Chapter 18 - Ruin

The ocean waves crashing against Keep's wall spelled its doom. Every wave that hits the wall weakens its foundation, making the Keep give way against its weight.

The Keep's walls and floor broke as the pillars supporting the Keep weakened when the Study collapsed. 

The alchemists sprang from their lab and began to flee. 

The guards abandoned their post, fearing for their lives. 

But despite the situation, George and the two generals stayed. George prayed that the two boys survived their fall, while the generals were confident that the Doctor would return and lead their town back to glory. 

The loud clash of blades awakened John. When he comes to his senses, the dimly lit sewers beneath the Keep greet him with hundreds of dead rats around him and thousands more alive, staring back at him from a distance. 

William jumped behind John to deflect the knives flying toward him. 

"John, stay close to me," William said as he reminded his friend that the rats would not eat him as long as he stuck beside William. 

The Doctor approached them from the darkness with a grim smile underneath her broken mask. She brandished her saw and knives at the boys.

"Why would a Zonian fight for the same people who destroyed our ancestors? Tell me, boy, what family did you come from?" She asked, only to receive William's cold stare. The Doctor began listening to their heartbeat as she hurled insults at them, but none seemed to be working. 

She is irritated by his silence. 

It was her curious mind that allowed her to formulate the Chalice plague. 

Her intelligence concocted the painful mixture that drips from her knives. 

And it was her skill that trained these rats to be a force for Pentalium. 

It was her wits that made those exiled royalties into her generals!

She will not have 'nothing' as an answer!

The Doctor distracts William by throwing her knives. William deflected it, allowing the Doctor to run toward his blind side. 

She took a swing, but with John on William's side, he deflected her attack. 

John tried to counter, but she was nimble and slid away just before his blade met her neck.

The Doctor and William have the Sense. They both know relying on it will lead to an endless waltz of counters. William held his sword high above his head while John steadied his blade on their side. The boys were in synch, taking their steps simultaneously; they attacked in successive motion and put up a surmountable defense that even the Doctor's lighting reflexes couldn't pass through.

The Doctor recognizes their stance, a Knights' defensive formation that allows the users to deal with lethal counterattacks. She studied this form in a book and knew exactly how to break it.

"Sir George has no squire or page that he trains. I do not have any quarrel with any knights of the Kingdom. I ensured that all the generals sent for dealings returned the money and the royal families needed for their cure unless it was from that failed experiment. Tell me, did I poison someone dear to you? Did that person get weak immediately?" 

Her words stirred William's heart towards vengeance. His William swung his sword. John followed, but the Doctor gleefully stepped aside and resumed her taunting. 

"Eldric's Squire?! What a surprise! I always wanted to know how he reacted to the poison. Did his eyes bleed? Did he vomit? The report says he fought ten of my men before he fell to the river and died. Too bad we weren't there to see it."

William snapped. He broke his formation and wildly swung his sword at her. 

"And without focus, his friend will die first." The Doctor says as she commands the rats to shield her from William's attacks while throwing a barrage of knives at John.

John yelled for help, begging William to stay in a defensive formation, but the Doctor drowned the sewers with her voice.

"I didn't even know the man. I was given the order to create a mixture to put him out of commission during the Tourney. I made a potion from Deathshade to make it, but that first version was too strong, and it killed him a few hours after consuming it."

William's worn him out. After a few more minutes, William is on his knees. He was catching his breath while the Doctor's words further tormented him. 

John is left on his own, fending against the swarm of rats. He tried screaming for William to stand up and fight against her words. "Ingrid and the Kingdom are depending on us!" he yells.

"Kingdom?" the Doctor commands her rat from attacking John. "There is no Kingdom for you left to defend. Look around us! There are infected people everywhere. They exhibit the symptoms of the plague I made! The poison that killed Eldric was unfortunate, but it didn't stop me from developing it into something that the Pentalium could use! And now it is a business that will leave the Kingdom's coffer dry and their graveyard full."

The Doctor brandishes her knives and prepares to strike at William. "I do enjoy playing with you boys. Your roguish behavior and strong-headed nature are just what I need from a general in my ranks. Such a shame; I never thought another Zonian would live among the Kingdom citizens. I wish it could be different. We could have been a proper family, alongside the other Pentalium and me."

"Family?" William says to himself as he reminds himself of the days when Eldric taught him how to wield a sword. The days when the other page and he were eating together, living peacefully in Tarwood. 

William turned his head toward his wounded friend, asking him to get up. He looked at his hands as he began to doubt his capabilities. If William cannot even hit the Doctor, what chance can he take against the other members of Pentalium? 

At his lowest point, he swears that he felt a warm touch on his hand. It was as if Eldric was trying to pull him up and fight. 

"Fight on!" Eldric's word echoes from his memories. "That is just training! You cannot give up now! Look at me; I am wielding a stick, and yours a real blade."

"You are a full-grown man, and I am just a boy. I cannot defeat you! Your large, stronger, and wiser than me." William yelled back as he was about to give up on his training. 

"Then use your mind and feet. You are more agile than me. Crawl around me, slide behind me, and attack! If you resign yourself to defeat before the battle has begun, the battle is lost even before you cross the blade with your enemy. Now stand and fight on, William!" Eldric always encouraged William back then, and even now, in the face of death, William's heart began to pump again with determination!

William locked his eyes with Doctor's. He began to seize her, recalling all the times she threw her knives and attacked him. He began to see a pattern. Whenever the Doctor dodges their attack, she hops with her right foot, lands with her left, and kicks herself away again with her right foot.

William swings his sword to test it out, and she dodges the same way he imagines it. 

"I thought I lost you there!" John yelled with joy seeing his friend back to his feet.

"Such spunk! Let the examination continue!" The Doctor began spouting words, blaming William and John for Eldric's defeat, but this time, William remained calm. He is collected and focused more than ever.

William returned to John's side, and they began to move again as a unit.

Seeing that William is not affected by her words, the Doctor is backed into a corner. This time the boys didn't give her a chance to think or talk.

The Doctor began to feel tired from all the dodging and finally slipped. William grabbed one of the Doctor's knives on the floor and threw it back at her, stabbing her foot and disabling her to move. 

Knowing she had lost, the Doctor tried to kill herself with a knife to prevent any info taken out of her. But John and William grabbed ahold of the Doctor before she could do any self-harm. 

"Tell us, who are the Pentalium? Why did you target Eldric?" John demanded, and the Doctor laughed in return.

William pulled her mask, revealing Lady Margaret Strout's face. And as soon as the mask came off, a different personality came over her. Her calm expression began to crumble as panic sets in. 

"No, don't do this, boys. We can still work things out!" She began to beg the boys to let her go. Her words began to mellow the two as her words began to convince them. 

"I will come with you as a prisoner! I will replicate the cure and reverse the damage I've done! Just please let me live!" she wailed.

"Then bring back Sir Eldric," William said as his red eyes locked on her, showing how serious he was with his demand.

"You said it yourself. You will reverse the damage you've done. Then grant us this, and we will let you go." John chimed in.

"Fools!" Lady Margaret's face gave a malice grin. She intentionally has them drop their guard so she can take her with them. She produced a very piercing whistling sound that William had never heard before. 

And in an instant, the rats around them began to gnaw at their armor, clothing, and limbs! Their voracious appetite was so intense that the larger ones ate even the smaller rats. 

Even with his red eyes, William cannot contain the rats at bay. He let go of the Doctor to save himself and John from the attack. A congregation of rats began to feast on the Doctor's body. 

But she isn't done. Mustering the last of her strength, the Doctor cut off her right foot and leaped towards the boys. But William's blade met her and was sliced below her waist. 

"You could have been a Zonian working with the Pentalium putting this Kingdom into darkness. But you ruin everything!" The Doctor hissed as she was being devoured alive by the rats.

No remorse was left in William but seeing the Doctor put to justice made a part of him in peace. To honor the death of one of Eldric's killers, he names his sword from her curse, Ruin.

The boys began their escape from the Keep's sewers. John and William climbed the manhole from the sewer and escaped into the Keep's alchemy lab.

There was a box covering the manhole. As William and John pushed the box aside, they heard a shimmering sound of vials. The boys hurriedly exited the manhole, and to their surprise, they found two caches of vials for the plague. 

John estimated that one cache was enough to heal Ingrid's tribe, and the other cache could be distributed to the authorities to replicate the cure. The boys grabbed the vials and hustled towards the entrance to escape the crumbling Keep.

"Boys over here!" Sir George greeted them, standing before the last two generals defeated beneath his feet.

It was a moment of happiness for the three of them. After what happened, they needed no words to express what they felt. Their smile tells it all. 

After a moment of respite, John gave William some good news. 

"During the scuffle, I snag a vial and some pages from the Doctor's Journal." The pages detailed how Doctor created a potent poison that killed Eldric and turned it into a plague.

"Great! I can use my alchemic expertise to replicate the create this cure!" Sir George smiled as hope began to fill his head.

As dawn breaks the dark sky, the banner of the Kingdoms' Knights and guards is slowly marching towards this town.

"Sir George, I cannot thank you enough for assisting us. I know you might not trust us completely, but can you do us a favor?" William asks the hopeful knight to let them keep a cache to cure an infected tribe while the other one will be left with George so he can replicate the cure alongside the other alchemist of the Kingdom.

George didn't hesitate. He approved the boys of their plan. "Seeing you boys fight, I know what you stand for. It might be unusual for a citizen to help those tribes, but they too are victims of Doctor's plague."

George bade the boys farewell. He picked up his cache and waited on the main road, where he would greet the other knights. 

The boys began their way back to Ingrid's tribe. They are confident that the Royal Court will recognize the evidence they gathered.

They are hopeful that the plague will pass without a hitch now the cure will be available to the public. 

But they should be wary. Pentalium is always watching. Always ready to strike back in ways they won't expect.