‘He suggested what exactly?’ Darav asked with a sneering tone. He stood hunched over his desk. His hands were balled into fists and he used them to lean on the table top, ‘he wants to present Tyranny to a bunch of Greenhearth savages?’

  ‘He believes it will rally at least den Chlaíomh to his side.’

  ‘And he believes this to be a preferable alternative to arming Nedervar?’

  Arran nodded. In response Darav stood up straight and put two fingers to the bridge of his nose.

  ‘I need you to understand something,’ he said, ‘I don’t like that sword, I think it’s a mistake to go dig it up.’

  ‘If you’d prefer I could just tell him that?’

  ‘No, he’ll simply call me temperamental again and say my worry is unwarranted.’

  ‘Then what are you planning to do exactly?’

  ‘Go along with the plan for once,’ Darav said as he turned around and began preparing to leave, ‘at least it won’t be my fault if it goes wrong.’

  ‘I’m honestly surprised you were this easy to convince,’ said Arran as he followed Darav’s lead.

  ‘I never said you convinced me.’

  ‘Where are we headed exactly? His Royal Highness didn’t brief me on the sword’s location,’ said Arran as he climbed into the saddle. He patted Reed on the neck before he looked at his lord.

  ‘Tell me, lord Draehal, what was the last time Tyranny was used in combat, really grind your gears about that one for a minute,’ Darav rode out slightly ahead of Arran, but kept a pace that he could keep up with.

  ‘The hunt for Yraüssing?’

  ‘Correct, the last time anyone wielded that sword it was my grandfather King Alder Ebonblade when he slew the Black Flame, it also just so happens to be the last time anyone saw it publicly,’ said Darav, ‘now my brother and I have both seen it as well, it’s in Castle Hillguard, in the catacombs.’

  ‘Buried with the late king?’ Arran asked.

  ‘Something like that, you’ll see when we get there.’

  Arran hadn’t ever seen the gates and walls of castle Hillguard before, but to say he was impressed would’ve been an overstatement. The castle’s fortifications had started to deteriorate quite heavily.

  ‘Not much to look at, is it?’ asked Darav.

  ‘No, not at all.’

  ‘It’s one of the only things my brother and I agree on, he says that when he’s crowned king maintaining the royal fortress is the first thing on his list.’

  ‘I imagine there’s a lot of things on there.’

  Darav nodded, ‘and like I said, the walls are the only thing he and I agree on.’

  They passed through the gates and into the large, paved courtyard. At its centre stood a broken statue atop a dried out fountain.

  ‘Dismount,’ said Darav to Arran, who obeyed immediately. A servant stood to attention and led away their horses before hitching them.

  ‘Follow me.’

  ‘I can’t believe your family let it get this bad.’

  ‘For some reason “refusing the crown until reclamation” meant “neglect your family home” to my father, I could never get behind it,’ said Darav, ‘through here,’ he led his companion to a doorway that was slightly below ground level. A short staircase gave way to a heavy oak door. Darav pushed it open. He stepped through into the musty air of the catacombs. Arran covered his mouth for a split second as he caught the waft of corpse stench that sought to escape out into the wider world.

  ‘This place needs ventilation of some kind,’ he coughed, ‘maybe a tunnel to the surface.’

  ‘Nobody comes down here anymore.’

  ‘Where to next?’

  ‘Down those steps then just straight ahead, my grandfather is buried in the largest chamber.’

  Arran followed Darav further through the catacombs and deeper within the hill that the castle was built on. Soon they entered the large room Darav had mentioned before. It wasn’t carved or dug out of the ground unlike the surrounding tunnels, instead it was a large cavern that cut through the earth. He couldn’t see it, but Arran could hear running water in the distance.

  ‘Wow, this is incredible,’ he said as he looked around.

  ‘I’m inclined to agree, it’s right underneath the throne room,’ said Darav, ‘this chamber’s always been known as the Underthrone, especially now that the last crowned king of Anglavar rests here.’

  Arran looked at the stone casket at the centre of the room. It stood on an elevated platform, and at the base of it stood a dragon’s skull. It was slender, but with a blunt nose. From the back of the skull sprang six short horns. Its yellowed jaws were lined with rows of wide, serrated teeth.

  ‘Arguably the most unique object in the royal collection,’ Darav stepped closer to the skull and ran his hand over the top of it. He stopped once he reached the hole at its centre, ‘Yraüssing’s skull, brought here at my grandfather’s request, originally removed to avoid the possibility of necromancers getting ideas.’

  ‘I didn’t think I’d actually ever see it in person,’ said Arran as he stepped closer to it, ‘a real dragon skull, can I?’ he wanted to touch it, Darav shrugged.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  ‘I hardly doubt you running your hand over it like a carpenter does with a cabinet is going to break it.’

  Arran indulged himself and placed his hand on the bone. It still felt warm despite having been separated from the rest of its body for just over 70 years now.

  ‘We’re not here to gawk at the skull though,’ said Darav, ‘there’s one more morbidity I have to show you.’

  Arran walked past the casket and to a depression in the chamber floor. It looked like a carved set of stairs in a rectangular shape. At the base of the depression was a pool of slightly opaque red liquid. Arran couldn’t see what was under it, but he knew what was hidden within.

  ‘Is that what I think it is?’

  ‘Blood? Yes, from Yraüssing as well.’

  ‘Very extra,’ said Arran as he sat on his haunches next to the pool, he watched Darav reach for the surface, ‘you’re just going to stick your hand in?’

  ‘I don’t think there’s another way to get it out.’

  ‘Well since we’re getting very Estin-esque about this, how about some soggy woman simply hands it to us?’

  ‘Very funny, no every time I’ve seen the sword my father reached into the pool with his bare hands,’ said Darav, he then plunged his arm into the liquid. The blood went up to his elbow before he finally grabbed a hold of the sword’s hilt and pulled it from the pool. He lifted it carefully, and in one smooth motion it emerged from out of the blood. It looked completely untouched. The dark-brown leather that covered its hilt and the base of the blade looked like it had been tanned just the day before. The black steel reflected what little light there was immaculately. Two sideways-pointing spikes sprang from the blade as a second crossguard. Arran’s eyes were almost immediately drawn to the dark-red gem in the sword’s guard. It pulsed with red light at the same pace as his own heartbeat.

  ‘The warblade…’ he muttered as he looked at it.

  ‘Our grandfather wanted us to never use this, its task was fulfilled when he used it last,’ said Darav as he carefully lifted the sword and had it rest on his shoulder, ‘I hate that I have to disappoint him.’

  ‘If it means making him proud in another respect, is it worth the shame?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Darav walked past Arran and back toward the exit. He stopped and turned, ‘you know, I think it’s best if we keep what we’re doing hush-hush.’

  ‘How are you going to hide a sword nearly as tall as I am?’ asked Arran as he caught up. Darav pointed at something on the opposite side of the room.

  ‘See that hanging on the wall?’ he asked, what he was pointing at was a banner.

  ‘I do, what about it?’

  ‘Take it, that should work just fine.’

  Arran looked at it, then back at Darav. He was about to ask whether he should really just mess with the king’s burial chamber when Darav cocked his head at him.

  ‘Please, just do it, I’ll pardon you of whatever it is you think is illegal about that.’

  Arran shrugged and simply followed orders. He saw Darav had already left when he turned around, and so he caught up with the prince not long after. Together they wrapped the weapon up to hide it from the world. Once they were back on their horses and far outside the castle Arran spoke up.

  ‘When you pulled Tyranny out of the blood, I don’t think I’d ever seen anything more evil in my life.’

  ‘“Evil”? I don’t understand what you mean.’

  ‘I mean the blood, the colour of the metal, and then that stone…’ Arran’s eyes were drawn to the covered weapon. It hung securely from Darav’s saddle.

  ‘The bloodstone?’

  ‘You’re only proving my point.’

  ‘Other than the last time it was used, what do you know about Tyranny, Arran?’ Darav asked. He snapped his fingers to get Arran’s attention.

  ‘I know that it’s one of three, and that it’s one of the oldest.’

  ‘What else? I don’t want to have to explain things to you like you’re a child.’

  ‘That’s it, really.’

  ‘Right, well what you said is right, but there’s a few other things to it, take for example the bloodstone.’

  ‘The stone that makes it sound evil.’

  ‘Yes, that one, it was embedded in the crossguard because of a technique I vaguely recall being called “bloodbinding”, where if you mix your blood into your forging process, the weapon becomes a part of your family.’

  ‘My father always liked to say we were descended from the slayer of venomstrike, and that Skycleave was made for him.’

  ‘Something like that,’ said Darav, ‘the bloodstone emulates this, except it slowly drains you of your energy instead, allowing the weapon to be used easily, at the expense of your ability to fight.’

  ‘Seems like a desperate trade-off.’

  ‘Judging by the men who made it, it doesn’t surprise me that they were desperate enough to use this method.’

  ‘And now it’s come back to another desperate measure,’ said Arran, his eyes once again drawn to the weapon.

  ‘I’ve never liked Tyranny, not when my father talked about it, not when I read about it in stories,’ said Darav, once again trying to pull Arran’s attention from the sword, ‘Every hero it creates is driven to doom somehow, like it marks everyone that grasps its hilt.’

  ‘Then let’s hope that neither you nor I ever have to carry it into battle.’