On the other side of the palace, just outside the second western gate, Zhao Ling Fei, the Fifth Prince lifted his arm and then brought it down in a chopping motion. His red cloak fluttered around his black armor as he surveyed the action from his horse.
"Ram the gate!" he shouted as his men surged forward. He grunted a little, casually deflecting a stray arrow with his sword, musing that he never thought he'd actually be using a battering ram on his own father's palace.
Over top of his head, high on the palace walls, the commander of the imperial guard, under the control of the Crown Prince yelled down to him: "Fifth Highness, have you gone mad? Are you really rebelling?!" he shouted.
"The one who is rebelling is the Crown Prince..." Zhao Ling Fei shouted back. "Open the gate! If you don't, I'll keep battering it until it breaks down!"
"Fire arrows!" the commander roared in answer.
"Your Highness, please move back!" one of his aides cried out, knocking an arrow out of the air just front of him.
"Tch," shrugged the Fifth Prince. "Continue..." he directed, nodding towards the gate as men shouted and screamed.
"Yes, your Highness," the man bowed over cupped hands.
"Oh, hang on...how's it going on the other side?" the Fifth Prince asked.
"Your Highness...the Seventh Prince..."
The sound of an explosion on his left drowned out what is subordinate was saying.
"What?" he asked sharply.
"Your Highness...the..."
"What are you saying...?!" the prince demanded, as the man's lips moved.
The man sighed, and opened his mouth to yell again, but then he was interrupted by a messenger running up. With an almost frenzied look in his eye, the messenger yelled over the barrage of screaming men, flying boulders, and arrows: "Reporting to your Highness...The Eldest Prince has been killed!"
"How can that be?" asked the Fifth Prince blankly.
What happened to Royal brother?
"Your Highness! Get out of the way!" shouted his subordinate, shoving him off his horse just as a spray of flaming oil splashed down where he had been.
Get a hold of yourself! Zhao Ling Fei thought to himself sternly. If you die here, then what was it all for? Idiot.
"Are you alright your Highness?" his subordinate yelled, clutching at him, but the Fifth Prince shrugged him off, clapping a hand to his shoulder to show that he was grateful and that he was fine.
"Help him..." Zhao Ling Fei said, gesturing with his sword to the unlucky messenger who was now writhing and screaming on the ground, trying to put out his flaming legs.
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Water Mirrored Moon - 水鏡月
FantasyAfter a terrible accident that she'd rather forget, Casey Leung abandons her life in Canada and boards a river boat in China. Reaching to touch the reflection of the moon in the river, she gets sucked into a water vortex and spat back out into an al...
