Arnulf the Destroyer Read Free

with you always.  It’s who you really are.  I know it, and so do you.  You are Arnulf.”
    “It was an escape,” Randy said.  “That was all.  In the Kingdom we can be whoever we want, we could get away from who we are here.  We have the illusions that we only dream about.  It doesn’t work here.”
    “You say that but you won’t tell me why it has to be that way,” Jenna protested.  “Why do we have to let that happen?  Why do we have to let the bullies and the perfectly dressed girls tell us who we really are?  Why does it have to be their rules?”
    “Look around you Jenna,” Randy said, spreading his arms to indicate the row upon row of efficient monotony.  “This is their world.  They are the kings and lords and we are the mailboys.  This is their domain.  They make the rules.  And their rules say they don’t like us and they won’t tolerate who we want to be.  So if we want to eat and live and pay their stupid bills then this is what we have to do.”
    “What about the Kingdom then?” Jenna said as a last defense.  She felt the faith she had so recently built crumble beneath the defeat in Randy’s voice.  “Does the Kingdom mean nothing at all?”
    “That’s where we go to get by,” Randy told her.  “To pretend the world is different.  We can pretend the world is a place for people like us.
    “Don’t you see?  That’s why we couldn’t meet.  It’s ruined now.  The illusion is ruined.  When you look at me in the Kingdom you won’t see Arnulf.  You’ll just see Randy, the dork that always gets pushed around by dipshits.”
    He looked like he wanted to say more, but didn’t.  He shook his head and walked back to his mail cart.  Shoulders slumped, head down, there was little Arnulf in him then.  Perhaps that warrior was only a phantom, a fiction.  Perhaps this world was too much for him.  Perhaps the Kingdom was not enough, an escape for rejects and misfits, for half-matured men and women who can’t bear the burden of real life.
    Jenna almost let herself believe that grim realization.  She almost believed it....except.
    Except.
    His hair.
    Bound though it was to please convention, Randy let his hair grow long.  It was the mark of who he was.  He let it grow and did not hide it in this world, but only kept it contained.  Jenna saw in that moment that the same was true of Arnulf.
    “No,” she said emphatically, carrying all the conviction she felt.  Heads looked up from their work, wondering at this strange show of power.
    Randy turned too.  He looked at her with the sad face of defeat.  But Jenna was not going to let that deter her.
    “I know who you are,” she said, taking his hands and pulling him close to her, so close their bodies touched and their lips hovered inches from each other.
    “I have seen you chase brave men from the field of battle.  I have seen women swoon at your feet.  Your enemies hate you with the vehemence of envy and your friends love you with the loyalty of admiration.  The spark of courage fires your heart, and your heart beats with the blood of a true warrior.”
    “You are Arnulf the Destroyer,” she said, allowing her lips to drip with sensuality.  “I have seen your blade, and it made me tremble.”
    Without waiting for a reply she turned and left.  Whether Randy or Arnulf would answer was up to him.  She, however, was Lady Eleanor of the illustrious House of Tyria.  That’s what she would be to believer and unbeliever alike.
    The secretary stepped out from a corridor and crossed her arms at Jenna.  She opened her mouth to protest Jenna’s presence, but stopped when she saw something powerful in her bearing.  With head held high as only a noble lady can, Eleanor of Tyria did not dignify the secretary with a glance.  Such trifling people were far too below her even to notice, and she let it show.  No one dared confront her as she pushed through the glass doors.

    It is a strange thing, the faith a man has in