Damon froze in his chair. His eyes widened slightly.
"Punched clean through a steel breastplate?" Damon thought to himself, his mind racing at lightning speed. "That is completely impossible. Captain Darius wears steel armor forged by the best royal blacksmiths. An arrow fired from the strongest longbow cannot pierce that steel. A sword cannot pierce it. But this hollow iron pipe punched a hole right through it from a distance?"
Damon stared at the strange weapon. He imdiately realized how incredibly dangerous this situation was. If a common man wearing dirty rags could easily kill a heavily armored captain with a simple point of a tal tube, then all the expensive armor, the trained knights, and the strong cavalry in the kingdom were completely useless. The entire nature of war was about to change permanently.
The King took a deep breath, continuing the terrifying story.
"In the chaos and the blinding smoke that followed the loud blast," the King explained, gesturing with his hands. "The stranger tried to use the weapon again."
Damon leaned slightly forward, his eyes narrowed in deep concentration. He needed to know exactly how this deadly weapon functioned.
"The surviving guards said he pulled a small pouch from his belt," the King said. "He poured so sort of black, sandy dust down into the top of the hollow pipe. Then, he was frantically fumbling in his pockets with a small, round tal ball."
Damon processed this information instantly.
"He poured black dust, and then tried to insert a tal ball," Damon analyzed internally. "The black dust must create the fire and the explosion. The explosion forces the tal ball out of the pipe at a terrifying speed. That is what pierced the armor. The tal ball acts like a tiny, unbreakable arrow."
Damon nodded his head very slowly. He had already found the weapon’s biggest weakness.
"But the process was too slow," the King finished the story, matching Damon’s exact thoughts. "The stranger was shaking. The smoke had cleared. The remaining royal guards drew their swords and tackled him aggressively to the ground before he could finish loading the pipe and summon another deadly strike."
The room was quiet. The lords were sweating. They imagined themselves facing this hellfire weapon.
An older lord sitting at the very end of the long table slowly leaned forward. He had white hair and a trembling voice. He was squinting his old eyes, staring fearfully at the iron tube resting on the canvas.
"And Captain Darius, Your Majesty?" the older lord asked nervously. "Did he survive the blast? Was the wound treated?"
King Leonel let out a very long, very bitter sigh. He shook his head sadly from side to side.
"He died hours later in absolute agony," the King said bitterly.
The King gripped the edge of the wooden table.
"And that is what truly haunts ," the King confessed, looking around the room. "The royal physicians are the best healers in the entire land. But they were completely, utterly helpless."
The King pointed at the strange weapon again, his eyes filled with a mixture of anger and despair.
"The doctors are used to cuts from steel swords and long spears," the King explained the horror. "They are used to treating arrow wounds, where they can simply pull the arrowhead out and bandage the skin. But this..."
The King shuddered slightly.
"The weapon did not just pierce him," the King said, his voice dropping into a dark, horrifying description. "The small tal ball entered his chest and completely shattered his bones into a dozen tiny, jagged pieces."
Several of the lords in the room cringed, turning their faces away in disgust and fear.
"Worse," the King continued grimly, "the tal ball dragged pieces of the captain’s uniform cloth deep into the center of his chest cavity. His flesh was burned from the inside out. And his blood..."
The King looked down at his own hands, rembering the terrible sight.
"His blood turned black with so kind of unknown poison," the King whispered. "The physicians did not know what they were looking at. They did not understand the nature of the burn, let alone how to heal it or what to do to save his life. Captain Darius suffered terribly before his heart finally stopped."
The royal council chamber fell into a heavy, suffocating silence.
The air felt so thick that nobody dared to take a deep breath. The powerful nobles, who usually argued loudly about taxes and land, were completely paralyzed by fear. They were facing an unknown, magical-seeming threat that could kill them instantly through their thickest armor.
Kade, standing against the stone wall with the other aides, felt a cold sweat break out on the back of his neck. As a soldier who stood on the front lines to protect the General, the idea of a weapon that could not be blocked by an armor was absolutely terrifying.
Damon did not look scared. He looked extrely serious. He stared at the wooden grip of the weapon, noting the small tal lever near the bottom.
"A trigger chanism," Damon thought to himself, studying the design. "You pull the small lever, the spring releases, it sparks the black dust, and the weapon fires. It is a brilliant, terrifying invention. If an enemy army gets a hundred of these iron pipes... my entire cavalry division could be slaughtered before we even reach them."
Damon knew his soldiers wouldn’t stand a chance against that weapon.
King Leonel finally sat up straight in his chair, breaking the heavy silence. He looked around the table, his eyes locking onto the faces of his most trusted generals and advisors.
"The prisoner is currently chained securely in the dark cells beneath the palace," the King said firmly. His voice regained so of its usual royal command.
The King frowned deeply in frustration.
"The royal torturers have been working on him for three days," the King admitted openly. "But he has not spoken a single word. He refuses to give his na, his kingdom, or his purpose."
King Leonel leaned forward over the table. He placed his hands flat on either side of the strange weapon. He looked at Damon, and then at the other military commanders in the room.
He issued his royal decree.
"I want to know exactly what this weapon is," the King commanded, his voice echoing loudly off the high stone ceiling of the chamber.
He pointed a finger at the hollow iron pipe.
"I want to know how it commands thunder and fire," the King continued, his eyes burning with a desperate need for answers. "We must understand how to defend against it."
The King slowly stood up from his chair. He looked at every one.
"But most of all," the King finalized his order, his voice dropping into a dangerous, deadly whisper that chilled every man in the room. "I want to know who sent him."
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