“The Warrior King”
Sitting on his throne of wood and metal, the King's mind wandered while he listened to his two advisers arguing. He wore a silver circlet on his brow that held back his golden hair, and was wearing a long billowing cape of dark blue with white rabbit fur around its collar. His shirt was unbuttoned down to his chest from the heat of the castle throne room, and he had a little squire beside his chair, panting with the heat and the effort of fanning him.
Taking pity on the lad, he caught his eye and dismissed him with a flick of his hand. The boy bowed and murmured his thanks before stepping down and exiting through the service door.
Turning his attention on his advisers, he noticed that they were no longer arguing about the taxes, but where now arguing about which was the better adviser. In the King's personal opinion, neither was any good, but they had been his father's advisers, and he felt inclined to keep them despite their constant bickering. Seeing that the argument was becoming very heated, he stood and cleared his throat to get their attention. Much to his irritation, the effect was immediate and the two men stopped mid-sentence and bowed to him.
He still wasn't used to this, and truth be told, he didn't really like it. Try as he might he still couldn't get them to not bow, or call him “Your Highness” all the time. Though he was only twenty, he still became King when his father fell ill and died in his sleep. Being the only heir to the throne, he had no choice in this matter. If his mother, god bless her soul, had still been around he could have handed the kingdom to her until they found another heir.
Returning to the present, he was just in time to hear, “Your Highness? Is something wrong?”
That was the last straw, he'd had enough with the bowing and generally everything. Stepping away from the throne he said in curt voice, “Yes, something is wrong. I've decided to go on a trip.”
With that he walked between the two and continued across the throne room to the doors. Behind him he could here the advisers scurrying to catch up, and sure enough they came on either side of him and started trying to stop him.
“But your Highness! You can't go on a trip now! What about the kingdom?”
“Your Highness, even if you were to go, you would need a troop of guards, a fanfare, provisions, ...”
“You still need to sign the new wavers for the running of the kingdom! If those don't get done....”
He stopped in front of the closed doors, and turned to face them, in an over happy voice he answered to both of them, “Then you two can run the kingdom while I'm gone.” After saying that he turned back to the doors, jerked them open, and shut them behind him. The guards on either side jumped to attention at his appearance, the one that had been sitting got up so fast he hit the back of his head on the wall behind him. The second one however was looking the king in the eye with laughter on his face, and was bold enough to ask, “May we help you, your Highness?”
The king sighed and shook his head. From behind him the advisers could clearly be heard banging on the door and yelling for him. Looking up at the guard that had addressed him, he smiled and asked, “Think you could bar the door for while?”
At this the guard burst into laughter and shook his head yes. The king moved out of the way so that the still laughing guard could continue holding the door closed for him.
“Give me a five minute head start will you?” When the guard who couldn't seem to stop laughing shook his head yes again, the King took off at a trot down the hall and into his personal quarters. He flung open the doors in a rush, and was happy to see that the maid who cleaned his quarters wasn't in there. Walking quickly over to his dresser, he took off the stifling hot cape, and changed into everyday “peasant” clothes that he always kept on hand in case of emergencies. Taking the circlet off as well, he left it on the stand by his bed. He then donned a light, hooded cloak of a brown tan color, and threw this over himself. Strapping his hunting knife and his sword to his belt, he trotted to the door. He grabbed his bow and quiver that were leaning against the door next to it, and lashed them to his back.
Easing open the door a little, he took out his hunting knife and slipped it through the crack in the door. Tilting it just right, he was able to see that the guard had finally stopped laughing, and that his advisers were still in the throne room. Sheathing the knife, he opened the door the rest of the way, saluted to the guard, and jogged further down the hall to another set of double doors. Pulling the hood over his face, he opened one of them and stepped through.
The guards on either side did nothing as he walked through the dining chamber and entered the kitchen at the end. The kitchen was a flurry of activity, and no one noticed him enter. Pulling the hood further down his face, he tried not to bump into anyone and said excuse me many times, before he finally reached the door on the opposite side. He opened said door to a courtyard with the castle stable in the right corner. Almost tasting his freedom, he jogged to the stable and went strait to the stall in the very middle of the building.
Waiting patiently, as if it had known he was coming, was a chocolate brown and gray stallion. It pawed the ground and snorted lightly as he approached.
“Shh, quiet my friend. We must be gone.” He quieted the stallion with his soft voice, and patted it on the head. When it had gotten the attention it wanted, he took it out of its stall and saddled it. It seemed like it took forever to get its harness on, when he was finished he led the horse out of the stables. Checking that the coast was clear, he trotted along side the horse to the castle draw bridge. He was relieved to see that it was down, that only meant that the advisers were still bared in the throne room. Quickening his pace, he jogged past the gate guards and down the draw bridge. He herd the guardsmen yell for him to halt, but he kept going. Once off the bridge, he mounted the horse and galloped down the road to his freedom.
When he had set out it had been late morning, now as he traveled down the wide dirt path he had the sun beating down on his head and he was sweating. At a fork in the road he took the right path to a small stream. There he took of the cloak and his shirt and splashed water on himself, the horse was just as hot and would have went into the water had he not tethered it to a tree. When both were refreshed he continued down the right path until nightfall, where he then camped in a small open space off the road.
As the sun hit his face, he found that his back was hurting something fierce, and that he had slept on a rather large stick for most of the night. Grumbling, pulled the stick out and broke it into manageable pieces. He then got up and went to the wood line to gather more wood. When he had a good pile, he now had the dilemma of having to start the fire. Searching through his pockets, he found that he had forgotten to pack his steal, but had brought his flint. Rubbing his hands over his face, he stared sourly down at the pile of wood he had gathered. Glaring at the wood, he failed to notice the traveler. The man came right up behind the King and proclaimed in a loud voice, “Need help there son?”.
Jumping up, he stumbled over the pile of wood, and fell over backwards to find himself once again sitting but thankfully facing man. At the look on the Kings stunned face, the man doubled over and laughed, clutching his stomach and shaking from the strength of his mirth. Standing up indignantly, the King started to protest, but was stopped when the man held up his hand. With his hands on his knees, he was taking deep breaths and calming himself. When he was done, he clasped the Kings shoulder and said in a deep voice, “Sorry there lad, didn't mean to make you jump so bad,” He wiped a tear of from the corner of his eye. “I noticed you sitting there, and figured you could do with some help” At this the man bent over the Kings pile, and pulled two large stones out of his knapsack, and pounded them over the pile. A cascade of sparks fell over the wood, and soon a trickle of smoke escaped before being blown to tatters by the slight breeze.
“There yeah go lad, a nice warm fire,” taking a deep breath, he blew on the wood, and flames leaped up and licked the bottom of the logs. “Now if you don't mind, I must be on my way.” Standing, the man nodded his head, and started walking down the path.
Looking up from the fire, the King yelled just before the man left from sight, “Thank you!” His reply from the man was only a backward wave of the hand. Nonplussed, the King took out his meager provisions and cooked them over the fire with water he had gotten from the stream. Once he was done cleaning up and repacking his things, he stomped out the fire. Climbing onto his horse, he continued up the path. None too soon it was twilight again, and the King went a ways off the path to a good clearing to sleep away the night.
When morning came, he re-saddled the horse and set off again. Reveling in the freedom that he had, if he had wanted to he could have slept in, and there wasn't a person in sight bowing or calling him “Highness”. What few travelers he passed payed him no heed and continued on their way. When the sun had once again reached midday, his stomach began to complain rather loudly. Turning the horse onto a deer trail, he went as far as he dared into the woods without fear of loosing his way. Tethering the horse to a tree, he drew his bow and took three arrows out of his quiver. Leaning his back against the tree opposite his horse, he waited.
It was an hour before he saw much of anything, until movement to his left caught his eye. Notching an arrow, he pulled the string back slowly while turning to face what he had seen. When he had finally turned all the way to the left, he found that what he had hoped to be a deer, was actually a man. He was no taller than the king was, but about three times his muscle mass. The man had a large war ax slung across his back and wore thick leather pants with a chain mail jacket. This man was not the only one, there were several all through the forest now that the king looked, and all were dressed for war.
The king's movement of slinging his bow across his back and drawing his sword caught the closest man's attention. With ax in hand, the man changed his direction and started his way over to the king.
Nervously backing toward his horse, the king pulled the hood of his cloak down over his face, though there was little chance of the axer recognizing him.
“And who might you be, little man?” The mans voice was guttural and had a thick accent. Now that he was close enough, the king recognized him as being one of the barbarians from the eastern providence.
“Well? Will you be answering me? I 'ave little time to be chit chatter with the likes of you.” Then he spit, as if he thought conversing in this language was vile.
Keeping his sword at the ready, “Yes, well... If I may ask, why are you and your fellows here? In these woods I mean?”
The man chuckled deeply before saying, “We is on the war march,” He said this with pride and held his ax up as if to give proof. “By noon of tomorrow, we will be the new rulers. The old king has died, and his son is weak. It will be of no problem to kill him. What do yous say to you joining us?”
The king was numb. There was no doubt in his mind that it was him the large man was talking about. Even through the fog that clouded his mind, he managed to stammer out, “Y-yes. I will. L-let me go and tell the wife, w-won't be long.” Ignoring the large man's answer, he untied the horse, sheathed his sword and turning, jumped onto the horses back. Kicking his heals into the horses side, he urged it into a breakneck gallop back up the trail. Vaguely he could here the barbarian yelling, but that was unimportant. When he burst through the trees onto the road, he was met with a horrible sight.
There were hundreds, row upon row of endless barbarians, and they were all heading in the same direction. Fear gripped his heart when he realized that the kingdom he had just fled, the one he had grown up in, was going to be destroyed.
He galloped along side the army and soon he was well past them and continued as fast as he dared, back the way he had come. As he went, the wind blew back his hood, but he didn't bother to fix it. It was getting dark out by the time he reached the fork in the road he had been to a few days back. He didn't even ponder stopping when night finally fell, he just kept riding, pushing his horse to its limit.
His heart skipped a beat when he saw the castles drawbridge, he hailed the guardsmen to open the castle, their reply was with less enthusiasm.
“And who might you be! Yelling at this time of night, camp out and wait till morning!” The guard had obviously been sleeping.
The king slowed his horse and finally stopped to where the bridge was to come down. From there he yelled again, “By order of your king, I demand that you lower the bridge at once!” This certainly got the guardsman's attention after quickly scrambling back to his feet. When the bridge hit the ground with a hard thump, the king spurred his horse over it. He didn't even acknowledge the guardsmen, he kept going strait to the main entrance of the castle. He jumped off his horse at the steps and threw the reins to one of the guard that were standing there and ascended the steps. When he reached the closed double doors, he threw them open to find that his advisers were up and seemed to be waiting for him.
Both of them started talking to him at once, about how negligent he was, and how every thing was going wrong without him there. He put his hand up to get them to stop, for once he was happy that they immediately obeyed and stopped mid-sentence.
“The kingdom is in immediate danger,” They tried to interrupt him, but he glared at them and they stopped. “An army of barbarians is on its way here as we speak, we must act quickly.” The advisers looked at each other, then back at the king. At first he thought that they didn't believe him, but then they both began planning a counter attack, and started asking him details of the army. The three of them went into the war room, and came up with probable and improbable solutions until dawn the next day. First thing next morning the king gave his orders to the troops, they were to send the main army up the path to meet most of the barbarians head on, while a second faction looped around to the west through the woods and took the barbarians from the side. Prisoners would be taken, and the battle would hopefully soon be over. The King himself, against what the advisers told him otherwise, lead the western faction through the woods. He had once again donned his silver circlet, and he was wearing a silver and bronze breast plate, thick leather pants, and a long shirt of mail. His horse was also armored for battle. It's saddle was lightweight and flexible, while around it's head, shoulders and back legs, it had on lightweight protective armor of copper and steel. With sword in hand, the King led his men into battle.
Charging out of the woods, the King yelled in unison with his men and attacked. Fighting from his horse, the king slashed downward with his sword, cleaving shields and blocking attacks to his horses legs. Realizing that he was putting his horse at risk, he leaped from it's back, sword flashing in the sunlight and landed nimbly in front of three barbarians. They stepped back, unsure of his intentions, then one of them stepped forward.
“I knows you,” The barbarian looked him up and down, then spit in the dust at the kings feet. “Yous being that from the woods, yous are the reason our battles be going wrong!” With that the barbarian charged, ax raised. The king easily sidestepped the attack and hit the barbarian in the back with the hilt of his sword. In answer to this, the barbarian stumbled once then swung his ax around, underestimating the barbarians speed the king was clipped in the side. The ax didn't cut through the mail, but left the king winded. He stumbled back from the blow, clutching his side.
Chuckling, the barbarian advanced on him, “I be telling yous you were weak.” Anger flared in the kings eyes, with a gruff war cry he attacked. His sword whistled through the air, the barbarian tried to block it with the handle of his ax. The ring of steel on steel rang through the air, sparks flashed from the force of the impact, and the barbarian stumbled back. The kings hand was numb from the back lash, and the barbarian cursed in his own language while shaking his hand. Moving the ax to his other hand, he laughed darkly and took a few steps forward, ax at the ready. The king held his sword with both hands, all his fear was gone, it was his duty and his honor to serve as king of what was once his fathers kingdom. No more doubt, no more running away from his responsibility, he was now and forever, king.
DragonOfThynHeart Community Member 
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