26 Chapter 26 - Battle Royale (2/2)

Phillip stepped forward, cold eyes holding the weight of a god's judgment behind them.

”You may begin,” he said clear as day and as emotional as a lump of stone. He tapped his sword-staff once upon the stone.

The next instance was carnage.

Men turned to animals, women to banshees and the craven soon made themselves known as they charged the barred jail doors. Grim eyed guards stood beyond, unmoved as the criminals were cut down by those who had chosen to fight.

Jack forced himself to watch the slaughter, as human and monster alike fell upon each other like wolves upon the lamb. The fighting was bloody, cut-throat and ruled by complete anarchy of hundreds of struggling limbs. Murders tried to pull their guts back into their body, swindlers attempted to feign their strength while staying out of the worst of it and madmen cackled while tearing out their own nails.

Amidst it all the Flower Knight was different. Jack hadn't seen how she broke the chains, but she strode now through the battle as if it were a flowerbed. Her hair was a mane of flowers, a rainbow of hues with crimson being the most prominent. Her eyes were grass green, her fine pink lips pulled back to reveal perfectly set white teeth.

A man dove at her back, dagger in hand. The Flower knight whipped around to smash his head into the ground, then planted something in his mouth. In the next moment, he squirmed but did not scream. From his body burst roots, and from his mouth a crimson flower.

The Flower Knight plucked the flower, admired it, then added it to her mane.

”Jack, some of these people have useful skills. Having them kill each other like this will waste their talents,” Phillip warned, without any hint of compassion in his eyes for the desperate masses of life.

”I know. I have read the report of each member here, maybe it's time to lend a hand to our latest recruits.”

Summoning his golden chains, Jack first extracted Tony the Breton. The thief rose to hang by golden chains before in the air before Jack.

Fast with his hands, and faster with his feet, Tony had been a pick-pocket that had slipped a jewelled ring free of a baron, then another from his wife and then the necklace of the daughter. All on the same night. If only he hadn't boasted loudly about the theft at a nearby tavern the next day, he wouldn't have been caught.

”Tony the Breton, do you swear your everlasting loyalty to Jack the Warden?” Phillip announced with all the aires of a professional priest.

”Aye, aye I do-”

”Liar,” Phillip hissed, a golden eye flaring at his forehead. Tony the Breton paled, ”No- no I swear it! I'll follow him, i'll-”

”Liar.”

Lifting him high, Jack built up strength before slinging him back into the fray. Tumbling against the stone, Tony the Breton had his throat cut before he could so much as stand.

”For the remainder of you, I am a great priest of the All Kowing one. For as long as I have my blessing of [Truth] you cannot lie to me. Do so when questioned, or fail to give your honest loyalty, and you will go the same way as Tony the Breton!”