PROLOGUE
Deep in the Drakslang Mountains sat a quiet temple fallen into disuse. Once, long ago it had been dedicated to the dragons, but now the cold had taken home. It had a small graveyard of gray, frostbitten tombstones grinning like jagged teeth over the heights. In the graveyard stood a ring of black figures, obscured by dark robes that whipped in the cold wind. One of them spoke.
"My brothers in arms, thank you for coming," he lifted his arms in greeting to the others and they returned a strange salute. "We are now very close to accomplishing our task. Our contact has sent letter that we must move."
"Did he find it?" One of the figures asked, his voice quick and searching.
The speaker gave a pause, and the cold mountain air was nothing compared to the frigidity and tense pause that held over the crowd of robed figures. And then the speaker, slowly at first, said.
"He has been found." And like a rush all the figures exhaled at once and grinned and looked to each other from underneath their hoods.
"The Redeemer has been found!" The speaker rejoiced again, and they all cried out in cheers.
"Very soon, he will be revealed," the speaker continued. "But our contact has told us where this will occur.
"We are to move for the village of Hollyheln, and it is imperative that we arrive before the pureheart festival. Our contact has granted us leave to travel through his lands. Go quickly, collect your men and make for Hollyheln with all urgency!
"And men, lest you forget your duties, remember; if we do not kill the Redeemer before the pureheart festival, then all we have fought for may be in vain. Our lords will not tolerate failure. Now go!"
The men disappeared in the snow like a wisp of smoke, and as they mounted their horses and sprinted away down the mountain paths, their raucous laughing could be heard echoing off the mountain heights.
CHAPTER 1
William Kingsfeld stalked along the edge of the greenbelt, the wood line giving him cover as he moved carefully through the brush. His targets were growing closer, moving lazily down the path. Foolish bandits, he thought, don't you know it's dangerous traveling so brazenly in the heat of the day?
As the troop made their way around a bend in the road, the knight stepped forward out of the brush and drew his sword. The bandits stopped and watched him nervously.
"Withdraw from these lands or be brought to the lord's justice!" William called to them.
The bandit leader stepped forward. He was large, with hair stretching down to his back braided with bone and gold coins. He spit into the dusty ground and drew a large studded club.
"You think we're scared of some kid like you?" He laughed, and the criminals behind him laughed as their confidence grew.
"Come on, boys, let's teach this knight a lesson!" And the bandit leader rushed at William swinging his club like a tree trunk.
William ducked expertly, and with his sword drew a cut across the leader's thigh, he stumbled back and slipped into the dirt as another bandit replaced him, swinging his cutlass wildly. William leaned away from the slashing blow and stabbed his sword forward, impaling the man through his chest and crumpling him.
The bandits came one by one, and in each duel William became victor. His sword was accurate, his cuts were clean and any dangerous blow glanced off his armor like a rock against tree bark. Soon the bandits realized the tide was turning, and those still standing began to flee.
The bandit leader, recovering from his cut, stumbled forward.
"You think you're clever?" He spat at William. William only readied his sword.
"Are you even paying attention?" The bandit leader asked.
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"Of course?" William asked, taken aback by the question. And as he watched, the bandit leader was no longer holding a large studded club, but rather a thickset measuring ruler that he tapped in his hand.
"William!"
The bandit leader slapped the ruler across the back of William's head.
"Ow! What? I'm working!" William said and rubbed the back of his head.
"You're daydreaming again!" He looked up and saw the familiar face of Brother Barry, his mentor. The older man's face was wrinkled and lined with many years, and his voice a wise raspy breath, but he was still strong as an oak branch and wasn't afraid of corporal punishment.
"I promise I wasn't!" William protested. "I was just thinking!"
"Thinking of what?" Brother Barry asked. "Thinking about more sword fighting? More playing sticks with that Porter boy? Honestly, boy, you don't know how well you have it here."
"Yeah, yeah." William muttered, and went back to his page, the back of his head glowing with dull pain and his face red and warm. He dipped his quill back into the inkwell and continued tracing lettering into the book from the copy by his side. He wasn't yet trusted to ink artwork into any of the books he copied, so he was left with the most monotonous task; lettering.
William was orphaned as a child, and had worked as a scribe in the chapel of Adir since he was eight years old, and after a decade in the studies he was still left with the same monotonous work. How was that fair? He had spent more time working in the study than most of the other scribes and yet he still had the same boring work he's always had! When William would bring this to Brother Barry, the Brother would always say the same thing.
"You lack initiative, William! If you would only try I would give you more to do. But you prefer staring out the window and drooling on the page to any actual work! If I had my way I would stick you in a broom closet so you'd stop staring outside and daydreaming!"
When William finished his work, he left the stuffy study and made way to the mess hall for lunch. He wasn't a large young man, rather lanky and short for his age. But it never stopped him from picking fights with anyone who would challenge him. Brother Barry once compared him to a yipping terrier. "You go and yip outside!" He would say when William talked back.
William skulked to the mess hall, he took a bowl and got in line. Brother Andrews poured a mess of stew into his bowl, handed him a wooden spoon, and said.
"More trouble in the study, Kingsfeld?"
"More of the same." William grumbled.
"Ah, don't look so glum. Things will cheer up." Brother Andrews said.
"When?" William asked, not an expecting a response.
"Only Adir knows." Brother Andrews said with a wink and a laugh. "Now go put some food in your belly!" and shooed him off.
William didn't want to sit in the chapel any longer than he had to. He took his bowl and went out of a side door, past the quiet cemetery and into the wide green fields of Hollyheln that bordered the chapel. The wildflowers were in bloom with swathes of sky blue, lavender purple and royal red. The bumblebees lazily traveled to and fro, the sky showed light, bright clouds to give complement to the air and in the midst of the field was a lone, single tree.
William walked along the worn path through the field, past the waist-high grass holding his bowl carefully and kicking any rocks on the path out of his way. He just wanted some peace, some quiet, some time to think! Or daydream, maybe.
He came to the lone tree and saw that he was not alone.
Luke Porter sat against the trunk. He was a larger young man with thick arms and legs, but his time in the brewery gave him a large gut. He had let his beard grow longer, though the patchiness of youth was still present. Luke looked up at the approaching William.
"Got lunch?" He asked.
"Yeah." William said.
"Anything for me?"
"You always want something more to eat." William said.
"If you stopped bringing things that tasted so good I wouldn't want to eat them." Luke said with a chuckle, and William stood where he was in the shade of the tree, eating his soup and not saying anything else.
"Well?" Luke asked.
"Well what?" William asked back.
"Are you ready?"
William looked confused. "What am I supposed to be ready for?"
Luke reached behind him and brought out two long branches. "To spar?"
William looked to the branches, and a grin grew across his face. He dropped his soup in the dirt and rushed over to take up his sword.