Chapter 55

  History!

  “Long ago,” the immortal began in the tone of a practised storyteller. “Far, far too long ago, I was born in a place whose name, and whose people, have since been thoroughly lost to time.

  I was the second eldest son of a nobleman – or what passed for noble in those days. Might makes right, and our family was certainly mighty. My father ruled over a small town, surrounded by forests and villages, located on what would later become known as the seventh plate. My mother died before I was old enough to remember her.

  Knowledge of the greater Torus was not known at the time; the world was as far across as one could travel without being killed by monsters – and since this was before the System, fighting monsters out in the wilds was out of the question – but I digress.

  My father died fairly young, having only sired two heirs. My elder brother was born sickly and bedbound, so I was forced to take up the mantle. My uncle loudly disagreed, however. He claimed the oldest brother should inherit and that he could act as regent when the heir was not well enough to perform his duties – which, given his sickly nature, was almost always.

  My father’s brother had the older members of the settlement on his side, and he tried to convince the townsfolk that I was too weak, that our neighbours would take advantage of a young ruler, and that our town would be raided.

  I called out my one-legged uncle to a duel at dawn, as was the custom of the time. Before I had passed my sixteenth winter, I had spilt the blood of my third man, my favourite uncle.”

  Noticing something in Elijah’s eyes, the vampire paused to address it.

  “I see that beneath my compulsion, you are horrified, disgusted, and vindicated. You feel that I am the villain you assume me to be. My actions prove you right? Is that it?”

  The thing shook its head mournfully.

  “You are naive,” the figure lightly chided, in an almost regretful tone. “Had you been born in my day, you wouldn’t have made it to adolescence, let alone seventeen, near-adulthood.

  My uncle planned his death. It is likely that he and my father concocted the scheme months before his passing.

  It was tradition for the eldest to inherit, and tradition held twice the weight of law. Tradition told people how they must prepare the mushrooms from the forest, where in the woods not to venture, and what time of the year to harvest their crops. People lived and died by tradition.

  There was strong opposition to my taking charge, particularly among the elders – those steeped most strongly in tradition. By being so vocally opposed to my breaking tradition, my uncle had become the rallying point around which these dissidents would congregate.

  With him as the face of this rowdy faction, I was able to smother any thoughts of treachery in the cradle. Granted, I wasn’t aware that this had been my predecessor’s plan until years later when it was let slip by one of my father’s favoured knights – I simply acted in accordance with the way I had been taught.”

  The broken thing let out a sigh as tired as the Michelin Man, before continuing. “Truth be told, I was as naive as you are. For years I grieved the death of my uncle, a man I thought I could rely on, but to rule is to stand alone.”

  A silence sat, unmolested for some time before the old man chose to continue.

  “My uncle’s plan should have worked. Internal conflict was quelled; I was seen by the townsfolk as their undisputed leader, and the lands around us saw me as strong. If nothing changed, they would have left us alone for the rest of my life, and I should have lived and died as the lord of a town whose significance did not stand the test of time.

  Alas, change is inevitable.

  For some years, we lived in relative peace. There were battles over resources, skirmishes over land, and fights for prestige, but that was normal.

  After one particularly bloody scrap with our southern neighbour, in which both sides lost a knight, it was decided, by the opposition's ruler, that I should marry his daughter – so that nothing of the sort could happen again.

  Naturally, I objected. I knew, given my position, love would never be in the cards for me, but I had wanted at least some choice in the matter. My wants came second to the safety and security of my people, however, and the ruler of the town to the south insisted that if I did not marry his daughter, there would be a true war.

  Given there was no choice, you can imagine that I wasn’t predisposed towards my fiancé. Having not even met her, I tried to find every reason I could to dislike her. In an attempt to indulge my youthful brooding, one of my knights told me of the woman, for he had met her while escorting a shipment of iron ore from the south.

  Since our neighbours were more than a day away, he had been asked to stay at their castle and had eaten with the daughter in question. I remember the scene as if it were yesterday, and yet I cannot remember a thing about the knight. His face and name are a blank in my memory, for his words were what gripped me:

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  ‘This lady is inept at the endeavours of ladyship. She cannot sew. She cannot knit. She knows not how to mend torn and broken armour. The only area in which she has some aptitude is in running a household; she is almost universally loved by the staff for her devil-may-care recklessness.

  She is an avid rider and has bested all of the southern knights in the unladylike sport of horseracing. Her aim with a bow is unparalleled by any in the south, her skill with a sword is above average, she is twenty-six, five years your senior, and her hair, instead of being any noble colour, is a vibrant red.’

  I confess, by the end of his description, my feelings had reversed. Over the course of a rainy afternoon spent staring hopelessly out from the parapets, I had gone from despairing my fate to eagerly anticipating the arrival of my soon-to-be-wed.

  Indeed, it was likely only thanks to this change in mood that I was later spurred to act so decisively.

  My fiancé set off in the company of her father and a cadre of knights. We expected them to arrive a day after their front runner. Evening came and went, and the group did not appear. Against the advice of my own knights, I chose to venture out into the stormy night to see what had delayed them, and it was as well that I did.

  Wearing what armour I could equip in the time it took my horses to be saddled and prepared, I and my six remaining knights set out – fighting the wind and rain as we charged through the southern forest.

  Magic was little known and even littler understood at the time – at least in that area of the torus – so we were forced to charge on through the treacherous conditions with nothing but the light of sputtering torches to guide us.

  It was a miracle that none of us slipped and broke our necks, and my men knew as much. Several times they urged me to turn back:

  ‘Our guests are sheltering from the storm, and so should we.’

  ‘We can meet them when they arrive tomorrow.’

  ‘The horses are tired and cold.’

  I listened to no objection. A sour feeling festered deep in my gut. I knew that my sword would be needed before the night had passed.

  My suspicions were proven correct before long. We passed through a defile, rounded a bluff, and spied, through the storm, the thunder of war cries and the sparking of weapons.

  It was clear to me in an instant what had happened. The yellow-clad knights of the south had been ambushed by our western neighbours in blue. Sparing a moment to point out an enemy archer who was picking his shots from a windswept rock to my lieutenant, I charged in, sword raised, a cry on my lips.

  The yellow knights appeared to be losing; two of their number lay dead, arrows protruding from their necks, and the remaining three kept their horses close to what I assumed to be my southern contemporary and his daughter.

  Their escape had been cut off by a fallen tree, and they could not advance; a pack of peasants bristling with pikes blocked their path. This was wrong! Knights were honour-bound to engage each other directly; using levies was cowardly. My mind raced in time with hoofbeats as I galloped down the muddy road.

  In all my years as a leader I had never seen such a wanton waste of life. Four of the unarmoured commoners had been struck down before they could get close, and three more lay screaming and bleeding. And yet, despite their miserable state, the scared dozen or so that remained stayed in formation, preventing the southerners from breaking free.

  I looked up through the rain. The knights who had thrown away their villagers' lives were some ways up the hill, watching from their horses and laughing. My blood boiled! These were not knights; they were dogs! The nobleman who controlled the west wasn’t among them, which was a shame, for if he were, I don’t think any could have held my bloodlust in check.

  For as long as I could remember, fighting had been done by knights and nobles who were properly armed and armoured; death was uncommon, though injuries were commonplace. To use the peasantry in such a way was an unmistakable act of war.

  These thoughts and many more flashed through my mind in the short time it took me to reach the rear of our enemies’ ranks. Thunder struck in time with my blade. One head went flying, a deep slash appeared on another's back, and my horse trampled a third in the short time it took me to smash the enemy.

  Scared, tired, and outflanked, their morale broke, and, despite the shouts of their ignoble leaders, the remaining commoners scattered into the night. My men, charging in seconds behind me, were about to give chase, but I raised a hand, signalling a halt. The commoners should be allowed to flee – protecting my fiancé and her father was our priority.

  I approached the defensively huddled allies. Fear was shown, naked and bare, beneath a yellow knight’s visor as my horse skidded to a stop in front of him, but when I identified myself and my retinue, fear turned to relief.

  Before I had time to converse, something smacked me hard in the side of the neck. I spun about, ready to face whoever had hit me, only to find that an arrow shaft had sprouted from just above my clavicle. In the seconds I had before I fell limp from my horse, I saw the archer atop the rock get impaled by my lieutenant, moments too late to save me.

  Distracted by my sudden fall, my men didn’t see the threat until it was too late. I did, however. Curled up in the trampled mud, blood spurting from my neck, I saw the glint of the lead-coward’s grin as more of the peasantry were used to roll boulders down the hill towards us. I tried to warn the men huddled around me, but my words were too weak and were swept away by the storm.

  The horses, not so oblivious, tried to flee. They tripped in the branches of the fallen tree, sending knights sprawling and causing a panic. Defeat had been snatched from the jaws of victory in one vital moment.

  As I was losing blood at an incredible rate, my next few memories were just scraps grasped onto by a dying man. My men were quick to recover and stood ready for the next assault. In a flash of lightning, fifteen more spear-wielding commoners charged down the slope seconds after their tumbling rocks, prepared to engage the battered knights on foot.

  Thunder rolled across the land, covering the sound of hoofbeats. The sloppy line of amateurs would never be enough to kill my men, practised in fighting as they were, but they didn’t need to. I closed my eyes, and when I opened them again, half my allies were dead, their bodies trampled by the western knights who had finally chosen to engage.

  My vision turned black, and sounds began to fade. With another flash, I regained lucidity for a moment, long enough to see that only two yellow-clad figures still stood, injured but alive. The bald-headed enemy leader approached the two, and the taller manly shape stepped in front of a redheaded woman whose sword was raised eagerly.

  Shlick, Thwack! I opened my eyes once more to find myself face-to-face with the severed head of the man who had hoped to be my father-in-law. Screaming filled the air, as the fiery-haired woman lived up to her appearance, swinging wildly at the men surrounding her.

  I blinked, slowly. When I opened my eyes, she lay, knocked out, over the shoulder of their gold-toothed leader. Adrenaline rushed through me as I vowed on my name and honour that I would save her. I managed to crawl one foot before black feathers flashed all around me, and with the cawing of crows, I was dragged, unwilling, into the clutches of death.”