death for the loser.

***

“I’m terrified! I’m so terrified!” Billa whimpered, still shaking violently as the clash of steel raged on.

“Me too, brother!” Diyaka whispered, holding him tight. He could barely watch the duel between elder and lord; it was frightening.

And it was not what they had expected at all.

They had really been hoping for the chance to confront Dreck in a vulnerable state. It would obviously be much easier to take him out when he wasn’t in peak condition. But like this… no way. He was far too dangerous. Any attempt to fight him would be like trying to wrestle an elephant.

Their only hope was that Soayi could defeat this man.

He needed to.

Because if he didn’t, and Lord Dreck finished him off… that would definitely be the end of Mandeland. There was no way this monster would let the village remain standing after this.

“Please let him defeat Lord Dreck! Please let him defeat Lord Dreck!” Billa prayed.

Diyaka couldn’t have agreed more with that prayer.

***

“I will destroy you, Soayi!” Dreck roared as the clash between them continued, their swords a blur of deadly strikes and parries. Sweat glistened on their brows as they pushed their physical limits, neither willing to yield.

“Not if I destroy you first!” Soayi snarled, pushing Dreck off him and cornering him. “You’re out of your mind, and if everyone else chooses to lick your boots, I won’t!”

Breathing heavily, Dreck lunged forward, managing to land a fierce blow on Soayi’s arm, causing him to recoil in pain. But Soayi quickly gathered himself in spite of the pain, and retaliated with a brutal thrust, narrowly missing Dreck’s chest.

“I should have killed you the moment you came to show me gross disrespect,” Dreck snarled, jumping back and eyeing his elder-turned-adversary. “I don’t know what made me accept your apology. I should’ve known you’d betray me! Employing Mandeland vermin to work with you!”

Ha! So the perfect Lord Dreck admits to making a mistake?” Soayi mocked. “That means you’re not as perfect as you claim! Weak mind!”

Letting out another loud roar, Dreck charged at Soayi once again, his sword raised high and ready to inflict maximum damage. Soayi, however, had anticipated that action, and quickly sidestepped him, avoiding his charge and throwing him off balance.

With a snarl, Soayi swung his sword, with an echoing clang, knocked the sword out of Dreck’s hand.

Billa and Diyaka’s hearts leapt into their mouths, joy flooding their veins as they watched the sword move from Dreck. They looked at each other excitedly. “He’s doing it! He’s doing it!” Billa gasped excitedly.

Then Soayi tossed his sword behind him.

The boys’ excitement turned into slight confusion. “What’s he doing?” Diyaka wondered.

Soayi grabbed a slightly disoriented Dreck by the scruff of his neck, pulled back, and delivered a clean shot to the face of his leader.

Dreck stumbled back, his balance lost after that blow to the face.

Soayi grabbed him and landed two more punches to Dreck’s face, leading the despot to crash to the ground.

He immediately hopped on top of him, and began to squeeze his neck. “I’m going to make you suffer like you made my cousin suffer, you brute!” he growled.

The excitement returned to the boys’ faces. Surely this was it! This was the moment they had been waiting for. Lord Dreck was finally about to meet his end.

As Soayi doubled down on the fallen lord, applying greater and greater pressure, Dreck tried his best to push back his aggressor. It was in vain; Soayi had the upper hand, and as Dreck began to struggle for breath, it looked like he would prevail.

“Selfish lunatic!” Soayi spat, squeezing harder and harder. “You’re nothing! Nothing but a demented little fool. Talking like family means nothing when your little agenda against this village is because of your family! You’re nothing, you hear me, Dreck? You’re nothing! Nothing but the foolish brother of a pathetic little rapist! A pathetic rapist who deserved to die!”

Those words reignited the fire within Dreck’s bosom. Once again, he had touched that raw nerve.

He roared once more, and with a burst of rabid energy, broke Soayi’s grip on him before shoving him off.

Glee immediately switched to terror for the boys.

Dreck rose to his feet, a menacing look on his face. Before Soayi could rise, he let his foot fly into Soayi’s groin. The pain on Soayi’s face was as glaring as could be.

Then Dreck turned and grabbed the sword nearest to him. As he hovered over a wincing Soayi, he snarled. “You’re going to regret not killing me straight away.”

He lifted the sword, a mad look in his eyes…

… and plunged it downward. Right where he wanted it to land.

***

Billa and Diyaka shrieked in horror as they watched Dreck drive the sword straight into Soayi’s heart. Their hands on their heads, they couldn’t believe it.

Dreck had defeated Soayi.

This was it. It was over. There was no way out of this one.

They were definitely going to be next. This man was certainly going to cut them up into pieces, now that he had slayed his elder.

Why this sudden twist? Why???

Billa was hyperventilating at this point. “We’re going to die, we’re going to die, we’re going to die!” he whispered in a panic, frantically just looking around for something… anything… to try and get out of this. “What do we do, what do we do, what do we do-“

His terrified rant paused when he saw what lay before them.

The other sword.

Diyaka saw what his gaze fell upon, and shook his head vigorously. A teenager fighting this murderous machine? That was an insane move.

“Billa, don’t…”

Before he could complete his warning, though, Billa lunged for the sword, grabbed it, and rose and ran toward Dreck.

“No, Billa! Don’t!”

***

Laughing manically as he watched Soayi breathe his last, Dreck felt a surge of victory course through his veins.

Victory was his! This fool had challenged him and thought he had won. Didn’t he know nobody could defeat him?

“I hope you suffer and suffer good wherever you find yourself, you miserable low-life,” he snarled at the now unmoving body of his elder, reveling in the stiffness of this vanquished foe.

He straightened up, the sweet surge of victory still as electric as ever. Indeed, he was Lord Dreck, and absolutely nobody could stop him!

“Now, to deal with those pieces of slime from Mandeland.”

He turned around…

… and was immediately downed by the strike of sharp steel on his forehead.

***

“MONSTER! ANIMAL! PERISH, YOU FILTHY BEAST!”

It was as if all the anger of Mandeland had been placed in Billa, and he was unleashing it upon its tormentor, as he hacked at the fallen lord’s body repeatedly, screaming all the awful words he could. Diyaka simply stood by, stunned into silence as he watched his brother land blow after blow on the monster they had just cowered in fear from.

A few more strikes, and Billa, gasping for breath, halted. He laid the sword down and collapsed to his knees, tears running down his cheeks as his stomach churned at the sight before him.

Before him was an unrecognizable figure, a sight too gruesome and grotesque to comment on. The man who had poured out an unbelievable amount of hatred upon Mandeland was nothing but a bloody, destroyed piece of flesh.

But it was crystal clear that what they hoped for had finally come to pass.

Lord Dreck had finally been defeated.

Finally.

Diyaka moved slowly to his crying brother and hugged him tightly. “It’s okay, brother,” he consoled, holding him tight. “You’ve done it. You’ve defeated him. It’s over.”

He glanced briefly at the revolting scene before them, then patted his brother on the back, relief breaking out within him. True relief.

“He’s no more. We’re free.”  

Oh. My. Goodness. Who saw that coming? Goodness me, this could have ended differently. But the evil one is dead. Finally…