Kreed,
September, 620 A.I

Despite the legion of trepid souls in orbit, the Mortal Palace – a plush, neat edifice perched upon the hills skirting the Kreedswood – slept remarkably soundly after having witnessed a most unusual day. Guardsmen were on triple patrol this night. Vigilantly stalking the grounds between the gates leading down to the city and the hazy perimeters of the gardens merging the forest edges.  Tonight the capital had been compromised, leaving the only agenda on its denizens’ minds – apart from self-preservation – the ensuring that not one more enemy should reach the imperial domicile before the night was over.

An ancient city of nerves drawn taut lay beneath the laddered hills. Thrice it had risen to the world's peak only to tumble down again, though in the eyes of most foreigners this colourful, jovial capital appeared only in its blooming youth– a ranging expanse covering two hundred square miles if one counted the outermost roads linking to villas in the nearby country. Crystal blue streams jutted down the steep hills of the eerie Kreedswood, slicing the city like an assassin’s favoured gauche before conjoining to flow out westward across the wild plains of Kreedonia. Verdant scenes of all manner of greenery blossomed amidst the city’s bright stoned buildings, inspiring its transcendence among the common folk as glorious home to Spring itself; thousands would often flock to the festivals held here once distant tides warmed and the winds caressed sunlit skin. Kreed, this city was called, named after the god whose worshipers first bent the knee and kissed the dirt in these parts…

If the day’s disturbing events nor the soldiers patrolling the streets had not yet done so, then the chilly late summer wind finally signalled to the few folk loitering on the roads to tie close their cloaks and seek the indoors. Rumours of events in the palace that day floated down to the capital like torn autumn leaves caught in a fickle wind – a phenomenon fast approaching as the Kreedswood reddened and shed. In Kreed they had watched bedazzled as blood filled the gutters, when clandestine agents of this nation’s enemies had suddenly emerged from nowhere and everywhere, all at once. Yet notwithstanding the greater brunt of this attack the royals had supposedly taken, the palace stood, as ever, a placid silhouette in the moonlight as unshaken as to have Kreed’s enemies convulsing with frustration. 

Outside the Mortal Palace in the unsettling wind, the grey bole birches adorning the moonlit gardens swished and rattled away whilst the taller broad elms merely swivelled in response. Besides this and the plumes of guardsmen’ breaths – and their very, very occasional chatter – all was perfectly still this forlorn night. The palace they circled consisted of three gargantuan floors layering over the White Cells which laid beneath, a prison said to drive even the most stalwart of minds to madness. Few slept there these days – few slept there at all by nature – but its last occupant knew no better than to sleep through such troubling times, blissfully ignorant of all the day’s happenings in the palace above and the city below. The man lay dreaming of the last time he was free of this prison. Pictured perfectly, he’d been standing in the great hall paying his usual disdain toward the red throne. Left speechless as the Kreedonian guard surrounded him. Mortified to see the Queen’s face as she watched his struggles with growing malice, as though it was more than her God-given right to imprison him for all he’d done; no, she took lucid pleasure, one too deep to conceal behind such a delicate young face. It had all taken him by surprise, and that was the greatest blow of all. He recalled his companion being torn from his side by the faster guards, his feeble attempt to save her in the midst of sudden chaos…then something like solid steel straight to the back of the head, darkness soon following. 

The prisoner tensed as the dream faded with the same shadow that struck him unconscious that dreadful day; only this time he could hear the movement of swivelling hinges and wrought iron gates from nearby. Light worked its way back through the faltered guards of darkness. The ground whispered tales of footsteps and his weary eyes stretched open to glimpse the luminescent walls of his holdings, making out moving figures along with cast shadows by the door to his cell. 

He brushed off the dust from his worn and tattered clothes before sitting up, turned to see a guard escort an elegantly dressed lady inside. From the ginger manner with which he moved the guard was not nearly comfortable with this. The prisoner knew this lady’s face – she was the one beside him when the young queen called for his arrest. This proud woman appeared frightened now above all things, though he knew there burrowed a thousand unspoken thoughts beyond those dark eyes of hers. He had not seen her in such a state since back in the Nest all those years ago, and back then he’d found her long broken. Defeated. He had been too late that night to witness this part: the very breaking itself.

The guard ushered her in and then halted, observing them with an odd reminiscing posture. “So sorry Your Graces,” he muttered before turning his back. The echo of the slamming iron door and the guard’s footsteps lasted for mere moments before the pair were left in silence. The prisoner languidly stood up and faced the woman, momentarily unsure of himself. Then like moonlit tide and dampened shore they drove together, his hands frisking their way through the thick nestles of her hair.

“Word from Labyrinth,” she breathed into his bosom. “Tristan, the Queen’s lost her mind–”

“I don’t want to know,” Lord Tristan Fire gulped. “Not now anyway, not for a while longer at least.”

The woman was ready to say more but thought better of it, slowly curling back into his confines. “Surely this – this cannot be how it ends,” she remarked sullenly. 

Tristan thought for a moment, nodded with more certainty than he’d known for quite some time. “We aimed, fired, and missed completely,” he said. “I can’t promise a way out anymore.”

“We should have just kept our silence, or better we had ran off to Warfell and left this city to its own.”

Tristan leaned back and gently raised her chin. “It doesn’t matter anymore, Skye,” he told her. “No point with if’s and but’s, then or what could have been’s…we’ve landed ourselves in the White Cells for something they’ll say was treason…we’re done. Finished.” He backed away from her, pressed himself against the wall and slid down onto the cold floor where he had slept, suddenly peering about the room as though a third observer were hiding between the cracks. “This is what I feared the gods would sentence me to someday,” he said, regarding Skye with a look of disgust she was not quite accustomed to. “No man more accursed than he who takes his brother’s wife…”

His brother’s wife scowled. “Don’t preach your scruples after all this time…Zander was never your brother.”

He grunted otherwise, turned to stare at his boots. Skye did not admire this wallowing deportment and so slid down next to him, slipping her hand between his. “Zander is dead,” she smiled. “This world is beyond his touch, and has been for some time.”

He turned viciously. “Did you hit your head on that damn crossbar as you came down? Take a gander at who sits upstairs. This is all of Zander’s will…everything! Ever since his father’s doom; ever since I helped him take the throne, waged wars by his side and opened the floodgates onto this world. All of his will, and I stood placid beside him all the while.  Step by step, then – how can I revoke the truth, that this is what my road has rightfully led me to?"

Skye listened to his harangue with a puzzled expression, leaned her head against the white wall behind them and said nothing for a while…after a moment, slowly and gently, she began to laugh.

“What’s the matter with you, woman?”

The laughter slowly simmered. “I’ve heard so many songs and stories of the day Zander Mortal became a king,” she shook her head in awe. “It was the day his life changed forever, and he never spoke a word of it to me…ME. But no need to imagine what that juncture was like for me, Tristan – for all the while you watched me stand beside him you knew I was there for your taking. But in the end, was it not I who took you? No god has cursed you for that, my love.”

Tristan met her gaze at that moment, suddenly remembering she was not nearly the same helpless girl he’d scaled mountains to rescue from the cadaverous embers of a marriage she had never desired. The past they’d once shuddered from no longer forced them into skulking hiding. In that small white cell beneath the palace they’d known so fondly, it was only the two of them and the memories they’d shared; bright and mostly dark, these deeds were all they could call home anymore. 

“The songs are ridiculous compared with what really happened that day,” Tristan said after a moment’s silence. “Days I should say…weeks…it seems strange to me that you don’t know the real tale, besides the propaganda and lies Zander spewed…then again we all promised never to recount the entire story to anyone but ourselves,” he sighed,  nearly sinking back into a memory before realising. “…though everyone I made that promise to is now dead,” Tristan turned to her. “I could tell you what happened? The truth of it, as I’m perhaps the last man who still knows.”

Skye pondered on the invitation; on a normal day she would never take his hand for a stroll down this old forgotten road. But normal days had long come and too swiftly gone. “By all means,” she said, her sharp dark pupils studying the room. “This seems to be as interesting as things get here anyhow…”

Tristan allowed himself a smile as Skye drew close. Lulled by the trance of the hypnotic white walls his eyes began closing as thoughts sifted back to times so different yet so familiar. Faces of old and voices which spared no memory of laughter. The days of his youth were served beneath a tyrant who sought to conquer everything and everyone. So many loved ones falling to mortal danger over the years; the brightest of hopes having been those short moments when Tristan Fire truly believed they could still be saved…

The man sighed at that troubling thought. “All things start small,” he began. 

2: Prologue (II)

 “Prologue”
Tristan
Kreed
 August, 598 A.I

And I was ever so young back then. Testament to this I knew so much of what the world could offer me yet so little of what I had to offer the world. One could say it was the eve before the continent was grasped from its tufts and riven apart. I was twenty three, slowly and not so humbly realising how deadly I could be with a sword in my hand. Not the rabbling kind to reap cheap reputations at the local inn – I’m talking the type who revered a street to gawking silence upon their casual walk. Men like Denton Scudamore and Sorren Nastarie – you know the kind. I’ve no doubt I would have won the continental games three times over if leisurely endeavours were ever pursued. But these are not the regrets which daunt, and believe me, of those there are plenty…

Where to start then?

I suppose it all began on a warm sunny day with a wind so brisk it raised the latent illusion of this being the antecedence of many better days to come. It was the day of my Swearing. The day I was to asseverate my loyalty to the crown, one which my family’s antics had tarnished with disrepute in the preceding years. A reasonable crowd was gathered in the nave to my back as I knelt before the pearled altar of the Old Spire. Zander Mortal – your old husband, my old friend – watched on from the flanks beside his elite warriors garbed in the Kreedonian white.

“Do you swear, Tristan Fire,” belted High Priest Petifus, looming above me that fetid squirm of a man. “Your fealty to the Crown and our beloved prince; to serve his word and his will; to cast aside all tethers and fetters compromising the ardent servility of your soul to this city; to advise justly and cordially if so ever deigned to exchange your sword for your wits; to protect his posterity and face his foes; to step between all malice and might that would do him harm; and to show no trepidation should you one day greet the Long Silence in the bearing of these vows. May the gods strike you hard and true should your word prove false…?”

“They may,” I answered quietly, so fastidious were these promises which a man of twenty three years can only nod apprehensively, and then add, “For I swear.”

These few simple words deluged upon me a chorus of applause heavier than the torrential rains of your native Waterways. I rose up and smiled at the priest whose disposition I was yet to qualm with, then grasping my sword laid on the altar I stepped buoyantly toward the cordon of the Prince. Zander greeted me with all but words as I came beside him – finally, those deep green eyes of his whispered as he saw his oldest friend entwined to his fate by the vows of a priest and the tenor of ceremony. I glanced about the animated temple and caught many familiar faces to my greeting, many I had grown up with in the capital whom I would soon lose in the wars to come. My eyes caught a slat of light peering in through the great doors across the temple, and then started at the sight of the equally familiar yet unexpected figures already taking their leave.

Sworn Swords – though of higher rank – huddled about a depreciated old man who rarely went unrecognised in Kreed. “He is truly here?” I asked Zander beneath the cover of applause.

The Prince nodded, a fleck of petulance about his mood. “Enough of this trifle, there are things we ought to discuss,” he’d put rather ominously.

Nodding, I took my place beside my fellow Sworn Swords – only Caspar Burnett and Mark Parter to that day, both young, wholesome and smiling back then. Zander led us swiftly from the temple. The cloaked figure I’d seen harrying his exit was already in a carriage on his way to the Mortal Palace by the time we emerged.

“What’s the meaning of this?” I demanded of Zander as I watched the postilion stir the horses into a trundle. “Your father has barely shown me the back of his hand since the rebellion ended."

“The King,” Zander said singly for a moment, gauging the word as his eyes followed the departing carriage. “Has been fit to burst with surprises of late.” His meaning clouded, I asked him why he had drawn me away from the ceremony so soon, what those matters we ought to discuss pertained to. “We’ll get to that, Tristan,” he placated me in his languid manner.

The cheery din of my Swearing followed us only a few streets from the Old Spire as we tailed King Khan’s carriage up the flint cottage lined road now romantically referred to as Zander’s Walk. Toward the final stretch on horseback the road’s namesake forcibly slowed our progress, allowing for the King to be inside the palace by the time we entered the courtyard. I began worrying during the ascent– Zander had been glum and silent, whilst Caspar and Mark exchanged odd looks every so often and were noticeably furtive each time I caught them at it.
I was resolved to demand answers for all the queer behaviour – especially having blemished a day I’d thought so languine – but our entrance to the courtyard had been anticipated. And the man in waiting now stormed from the palace doors to greet us – and adding to the theme of surprises that day – with sword held firm in hand.

“It’s true then,” the sudden intruder surmised in a deep rumbly voice, glowering at my form contemptuously, then turning to meet the Prince’s eye. “Does the sanctity mean nothing to you?”

“Not one bit, to be frank,” Zander riposted as he swung down from his horse. “You’ve caused enough whispers by not standing in the Old Spire at my side. Now put your sword away, Archtan.”

Sir Archtan Dice, as large a man as I would ever see, was none too keen on my Swearing into the sect of Sworn Swords. Back then I was the object of his scorn, though I like to think the moment I now describe set the precedence of the friendship we would come to share.

 Archtan was shaking his head fervently. “Have you forgotten, Prince? Rebellion roamed this kingdom no longer ago than the turn of the year. But my family has been the heirloom of the Kreedonian Sworn Swords – my grandfather to yours, my uncle to your father, I to you, and even now my little brother dreams and follies with wooden swords. You would soil us with the fester of this – this – this Fire of Warfell.”

“This Fire of Warfell,” I crunched onto the pebbled courtyard grounds to stare up at the big man. “Is more than deserved of his place, Dice. I was walking the streets of Kreed beside our Prince long before you cared to learn his name.”

“Hah, and what of your treasonous grandfather and his like? Was it not you yourself, Tristan, whom His Majesty kept a pet hostage whilst your kin at Warfell attempted to rally the nation against the Mortals?” Few things ever drew my rage, but this matter had cast something strange on my heart for some time. I loved my grandfather and I loved the Mortals too; thus when one turned on the other I was as torn apart as the country itself. “Zander, think on this,” Archtan implored, jabbing a finger toward me. “These Felurians will be the death of your crown –”

“The rebellion is over,” Zander snapped, strolling toward the palace doors as ever reluctant to be drawn too deep into delicate matters. “Make your peace with it or laden your heart, but Tristan is here to stay.”

The colossus of a Sworn Sword was not assuaged, raised his weapon now and urging me back a visceral step. “Fine, then. If not for his soiled name then allow me to at least demonstrate why he is unworthy to join Mark, Casper and I. It was not so long ago this warrior was skulking along the palace’s third floors for a quiet spot to do his damn reading after all.”

I could not help but laugh, paying Archtan my vilest of glares. “Question my family’s fidelity as all the fools will, but you dare question my swordsmanship?”

I heard chuckles behind my back before Messrs Mark and Caspar were at my side like a pair of devils, one on the left shoulder and the other on the right. “He’s been waiting for this, you know?” Caspar was saying, giving me a firm clasp on the shoulder. “Our Tristan thinks himself the best of us all.”

“I do not–”

But in truth I did, and besides, Mark Parter cut me off before my tongue could tell that lie. “What was our Tristan rambling about between the pouring of rounds just last night, Caspar? Twice, maybe even thrice the swordsman you are Archtan, this Tristan claimed to be.”

I was baffled, turning from one shoulder to the other as Archtan’s blade began beating against the pebbles. Mark Parter and Caspar Burnett – the pair always entertained themselves in nefarious ways, often at the expense of others. A taut silence smothered the air as Archtan’s vaulted gaze converged upon mine. A silence absorbing the attention of stable hands – who had led our horses away with nary a breath to spare – servants and gardeners going about their perfunctory duties, who now looked on with the anxious anticipation in sensing a brawl to come.
 

Zander was stood before the palace doors, his hands on his hips and a wariness in his eyes. “Now, Archtan…”

“Is this true, Fire?” the big man ignored the Prince, not even turning his back.

I watched the grip on his greatsword fasten as I gathered my thoughts; Zander had whisked me away from my Swearing with what still seemed a capricious whim; and the King had been present, that sunken old man who’d bluffed my life’s worth to end a rebellion not so long ago; and then there loomed Archtan himself, calling me out for the sins of my fathers and fore, branding me a traitor when all my energy in those days was devoted to proving myself otherwise…

One hand on the pommel of my newly embellished sword, I shoved Caspar and Mark away. “I recall nothing of twice or thrice,” I said, to Archtan Dice. In truth I was barely able to best the man by this time, only half confident the deed was doable. “But many have stood where you’ve stood, challenger, and I plan to let many more take your place after I’m through with you.”

My attention now cautiously on the enraged Sworn Sword, I spied a fleeting sigh escape Zander’s mouth as he watched this fatal exchange. Archtan gasped, grinded his teeth, and then flew at me with appalling momentum. I drew my sword just in time to meet his charge, our blades singing a long high screech. Faces close, feeling his hot breath and the outrage borne within it before thrusting the big man away from me. A near stumble, and once more Archtan was beating the pebbles beneath his feet like the Reman army pounding their shields before battle. I was wary of the power behind his greatsword. Mine was of a finer sort – well levelled dark steel that held naturally in my palm and swung like music. But do not mistake this bout for speed against brawn. I had more strength than any man knew me capable of and that being my deadliest weapon of all. When Archtan came again I merely tapped aside his sword and dived beneath his extended arm, driving a shoulder into his right knee along the way. He yelped, pirouetted and swung the colossal sword overhead in the vain attempt of clipping me. I’d expected this, having long observed his sour impatience with those fleet of limb in the training yards. But it seemed he’d read me just as carefully – as I dived for the exposed under knee he managed to launch himself into the air above me. I stumbled away barely in time to miss the vehement blow his sword levelled to the ground.

Back to my feet and panting in disbelief. He could have sliced me like lettuce, I fearfully realised. Caspar seemed to think the same. “Easy Archtan,” he moderately interceded. “No maiming here, just friendly contest –”

“Wants to play the fly against me,” Archtan roared, then spat. “Wearing me off until a mistake is made, and you call this man a swordsman?” He turned to the palace doors expecting to catch Zander’s eye, but the Prince had seemingly slipped away as the chaos ensued.

“…really taking this personal,” I heard Mark mumbling to Caspar.

“Have we fanned the flames too high?” was the latter’s rejoinder.

The once calm edifice behind Archtan Dice was now much enlivened – casements were flung open and sliders slid all the way as heads poked from each and every window to gauge the commotion. Balconies occupied by preening young women watching with terror and flaunting young men with reserved awe. Servants riled by the herds at the palace flanks, conversing harshly as paltry copper talons were exchanged in the placement of wagers. Where Zander had once been now stood a cordon of palace guardsmen palpably timid of stepping forward to put an end to the bout. For even before we had showed them good reason to do so, men knew to tread lightly in the midst of Zander Mortal’s warriors. Alas, this was not nearly over, and the thought of almost dying in a duel with this man had sparked something within me. Archtan noticed as much with a single glance, the smile growing on his face as I moved to begin my next assault…

I did not squander my time with speed and acrobatics, instead firing straight to meet the brunt of his blade and forcing him to parry each of my blows. I controlled his momentum. My strength conserved for his futile attempt at berserk combat, chopping away his sword as soon as I felt the rage precipitating behind his thrusts. In no matter of time Archtan’s patience dwindled, and when he surged toward me in a frantic flurry of swings and slashes I knew my cue had come to start dancing again. I bided for his greatest thrust; his ultimate effort; his final act. A moment as measured as an Attendant’s eye squinting upon the levels of beakers and vials. And when it came I was quicker than ever before or would likely ever be again; a lithe flash and I was behind the big man, posturing as his sword clobbered the earth I had previously occupied. By the time he gruffly turned I was seven feet high in the air and my sword glinting in the morning light as it bore for my opponent’s head.

The look on Archtan’s face was beyond belief; to this wretched day I have not seen a man so astonished, amazed and frightened all at once. I knew that poor oaf had enough time to raise his hulking sword clumsily enough for me to end this fight. The sound of our clashing swords roared like deep thunder across handy hills, so loud I was certain the blades should have cracked into a thousand smithereens. The greatsword flew from the big man’s grip and struck the pebbles with a hollow thud. I landed soundly and breathed easily. Archtan cried out and griped his maimed sword hand even as his watching supporters made their useless protests before wagers were settled. A cheer arose from the windows and balconies, applause raining down on what was deemed a good contest.

“Well struck,” came a voice from the palace doors, and I turned to see Zander making his way through the dispersing cordon of guardsmen.

Archtan glanced up from his hand, his eyes ablaze yet suddenly full of reverence in their regard of me. “Next time, Fire,” he promised.

“I’d expect no less, Dice.”

“Not for a while I think,” Zander ruled, making his way toward us as the servants returned to their duties and the balconies and windows slowly emptied of watching eyes. “The last I need my best warriors doing right now is hacking themselves to pieces,” he caught my eye. “As I mentioned down in the Old Spire, there are things we ought to discuss.”
 

In the drudging act of fetching his fallen sword, Archtan exclaimed as he sheathed the blade, “He still doesn’t know!” and laughed deeply. “Oh, there may yet be some victory I can grasp from this day.”

“A drink first,” Zander grinned wryly as he approached us, followed by our shared squire and occasional cupbearer, Pate Sington – a recalcitrant yet wide eyed young lad with a brown mop of hair – currently bearing a tray, six goblets and a golden carafe of Tercian Red. “There we go,” Zander said as he uncharacteristically aided Pate in handing out the goblets whilst the boy poured. We sat down in the middle of the courtyard, drunk, and then faced one another. “I won’t mince words, Tristan,” Zander said. “There’s a reason the proceedings of your Swearing proceeded so hastily. I couldn’t bear the thought of embarking without you, even as much as I doubt you would abandon me to walk this road alone –”

“Alone?” Caspar blurted. “He may have beaten Archtan, but on his best day our Mark, the Parter, would have a thing or two to dispute with Tristan,” he said, nudging his partner in crime.

“Nothing is forgotten,” Zander muttered, now turning to me. “We’re soon to be off on a journey – we, the King, the court and half the damn nobility with us…you’ve noticed the carriages and riders arriving in the last week?”
“I keep my head down from the nobles,” was my bashful answer. “But I have watched them come day in, day out. What journey do you speak of? Where? I’ve heard nothing.”

“Because no one wants to believe it,” Zander swallowed his wine, was pouring another goblet as he replied faintly, “we are bound for the famed first city of Horn no less.”

I nearly choked on my own mouthful, regarded the man I called friend as though he had just plunged a dagger into my back. Which, in some sense, he had. For as I was ready to laugh at his presumption of mine joining his on such a foolish endeavour, I remembered the vows I had sworn just that very morning, and cursed beneath my breath.

“You’ve tied me to your anchor,” I realised.

“To the anchor around my legs too,” Archtan grunted.

“And mine,” added Mark.

Zander observed our uneasy, pleading faces. “My father,” he sighed, shaking his head. “His condition has worsened lately. It’s no secret his time on this world draws to an end, and by this strange undertaking he means to leave some final signature upon it…though clearly my father has forgotten who these Hornishman are.”

At that time – just as today – sanctions were levelled against the kingdom of Horn from nearly all corners of the continent, and our two nations had shared no friendship in over thirty bitterly long years. A past of treachery and deceit tarnished the history books, and an air of supremacy which the Horn Kings exuded upon all others. Thirty years. Nary a single word spoken between our countries. And here we sat thinking we were soon on our way to put an end to all this. I remember such optimism in the capital before we left Kreed the following week, swelling about the notion of King Khan’s peace treaty replacing the cold armistice which had stretched on for far too long.

In the Mortal Palace courtyard I shook my head in dismay of Zander’s first deceit, but still said truthfully, “I would have gone with you to Horn, Sworn or un-Sworn, my Prince,” then raised my goblet. “To the foolish pursuit of peace, and may we all be dead and buried before it’s over.”

They raised theirs in answer, toasted the portentous words, and drank long and deep beneath the Kreedonian sun…