It was too late, of course.

It is always too late when these sorts of things happen. A million little decisions, each easy and without thought, leading inexorably to an unsurprising but seldom suspected conclusion. It’s easy to look back and realize where the correct turns were, where the pitfalls and dead ends lie.

Now, with the darkness closing in, with lamps being lit in a futile attempt to hold off the rising tide, all those past mistakes are laid so very plain. He could hear the screams of the dying. Only a matter of time now.

Would that he could go back. To change it all. To correct his foolish decisions, his hubris, his unwavering support of those that neither earned nor deserved it. Where were they now? Here at the end, where were all of those supposed advisor’s, those sycophants?

Gone. Gone when the winds of war had blown. Gone when the countryside had been charred and muddied. Gone long before the first of the walls had fallen. Not that it would have helped.

The King wept.