The roar of the King's Guard, led by a frenzied General Valerius, was a wave of pure hatred crashing toward the fortress. Damon, with a bleeding hand and a heart filled with ice-cold fury, took a few steps back, bracing himself for the final clash. He watched the polished steel of the King's Guard advance, a sight that should have filled him with fear, but all he felt was a defiant, burning resolve.
Behind him, a new sound filled the air. The great gates of the Vexin fortress groaned open, and from them poured the remaining defenders. Every soldier, every able-bodied man, even those wounded, charged out into the open field. They came not as an army, but as a tide of fury, a people choosing to die with their Lord rather than watch him fight alone.
The two forces met in a brutal, deafening clash of steel and bone. The Vexin, though outnumbered, fought with a savage courage, a desperate fire lit by Damon's victory in the duel. Their blades were a blur, their shields a wall of defiance against a numerically superior foe.
Damon, a man possessed, saw only one thing: General Valerius, his face a mask of rabid rage as he led the charge. The General, seeing Damon, spurred his horse forward, his sword raised for a final, glorious kill. But Damon was a warrior, and he knew a man fighting with rage was a man who made mistakes. With a swift, brutal movement, he slid under the horse's charging body, and with a clean, powerful slash of his sword, he severed the horse's front leg. The warhorse, with a terrible, high-pitched scream, went down in a spray of blood and steel, throwing General Valerius to the ground.
The General, dazed and disoriented, lay on the ground, his sword having flown from his grip. Damon, not with a warrior's quick death, but with a hunter's cold vengeance, stood over him. He did not deliver a final blow. Instead, he raised his sword and, with a grim, deliberate motion, he slashed the General's leg, a deep, crippling cut that made Valerius scream in pain.
"That," Damon said, his voice a low, venomous growl, "is for my wife's past."
He then, with a second blow, slashed the General's arm, a cut that made Valerius's screams turn into a guttural, terrified shriek.
"And that," Damon snarled, "is for daring to speak her name."
Valerius, his body mangled and his pride shattered, looked up at Damon, not with hatred, but with a dawning fear. He saw in Damon's eyes not a man, but a force of nature, a mountain wolf defending its den.
With one final, decisive strike, Damon drove his sword through the General's heart, ending his life and his reign of terror with a single, final blow. The screaming stopped. The King's Guard, seeing their leader fall in such a brutal, humiliating fashion, stopped their charge, a wave of shock and demoralization rippling through their ranks. But the battle was not over. A new, young captain, his face pale with fear, roared a command, and the King's Guard, a disciplined force even without its leader, began to charge again, albeit with a broken morale and a shattered resolve. The Vexin, however, their spirits soaring with the death of their personal demon, met the charge with a newfound ferocity. The tide of the battle had turned.