Epilogues

The Northerner

The brisk autumn wind blew through the window, chilling his pale skin, and brushing his long hair to his cheeks. He raised his head to answer the question. “Yes, mother, I did bathe. What more do I need to do in order to attend the pre-ceremony, an execution?” She sighed.

He had always been her least favorite son, the middleborn. The test. The first child was always a test, but that was made up with the inheritance to the power of their father. The last born always got the attention of the mother. The middleborn is treated as a b*****d, but he/she is still cared for if they are the last there.

Robar Merner’s younger brother was killed when he was a ward at Spear-water Port. The rebellion had started to rage by then. “King” Shyrene Hayk had surrounded the castle, or his legion had, and sieged and stormed the castle. He was really a lord, but he had rebelled against the crown for embarrassing the Southern Families, and was named king. Currently his forces are raiding and burning the Western and Center regions of Kralysius, killing, raping, and plundering the farms, villages, and holdfasts. Robar’s older brother had taken their father’s throne as Lord of the Gurtrude. Patoun rules the frozen waters traveling to the Bay of Icicles.

“So my wedding is this evening, huh?” Robar questioned whether or not he was old enough for this, but it was not his decision to make. His brother had all authority here, and he hated him for it.

“Yes, and I have been assigned to prepare you for the ceremony. Don’t you do anything stupid or-” “Do I always displease you, mother? Why is that? Tell me, please.” “Because you are your father’s son, and a Merner, too.” “Are you disrespecting my lord father’s family. You can have your tongue out for that, not that I don’t want that.” She frowned, “You little twat, maybe I want you to lose your head because you are no true warrior. YOU ARE A P***Y” She ran out of the room, and one the bed-maids blushed and the others stayed quiet. “You better run you stupid b***h, my father never loved you either.”

Her footsteps faded away and the bed-maids finished up. Robar dismissed them and thought about his betrothed. He grabbed a flagon of some fine spiced wine. The white label read “Red Rush, flowing straight from the mountain of the gods.” It was true what his mother said about him, he just hated to be reminded of it. He picked up a cup and flushed down the fine red. It had a strong taste of grape and berry, but not much alcohol. It was for the best. He should not get drunk before his wedding night. Many footsteps were heard in the distance. They were followed by a knock on the door.

“Who is it?” he said wearily. “Lord Patoun Merner wants to see you, along with your lady mother. B***h, B***h, B***h. “I will arrive in a few minutes. Leave me.”  Silence followed for a few moments… then came the reply. “No” It stabbed Robar in the back, he turned around, anger flaring, and picked up his snack knife. Short, but sharp. Perfect for teaching a lesson. Robar ran for the door, opened it, and shoved the knife to the guard’s throat. The other guard barked out “M’ser… Lord Patoun said-” “I don’t give a s**t what he said, m’peasant fuckhead. I care what this cow said.” He pushed the knife slowly into the neck of one of the soldiers, blood trickling down the side of his hand. He swiftly, but strongly, slashed the knife to the left. Blood sprayed onto his companion's face and his head, halfway separated, pulled his body against the wall, with the sound of a slight waterfall.

“Go tell my brother I will be right there, and tell him to discipline soldiers who ever have that braveness.” Robar sputtered calmly. “And tell the servants to get me a bath now.” The second time a knock came on his door, he had finished bathing and dressing. He called the servant in, and she was bewildered when she saw he had dripped the blood into the bath. She cleaned it anyway. He headed to attend his brother, spitting on the corpse still laying on the fine-laced carpet.

“How dare you kill one of my men, you undisciplined prick.” That was his brother’s invitation to sit. Robar dived for the flagon, but his mother responded with backhanding his hand. “So, is this how you treat your lower officials, because it is quality for the trash of this army you have, but not for me.” ‘You want treatment?’ That was the question his eyes gave. He said “Lord Jamy, will you give him a steel massage? Like the one you gave Lord Brynden the “Strong”. Lord Jamy unsheathed his longsword, snapped, and two guards pulled Robar to the ground. Robar yelled and violently struggled on the carpet as the guards held his head and limbs down. The last thing Robar saw was Lord James lowering the flat side of the longsword toward his bare back at full strength. Robar yelped out a roar and the last thing he felt was the cold sting dig into his back. Then came all the black.

The Lumberjack

‘His days are numbered’ ‘How much more pain will he endure?’  The clang of iron and steel rung in his ears. He knew he needed to get up and fight, yet he needed to stay with his father. Laid out in front of him was the same, ignorant man who taught John how to walk, fight, bribe, trade, barter, chop, read, and even make children. That same man was laid out in front of him: sweating, panting, and puking his brains out.

He opened his eyes and wiped the sweat off his brow. ‘I’m dying son. I’m dying, and our family and friends are being raped and killed only seconds away at this moment, while I lay here like a helpless piece of cheese, crumbling and rotting over time. Now, I have become a bitter piece of cheese, John. I have done many sins, and now I somehow sustain the most difficult type of pain. I sit here doing nothing while the ones I love die.’ Now it was obviously not sweat, but tears, the same ones John had as he laid a flower over his father’s breast and when he dug the hilt of the dagger into the neck of his father. Now a soulless body lay where his father had. John kissed the forehead, and then bolted out the door to assist the others.

‘I will avenge my father, and murder these f*****g sons of w****s.’ A foe stumbled up to him, obviously drunk, and ate a fistful of John’s sword. John dis-attached everything above the jaw from the body, sending body parts and blood everywhere. Then he ran over to the deceased merchant boy. He had an arrow lodged in the back of himself, blood seeping from the wound. ‘So young’ John kicked some hay out of the way and dashed at a reviving man. He had lost a few fingers, but still looked mean and ready to fight. John hurled his body strength into the arc of his sword. All of the power he produced aimed at one spot on his foe. His blow landed on one shoulder, then the other, then the head. The splitting of the skull was a treacherous sound, but John remembered who he had killed, and smiled.

By now the house he was in before was melting away with fire, and the people outside were hungry as wolves, looking for more damage to be done. He ran at them, only to feel the briskness of an arrow pass through his quiver. ‘Slightly ironic’. He swiped to the left and went towards the archer. The man in red pulled a dull dagger, smeared with solidified grease, and dived for an undercut. John hopped backwards,’light as a feather’, and did a sideways swing towards the man’s chest. The armor avoided a cut, but the blow itself set him sailing away into the barn wall. James charged sword first at his fat belly and opened it up, revealing his dinner and guts blended together.

He turned around, hair swinging, belt dangling, pants ripped, quiver dilapidated. “Who’s next”, he yelled. A short man, possibly the commander of this party, turned around. They met eye contact, then he charged. His feet dug into the earth. The lordling fired a quick overcut, ‘Fail’, then used the impact of steel to step back and swing to the left. The blow was painful, but the lordling was unskilled, accidently using the flat side instead of the sharp side. “Didn’t your highborn dog of a father teach you how to fight?” John  grinned with pleasure as he smashed the hilt of his sword into the lordlings flat face. He yelped in pain and fell to one knee. “ Did your father teach you to bend your knee to peasants and farmers, p***y?” John sent the sharp end of his blade swinging through the neck of his knee-bending p***y. The head went flying, sprawling into the potato plants.

The people of the farm had successfully survived, most of them did however. All of the buildings had been burned down, but the plants were still good. He told them to collect all the plants they could. They departed on the morrow, leaving behind everything.

The stone path was bumpy, but beautiful. If not for sorrow, it would have been the best walk John ever had. In the distance he could see the snowy slopes curling to the peak of Heaven, the largest peak in all of the Five Dominions of Kralysius. John and his companions were on the border of the middle (Siltia) and west (The Fifteen Fingers) dominions. Lidya Frome was the most skilled in the wilderness amongst them. She recommended that they camp out in an old wolf’s den. That night they decided that they would build a small fishing village on the 1st Finger, ruled by Lord Roxton Barton. He was kind and just, but people called him Lord Boxton Farton for his foul smell and blocky body. All that mattered was that he could sustain a small amount of territory safely and quietly. He would not have been known to the farmers if Lidya had not grown up there. When Lidya finished her proposal, she connected eyes with James, and smiled. John dreamed about her that night and thought how wonderful she was. ‘Is she my future?’ John thought that question over and over and decided it true. He hopped out of his bag silently and crawled over to her. She wasn’t wearing her blanket, so when he woke her up, she did not make any rustling sounds.

“What are you doing?” She asked. “ I’m saving my princess.” She giggled when he lifted up her lean body. She smelled of dirt, but looked smoother than the top of a mushroom. John brought her out to the small runoff that ran behind the hill where the cave was. He tossed her into the water naked. He stripped off his own clothes and followed.

*Shkshksh*. John heard the sound, and shoved his hand around her mouth. “Someone is here” John whispered. *Shkhshksh* John sprinted out of the water for his and her clothes. Lidya pulled out the dagger she hid in her pants He told her to wait there, and went to go get his sword.

When he came back, Lidya was gone, but a trail a blood was leading into the water. He followed the stream for a while until he came upon a hacked up body. The hair had been ripped away and there were foot-long gashes in some parts. The head was snapped.

John puked when he realized it was Lidya. He cried himself to sleep next to the soulless body that he loved for only a short time.

When he returned to the cave, there was Yarna, the wife of the hunter, shoved against a tree with a spear through her back. Inside, there were many dead. Some were armored soldiers of King Shyrene Hayk, with their Bloody X banners painted on their shield.

Specifically, The War Swine used the Bloody X because of their belief. Throughout the Five Dominions of Kralysius, there was only one religion. All neighboring islands and continents like Lomaelia to the South through the Kralyrium Sea had other religions. Fortunately, none of them had a anchoring effect on Kralysius because King Edwerd “The Disrespector” Forfold had banished all other races. The country was strictly normal brown, tan, and yellow skinned men and women. Any children born with a disability were drowned or burned.

So, King Shyrene the Flabby is behind this. Must get revenge. Stick a sword in HIS potbelly, not that butcher boy’s pig on my dinner plate.

He scavenged a lot of the food, a few skins, two pairs of boots, and all the ale he could find. He was getting some gold off of King Shyrene’s general Ser Claudivus when he heard a few steps behind. “Ser, there is a survivor.”

“Seize him, you cow”

A few footsteps approached and cold steel pressed against his neck. “Move, and you die”

“Who are you?”

“Your escort’s escort. You are in for quite an adventure.”

Ser Skinny Dick

I told you before. Take care of those slaves of yours. If they keep f*****g up, I might need to teach them a lesson; a steel-hard lesson. Remember what I did to your predecessor. He didn’t use his brains, so he didn’t need them. How is he doing down in your rum cellar? I do hope it is cold enough for his body to preserve. I want you to dump him before I arrive. Anyway, back to the slaves. If those small-eyed squids think that they can collaborate beneath their masters, then crumple them like a leaf. I will arrive on the morrow-of-the-morrow, so have them freshly thrashed and marked for inspection. Our buyer is important and fashionable, we can’t disappoint him.

He cut his palm and placed the dagger on the end table. Blood trickled into the wax, and he sealed it. Blood red with honey was his criminal seal. ‘Sweet, but deadly’ ; his motto.

James Huntington slipped that note into the couriers hands and gave him a sack of silver drays. The town of Norfly was quiet tonight. He slipped into his large bed and pulled the feather sheets around him. ‘Someday they will find out’ someday’.

He woke the next morning with a sword to his throat. The assaulter had the Courser and Chariot flag of his family. It was his father’s Sole Guard. Everybody of high birth had one.

“Your courier was caught on the way out last night. One of the wall guards inspected him and read the letter. He reported to his lieutenant and then the lieutenant to me. I suspected that you were doing something wrong, just not slave trade. Lord Robert Huntington  was right about you, you are one bad apple.

James lept for the dagger on the table, but the sword slapped his hand. “Nah-ah”.

“I’m very upset with you. I always knew you were bad. You were born different. The fat is the marking of our family, and you do not have it. You are no son of mine.” His father said those words. James felt as if he had been shot with an arrow. ‘No son of mine’. “So, what is to become of me? If I am not your son, then I have no inheritance rights. I do not belong to any other noble family, so I am a cockroach to you. Why don’t you crush me?”

“First of all, you never had inheritance rights. I was going to give them to your sister.

Second of all, I am going to crush you, finally. You have given me the perfect timing. I sentence you to DIE.

James Huntington gulped and Robert Huntington smiled grimly and walked away.

Author's Note

Reminder: I AM NOT fully educated.