I rode with my men down the rolling countryside at the base
of the mountains that protected our city. It was a rough trek down the
mountainside since none of us possessed magic strong enough to levitate an
entire caravan’s worth of people, pack animals, steeds and wagons. The portal
stones within the city had been acting strangely recently, causing a sort of
static noise in the minds of any magic user that would come near them, so we
decided to take the long route down.
Unfortunately, the normal route, a cave that inclined softly
downwards to the base of the mountains, was blocked by a landslide. It took the
better part of the day to clear away the debris since the cave mouth was
protected from magic. When that was done, the first wagon’s axel broke and so
the entire expedition had to be stopped for repairs and another round of
inspection.
When we finally got underway, it took just three hours to
descend. I wasn’t worried about my city. Kite had been left in charge and the faerie
youngling had shown great prowess in political matters, and administrative ones
of course. Not saying, though, that any of the Kindred were still interested in
politically undermining the faerie. They were simply too grateful. She had,
after all, rid the world of two scourges, the lack of sunlight and the Fae.
When sunset came, we decided to make camp near a secluded
stand of trees, not that we had much need of stealth. I helped raise the
earthen fortifications that were standard procedure around the camp. It
consisted of dried clay walls and towers with arrow slits just in case unwanted
creatures would stray too close for comfort. Although to one of the Kin, not
much was to be feared anymore; after all, the wyrms were in hiding and were
unlikely to come out any time soon.
As the night wore on, the campfires went up, all of them
started one way or another using magic. I sat beside one of my finest warriors,
Alec. His armor was dragon-forged and no one knew how he came upon it.
Regardless of his reputation, he sure was one of the most enigmatic characters
in my court. His armor was dragon-forged, not wyrm-forged. Dragons were the
benevolent half of their kind. The Wyrms were far more powerful and cunning. In
fact, wyrms were the ones that discovered how to kill one of the Kin in broad
daylight.
When the stew was ready I accepted my bowl from the serving
woman readily. I was famished. I was king, yes, but to the kin, I was just
another part of the family, albeit the one that makes decisions. I took my
place near Alec again, who, by now was eyeing the cauldron of stew hungrily. I
asked him, in the middle of a bite, the question suddenly popping into my head,
“Do you ever wish that the world would just stop being such a violent place?”
He looked me in the eye and chuckled softly, saying thanks
to the serving woman when his bowl was handed to him. He said “I did, once when
I was young, my liege. But then I realized, if there was only peace, then I
would not have any purpose of walking these lands at all. That’s what we were
made for, to preserve the peace, it wouldn’t make much sense to live if there
was no need to preserve peace at all.” His voice was deep but it boomed across
our small circle. A few of the men wore wistful expressions and they all nodded
after a while, indicating they agreed with Alec’s point.
I thought about it for a while and saw the sense in Alec’s
words. But something bothered me, something I had never thought about because
of being thrust into such great responsibility at a tender age. “What about
love, Alec? Would you live, even if there was no evil to vanquish, all for the
sake of love?”
“This will be my one thousand twentieth year of existence
and take it from me, your majesty, love gets boring without the violent passion
it comes with” he said, chuckling softly, drawing a few laughs from the other
men.
“I guess you’re right…” I muttered, not pushing the matter.
The next morning, we were well on our way when all of a sudden the sky lit up
with a blinding light. The horses reared up and it took a lot to calm them
down. When they did, they were giddy and their nostrils flared. In the
distance, pillars of light shone to the heavens, far brighter than they should
be. The horse I was riding on turned around facing the way we came and sure
enough, there was another pillar there.
I sensed something was wrong. I sent my men on their way, to
continue the expedition whose main objective was just to gather information
anyway. I galloped into the distance, riding at full speed towards the city.
<3
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