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I die, it will fall to you to avenge me.”
    For the first time Talon realized that this could very well be the last time he would see his father. And Talon wanted the king to remember him as having the courage and dignity that his father had.
    “Do you understand?” Richard asked, softly.
    Talon nodded and refused to shed another tear. “Yes. I understand.”
    Talon laid aside the tri-bladed sword and grabbed hold of Richard’s forearm in the salute of the gladiators. Father and son smiled and beamed love to one another.

FIVE
    awn oozed over the black horizon like a bleeding wound. Oh how cruelly fitting an image! Richard mused, looking away from the reddish glow to the carnage all around him.
    Heavy with grief and woe, Richard trudged through the Valley of Cybelle like a drunken man, stumbling and shuffling in futile search of some drop of comfort for his aching despair. A handful of his knights in full battle dress walked wearily behind him, the same hopelessness and abysmal despair on their faces.
    Richard’s eyes were bloodshot and puffy from unrestrained sobbing. For over a quarter of an hour he wandered through the gory chaos, gazing dumbstruck at the mangled bodies, the ulcerated faces, shorn and torn limbs, the steaming guts of dead horses, the flowing blood, columns of smoke and the broken swords and lances. He cursed Fate for not allowing him to arrive in time to die a noble death with these brave men and gallant loved ones. Death would have been infinitely sweeter than the bitter cup of reality he now had to drink.
    Over there lay Phelan, his beloved friend, his face frozen forever in the agony of a plunged sword. Goodbye, sweet sage!
    Dangling by the neck on a rope from a tree was Knight Edward, his dear cousin, his tongue protruding from his mouth and his gouged eyes now slits of red jelly.
    And lying in a puddle of his own blood was Richard’s beloved son, Duncan, his face twisted in pain from the ugly sword sticking out of his youthful chest. Oh, the heart-rending sobs that would tear from the tender bosom of the queen when she learned of this tragedy!
    And in the midst of Cromwell’s barbarous spoils vultures began their hideous vigil of waiting for rotting flesh to become their food.
    As if a bucket of icy water had been thrown in Richard’s face, he suddenly shuddered and in an instant threw off the paralysis of grief, riding an upsurge of scalding hate. He jerked his flashing sword into view and began brandishing it wildly over his head. The knights watched, transfixed to the spot, mesmerized by the king’s sudden burst of fury and strength.
    “I want Cromwell’s head! Bring me Cromwell so I can drink his blood!”
    Like a man far younger than his sixty years, Richard began to run furiously, his knights following, in the direction of the campfires on a cliff overlooking the Valley of Cybelle, where he knew Cromwell’s troops were entrenched—and no doubt swinishly celebrating their victory.
    “Give me Cromwell’s blood, I say!” he kept yelling. “I want Cromwell’s blood!”

    Cromwell kept massaging his right biceps under the iron mesh shirt. His sword arm was sore. He must have lopped off a dozen heads and twice as many limbs in the lightning-quick annihilation of Richard’s army. His battle dress looked like a butcher’s apron, splashed with gore as well as sweat and dirt.
    Cromwell was standing on the cliff’s edge beside Malcolm and General Quade, the three of them victoriously surveying the havoc his forces and Xusia’s sorcery had wreaked upon the Valley of Cybelle. The devastated camp below was bathed in hot morning light and there wasn’t a stir among the tens of thousands of ravaged soldiers strewn there.
    Cromwell was smirking. After he had made so many unsuccessful incursions into Richard’s rich kingdom, the jewel of the western world was finally his!
    “Over a hundred thousand warriors killed in a single battle! Incredible!”
    The gruff exclamation came from General