Chronicles of Kings and Knights

Prologue
Geresmes fourteenth was a dark stormy night. King Rikerd VI was wide-awake on his bed, unable to sleep, unable to wake up. He was tired, tired of all the problems, tired from royalty. Another rebellion had broke up on the northeastern provinces, and he was sure the Lukavians were, as always, responsible.

The last thing he needed was another war though. The economy was in shambles after the last one, and that was because he had won. He glanced at his wife, beside him. They were married for twenty seven years but he still loved her as much as the first year. And his daughter was sleeping, with no worries at all on her little bed.

He did this for her, of course. At forty nine he had lived more than most peasants already, it was not like he would be able to reap the benefits of his work…but she would, and that was what mattered.

Suddenly, Rikerd heard a sound, or at least he thought he did, the storm was too noisy to be sure…but it seemed that the old rusty hinges of the antechamber’s door screeched, for a second or so. He got up from the bed, grabbed his sword (“Hm, heavier than I remember.”) and slowly peeked around corner…Suddenly, a bright, blue…something grabbed his head, and a moment later, it had exploded, making little to no sound.

The queen, however, (either because of the sound, or because of the mystical connection they say exists between husband and wife) woke up. Before her was the masked and cloaked form of a man, wearing a seemingly heavy metallic gauntlet on his right hand and with a bright, blue…something, where his left arm should be. And if this was not enough to put fear in queen Eljabé, she saw the headless body of a man wearing royal clothes lying on the ground.

Astonished, the queen asked “Wh-what have you done!?”, The man answered in a thick accent that Eljabé couldn’t identify: “I think I killed your husband.” And laughed.

“Pl-please, d-do what you want with me, just don’t hurt my daughter!”, she glanced at the baby, still sleeping peacefully.

“Don’t worry, I won’t hurt her, in fact, I’ll even adopt her after you marry me.”

“Marry you?”, the queen was confused, but before he answered, she already knew why. According to the old Ruivocan traditions, when one member of the “royal couple” died, and the surviving member married again, his or her spouse would automatically become king or queen.

“Who…who are you?”. She couldn’t see his face behind the mask, but somehow she knew he was smiling when he answered: “You can call me king.”

Chapter 1
Dark days followed that dark night, for the new king of the Ruivocan kingdom, started a massive expansionist campaign, taking lands from many of the city states of the continent. And even some from Lukavia.

In order to fund his military campaigns, he raised the taxes over the peasants of the kingdom, which caused much poverty, hunger and unrest. He was forced to divert soldiers to quell the rebellions, and that was the only thing that stopped the expansion of Ruivoca, for a time.

Twenty four years had passed, since that dark night. The king expressly prohibited his daughter to leave the palace, according to him, for her own safety, as there were many assassins and kidnappers that would love to get her.

Princess Marin however, was not stupid, and knew her father simply didn’t wish to allow her to see the suffering his policies were causing. The princess wasn’t concerned about the suffering, though, but she believed, and rightly so, that there was a great chance that, when her father died, a revolution would break out to take the throne from her.

But at the moment this chronicle begins, those worries were off the princess’ mind, replaced by more immediate worries like: “How can so many boring people be in the same place at the same time and not bore themselves to death?”, because, at the moment this chronicle begins, she was attending to a ball, that her father allowed her to go because only high class people from over the continent attended to it.

Marin was walking around the hall, holding a glass of wine she had drunk nothing of yet and searching for a conversation that didn’t sound stupid or tedious. But was unsuccessful until now. The extravagant, blue and white dress the royal tailors had made for her didn’t make walking around any easier, though, so she was about to give up when the count of Simen stepped on a chair and hit his glass with a spoon.

The count of Simen, that had come late to the party (He didn’t even was there to see the princess’ entrance), that no guest had ever seen before this ball, and that minutes earlier was talking about how the king personally invited him to the ball, as his province was the most loyal, most productive and most beautiful in the entire continent, started to make a speech:

“People! People! Caham. For those that don’t know me, I am the count of Simen. It’s a province northwest of here, and belongs to the Yuak kingdom. Anyway, this is the first ball I attend to, and this is also my first time at this beautiful city, meeting so many interesting and…” he turned to a brunette he was speaking with earlier “beautiful people. I do not enjoy making so many turns and twists while I speak, but I thought I should thank you guys. Anyway, I’ll go straight to the point.”

At about this point the princess decided she was better off locked in the palace, but it was also about this point that the count of Simen got out of the chair and stood in front of the door, continuing the speech: “unfortunately, I have to go. Yes, I know, it is sad. But important matters arose that need my personal attention. In the meantime…I thank you all very much for everything you have done to me, and specially for allowing my men to take all that gold that was in your chests so easily. Regards!”

Saying this, the “Count of Simen” left, closing the door behind him, mounted a mier that was waiting for him, loaded with gold and silver, and rode as fast as he could into the Cherry Woods. Unfortunately for him, though, at the moment he had said the word “gold”, the princess, without thinking twice, ran towards him, tearing her dress apart, in order to run faster.

When he closed the door, she jumped through a window nearby and mounted the first mier she saw. Thus she was able to follow him, barely not losing sight of him as he went deeper and deeper into the forest. The forest itself was ghostly and eerie; she could hear strange sounds, very unlike wind or wild animals. There were scratches that seemed to have been made by claws on the trees, but they were near the cope of the trees, higher than a human being. And, the scariest of all were strange blue balls of light that floated near the copes of the trees.

But, nevertheless, Marin pressed on, she sometimes lost sight of the bandit but quickly found him again. She was not sure if the man had noticed her following, nor did she care, at the moment, all she thought about was getting the things he stole back. She didn’t notice that with all the twists and turns they were making, if she ever managed to get the things back, she would have a hard time going back, not that that mattered, because little after this, she lost sight of him for good.

Chapter 2
Marin’s mier wandered around in the woods, apparently trying to help, but also didn’t know where the man had gone too. After some time thinking, Marin decided to keep going the same general direction he was going until she found him, or reached the other side of the forest. She didn’t want to go back with nothing.

After some time, she reached a clearing, in what seemed to be the center of the forest. It was visible that the clearing was not always there, as various tree stumps that apparently were recently cut to make space for some kind of encampment. She dismounted the mier, tripping and falling into a mud pool nearby, but quickly recovered, took a dagger that was, for some reason, on the mier and slowly moved in towards the encampment. She planned to steal part of the gold back and tell everyone about the bandits’ encampment, but…

“Hey! Will you put your hands where I can see them? Thanks. Who are you? I wasn’t expecting a girl in underwear…tonight, that is.”. The man she was following had been waiting for her, and apparently she had ripped a little to much of her dress in order to follow him. “Oh, if it’s not a problem, can you drop the dagger? You could poke someone’s eye with that.”. She thought about turning around quickly and stabbing him, but then she felt something cold on her back, ‘’cold as steel’’. So she hesitantly dropped her dagger.

“Good. Now, would you mind telling me what you came to do here?”. But she remained silent. They would either kill or kidnap her anyway; she wouldn’t give him ‘’that’’ pleasure. “Oh, you hurt my feelings. All right, you can go back.”.

Confused, Marin asked: “What?”

“You can go back. You know, get on that mier, and go back to the place you came from.”

“You won’t kill me?”. The bandit assumed a mock-thoughtful expression for a moment and answered: “Hmm…nah. Nice meeting you, by the way.”. Then he took her dagger, sheathed his sword and waved his hand while he walked towards the encampment.

But Marin couldn’t leave it at that. “Wait! What…why…?”. And the bandit, visibly upset, turned around and answered “How are we supposed to get support if we start killing people for no reason?”, which made Marin even more confused: “Support?”. And that made the bandit even more upset “Yes! For our movement!”.

But Marin still did not understand. “What movement?”. And the bandit finally gave up and gave the whole answer. “By Sallund’s holy light, girl! I spared your life, aren’t you satisfied? But, okay: I am the leader of a group of people that want to overthrow the king and put someone else in power. We’re not official yet. But as soon as we gather more forces we intend to make a big rebellion and take him out of the throne…now git.”

But only two things in his speech interested Marin. The first one is that the man didn’t know she was the princess, and the second being that he planned to overthrow her father…so… “Wait! I want to help.”. The man sighed and said: “Were you listening when I talked about us being a revolutionary movement? This is dangerous stuff, so go back to your husband or something.”.

Marin decided to tackle the problem another way: “Alright, I’m going. And when I get there, I’ll tell ‘’everyone’’ about your little hideout in the woods.”

“Fine by me. We have traps around the camp, our camp is very well hidden and with all the twists and turns I doubt you know where we are. Besides, we have well trained people here, if anyone manages to reach us.”

“Look, let me help. I…I know how to handle swords.”, the man assumed a mock admired expression and said: “Oh wow! Are you serious!? Didja hear that Gilbert? She knows how to handle swords!”.

Another man, that was hidden behind a tent, answered: “Yes sir. But I believe you should give her a chance, she could not be that bad.”. The one that seemed to be the leader smiled and said: “Alright. Bring me two of those wood training swords. Girl, we’ll play a little game.” He took a hourglass that was on a nearby barrel and, showing it to her, said

“Seeing this sand? I’ll turn this thing around, and it’ll take about five minutes for it to fall back down. If I don’t manage to take that sword out of your hands three times before the sand falls back down, you’re in. Otherwise, goodbye. Got it? Oh there’s Gilbert with the swords.”

Each of them took one sword. They were simple wooden replicas of real swords, only less sharp, that the soldiers used for melee combat training. Before he turned the hourglass though, the man asked: “Oh, almost forgot. What’s your name?”

“Pri…silla. Priscilla Hennel.”

“Okay then Priss, I’m Hobenrûd.”

“Hoberûd!? ‘’The’’ Hobenrûd? The one that single-handedly won the battle at mount Kaghorn!?”

“Well, there were five other guys with me, but since they died after the first three minutes or so…yeah. But let’s talk about that after you win, right? To make it easier for you, I’ll tell you the direction my attacks will come from, and if I tell it wrong, I’ll lose. Oh, and I’ll also lose if you take my sword out of my hands at least once.” he said, smirking.

And then, he quickly turned the hourglass over, put it on a nearby barrel and started calling his strikes:

“Up! Up! Right! Left! Right! Left! Up…wow! Already? Come on! Give me a challenge! Here’s a hint: You need a stance. You can’t just hold the sword. I personally prefer one foot forward and the other back, so I can shift the weight in attack and defense.”

She took her sword again, and stood her ground, and held the sword with one hand, this time with one foot forward and the other back. And Hoben started again:

“Before we start, another hint: “This is a double handed sword. So use both hands to hold it. Now…Left! Up! Right! Left! Up! Left! Hahah! I could’ve killed you right there! Lucky for you, I only need your sword. Hint number three: sometimes, a good attack is the best defense. Try to attack me and make me lose equilibrium.”

She quickly got her sword up and held it tighter. “Come on girl, last chance. Left! Left! Left! Right! U…”, but this time, something strange happened, instead of trying to block his attack, Marin evaded it, went behind him before he could recover his equilibrium and kicked the back of his right knee, making his legs bend and him fall on his knees. Then she tackled him, making he fall to the ground and drop his sword. Then, before he knew what was happening, she took the sword and crossed both of them near his neck.

“I got a hint for you: Keep your mind focused. I could have killed you right here, lucky for you, I only need to get your sword.”. For about three seconds, he kept silent, not yet sure of what had happened, then he understood and exclaimed, slowly: “You…you were…pretending!”.

“Glad you noticed.”. But he didn’t appear to hear, he just smiled and exclaimed again laughing: “Did you see that Gilbert!? She was pretending!”.