It was dark. Only slithers of dawn light came in through the window. Karlston was awake, but he didn’t get up. To his left was a woman who worked at the tavern below. They both lay on the double bed naked. He was content to lay there for a while longer while staring at her face.
She was rather pretty, for a bar maid, and also had a desirable body. It had taken a lot of effort on Karlston’s part in his attempts to seduce her before she finally accepted. But it had definitely been worth it. Out of all the women Karlston had enjoyed for company, Celise had been the most enthusiastic in their ‘playing’.
He would have woken her up to have another go if he did not know she was a dedicated worker, she would leave immediately to help out the Innkeeper. Karlston couldn’t see the point in being commited like that. Why work harder for what you could have earned with less effort?
His motto was to gain as much as possible with as little effort as possible. Celise had been a big catch, however he was thinking of ending it soon. She would start asking him to take responsibility and would try to monopolize his attention. He didn’t want to have to deal with that.
He left the bed quietly, trying not to disturb her. He got on his tunic and breeches, belted up and left out the door. He quietly stepped downstairs and went past the innkeeper. All Karlston got from that man in farewell was a cold, hard, stare. The innkeeper was well aware of Karlston’s habits and although he did not involve himself, he made it clear that he didn’t think favorably of the lad. Karlston actually liked the man better because of that, at least he was honest.
Karlston went to a nearby merchant store. He was going to get a flask of spirits from the man when he found that he barely had a few coppers in his pouch, he looked at the man and reached for the flask.
“You can put that on my tab as usual can you not? I’ll pay you back later”
The merchant showed a disgusted look and snatched the flask away.
“You won’t be getting anything out of me until you show me some coin. I’ve found that your ‘tab’ is not even paid out of your own coinage.”
Karlston scowled and retracted his hand.
“My brother put you up to this, didn’t he?”
The merchant snorted.
“I would have done so anyway! If I involve myself with poor business like you, then I’ll ruin my reputation!”
Karlston laughed and turned to walk away.
“A reputation to whom anyway? The only customers you get here are the old hags, and they only buy your cheapest potions. In fact, I’m the only good business you have!”
He left the merchant sputtering curses out the door. He continued through the cobbled street when he noticed a man in the centre of the town’s pavilion. The person in question was wearing battered steel armour. Not a soldier, but neither was he a mercenary.
“Join the hunt! Protect your homeland. Protect your loved ones from fiery menace of the Dragons!
“The hunt starts in a fortnight! To join you must sign up at the Slayers pavilion outside of town!”
The follower continued to preach the cause as Karlston walked by. Karlston spat in the man’s general direction and continued onwards. ‘There’s no way I’d join a lost cause like that! Let them die for their hunt if they’re so willing!’ He started out of the town and towards a worn down road.
Making sure not to trip, Karlston continued for a while until he reached his home. It was a large mansion, but only a third of it was habitable. The rest had been worn down as time went by and with no-one to maintain it, had deteriorated to the ruin it was now.
Karlston thought of the days when his parents had still been alive. At that time his family had ruled the lands that had been granted to them via the royal family of the Breich dominion. Now most of that land had been given away to money lenders that Karlston borrowed from regularly.
Being the head of the family meant that Karlston had a responsibility that he couldn’t be bothered with. He then reached the door to the mansion which he pounded on angrily. A few minutes later, the door was opened by a middle aged man who bowed slightly as Karlston entered.
“Master Karlston. Young master Malen is waiting for you in his study.”
Karlston grimaced and continued through.
“Thank you Alber. But I know where Malen will be. That’s where he always is.”
Alber had been their family’s steward ever since they were born. Since their family’s decline after his greatfather’s death, he was the only person left who continued to serve them loyally. Karlston didn’t know whether that loyalty was towards their greatfather or to his brother. He went through the corridor and had to step carefully in order to avoid the holes in the rotten floor. He went through another door and entered a room, filled to the brim with books.
Anybody would have thought that this was the library, but that room had already deteriorated too much and had caved in on itself. Malen had managed to store all the books into massive piles in his study before the library had collapsed. Now he spent every waking day reading through them.
Karlston always thought that Malen should have become the family head, however only the eldest brother could inherit the land. Karlston found him at his desk. He seemed to be writing something. Malen seemed too focused on his work to notice Karlston, so he walked up behind him.
“Why have you stopped all the stores from selling to me Malen?”
Malen’s reaction was amusing to say the least. He almost jumped out of his seat and knocked over the ink he had been using. He then turned towards Karlston irritably.
“The money is not yours to spend, brother. You have been borrowing too much and have not been returning enough. It is about time you stopped!”
Karlston had heard this all before, but there was a new edge of desperation to his brother’s voice which made him think twice about his answer. Karlston tightened his fist.
“Have they started bothering you Malen?”
Malen frowned, hesitating for a second. He shook his head and took out a letter from one of his piles. It was surprising that he even knew where everything was. He read out the letter’s contents, slowly and carefully.
“To Malen Fireheart of the Fireheart family, as you are aware, your elder brother Karlston Fireheart has borrowed large amounts of coin from us over these past seasons.
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“However, recently he has not been compensating for the loss and has still continued to take more coinage. If this continues, we will be forced to evict you and your elder brother from the Fireheart mansion and claim it in compensation. You have fourteen days until this eviction comes into order. If you refuse, we shall take this claim to the royal court and get our payment through them. From the merchants society of Breich.”
After he finished reading from the letter, Malen looked to Karlston with tears in his eyes.
“This is not about land anymore brother. They are going to take our home from us as well, they are going to-”
He stopped, coughing violently, a grating sound like a stones grinding together. Alber appeared from nowhere and helped Malen into his seat, while offering him a vial of some sorts. Karlston noticed that Malen looked much paler compared to normal and he had yellow patches under his eyes. Signs he’d seen before. Once his brother’s coughing had subsided, Karlston exited the study and waited until Alber left as well before confronting him.
“How long has this been going on for? Why didn’t you tell me?”
Alber looked back at him with that unusual calmness he had.
“Young Master Malen has had the coughing fits for several nights now. The reason I did not inform you is because the young master ordered me not to.”
Karlston digested this information as another worry took form.
“Is it the Yellow fever?”
Alber’s nod was all it took to set Karlston off. The yellow fever was an illness that occurred in dust filled and mould covered environments. It started with a terrible cough. A few weeks afterwards, the inflicted person would end up with a high fever which would stay for a few days until they died. ‘First our greatfather dies of the yellow fever and now little Malen? How can this world be so cruel? No. I will not let this happen again!’
Karlston knew that it was treatable. However, the problem was that medicine is extremely expensive. To afford it you would need ten gold crowns, which is enough to buy a decent house. Karlston searched his thoughts for any ways he could earn this amount. He could not borrow any more gold from the merchant’s society.
He had sold everything else in the house that could be worth something. The only choice he could think of was to sell the house. ‘But the merchants would put their claim forward if I tried to do that… Is there anything else I can do? Malen will die otherwise.’
He was about to give in to panic, however a phrase entered his mind, something his greatfather had always told him. ‘When all else in life fails, join a hunt. The very least you can do is die trying’ Karlston was desperate, and something had ignited a fire in him the moment he had seen Malen coughing. ‘The reward for dragon slaying is the corpse of the dragon you’ve slain and an additional one hundred gold crowns.’
‘The amount of gold is something in itself… but a dragon is much more valuable. If you go to the right person then you can sell one scale for five gold crowns! That means depending on the amount I could earn enough to buy the medicine and pay off my debts in one go! But slaying a dragon is not something to be taken likely...’ He pondered over this. It felt as if he had only started properly thinking at this moment.
‘If I remember my greatfather’s words, they were “A dragon isn’t just a beast. It is a magical being, born to destroy. To slay a dragon means to face death and survive.” I need to prepare… What do I have that could help me? Thinking of my greatfather, there is that...’ Karlston looked at Alber, determination steeling his expression.
“Where is the family heirloom?”
It took a few moments for the steward to understand what Karlston meant by heirloom. When he did, he showed a look of worry. A first in Karlston’s lifetime.
“Are you really thinking of selling ‘that’ master Karlston? The young master would become hysterical if you did.”
Karlston realized Alber’s meaning and laughed.
“I wish that was the case! No… what I’m thinking of is putting it to use.”
The steward frowned this time, causing Karlston to laugh harder. He had seen more displays of emotion from the steward in these few minutes than he had seen in his entire lifetime. Since Alber was showing an even more displeased expression, Karlston tried to hold back his laughter and explain.
“I’m going hunting Alber, Dragon hunting.”
The look on the steward’s face then was priceless.
Karlston walked through the cobblestone street, this time with a different destination in mind. As he neared the pavilion he could hear the Slayer’s follower preaching again. Instead of avoiding him, Karlston walked up to him. The man eyed him warily. It seemed that the people here had not been treating him nicely.
“What do you want?”
Karlston smirked.
“Where do I sign up?”
* * *
I would like to thank everyone who had actually followed and favourited my story, and so soon as well! This is a short story I wrote out of sheer boredom, there are four more chapters that I have written for this arc. The rest is in the backburner for a possibly looooong amount of time due to sheer ‘reader syndrome’. I prefer reading to writing so I wrote this before I found this site, and now I have *Insert manic laugh here*, I will probably stick to reading. Unless you can give me some good form of motivation (Which is almost nil in my mind) I doubt you’ll see from me after chapter 7.
P.S. Don't know if any of you viewers know (Muhahaha, now I can call you 'you viewers' for once), but the formatting system is a pain in the arse. Since you have to copy paste the text in, and considering I wrote this on Microsoft Word, it takes me ten minutes just to reset the format!