King Meleager – Part I

The city was wracked with a living terror. Soldiers were barking orders, women screamed and children cried. Everyone was running in some frenzied desperation, rats abandoning a sinking ship. Rumors had been trickling from the frontlines for the latter part of the day that the fighting against the barbarians had gone bad, that something terrible had occurred on the frontlines. Whispers of calamity had circulated all night.

Then they had arrived.

At first in smalls groups, no more than a few dozen people. And then more. And more. And more. Refugees from all of northern Macedon. They were rolling in by the hundreds carrying their every possession, weak, haggard, tales of howling savages spreading like wildfire. By the mid-day, the capital had become a cacophonous wreck, an upturned anthill of fear and confusion. There were street fights between Macedonians and Thracians, Illyrians and Greeks. Looters ran unchecked while a few hot-headed nobles tried to rally their tribes to march upon the invaders.

The news eventually reached the royal palace that the King had died. Ptolemy ‘the Thunderbolt’ had been massacred by the Celts. The panic-stricken population was already too hysterical to care, yet Queen Arsinoe spared a smile upon learning the fate of her hated husband and half-brother. The daughter of Ptolemy Soter hadn’t married out of love. She was daughter of royalty and twice Queen of Macedon and Thrace. Her time at the Alexandrian court of her father had made her wits as keen as a razor’s edge and her soul just as cold. Watching her erstwhile husband’s kingdom fall into anarchy from her palace window, Arsinoe’s allowed her facade to relax. There was only one obstacle left between her and true power, only one blubbering fool.

Amid the chaos and confusion a cry resonated somewhere in the palace courtyard:

“The King lives! All hail Meleager King! All hail Meleager King!”

Few returned the call.

The Queen laughed. It was a cold and cruel laugh, drowned in the cries of a dying city.