Prince Ehreth and the Kingdom of Dreams #2

December 10, 2010 2:45 am Sir Haxington PEatKoD, Stories

Somewhere in the East, a cold wind was blowing.

Almaden was in his war-study, pouring over ancient chronicles of battle from the Rayline front. He stroked his thick black goatee and stared at the aged, faded scribblings. A candle was flickering in the window.

It blew out.

Without light, Almaden froze but immediately placed his right hand on the hilt of his magnificent golden scimitar, Gioza.

“Could be assassins,” he thought to himself calmly. It wouldn’t be the first time.

After a few second pause, he let out a deep breath. He didn’t hear or smell anything out of the ordinary. Safe.

He closed his eyes and walked briskly over the window. He found that when navigating in the dark, closing his eyes and relying on his other senses allowed him to move more freely.

As he made it to the window, he peered out. The guards were murmuring to one another.

Ha. Not paying attention. Time to teach them a lesson.

Almaden shed his heavy Tyranix leather and Devil Iron armor then proceeded to crawl underneath the tent wall quietly. A nearby guard hound sleeping outside of the tent began to growl as it’s eyes lit up, but Almaden shot a cold glance at the canine while holding up a fist. The poor beast bowed it’s head, whimpered, and backed away.

Subdued.

He finished wriggling from underneath the tent. He slowly and calmly crouched around behind the makeshift structure and and listened to what his ‘guards’ were saying.

“Look, I know it can’t be right. But I’m not going to deliver the bad news!”

Almaden thought about it for a second. He decided how he would exact punishment.

He drew Gioza silently and dashed towards the nearest guard. He jumped and performed an aerial somersault. As he descended, Almaden brought down the weapon with both arms, wrapped his legs around the guards chest and sky-tackled him.

The guard was now pinned to the ground by his King’s weight. Gioza was only a minor amount of pressure away from taking the guard’s life.

Two guards had instinctively moved into the tent to save their King, who they had no idea just attacked them. The remaining two standing outside of the tent jumped back and drew their weapons.

“Indecisiveness is the stone that blocks the river, the reason the Frost Cat starves in the desert, and the death of 1,000 men in battle! Have you forgotten The Teachings?!”

The other two guards froze. They now knew who they were dealing with.

Almaden looked at his two would-be protectors standing before him.

“Decide. You two decide whether he should live or die. Do it!”

The two looked at each other, then back at their King. Then back to one another again.

“DEEECIIIIIIDEEEE!” King Almaden screamed at the top of his lungs.

“Kill him! Kill him!” the two sentries shouted in unison.

As the words flew from their mouths, Almaden leapt backwards into the air and threw Gioza over his shoulder with a flick of his wrist. The polished weapon glinted in the torchlight and arced like a boomerang as it cleanly loped the heads off of the two standing men. Almaden caught the sword before landing and placed it on his back.

The two corpses slumped to the ground as their lifeless heads thudded in the dirt and rolled in opposite directions.

Almaden held out his hand to the guard on the ground.

“… and to never break the Sacred Bond-Trust of Mo-Chee,” said the guard.

“Correct. You have learned your lesson. As have they. Now tell the two inside what has just happened. Bring me two of the best men to replace these fools that once called themselves members of the Loyalty Guard.”

Almaden slowly walked to the edge of the hill as he looked down upon his 10,000 man army. The cries and trumpets of Elephants and other war-beasts could be heard coming from the distance below. He looked on as some of the men enjoyed the fire dancing of the Sahali women, a tribe they had conquered earlier that day.

As he gazed down across his forces, something was still gnawing at his gut. A feeling about… something. Earlier, he thought it was assassins, but no. Something had scared his men so badly that Almaden had to take one of their lives. Whatever it was had just caused the King to kill two of his best men. What was it?

His mind flashed back to the ancient battle scrolls and the flame that had flickered out.

No. Couldn’t be.

Almaden bolted inside the of the tent and into the war-study. He dug through the well organized library and picked up a scroll that was titled:

Wind and Temperature Patterns of the Sammamite Mountains, circa 34 Helios – 191 Everfrost

No change in temperature at each time event. Until now.

Something was wrong. There had a been a shift. A change. Windy. Too cold. The History confirms it.

Almaden’s hands began to shake.

The man who Almaden had just spared returned with the two other remaining members of the Loyalty Guard.

“Prepare the army. We are massing on Infinity.”

The guards were stunned. Did they just say what they thought he said?

Almaden never misspoke.

The three members of the Loyalty Guard gave the traditional two-fingers-over-chest salute in unison and immediately left the tent. They sprinted down the hill, towards the army as fast as their bodies would allow them, to inform the generals of Almaden’s orders.

Almaden knew what this meant. There could only be one answer.

He went to his private study and meditated.