King Henry

Chapter 57 - Henry's Quest

"Are you feeling alright?" Eleanor asked Henry.

"Yes. I feel just fine. Why?" he asked with scrunched eyebrows.

She cleared her throat and said, "No reason. I was just wondering."

She didn't want to say anything and make him worry since there was so much he already had to worry about.

She laid her head back down onto his chest and listened harder, but there was still no heartbeat. That explained why his skin was so cold. There was no blood running through his veins to warm him up.

She wondered what this might mean for him. How long would he stay alive without a beating heart? Was he even alive at all? What was he if he wasn't alive? A zombie, like the ones she had read about in her neighbor's storybooks? Henry didn't seem like a zombie though. He was walking and talking and seemed to be the same old Henry that she had fallen in love with, but was he really? Would Merlin's potion eventually wear off? She had so many questions running through her mind, but she knew Merlin didn't have the answers either. He had never brought a human back before. Only time would tell.

*** The Next Day - Henry's Point of View ***

Henry tied on a leather chest plate and then slipped on the leather shin guards and the greaves that covered his arms, tightening them down. Iron armor would have been too heavy and loud, since he was going to be sneaking into the castle. He could tell that Eleanor was worried about all of this by the look on her face as she watched him getting ready. If she had known the truth, she would have been even more worried, but he had tried his best to convince her that everything was good and he was fine.

The truth was, when he died, he had gone to a swelteringly hot, dark place that smelled like decay, where he was tormented by the spirits of all of the men he had killed on the battlefield through the years. He recognized their faces and he could feel their anguish and all the pain and suffering he had caused their families. They clawed at him, tearing his flesh open with their sharp nails and biting him with their jagged, dirty teeth. They spit on him and threw stones, screaming in his face and calling him a filthy, rotten murderer. He wasn't there for very long before Merlin brought him back, but it had felt like an eternity.

Now when he tried to sleep at night, the twisted, gruesome faces and sinister eyes of those spirits were all he could see. On the inside he could feel them trying to pull his soul back into that dark, horrible place, but he was fighting with everything he had to stay here in the land of the living with Eleanor. After all the pain and suffering he had caused so many people, he knew he didn't deserve happiness, but being brought back to life felt like a second chance to do things right.

He would avoid war as much as possible and not enter into it lightly just to conquer more lands and build up more wealth for the kingdom like his father had. Henry would strive to bring peace back to the land and the people of England. He didn't want to kill anyone else unless it was absolutely necessary. The one exception he would make to that rule was for Arthur. He was going to enjoy killing him.

When he closed his eyes he could still see the evil smirk he had on his face as he drove that sword straight into his heart and then stood over him, raising the Excalibur up in victory. He had looked so happy and smug, like he took joy in killing his best friend and felt no remorse or guilt about it at all.

At one point, Henry had considered him a brother and would have died for him, so that level of betrayal stung and hurt worse than the sword going into his heart had. He couldn't wait to take his revenge. He just hoped he could stay alive long enough to do it. He wasn't sure how much time he had left and how long he would be able to resist the pull of the spirits trying to take him back to the other side.