Battle of the Kingless – Ch. 8 | KT OLLA

BATTLES closed in more and more on the cities of Israel. But the regions of Gilead got the fiercest heat.

Gilead was the slaughter ground in Xarxus’s war, so that Slayer of Dragons wouldn’t spear the populous metropolis.

But it was for revenge on Jephthah that Xarxus aimed to destroy Gilead. Yet the ex-soldier had renounced that city by now and everything her.

Several months had rolled past. Elar was fast losing his command over the army of his city.

For already he’d realized words wouldn’t suffice to hold soldiers together. Not when battles were crueler than death.

Thus, everyone started to miss the glorious times their champion was with them. That is, the war king Jephthah.

But even Jephthah’s captains missed him terribly. They regretted betraying and exiling him, their valiant commander.

But then again the man Elar was having it tough here. He’d got to grapple with the remains of his honour in order to hold sway over his men still.

Yet no one was ready to listen to the army chief. No one would hear the words of a commander who had never won a fight.

And not even the four men he bought over with words and money would hearken at all.

To cap everything, Elar eventually lost the four captains he stole from Jephthah. Those warriors who since became his right-hand men.

Baddok, Simone, Gilkar and Sham.

But the army chief didn’t lose those deputies in terms of support or loyalty. He simply lost them all in one day to cold blood murder.

It had happened that since the day Xarxus saw Jephthah and his four killed his fiercest men, he’d got his hunt men stalk them closely.

Yes, those skilled slayers secretly spied on the five warriors for many months. But they lost Jephthah almost from the start when he was suddenly exiled.

Then the killers concentrated effort on the remaining four. They tailed them for months. Up till they caught them one night and slayed them in a drunken sleep.

When Elar found out that it was Xarxus who slew his new deputies, he feared terribly for his life also.

But he sought to know more; so he got the details. He heard Xarxus killed his right-hand men not because of his own command.

He heard it was because of one man.

That man was Jephthah.

So then when Elar heard this, he felt beaten down again by a brother that wasn’t around to see. And now he wished Xarxus had chased him the commander-in-chief. Rather than hunt after Jephthah.

After these things Elar sat down in his chamber one day. Alone with himself, he recalled his ride up that summit of authority.

He also remembered watching his brother return from the battles. He recalled that Jephthah was always greeted with a heroic welcome.

Yes indeed, Elar had many times over coveted that loud cheer from people. He desired the applause and the praise. But his fight on battlefields hadn’t earned a remarkable credit ever…

Or so the warrior thought.

Indeed, the young man had obsessed about wielding swords in battle just the way Jephthah would swing to conquer.

But he wouldn’t think about starting from the ground and climbing up to the top. He wouldn’t even consider being groomed in the art of war.

Yes, Elar wanted to be placed on the mountaintop so fast he swayed his father into displacing a brother. And that he did achieve.

Thus, Elar the schemer stole Jephthah’s place.

But he also got Jephthah’s enemy.

And now the supplanter saw himself at last. That he was never another man; that he was himself. He saw that his own name was Elar, and not Jephthah.

Yet that self that the young man unveiled now he soon called by another name.

‘You’re are not Jephthah!’ he told himself every day. But that assertion always came with all the anger and frustration.

‘No, you’re not Jephthah! You can’t be him; you can’t beat him!’

Then he’d snap out of the Jephthah comparison to find himself. ‘But who’s Elar? Who exactly am I?’

‘No, I’m not Elar!’ he’d angrily reply. ‘Not the son of Gilead! Never the son of my valiant father!

‘Look, I’m just a failure! A huge big failure, and nothing more!

‘No, I can’t be Jephthah, I can’t beat him…!’

This way Elar always went back to comparing himself to his brother to determine who he was.

So the young man never came close to finding his true self. As long as he looked out at Jephthah’s stand.

Or looked out for his fall.

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