Chapter 18: Fire and flame
Kristle stiffened when the price waved at him through the
door, taking it not as a gesture of peace, but of arrogance.
The wizard’s puppet, skin shaded by living elsewhere while
his people stood in wait an attack.
The old man – as the king’s guard called him – would not
live long, aging before his time, as if in a hurry to embrace his end and have
his figure carved in the hall of heroes.
He would not withstand what all knew would soon come, nor
could anyone depend on a prince who – if rumor had it – had fallen under the
spell of a witch.
“We need a strong king,” Kristle though, gripping his spear
until his knuckles grew white, pondering what chance he might have to plunge
into the heart of the prince inside before the prince could react.
All had heard of Ely’s prowess with a blade, as good or perhaps
better than his brother, Ajax, though the two have yet to be seriously tested
against each other.
None other in the guard or beyond could defeat him in a fair
fight, and yet, why should any fight be fair that kept Ajax from his proper
place on the throne, a warrior’s warrior, someone who most if not all of the
guard aspired to be like, to learn from, to fight for, and yes, if necessary,
die on his behalf.
“Can I be the one?” Kristle wondered. “It is possible that I
can make room for Ajax to ascend to the throne?”
His companions here and in the rest the king’s guard felt as
Kristle did, although refused to speak of it or speculate as openly, fearing
the word would reach the king or Ely, or worse that wizard in his tower, who
might turn them all into something unnatural or have their heads put on spikes
before the castle gates as warning to those who might conspire to become king
makers.
“Can I be the one?” Kristle wondered.
Ajax had trained him well, giving him the benefit of all
those lessons both princes had learned from the cradle, and if not quite as
proficient as Ajax, Kristle might well get one fortunate blow that would change
the course of history.
And if he survived, if Ajax became king, what greater honor
could he expect but to have been the one to make it possible.
But even as he stood guard before Ely’s door, Kristle doubted
the others, his companion across the door, the others down the hall, those who swore
more loyalty to king and country, than to any single prince. Any one of them
might halt him before he made the plunge, anyone would deny him his place in
history, killing him as a traitor rather than the hero he might be.
He could not do it now, here, with them watching, but soon,
somewhere, perhaps during a walk back to the king’s chambers, or in the deep of
dark when his companion grew weary. Just one right moment, to rush in, plunge
the spear tip through the heart.
“Can I be the one?” he wondered, and then concluded, “I will
be, soon.”
*************
Swords rose and fell, shimmering with sunlight and blood.
The stench of the dead and dying, baked on the battle field, coupled with the
smell of burning flesh.
Columns of smoke rose everywhere, casting a haze that hid
anything too much beyond the lines of soldiers, slashing at each other, shields
pressing forward like a wall, the black and crimson uniforms forming one side
of this, on the other, a ragtag mob of mixed uniforms or no uniforms at all,
many of these fighting even without shield or armor.
Screams of the dying competed with the clash of steel, men
falling on each side, their place on the line filled with a new face, sweating,
with eyes full of anger and fear.
Behind the ragtag line, a figure in gold-colored armor rode
on a large black stallion, waving a large sword, shouting at his soldiers to
keep fighting, even though from his expression, he knew they could not win,
their line inching back one bloody step at a time, leaving bodies in their wake
as the other line and its long shields pressed on. Behind this line, other men
on other horses yelled, too, not encouragement, rather threats, stirring up a
panic, making it clear they had better advance or have worse waiting for them
from behind.
Through the haze and behind the knight in gold armor, a lone
black tower stood, barely visible, its polished walls reflecting the image of flame
that covered the battle field before it, a tower that in better days oversaw a
wide space of farm lands and green fields, with a tall single peaked mountain at
its back – as if the tower had been carved out of the mountain itself.
To one side, low brown houses with clay tile roofs stretched
from the tower to the shore, where a small armada of fishing and merchant ships
sat, sails half mast, as people fled through the streets, seeking to board them.
A wider road ran north along the sea, and those who could not find space on the
ships fled that way, backs bent with bundled possessions, like an army of ants dragging
the remains of their lives along with them, moving, but slowly, many still filling
the streets of the town, waiting their turn on the road or on the ships, all
glancing painfully backwards either at the advancing flames and rising smoke of
the battle further south or more desperately at the tower, where many assumed
their salvation might come.
Near the foot of the tower armored knights in brown and
green struggled to hold bad the tide of shields that swept towards it, sending swarms
of arrows into the advancing army of black and crimson, killing many, but not
enough as the wall of shields continued to advance.
Ely stirred in his sleep.
A new vision appeared, the blood and burning city replaced
by a massive city of red stone, a city over which seven large towers loomed,
one larger than the rest, spiraling up, as tall as a mountain, over it red and
black flags fluttered in the breeze.
Soldiers in black and crimson uniforms stood at guard at the
gates to each tower, and as the gates to the metropolis itself where there was
a rush not of panic, but of productivity, wagons rolling from out of warehouses
carrying goods to supply the ever-advancing war, stream of horse soldiers riding
out ahead and behind this mighty wagon train, as people who they passed in the
streets cheered.
This vision changed, too, becoming dark again, moving
through dark tunnel, passing out of view of the urban dwellers and into dark
passages were few footsteps tread, and into a large chamber where a huge fire
burned, arched chambers along the rooms round walls where men in crimson robes
sat on throne-like chairs, looking into at each other, and then into the fire
as if reading something there.
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