King

Silence filled the area, Marcus looked around and dismissed his spirit blade, people were pushing towards the center, all eager to catch a glimpse of their fallen leader.
The only sound was that of his spirit humming satisfactorily in the back of his mind.
An older man stepped forward, he was a broad shouldered man, with short grey hair that was thinning at the top, he was obviously starting to go bald, and he had a thick grey mustache, and a short grey beard. The man had a thick scar running down his cheek, and it wasn’t his only mark from past battles. He was wearing a sturdy gambeson, and weathered boots. Marcus recognized him as Borgh, Jorgh’s uncle.
“Hail Marcus, Chief of the green valley!” he said, before kneeling. “Hail chief Marcus!” the crowd echoed, and men started getting on their knees on the mossy cobblestones.
He heard their shouts echo, as he fell to the ground.

His wounds weren’t deep, and a few hours of Naea’s witchcraft, and he felt much better, although he would have scars.
Marcus called the man, Borgh, to his tent, and as soon as the man came in, he dropped to his knees.  “My lord.” He said. “How can I be of service?”
“Stand, good sir.” Marcus said, as he gestured him to get up. “Thank you, Borgh, of the green valley, for your endorsement earlier.”
The man looked up confused. “Do we know each other?” he asked.
“Yes, actually, We fought together during the clan wars.”
The man nodded. “Yeahh, I remember. You were a boy then, I didn’t recognize you, but you look like him, your father was a great man, and a great warrior, shame what happened to him, thats no way for a warrior to go.”
Marcus smiled at the man, accepting the compliment for his father. “As you remember, our people were allies then, it was only after your nephew took over that relations soured.”
The older man nodded in agreement. “I never like that boy, he was too aggressive, but he was everything to my brother, even when he challenged him to that duel, he stood by him, but when he killed him, his own father…” His words trailed off, as he sunk into thought.
 “Do you believe in the prophesy, Borgh?” Marcus asked him, and the man looked up at him, startled, as if the question had caught him off guard.
“Oh, I dunno, I suppose I would rather not. Awfully grim stuff that. But when I saw the moon bleed, and the stars rain down from the sky… well… I didn’t know what to think.”
Marcus understood, it was hard to accept harsh realities, even if your gut told you the truth.
“What now?” The older man asked him. “How will you lead my people?” 
Marcus shrugged, and smiled at him. “Actually, I thought you might want to do it.” The man looked at him with wide eyes. “Me? Why not rule yourself? These people will follow you, you won the right fair and square.”
“I’m going to need your expertise, Borgh, and your people know and trust you, it will be much easier for them to take commands from you than from me, and besides, I chose Liberty as my ideal, and leading as a despot would go against it.”
Borgh nodded, still surprised, but understanding. “Alright, ill do it, you can count on me, my Liege!”

“I hereby name you, Borgh of the green valley, chief of the green valley tribe, where you will rule as my vassal, may your leadership prove fruitful.”
Cheers echoed between the mountains, the green valley people had been relieved to hear that they would be led by one of their own, especially Maragh’s legendary brother, who had led their armies during the great clan wars.
“I, Borgh of the green valley, hereby swear fielty to you, my liege, though I do not know what to call you, chief, grand chief, or rather, I would call you my king!”
There were more cheers, Marcus’ heart sank, he had known this would happen eventually, but not that it we be so soon. “And I humbly accept, though I do not need greater titles, as your loyalty will be enough to satisfy me.”
Naea poked his side and Arthur glared at him, ‘you won’t escape this.’ Their looks said to him, something he already knew at heart.
Fine, he thought. King then.

He let Arthur announce him king the next morning, but king of what exactly? He wondered. King of the mountains? So far he ruled three tribes, the mountain ones, and there were six more on the continent, it would be too arrogant to announce himself king of cloud, with merely a third of it’s tribes under his control.
But nobody asked what he was the king of, frankly, he was glad no one did, that would leave it up in the air for a while, hopefully until he controlled enough of the continent to start making bold claims.
He got them to keep the celebratory antics to a minimum, and he insisted that they leave the next day, at the break of dawn.

“To the south wood next huh?” Arthur asked. “So how do you want to take on the maniac? Surprise attack?” Marcus shook his head.
“I’m hoping not to, he is a talented mage, and he could be useful, I’m hoping to get him to come willingly.” What he didn’t say was that Claith had appeared in some of his visions, so willingly or not, he would come.
Naea nodded. “I think it is worth a shot, he can’t be that bad, he sounds fascinating.”
Arthur looked at them incredulously. “Fascinating? Useful? How? Isn’t it common knowledge that he’s a crackpot lunatic?”
“Perhaps a little.” Marcus admitted. “But the rumors are probably exaggerated, you know how people are.”
“And he is probably the best golem elemental on the continent.” Naea added, accompanied with her characteristic nonchalant tone, and a neutral frown on her face.
They had discussed it I private of course, Marcus hadn’t been sure at first, despite the visions, but Naea had encouraged him to try to recruit him, he had wanted to try diplomacy anyway, but he was hesitant to invite a known madman into his inner circle.
“Well, if you say so.” Arthur said with a doubtful tone, “but I’m keeping an eye on him.”
“Good, I appreciate it brother.” Marcus smiled at him, and patted him on the back.

“Don’t you think he is a little overzealous?” Naea asked him, when they were alone.
“He is right to mistrust Claith, I’m not sure about him myself, and it never hurts to be extra careful, especially when a man has such a reputation.”
Naea nodded, smiling approvingly, he could never figure her out. “What do you think, Naea?” he asked.
“I think people underestimate this Claith, and I would very much like to see him in person.”
“Do you think he will come easily?” Marcus asked her. “Or that he will be trustworthy if he does?” She side eyed him. “I might be a witch Marc, but not even I can see the future, but do I have a good feeling about him.”
Nobody called him Marc, only she did, he wasn’t sure why, but he liked the sound of it, at least when it came from her mouth.
“Be careful Naea.” He said quietly.  “When we are there.” She looked at him, obviously trying to read him.
“Your vision?” she asked. And he nodded.
 “Why am I doing this Naea?” He whispered, and she looked at him again, tilting her head slightly.
“We.” She started. “Are aiding in the survival of the people of cloud, and the world as a whole, if we didn’t, we would be leaving the world to fall into chaos and destruction.”
“I know what the prophesy says, but why me? Why am I doing this? Isn’t there someone else out there, who actually enjoys subjugating the masses?” He sighed, he didn’t know why he asked her this, he knew why he was the one doing this, he had the visions, they led him, he was the only one who could bring them together.
“It is precisely because of your lack of dominating ambitions that it must be you, Marc.” She assured him. “You will bring them together, and you will do it for the right reason, you will shed blood, and you pay for it with steel, maybe that is why it was you who was given the visions.”
He nodded, she was right of course, as usual.
“That is why you can’t keep neglecting that poor spirit of yours, you need to train, Marc, look at yourself, that bear scratched you up like a kitten does to a chair. You won by a hair.”
The spirit gunted in the back of his mind, “The witch is right, boy, we need to train more.”
“Yeah, I get it, no need to go into such intricate detail, ill start training with Arthur, like we did when he was a boy.”
She was right, again, he had trained with Arthur a lot, back when he was still a practicing soldier, before the deaths of their parents, and when he had still enjoyed the fight. It had been his seasons home, when he had sparred with his kid brother. Arthur was eight years younger than Marcus, and when the wars had started, he had been fourteen, and Arthur had been six, fortunately, the wars had ended before Arthur had taken any real role in them.
Marcus had requested for him to be put on guard duty in cloud central, as soon as he had turned twelve, hoping to spare him from battle, and he had. Arthur hadn’t understood then, and their sparring sessions had become more of a competition to him, a chance to prove that he was battle ready.
But no, it hadn’t been about that, Arthur could fight, but no one could ever truly be ready for the pains of war.

The green valley was beautiful, even if the mountains weren’t as big or majestic as back home, they had the same floating islands, except smaller and greener, and for some reason, more hilly. Nobody knew how these islands worked exactly, except that they could only be found in the mountains of cloud. The most popular sensus what that they had been created by the greater magics of the world before the collapse, and the wars that had followed it, destroyed everything some centuries ago, including all knowledge of the floating islands.
Besides them, the mountains here were much greener, or at least, they were in the spring and summer, now, they were covered in a thick layer of snow, a layer that seemingly only got thicker as they traveled south into the valleys.
As they got lower and lower in elevation, he occasionally got dizzy. It was the air, up in cloud central, particularly the floating island named as such, the air was light and thin. Here, halfway down the mountains, it felt heavy, intoxicating, he could only imagine how it would be at the coast.
He missed his home, but he knew he would see it again, the visions dictated so. They weren’t absolute, he could change things, but only small things, and only sometimes, most of the time, the visions came true, pretty much exactly as they had been shown to him, or at least in the same manner.
The bear that he had thought of Jorgh in his visions, had proven to be a real bear, telling him that they could also be taken figuratively, and the place was often different. They never showed him the conversations that took place, so they were always a surprise to him.
The only times he could really change things, was when the visions showed him another path, one more favorable, one that would aid him in his mission.

Not long after his battle with Jorgh he had his first training session, sometimes he would spar with Arthur, but often he also practiced against training dolls, with the help of Arthur.
This all contributed to his spirit being in a generally good mood. He had a name of course, but one doesn’t share the name of ones spirit.
His spirit might have the shape of a sword, but that wasn’t all It was, it could change shape and size in order to fulfill different functions, often he shortened it, so he could throw it, he called it the boomerang, because it would simply soar through the air in a circle, before returning to him.
If he concentrated, he could even move it around in the air more precisely, which was very useful, as it threw off his enemies, but he couldn't do it quite fast enough yet, to be suitable for battle.
With all his sword tricks, speed was the most important factor, along with precision, if he could out pace his enemies, he could beat them.
“You’re rusty, I remember you being faster than this!” The spirit croaked. 
Marcus grunted, and he threw his blade. There were twenty targets set up in a circle around him, and Arthur was sitting on the sidelines using his little bird to mark the next target by flying in front of it, all the while, reading a book.
The bird switched targets as soon as his sword was back in his hand, it would appear shortly, an then quickly vanish again, if he could hit it, that would be success, but the bird was quick.
Of course, his blade was set to phase, and even if he hit the bird, it would simply pass through the spirit, doing no harm.
Every time Marcus would increase his pace, the little critter would too, and he had only managed to hit it a few times.
“Go faster old man!” The spirit wheezed into his ear. “You’re embarrassing me by being slower than some puny little songbird!”
He did.
He could feel fatigue starting to ache in his arms and legs, but he ignored it, continuing to swing and throw, he practiced combining his throw with the precision movement ability, changing it’s trajectory in mid flight, it was harder to control his blade while it was already soaring through the air.
“Faster gramps!” The spirit shouted again. Throw, fly, Catch, Throw, Fly, Catch, that was the cycle, his rhythm was steady, despite the pain now flooding his body, and he kept increasing his pace, the harder he threw the blade, the faster it would soar through the air, and the faster it would return.
“Yesss!… Good!” The spirit whispered. “Pain sharpens your blade, boy, focus on it.” Marcus grunted, letting go of his thoughts, solely focusing on the blade, the targets, his pain, he could hear screams of agony echoing around his skull, ringing in his ears, the sound of blade piercing flesh, metal clanging against metal, the crunching of bone.
Throw, Fly, Catch, he increased his speed, And then, he threw once more, his blade soared around him in a circle, slicing all the straw targets in half, and cutting a single ethereal feather from the birds tail, before returning to his hand in all but half a second.
“Thats more like it.” The spirit hummed approvingly. “Almost back to your old self.” 
Arthur looked up from his book. “Hey! He doesn’t like it when you touch his feathers, now he has to grow new ones!”

Demons storming towards them on the white fields, there were so many of them but they no longer fazed him, he had seen this so many times that the sight was familiar to him.
A wide crack in the earth, from it pouring hell spawn, too many to count, by his side, the faces of men, and even many women, some of which he recognized, most he didn’t, all of them marked with fear and determination.

A figure, he could not make out its features, other than that it was a man, one radiating power, this would be the chosen one of the prophesy, the vessel of Zenithrix.
This vision ended with showing him a strange symbol, a central shape, with four objects circling it.

A woodland battlefield, no demons, only corpses, human corpses, corpses he made, he recognized the mark of his blade, and what a blade it was, its handiwork had littered the ground with the bodies of many people, a lot of whom were missing one or more appendages.
He felt guilt seep into his mind. Would it really have to come to this? He could hear the wailing of widows and scared children in the back of his mind, a sound not unfamiliar to him, but one he had hoped never to cause again.
Why? He thought. Why?

A wedding, it appeared to be his own, a woman, the one from the previous visions. He had seen her many times before, always by his side, not unlike the witch. Why her?

A training ground, he was sparring with Arthur, he watched himself spinning and whirling is slow motion, his brother, a flash of movement, his bird, summoning a mass of black blades from its beak, like it did, his brother creating waves of wind, and riding them across the field like a leaf dancing in the air.
He whirled his blade, and it split into many copies of itself in mid air, that was a new ability, he would have to ask his spirit about it.

Naea in his arms, she looked sad, but she was smiling, that was like her, she would never admit weakness, even if it was plainly clear to him.
But why was she sad? She kissed him, and he caressed her cheek, she looked… normal? Or not quite?

A child playing with sticks, it was him, he remembered this moment, he had been here before, it was the first time he had met the spirit.