Very Short Story - Inevitable

Happy New Year everyone! Your reward for making it this far is a story I wrote years ago for the writing challenge prompt "change" - a demonstration of the First Rule in action. ;) 

Inevitable

Beyond the narrow gate, the Rachsis horde were screaming.

They seemed to stretch out forever, a writhing, shivering mass of gnashing teeth and air-tearing claws, gibbering, leaping and falling over each other as they surged forward like an unstoppable, bestial tide towards the tiny hilltop bastion where the last dozen brave survivors of the Kingdom of Cryna were huddled. Pale faces peered down over the battlements, hair lank, faces dirtied and battered but yet strangely unbowed, knowing as they did that they were the last hope and that all the kingdom, all humanity depended upon their actions.

And the King was ready. The great hero, heir to the lost throne, who had emerged from a tiny farm in the middle nowhere to face the Rachsis threat with muscles gleaming and eyes shining with courage. His magical medallion gleamed on his chest as the final words of his powerful, inspiring, world-saving speech to his heavily outnumbered troops echoed away on the breeze.

And then, one lone voice piped up in the wake of the re-energised cheer from the previously demoralised troops.

“But… you don’t think we might, you know, lose, do you?”

A dozen eyes turned as one. Even the King froze.

The soldier was young. New to the game. And as he stared out at the ravening masses of howling creatures that outnumbered them several thousand to one, it didn’t seem like so unreasonable a question. The eyes of his comrades suggested otherwise.

“Lose? Us?”

“That’s not how this works!”

“Do you think I’d be here if we were going to lose?”

The soldier glanced around at the cluster of indignant faces surrounding him with just the slightest hint of resignation. “Well, you’ve got to admit the odds are stacked against us. In any other fight, you’d assume we’d be slaughtered in about ten minutes…”

“But this is not any other fight!” The King strode forwards, his handsome visage bold, his powerful gaze flashing. “This is my fight! The great last stand of the outnumbered heroes! The battle against the evil, slavering, unstoppable hordes of destruction that we have absolutely no hope of ever winning! Everyone knows what that means! No matter how many of them there are, no matter how hopeless it seems, or how badly outnumbered we are, we will always win. What in the name of anything made you think any differently?

“Well, you know,” said the young soldier with a sigh. “It’d make a change…”

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