No More Than a Man
The icy wind raced through the countryside, leaving behind it a sparkling trail of light frost. It keened first through the twisted boughs of the once-orchards, then passed the caved in skeletons of farms, now made fallow forever. It wound through narrow trenches still littered with the decimated weapons of war, and curled around the crumbling remains of walls. It whispered through the shards that had once been gates, snaked through buildings, ravaged and charred, and at last came to the scattered ruins of the dark castle. Howling, it spiraled up a staircase, coming to the top of the only remaining tower. Searching among the torn tapestries, splintered furniture, and smashed artwork; it finally found the ancient man lying in the wreckage.
Through the debris, it contemplated the broken remains of the most powerful and most ruthless man that had ever stalked this earth. In life, he had been unmistakably different from any other, wrapped in a shroud of dark, brooding evil. He had been regal in stature and proud in visage, the king of the feared Empire.
Yet, in death Galbatorix was no more a mighty, iron-fisted ruler. Instead he transformed into a grotesque, shattered puppet staring up at the cold, apathetic stars. The endless abyss behind those serpent eyes had faded to no more than unseeing shallow pools. Without the aid of fear, his face was only another twisted and drawn one, tempered by age and struggle.
The gale subsided to a breeze for a moment, brooding on the dark thoughts that the Black King had stirred. Slowly it picked up speed, running circles round and round scattering the cold in an ever wider circle. Then it raced away, leaving the dark castle, now glittering with a dusting of ice as an epitaph to the king that death had humbled into no more than a man.
