Darius Chapter 2

The horde drew equal with the guardhouse, and a signal from a wiry man atop a monstrous chestnut horse brought the party to a halt. Immediately, groups of soldiers crowded around the carriages, clearing their path of jagged bricks so that the vehicles could get up to speed again without being hindered by the haggard state of the Road.

“So you’re a prince, but you also spend your time gallivanting around the countryside rescuing distressed damsels like myself? Is this lot your security detail?” Darius was bewildered by the size of the forces that Marth apparently commanded. In Karringlock, he had heard of the lords and armies of the world, but knowing the specifics was not part of his rustic education. As his mentor had said, ‘If it don’t change the way I mold metal, it don’t matter.’ This was usually accompanied by a lot of coughing and spitting, or swearing in a language that Darius felt was made-up.

“Hit the nail on the head Darius. This group, led by myself and my loyal advisor Lord Grenfell -” Marth gestured toward the wiry man leading the charge, “- are headed to Erinstone for my marriage to the sweet Lady Silfor. She’s the Crown Princess, you know.”

Darius did know. It was Lady Silfor’s seal which adorned the letter requesting his smithing services in Erinstone. One of the few pieces of gossip that managed to weave its way to Karringlock was that the Crown Princess was to be married to a young nobleman going by Heldrus Avongold. Darius mentioned this to Marth as Lord Grenfell approached.

“Ah! Good old Heldy, I’ve been assured that there are no hard feelings between us. Besides, this is what they call a ‘political marriage’. I’m sure Lady Silfor is a lovely young woman, but there are no doubts that the main purpose of our matrimony is to stop this silly war from breaking out.” The young man frowned at Darius as though he should’ve known already.

“Marth, I was contracted by the Erinstone Armory to produce weapons and armor for their war effort. Are you telling me I’m out of a job?” At that moment, Lord Grenfell interrupted. His fine grey cloak hung close to the fire, and Darius was sure he was about to see the man go up in flames. Luckily, he swished his cloak around to the side and the fire was denied the pleasure.

“My Prince, Erinstone is just three leagues from here. We can make it in time for breakfast if we continue through the night. We already lost a day at the Rjallastown Fjord, and you wouldn’t want to insult your betrothed by being late to your wedding.”

Marth seemed unhappy that his army had caught up with him. He shuffled his feet and pretended to warm his hands by the fire before he replied.

“Very well, find room for Darius in my carriage, rest and water the horses for a moment, then we will go.” He bent down to pick up Darius’s pack, slipped it over his shoulders, then moved towards the horde, pushing past Lord Grenfell. Darius followed and entered the carriage. It smelt of wood polish and honey, a combination he was not expecting. Lavish red cushions decorated two bench seats on either wing and a map was spread out on a low table at the rear of the carriage. The bottom of the map spilled over the edge of the table, and various inscriptions were scrawled in charcoal around the kingdoms and fiefdoms, indicating key information.

“Welcome!” Marth spun around, pretending to marvel at his carriage. “Welcome to my portable prison! Please enjoy the strawberry puffs.”

Marth opened a small door at the rear of the carriage, above the map table, and gestured to a significant larder filled with more kinds of food than Darius had seen in his life.

His stomach growled, and he went to work.

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Heldrus sat at a large stone-topped desk in the rear of his quarters. The stubs of three candles burned close to the stacks of documents surrounding him, melted wax beginning to connect with the papyrus at the bottom. This didn’t bother him; his only concern was the contents of the letter he was currently writing. When he finished, he folded the letter, applied a blank vermillion seal, and tossed it onto the floor. He stood and approached the letter where it fell, then kicked it around the room, letting it gather the light brown dust and the clods of clay from his boot. When satisfied, Heldrus picked up the letter, hid it in the inner pocket of his dark cloak, and approached the door to his quarters.

With his ear to the door, Heldrus listened to the corridor outside, waiting until the subtle noises of footsteps cleared. He pushed the door open, pulled up his cloak and hurried out. Immediately, a cold breeze passed through him, piercing the thick fur of his cloak. The thin moon was barely noticeable and projected almost no light over the castle, a piece of good luck given his covert operation. Glancing both ways before exiting, Heldrus ran up a flight of shaky wooden stairs and traversed the bluestone bricks of the battlements like a rat scurrying through the castle kitchens. Reaching the eastern walls, he glanced over the edge, looking for the roof of the forges below. The forges connected onto the outside of the eastern battlements, a design flaw that Heldrus himself had raised at a meeting a matter of weeks ago. He had asked what the point of the towering bluestone walls was, if the things worth protecting were outside its bounds. One of the Lords had replied that the presence of the lowly forge peasants inside the castle grounds was unthinkable. Long ago, when Heldrus was initially invited to these meetings, he quickly saw the Lords for what they were – a group of scared old men too stuck in their ways to look to the future – a trait Heldrus did not admire.

He vaulted the battlement and now outside the walls, clung to various sections of the stone just wide enough to fit a finger into, or place a toe on. He inched his way down like a cat on a ladder, only stepping down or finding a handhold when he was secure. He stepped down, meters from the forge roof, when the cowl of his cloak caught on a misplaced stone. The slight jolt threw off his balance and with a last, hopeful grab at the rough rock, he slipped and fell, crashing onto the fragile clay tiles of the forge roof. Abandoning all attempts at silence, he slid off the roof, bringing down a cascade of tiles and rubble with him. He heard the forge peasants rise from their hay beds and counted himself lucky that Darius, the newly contracted blacksmith, hadn’t arrived yet from Karringlock. By his reputation, he would still have been awake, tidying the smithy for the next day. In the rush, Heldrus made eye contact with a bleary-eyed boy before pulling his cowl back over his head and hurrying to the fringes of the nearby kalforest. He could only pray that the boy hadn’t recognized him.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Once he had hobbled into the relative darkness, Heldrus collapsed onto the exposed roots of a kalfur tree, nursing his injured leg. It was beginning to swell and bruise, and he thought it might be fractured. The cool moss gave him a moment of respite, however he had to keep moving. Hoisting himself up, Heldrus forged a path through the dense shrubs and slick roots of the forest. Loops of vines grabbed at his arms and head as he limped past, and at one point he tripped on a loosened vine, pulling down the rest from the trees above him until it fell in coils on the forest floor, releasing all manner of insects and the smell of spores and sap and rot that had accumulated for months. Eventually the trees took on a darker tone, the bark becoming thick and jagged unlike the smooth papery bark of the kalfur tree he had rested upon. As a boy, he had been told that this part of the forest had birthed the very first Trenks, and that all manner of other creatures roamed the branches high above him. Now that he was older, he knew that this part of the forest was used for far more sinister deeds than the fabled summoning of monsters. The oppressive darkness and the ever-present fog made the kalforest an ideal place for confidential meetings, the sort of which often resulted in the sharp downfall of some noble or public figure.

Heldrus walked on into the grey-green, realizing his own hypocrisy in that he too had a sinister deed in mind, albeit one he knew was necessary for the good of Erinstone. One that, if executed well, could give him everything he ever wanted.

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Darius and Marth bumped along in the carriage as dawn approached. Lord Grenfell had joined them, leaving his horse to rest after carrying the advisor for most of the previous night and day. A peculiar man, Grenfell kept an eye on Darius, and ate like a mouse, nibbling at a piece of cured meat one morsel at a time, always rotating it in his hand and biting the outermost part. He talked a lot between morsels, reminding Marth of which ceremonial costumes to wear at each appointed hour, how deeply he should bow to King Stalford, and several other important pieces of etiquette.

In response, Marth made a variety of gestures with his hands and face, and at one point interjected.

“Do you think it a better idea if you just marry her for me, Lord Grenfell? It would save both of us a lot of time and effort, you know.”

To this, the advisor just sighed and selected another piece of salami to torture. He had underestimated their distance to Erinstone, though how anyone could accurately keep track of the leagues and leagues of monotonous grey road, Darius didn’t know. He didn’t blame the advisor for his mistake, knowing that he himself had never even attempted to keep track of his journey, merely walking as far as he felt like walking each day. Now seeing Erinstone in the distance, the new estimate was that the convoy would arrive sometime around midday, what Marth called ‘fashionably late’.

“Hey Darius, are you perhaps leaving a lucky lady back home? Or going to try your luck in Erinstone?”

“Ha! We aren’t all gifted with features like yours, Marth, or the bloodline of kings and queens before us. I can’t say it’s been much on my mind lately.”

“Nonsense! You could lift a horse with those arms, and you’re not bad to be around. Or perhaps you’re just playing at friends and you’re here to kill me and take my spot?” Marth laughed a little, but Lord Grenfell looked wary, as though the joke was a possibility he had seriously overlooked.

“Aye, I’d be quite at home signing documents and writing speeches all day, sounds like great fun.” He continued the joke, but really, he could think of nothing worse. Smithing had been in his blood as long as royalty had been in Marth’s, and he would never give it up. The clarity of the dry heat of the forge after being outside in the brisk morning air was a feeling that couldn’t be replaced. The connection he had with each piece of armor or weapon that he created was to him a sort of magic, unseen but just as powerful and pure as anything that they had written about in ancient history. It was said that the first magic was wielded against the underkind thousands of years ago in Rath’s Battle, where glowing weaponry and enchanted machinery cut down the rampaging Horde. In current times, it was all considered myth, given that no true evidence of underkind, magic or Rath’s machinery had survived. The only artefact that contested as evidence was the Temple of Darius in Erinstone, which supposedly contained ancient glyphs that, if deciphered, would lead one to a repository of Rath’s machinery. The temple had Darius’s namesake, even though his mother and father had never visited the temple, only heard of it from their mothers and fathers who in turn knew the story from a cascading line of ancestors.

A rider pulled from the pack ahead of Marth’s carriage and slowed until his horse cantered in step with those pulling the carriage.

“Sir, Erinstone has been sighted, we should arrive within the hour.” The rider kept pace and waited for a reply. Lord Grenfell leaned out, salami still in hand, and replied.

“Thank you Messr, spread word to stop in a few kilometers to brush down the horses and change into ceremonial uniform.”

“Aye, Milord.” Messr carried on, taking word to the front rider, and then relaying the message at intervals of twenty soldiers, encouraging them to spread the order.

When they stopped, the kingdom of Erinstone was beginning to take on a grandiose position on the horizon. Though not adorned with colorful banners and soaring towers like Barringvale, the sheer expanse of the walls, villages and fields outside the castle gave a powerful impression.

Marth and Darius left the carriage and walked among the soldiers while they performed their duties. The soldiers did not stand to attention or seem perturbed by Marth’s presence when he walked by – laughing with him and chatting the way they would to any of their comrades. When they reached the head of the pack, Marth turned to Darius.

“Well Darius, you’ve come this far with us, how about you enter the city with me as my security?”

Darius laughed, remembering the beating he had taken from the Trenks that Marth had rescued him from.

“Aye, you’ve earned yourself a fearsome warrior in me, it would be a pleasure.”

The pair turned and began to walk back to the carriage when the first arrow struck.