Appreciate the read Sherbet! What part seemed like info overload - I can try to cut it down. Man and beast are in conflict with each other, changed the wording to make it more clear. Thanks for the heads up on that man.
Also, I've got Chapter 1 finished. It's 7:00 am and I should have been doing homework or sleeping...*sigh* Bad decisions haha. Anyways hope you guys read and enjoy. Feedback is welcome.
Chapter 1: Order of the White Hawk
Brrrr!The blast of the horn was a rude awakening to say the least. Shahm stirred beneath his sheets while the others rushed for battle. He could feel the air brush against his face as his battle hardened brothers swept past where he lay in the tent one after the other. Outside the indistinct sounds slowly crescendoed towards full fledged battle cries. This was already the fifth raid in three days, and he had forgotten what a good night’s rest felt like.
“Get up ya bastard.”
He felt a knock against his side and next he knew, he was being dragged out the tent by the ear. Captain Mort had little patience for any sort of dillydallying. He was a gruff, rugged man with many years of battle experience. A bona fide warrior almost his entire life, he looked the part with that thick beard and long mahogany hair but he played it even better, for he was, without a shadow of a doubt, the Order of the White Hawk’s strongest warrior. His vice-like grip finally loosened once they were outside the weapons barracks.
“You have the important task of guarding the Baron’s grandson. Get to work!”
“Yes, Captain!” Shahm replied, bowing, but the stern Captain had already stormed off. Shahm entered the tent and retrieved his equipment – sword and chest plate – from one of the small spaces in the row of shelves. Every warrior had his own designated area. It was a highly efficient system born from the ingenuity of Ogus Stanza, the 64th Lord Baron of the Order of the White Hawk. With the bronze armor securely over his torso and the blade tucked at his side, Shahm rushed out of the tent and headed to the riverbank towards the east, where the commotion could be heard. On the other side of the river was a thick forestry, which the invaders had used to stage their ambush.
Several others were scrambling to join the fight as well.
Shahm caught hold of the closest and asked, “Have you seen Vers?”
“No, but I assume he’s on the front lines as usual. Wouldn’t expect any less from the Captain!!” the bandmate replied while running in the direction of the skirmish.
“No, guess not,” grumbled Shahm, who was not so thrilled that the one he had to protect had a propensity for heroics, for it only made his job harder. But that was the nature of the Baron’s grandson, and as his lowly bodyguard, Shahm had no place to complain.
His armored brothers were already entangled in battle when Shahm charged onto the lush riverbank along with several others. The cool breeze of the Autumn’s night hit harder against his face due to the speed at which he was moving. His hair fluttered in the wind like black, dancing flames. He scoured the area and soon enough he found a head of blonde hair, almost white as snow, glowing with the light of the full moon. There was only one person that could be and that was the person Shahm needed to be protecting.
“Vers!” Shahm yelled, rushing after him. He was unsure whether Vers had heard him, for he had not elicited a reaction from the young warrior, but Shahm quickly realized he was occupied with a bandit and not in much of a position to respond.
He was not far from Vers when he suddenly noticed a twinkle of silver from the corner of his eyes. Narrowly he escaped the blade, and the grim fate of being sliced from top to bottom like a slab of meat. Shahm swung his own sword and clashed blades with the bandit, each trying to overpower the other.
From the side, another bandit appeared, his sword raised high for a powerful downward strike just as before. But this time, Shahm had no way of protecting himself. He watched with wide eyes as the bandit was struck in the back and collapsed into the bed of grass face forward, his back decorated with two deep gashes.
Vers brandished his double-bladed weapon again, and two glowing projections in the shape of a crescent moon emerged from the blades. The flying crescents struck the other bandit Shahm had been dealing with in the abdomen and felled him. Shahm observed the still bodies of the dead bandits and took a moment to recover from the fear he had felt earlier. He truly thought that was the end of him.
“Why is it that I always end up protecting you?” Vers said.
“Yeah, yeah whatever,” Shahm pouted, before letting loose a string of curse words under his breath.
It appeared that the other bandmates had taken care of the rest of the bandits, and all was quiet on the other side of the river.
Vers walked closer to the edge of the riverbank and peered at the forest on the other side of the river, somehow expecting more to suddenly spring from the darkness at any moment. “Hmph. Is that it? That was boring.”
All the bandmates started to conglomerate around Vers. “It seems you scared them off! They probably had never seen a warrior as powerful as you and fled with their tails between their legs,” chuckled one of the bandmates, a tall and burly man. He then declared, “Three cheers for the young Captain!” And cries of victory erupted from the motley crew of warriors.
The warriors returned to camp in song and delight, parading Vers through the grounds atop their shoulders. Vers, meanwhile, sat without an expression on his face, eyes closed and arms and legs crossed. The novelty of this had since long passed, and had become simply a standard ritual for him after every victory.
Shahm came up to one of the bandmates carrying Vers and asked with a toothy grin, “Hey, hey can I get up there too? I’m his bodyguard.”
“Bodyguard!” the bandmate roared in laughter. “That’s a good one! More like his lackey! You’re no warrior, boy. Actually, my clothes need to be washed. You could take care of that, make yourself useful around here, you know.”
“Yeah, you’re right. I’ll try to take care of it when I can,” Shahm said, attempting to put on the bravest face he could muster, while the bandmate and the rest carried on laughing and having a good time.
Those sort of responses stung at first but Shahm had gotten used to them for the most part. The truth was that man was right. He was not a warrior. He was raised by farmers and had never picked up a sword his entire life before joining the Order of the White Hawk a year ago. His expendability was something he had to accept.
Everyone gathered around the colossal fire in the center of the camp. Large casks of wine were brought out and some of the heavy drinkers drank straight from the barrels. Others wrapped their arms around one another and filled the grounds with their loud, wild singing.
Shahm stood silently to the side. As he observed his bandmates, he noticed a hulking figure in the back, far from the festivities. It was Captain Mort making his way briskly to his tent without a word, his axe soaked with blood. That man was the one who truly deserved to be paraded about, but no one except Shahm knew that.
He had had a longing to see the great Captain Mort in action so Shahm had shadowed him a while back. It was a raid similar to this one but there had been a hill separating the Order of the White Hawk and the enemy as opposed to a river. While everyone else had climbed the hill to meet the enemy head on, the Captain had traversed around it to find the enemy on the other side. He had single handedly obliterated their entire base and no one knew about it. But Captain Mort, as sharp as he was, knew Shahm had been following him the whole time and gave him a sound beating afterwards, making him swear that he would never follow him ever again or speak of what he witnessed to anyone. Since then, Shahm had stuck to Vers like a suckling child to his mother – as best as he could, at least.
When Vers’s party arrived, he scowled, “Put me down already, you buffoons,” trying his hardest to act as though he did not enjoy all the attention and glory. He noticed Shahm standing alone to the side and decided to join him.
“What do you want?” Shahm said.
Vers was silent for a moment, and then started, “I watched you against the bandits. If it weren’t for that one who interfered, I think you would have defeated the other one.”
“You don’t have to make feel better,” Shahm said.
“I wasn’t. You’re still the worst warrior I’ve ever seen.”
“Oi!” Shahm objected with a clenched fist.
“You barely know how to protect someone and aren’t even with me half the time.”
“Well, that’s cause you go running off all the time!”
“And you…”
“I get it already, you asshole!”
Shahm looked past Vers. “Hey look, your grandpa finally came out.” Shahm was referring to the elderly man who had just walked out of his tent, the Lord Baron, Ogus Stanza, who was wearing nothing more than a white undershirt and cloth tied around his waist. Chances were he was bare naked underneath and needed something to cover up. To Shahm, he was nothing more than a decrepit geezer missing his two front teeth with a single tuft of hair protruding from an otherwise bald head.
“What’s all this racket going on here?”
One of the bandmates responded, “Old man, we just fended off a raid and we’re celebrating. What were you doing this whole time?”
“Oh you know, I’m a heavy sleeper,” Ogus said to the mass of disbelieving faces. “And my hearing’s not as good as it used to be.” Suddenly, a girl came scampering out of his tent.
“Oggie, are you coming? We were having so much fun,” she teased as she tugged on his arm.
All the bandmates started snickering as the old man frantically tried to shove the girl back into the tent, from which giggling could be heard.
“No, no. Shh! Shh! Yes, yes I’m coming. Just stay here, don’t come out. Yes, yes you are my cutie patootie, too.”
Shahm and Vers watched the whole incident with such stricken expressions.
“Your old man is such a pervert,” Shahm commented.
“Yeah, I know,” Vers acquiesced.
The elderly man walked back to his bandmates with a casual air and gave an awkward chuckle. “She was pretty hot though wasn’t she?” Ogus gave a toothy grin and the festivities picked up with the same vigor once again, except this time the Baron was joining in on the fun. Various bandmates could be heard teasing Ogus: “Come on old man, learn to share with us a little bit?" "Aren’t you a bit old for this kind of stuff?”
“Does the old man even do anything? He just hides in his tent during raids and then comes out once it’s done,” Shahm said.
“What do you know about my grandfather?" Vers replied. "This faction has survived this long all because of him. If it weren’t for his ability to properly allocate our resources, come up with ways to organize our equipment and facilities, and strategize when and where we should move and how we should fight, we would have been destroyed long ago. There are factions much stronger and much more renowned than ours that weren’t able to survive in this area because they had leaders with bricks for brains. But that’s not all. Just look.”
Shahm watched the elderly Baron joking and laughing with all of his bandmates.
“My grandfather knows each one of these guys personally. That’s why they’re all comfortable enough to joke with him and call him ‘old man’. Most Barons would decapitate you on the spot if you addressed them that way, and a lot of them have problems with treachery and mutinies. You’ll never see that with our guys; they'd give up their lives for him.”
Vers paused for a moment before saying, “He’s the greatest man I know. I strive to become like him.”
Shahm soaked it all in, realizing almost everything Vers said to be true. But he pretended not to acknowledge it. “Yeah, yeah he’s still a pervy old man though,” he pouted, looking away.
Vers simply sighed at Shahm’s obstinacy. “Anyways, I’m going to sleep. Get up early if you want me to help you improve your swordsmanship,” he said softly before turning to walk back to his tent.
“Like I’d ever ask you to train me!” Shahm yelled after Vers. He was alone once again and observed the festivities in silence. He wanted to grow stronger as a warrior but he could never bring himself to submit to his closest rival. He would find his own way to prove his worth as a warrior – whenever and whatever that may be.
He retired to his tent, hoping to finally get a good night’s rest.
Topic: Forged In The Flames (Read 3468 times)
