Darkness Descending
Prologue - A Grim and Clouded Sky
The raven wheeled through the dismal sky, revelling in the turbulent currents, the ceaseless flow of the air, the scintillating aroma of the carnage of the plains. Below, on the dull fields of brown decay before a scorched and ruined city, trudged a most wearied and dishevelled figure, ragged and bent as it hauled its form closer and closer to a fallen standard, and with itself a sturdy chestnut horse on a rawhide lead. Vivid in blue and silver, as yet unsullied by the mud and filth of the battle, it lay atop the fallen corpse of its bearer. The figure straightened as it approached the flag, and snapped off a smart salute, before bending down and gently removing the banner from the body. There, surrounded by the brave and the dead, lay the man who had lost his kingdom. Teresius, last ruler of Archion, and the final member of a dying line stretching back into the ages.
The banner was discarded, fluttering over the fallen, and the figure gathered the prone figure into his arms. The armour weighed upon the corpse, and only with difficulty was it hauled up to the waiting horse's unsaddled back, where it slumped with the slackness of the recently slain. Cries echoed through the smoke and dust, and the figure quickly led his steed away from the field, bearing his royal passenger. The raven feasted well that night.
A Forlorn Farewell
Dair plunged the shovel into the hole again, the repetitive action clearing his troubled mind of the horrors he had witnessed, passing between the mounds of the dead to retrieve his king, and taking the body to the grounds that had once been the Chapel of the Light. As he continued to excavate the final resting place of the most noble man he ever knew, he had little choice but to ponder the past with regret and sorrow. The balls, the court, the ladies of the court, all gone with the plunge of a spear. His new and prized position as a part of the Swan Guard, with its lushly appointed rooms, shining silver armour and his perfectly-balanced sword, and most of all his honourable post as the defender of the King, and it was all gone.
He would have served in the battle, fought for glory and salvation with his comrades, but as the youngest and least experienced, he and three others had remained behind in the palace with the queen, regal Therise and the royal princesses, pretty little things, Rhianne and Beryll. Chafing for the fight, they had neglected their duty, instead allowing the King's family to watch the bloody combat from the walls, rather than securing them within the palace - although refusing the royal women was a difficult task indeed. A foolish mistake, and a fatal one for his three comrades, as the dark lightning struck the huge granite walls, tumbling the ancient stones scorched and broken to the ground. Dair hurled the princesses to the ground, but was to late to save Therise. With a piercing scream, she fell into the chasm that opened beneath her feet as the wall cracked open, and down onto the advancing horde of roaring men clad in the red and gold of Eldonys, a neighbouring kingdom once offering peace and trade to the Archionians, but now only war and death. But even as he rose to remove Rhianne and Beryll to the fortified palace in the centre of the city Archii, a fresh explosion hurled him off the edge of the battlements.
He had awoken to find the entire city flattened, the ruins black with ash and soot. There were no bodies recognizable within the bounds of the city, so there had been only one man to bury, his king, his body somehow untouched in the fields surrounding the Archii.
Awakening from his reverie, Dair realised that the hole was plenty big enough, and with great reverence, he bid his king farewell, and eased the body in. There was nothing better he could do, no honours to make, just a shove to turn the soil back into the grave.
Dair sat by the new grave, and after the despair was cleared from his mind, began considering the one thing left to him. Vengeance.
None of his belongings remained to him but what he wore on his back, and he reasoned that there was no one living to claim ownership of the horse. He had lost his sword in the explosion, and was only wearing his tabard over his chainmail and leathers rather than his full plate armour, after all, it was not as if he had expected to join the battle. The only reason he even found the shovel was due to the sturdily constructed granite Chapel of the Light protecting one of it's storage buildings from most of the damage. And also, sheltered behind the remains of the impressive spire was a gnarled old red oak tree. Part of the quiet gardens between the Chapel and the palace, the twisted branches provided a peaceful area for members of the court and clergy to seek respite from the world. It was not providing anything more than shade and a marker for the king's rustic tomb. An unknown instinct struck, and Dair examined its limbs, running his finger down the bark and curling knots until one provided the correct length, thickness and flexibility he required. Many blows with the shovel and careful work with a boot knife yielded the branch, and he strapped it onto the horse for later carving. It would make a fine bow, he thought, and perhaps it could be the tool of his vengeance, taken from the final resting place of the last lord of Archion. A final solemn glance at the fresh-turned sod, then Dair mounted his steed and cantered away from Death.
The Problem with Licensed Taverns...
The torrential rain slashed down upon the roof of the Cat's Paw Inn, the scudding dark clouds obscuring the glow of the Broken Moon. The Inn was the only one in all Taren, but the town hardly would prosper on the border of a freshly ruined kingdom. Ferrin, ruled by the Locke Lords, bordered Archion to the east, towards the wild and restless Arrane Sea that provided much of Ferrin's income, not just by fishing and trade, but from the bountiful pearl farms in the few calm bays and coves that surrounded the capital city of Nerrule, seat of the Locke Lords and home of the Vermilion Brigade, the proud knights of the Light, in armour of blood-red steel of secretive origins. Two of these knights drank steadily in the Cat's Paw, the younger, rough-bearded man occasionally groping at the buxom barmaid, while the older knight, sporting a cultivated goatee glared at every patron who entered the front door. His glare was unrelented as the next man entered the inn, a young warrior type, but with rough stubble and a haunted look deep in the fathomless pits of his eyes of pitch and midnight.
Dair slumped onto a rough wooden bench at a side table, and pulling out his knife, began whittling the long oak . The landlord, a portly individual by the name of Thomas Greene, ambled over to his latest customer. "Something to drink, my friend? Ale, wine, cider - what's your poison?"
Dair answered the query with a deep, hollow stare.
"Something a little stronger then. Jacine! A stiff drink for this man here!" Thomas trotted off in the direction of the kitchens, and the maid scurried for the cellar stairs. The rough-shaven, youthful knight pursued her into the darkness, but only Dair and the elder of the knights took note of this, the regular patrons already buried in the base of their ale mugs. Dair followed, boot knife still in hand from his carving, knowing full well the consequences of angering the Vermilion Brigade, but his honour refusing to allow him to stand by while an innocent woman was in trouble. With a deep breath he plunged through the shadowed doorway, and hurtled down the stairs as he heard the agitated voice of the maid, and the slurred speech of the knight. The goateed knight eyed Dair closely, and finishing his drink, stalked towards the cellar himself, callused hand on sword hilt, prepared to back down his overeager young colleague. This was going to be trouble, the knight thought, but damned if he let the honour of the Brigade down, even once, for the sake of a boy's grasping pleasure.
The cellars were poorly lit by two smoky oil lanterns. Dair struggled through the smoke and fug towards the sounds of a struggle. The noises emanated from behind a rack of casks, and he maneuvered around it carefully and noiselessly, and on the other side was -
The scarlet-tinged blade of the Vermilion Knight hissed through the air towards Dair's neck. In the darkness, the rush of air was all the warning he got, and Dair threw himself to the ground, the side of his head colliding with an ale keg. Blinking rapidly through the bright lights in his eyes, Dair looked up to see the blade plunging downwards again, towards his exposed neck.
The sword halted before it struck, its passage obstructed by the sword of the older knight. Dair noted with faint interest the black serpent pattern inscribed into the flat of the sword, and repeated on the hilt in gold thread, The knight harshly spoke, "Andross. That's enough. Lower your blade or I swear I myself will see you executed."
Sullenly, Andross withdrew his blade, and held it by his side in a tight fist. Dair rose unsteadily to his feet.
"My apologies for the behaviour of my" the knight spat, "comrade. He will be punished harshly. But it was a good thing you tried to do for the maid - yes, you can go!" he barked at the maid cowering among the wines, then tossed Dair a silver coin. "Here, have a drink on me."
Dair fumbled clumsily at the spinning coin, and it slipped between his outstretched hands. He fell to his knees to retrieve the coin, after all, he had precious little on him, and needed to accept any generosity he could find. At this point, Andross, whose shamed and irate face had turned a virulent shade of purple, screamed with rage and lunged at Dair once more.
Dair swept a leg out before himself, and the knight tumbled on top of him, where he collapsed with a groan. Dair slid his now bloodied knife out of the knight's chest, and hauled the corpse off. The other knight had leapt backward to avoid his comrade's blade, and now approached again with disbelief. "You - you've killed him! I should execute you on the spot, but killing a knight in self-defense is hardly your fault."
Dair struggled to his feet again. "Well that was unfortunate, true, but he did strike at me."
"But my superiors will hardly except you for that. You did murder a knight, that is and has always been an executable offence. I'm sorry, but as a member of the Vermilion Brigade I'm going to have to turn you in at the barracks."
Dair was to groggy to resist as the knight bound his hands, and then attached a short rope between each of their wrists, but managed to utter, "My name's Dair. They can write that on my headstone."
"Malvern. I would say pleasure to meet you, but for the fact you have just killed my fellow knight, and that I am arresting you for execution."
"Ah. Well, I'm sure you would have been quite likeable otherwise. Forgive me for not feeling well towards you." Dair said dryly, and then hobbled ahead of the knight, tugging on the lead binding their wrists. "Come on then, we don't have all day to get me killed. Leave the body, send someone for it later. It's not as if you liked the bastard anyway."
They headed up the stairs. The innkeeper and the gathered crowd in the common room observed silently as Dair was marched out of the door. After they left, a well rounded figure turned to his neighbour, and muttered "Bloody knights." The general noise resumed after that, and the patrons continued their attempts to drown themselves in liquor.
Malvern trudged the depressingly weary route back to the town's Brigade barracks. He knew that upon his return with his prisoner they would not even bother with a trial, but execute Dair on the spot. After all, a knight-killing was serious business, and with a witness to prove it and the tavern occupants to back it up, there was hardly any reason to spare Dair. Except for the fact that Andross struck first. But since when did contrary evidence like that matter? A mere detail to be ignored, written into the day's log of events as a stub - brother Andross murdered today, killer caught and hanged by brother Malvern. Writhing with his internal conflict, Malvern did not notice his bound captive smiling vaguely and stepping cheerfully through the muddy streets.
Dair was very pleased with himself. What luck to run into a sympathetic blademaster of the serpent mark. A useful ally to be sure, now the only issue was whether he would come to his senses and realise that he really should be helping Dair in time for him to evade the gallows. Dair was sure that Malvern was considering aiding him, but it was just a matter of time. Was there enough would remain to be seen.
The grim, stark stony facade of the barracks loomed over the next avenue as they turned the corner, and Dair involuntarily shivered at the sight of the currently vacant display cages hanging above the reinforced ash doors. A pair of halberdiers maintained watch at the entrance, and a bored archer leaned over the crenels on the roof, calling down to them.
