Chapter One: Orphan Smuggling

Orphan Smuggling 

To you Orphan Smuggling might not have been a big deal and banishment wouldn’t be your cup of tea for their punishment. They were vigilantes and in the village of SweptCreek vigilantism is considered a horrid offense and if they hadn’t confessed they would have been stoned or hung from the back of a speeding horse drawn wagon and rammed into a street sign.

  A Young Knight named Sparks McKlean sat in the Broken Donkey Tavern in the slums of SweptCreek, he wasn’t much of a drinker so he sipped on a glass of prune juice and ate some salted crackers (Which was weird because his mother and father were both abusive alcoholics. The bartender was a portly pale-skinned man who was missing his two front teeth, he walked over to Sparks and leaned over the counter and whispered his breath reeked of lack of dental hygiene, “You got a fresh orphan for me?”

Sparks glared up at the man his eyes were bloodshot, he had ingested the smoke of a rare herb and felt amazing, “What is the word?”

The Bartender slapped two gold coins onto the counter and whispered again, “Salty Peanuts and Whale Bones.”

Sparks walked outside to his wagon which was being guarded by his man servant of two years Eldwin Goosemonkey, Sparks tossed to two coins to Eldwin and climbed in the back of the wagon; he emerged with a small pale-skinned orphan boy, with freckles and red-hair. He led the orphan into the Broken Donkey and placed him on the counter for the bartender to get a good look at him. “Ah Yes, this one will do.” He grumbled and cleared his throat.

Sparks finished his prune juice and walked out of the tavern, only to have the long sword of one of the local Creek Knights  pointed at his chest, “Why my good sir, the tip of your blade is so…” seductively he ended “jagged…”  

“You are under arrest for the crime of smuggling orphans and being a vigilante.” The knight pointing his blade at Sparks stated. Sparks looked over the knight’s shoulder to see that Eldwin was tied up along the side of their wagon. “Please come quietly.”  Sparks dove to the ground and rolled behind the knight, slashing upwards with his blade, he impaled the knight and tossed his lifeless bloody body from the tip of his blade. Sparks jumped quickly towards the knight closes to Eldwin and stabbed him in the chest, the blood slide down and dripped off the sides of Sparks’s blade. Sparks then untied Eldwin, who in turn fell to his knees, “Thank you my Lord.”  Sparks glared at Eldwin, “Shut the hell up!” he back flipped and slashed a knight who was charging at him from behind, but suddenly a swarm of knights rushed up on him and Eldwin and he was captured. 

The trial was quick the judge an elderly man sentenced the two to be hung from the back of a speeding horse drawn wagon and rammed into a street sign. Eldwin confessed and he saved them from their death, they were instead banished for life from the village.