A Fool's Heritage E-Book

Adam Eriksson

• Herausgeber: Books on Demand
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Serie: A Tale of Silence and Storm
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 518

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

The storms are rising The words of House Elsworth never seemed truer. An oppressive silence has befallen the realm. Northerners are raiding the western shores while the king does nothing but bathe in the glory of his famous forebear. Four guardians are the real rulers of the kingdom, yet the great houses watch them like a hawk. And just as the mutual distrust reaches new heights, one guardian dies unexpectedly. By tradition, his successor has to be determined in trials, including a duel, witnessed by the members of all great houses. So Ser Paxton, the Guardian of the West, is leaving the capital to summon Lord Elsworth. The events taking place during his journey will change the realm forever.

Leseprobe

For my wonderful wife.

Table of Contents

PROLOGUE

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

EPILOGUE

PROLOGUE

»Iknow that you are hiding behind the guardian, Jalen!” Lucia shouted from afar in a silver voice. To his regret, she showed her gift for finding others yet again.

Rats! he cursed in silence. He would once more lose a round. I should have done it like Seth and hide behind a tree. Jalen’s friend crouched behind a beech at the edge of the Forest of Fable that stretched from here as far as the eye could reach to the southeast. Most of the numerous myths and legends growing around it told stories of unfortunate souls who had gotten lost in there. Almost always, a crueler fate overtook them thereafter.

Frightening stories were not the only things that kept Jalen away from the forest. Often enough his family had warned him of the lowlifes that made trouble in there. It was one of the reasons why he had stuck to the hiding place behind the guardian statue as if it could shield him from the dangers which seemed to lurk in the shadows of the treetops.

It was only half of the story, however. Ever since he could remember, the guardian statue had fascinated him. He dreamed of protecting the realm against its enemies as one of the five guardians. Unfortunately, he knew it was no more than a wishful dream. My grandfather is right. The day I will become one of the five guardians will be the day the fish knit the nets themselves. Neither have I hold a real sword in my hands my whole life nor can I read. How could I ever hope to become a guardian?

Once, Jalen had brought up his desire for learning the letters. His mother had told him of the Guardian of the West Ser Paxton, who was a fisherman’s son like him. Yet his grandfather had just grumbled in a despicable tone back then that teaching reading to a fisherman would be as useful as showing a mole how to build a sundial.

Jalen glanced at the statue of the fisherman standing ten feet away from him, half-hidden behind a blasted oak. A branch of the tree hung down on the statue’s left shoulder in the same manner as an angling rod. The eyes of the statue seemed to stare at Jalen.

He heard how Lucia’s hurried steps splashed on the water of some of the countless rain puddles covering the hill’s ground. They were the remains of yesterday’s eve vehement gale that had raged much stronger than any other late summer storm Jalen could remember. Even his else steadfast grandfather had displayed signs of unease when deluge of rain had lashed against the house’s roof while the wind had screamed through the walls. Before long, the old man had begun to damn the heavens in the same ferocious voice in which he usually barked at his sons. At first, the storm outside had grown even wilder, and so had the raging storm of swear words inside the house. The crying of Jalen’s little brother Semos had not made things more bearable. After what had felt like ages, the Thunder God had finally shown mercy. His work had left marks everywhere.

Jalen felt the wet weed growing rampant around the guardian statue’s socket as he sneaked a peek at Lucia, who darted past the High Priest’s statue. As ever, the man of the gods pointed his hands upwards to praise the statue of King Edward in front of him. The lauded name giver of Jalen’s home village had sharp features and supported himself on his famous two-handed sword Tigerheart, the magic blade that broke. Only the stony king stood between Lucia and Jalen.

When Jalen saw how Lucia squinted at him, he ducked down. In doing so, he pressed his left cheek against the large shield the guardian held up to ward off the enemy. As Jalen looked into the wide opened jaws to his right, he wished the guardian would shield him from detection. The jaws Jalen was looking into belonged to the sculpture of a tiger poised to jump at the guardian’s shield. On the tiger’s ridge rested the right hand of the statue of Magnus the Fool. The left one pointed at the guardian. Magnus had been the last of the old kings and, at the same time, the last of the beast masters.

Jalen’s gaze wandered back to the statue of the fisherman which gave the impression as if it was merely a silent spectator of the events. It was a sad sight for Jalen.

“Found you!” Lucia yelled all of a sudden while striking Jalen’s left shoulder, making him startle.

Jalen saw the broad grin on her face. He wanted to say something to her, yet at this very moment the sardonic laughter of Seth assailed his ears.

Jalen’s other friend ambled towards him while clapping his hands several times in amusement, which caused Jalen to crease his face.

Great! he thought.

To stop the mockery of his friends, he covered his eyes with his hands and began counting. The laughter of Lucia and Seth gradually faded away, and the same was true for the sound of their footsteps.

As Jalen reached zero, he uncovered his eyes and craned his neck. Where could they be?

He decided to first try his luck at the cliffs and ran past the statue of Magnus the Fool. As of late, Lucia had developed a preference for the many ways to hide at the cliffs, no matter how often her parents had warned her about the treacherous cliffs and the sharp rocks in the water beneath.

At first sight, Jalen could discover no one at the cliffs. He let his eyes wander over the cliffs down to the water. Fog and mist hung over the bay. It had been hanging there since dawn. Not only had the gentle land breeze during the first hours of the day not been enough to blow the mist away, but the wind direction had changed since then, and a part of the pier was befogged since. Jalen could therefore not perceive his family’s fishing boat. He felt certain, however, she still lay where his uncle and his father had put her in the morning. After all, no one would dare to sail in such weather without good cause.

On misty days like this, his grandfather’s infamous rants usually climaxed. The old man often wreaked his anger on his two sons who were fishermen as their ancestors had been before them and as Jalen would be one day. Then I will be out there, and my father will curse me as his father had cursed him, Jalen thought while gazing at the sea.

He looked at the thatched roof of his home and pictured how the old man talked himself into a rage at this moment. “I’d wish the gods would be kind and send the Northmen to take you wastrels away!” his grandfather commonly barked at his two sons whenever he flew into a fury.

The mere thought of the Northmen, evil men from across the Northern Sea, scared Jalen to death. He could not get a wink of sleep after his grandfather had told him for the first time the gruesome tales about them. At the time, he had imagined full of fear how the wind hauling at night through the crannies in the walls of his home would carry a longship full of Northmen to the village. His mother had hushed his fears thereupon. “All the stories about the Northmen are nothing more than the tales of old men. No Northman will ever dare to come here while Ser Paxton and the guardians watch over us,” had been the soothing words his mother had spoken to him at the time.

Thereafter, she had sung a berceuse in a soft voice to him.

Under the King’s Eyes, one can sleep without concern.

White tigers and Dark Princes they fought long ago.

For both of them, there will be no return.

So have no fear and let the wind blow.

Whenever his grandfather spoke in his gruff voice about the Northmen ever since then, Jalen remembered this sleeping song. Lately, the old man mentioned the Northmen more than ever. Most likely, he did so right at this moment. In case the gods were merciful on Jalen’s parents and his uncle, though, he would leave them in peace and meet at the pier with the other old fogeys Fester and Walsh. Each one of them seemed to enjoy nothing more than to stand with the others at the pier and grumble there together, no matter whether the sun burned, or the rain poured. “There ain’t no bad weather for the fish, son,” they generally grunted if the latter was true, only to curse the weather with the next sentence coming out of their mouths. The three formed the village’s circle of rant.

As it seemed, the circle was not complete because Jalen could only recognize the silhouettes of two people at the quay. He wondered who of the three aged shellbacks was absent as he marveled at the fog swanning over the ocean. He could not remember to have ever witnessed a heavier fog even though he had spent his whole life at the Misty Bay. No wonder everyone and his dog in the village seemed to swear this morning, Jalen thought.

He himself appreciated foggy weather because then his father would not dictate him to help with the fishing and allowed him to play with his friends until the fog cleared away. As far as Jalen could see it, this would still take a while.

He just wanted to turn away from the fog and continue his search for Lucia and Seth when he perceived a shadow gliding gently over the water into the village’s direction amidst the fog.

An uneasy feeling struck Jalen as he was watching how the growing shadow floated towards the fog boundary. This cannot be a returning fishing boat.

A shiver ran down his spine when a big dark ship’s bow emerged from the mist. The dark hull of a longship appeared more by the moment. Round shields were attached along her rail. Her sails were reefed, and long dark oars stuck out of her hull. The Northmen, Jalen thought and was seized with panic-stricken fear.

As he observed spellbound how the longship was gliding along the pier, his grandfather’s scary stories took ahold of his mind.

When suddenly someone tapped Jalen’s left arm, it scared him to death. He swung around and found himself face to faces with his cackling friends.

“You know, the game would be much more fun if you would search for us,” Lucia sneered.

Jalen said nothing and pointed a finger at the longship. His friends’ facial expression wavered between surprise and disbelief as they gazed at the harbor.

“Whose ship is that?” Seth asked as if he had never heard any story about the Northmen.

Jalen choked on the word as he caught sight of several figures jumping off the longship.

“They are carrying weapons!” Lucia shouted scared.

Jalen trembled like a leaf at the sight of the axes in the hands of the men. His eyes searched the pier for Fester and Walsh, yet all he spotted were the attackers flocking to the houses.

A mixture of shouts, crying, screaming, and barking broke the silence as pure horror unfolded in front of Jalen’s eyes. He had to watch how bald Angus got struck down while trying to confront the attackers with a sledgehammer. Someone near Angus ran away from the attackers, yet it did not save him. As the loudness of the uproar grew as high as the sky, more and more people rushed out of their houses, and the panic became tangible. For a moment, a gut-wrenching yelp drowned the screams.

As he witnessed the terrors haunting his home village, tears welled up in Jalen’s eyes. He trembled in every limb as he tried in vain to catch sight of his family within the chaos below him. When his home village also got more and more wreathed in mist by the freshening-up sea wind, he plumped the depths of despair.

With each passing moment, the fog became denser. Before long, Jalen could only make out faint outlines of people. The villagers’ piercing screams continued to burn in his ears, though, drowned every so often by Lucia’s sobbing. On the brink of the abyss, he fell down to his knees.

After a sheer never-ending period, the screams faded and were replaced by the coarse voices of yelling men, here and there broken by the wailing voices of women. Jalen reckoned that he had heard his mother’s voice in the turmoil and craned his neck. The fog still blocked his view, though, and meanwhile the voices of two quarrelling men drowned out all the others.

He hoped his mother and the rest of his family was still alive. Please let them be alive, Thunder God, he prayed in silence. He looked over his right shoulder at Lucia, who was weeping. Blank despair was written in her face. Jalen moved to her on shivering knees. When he pulled her close, she shed bitter tears.

As he was hugging Lucia, Jalen reached out his right hand for Seth, who was staring down at the village with a blank look on his face. When he laid his hand on Seth’s left shoulder, his friend did not react at all. At this moment, Jalen noticed the silence hanging in the air and strained his ears. He winced when the silence was broken by the deadsounding tone of drums. Desperate, he tried to find the source of the noise amid the fog. Finally, he spotted a shadow clearing more and more off the coast with each new dreadful drumbeat. Jalen understood that it was the longship of the raiders.

After a few more beats, the longship reached the fog boundary on the open sea. In time to the drums, the blades of her oars all hit the water at once and pulled the longship farther away from the coast.

The longship became smaller and smaller while each drumbeat was quieter than the last one until not a lot more than a small dot on the horizon remained of her. Even when the beats of the drums had faded away for a while, Jalen still tried frantically to perceive their sound as if it embodied his own heartbeat.

“Lucia, wait for us!” it resounded suddenly in Jalen’s ears and brought him back to the here and now.

He nervously looked out for Lucia. She already ran down the hill.

Meanwhile, Seth had also started running. “Come, Jalen!” he shouted across his shoulder.

Jalen was sliding all over the place as he dashed down the trail while the wind was blowing in his face. The way down felt like an eternity. Now that the oars and drums of the longship were off his mind, just fear of what would await him at the bottom of the hill remained. His heart was pounding like mad when he heard Lucia screaming like a banshee.

When he arrived at the outskirts of the village, he saw a corpse lying face-down in a big puddle of water and blood with a gaping wound in its back. The red hair revealed that the dead had to be Leland, the village’s tailor. As early as a few feet away from Leland lay the next dead body. It was the one of Angus.

Panic-stricken, Jalen raced on towards his home. More corpses lay along the way in the mud, among them the one of Fester. It lay alongside the carcass of Thursty, the village’s dog. Her tongue hang out of her mouth and her former light brown fur was soaked with blood. Jalen’s eyes watered while his feet carried him onwards as fast as they could.

When he finally came round the corner of his family’s house, he saw the corpses of his father and uncle lying in the mud in front of him and collapsed. Down on his knees, he reached out with his wavering right hand for the arm of his father. The skin of him still felt warm. He squeezed his father’s lifeless hand and shed bitter tears as he laid eyes on the ugly wound in his belly. His gaze wandered from there to his uncle’s corpse, first to the chest slash wound he had suffered, then to his smashed head. A waterfall of tears poured down Jalen’s cheeks and fell on the bloodsodden ground as he stared dead ahead while holding his father’s hand.

Jalen could not say how much time had passed as he lifted his gaze and beheld another body lying on the floor directly behind the entrance of his home. Even though he could not see the face, he knew it had to be his grandfather because of the familiar old fisherman’s knife the right hand of the body clutched. Jalen was scared stiff as he crawled dead slow towards the door. As he came closer, he discovered no wounds on the body but still could not see his grandfather’s face. He did not dare to breathe as he crawled the part to the door. When, at last, he got a glimpse of his grandfather’s face and fate, his arms yielded under him. An axe had split the old man’s forehead in half and was still buried in his skull. His face looked ravaged, and his gray eyes stared into nowhere. Jalen buried his face in his palms and drowned in tears.

With tear-dimmed eyes, he eventually glanced around in search of his mother and brother but could not catch sight of them in the chaos that had once been his home. He wiped away his tears with the sleeve of his shirt and began to search for them on his shaky knees. He clung to the hope that they were still alive. Maybe mamma is hiding somewhere with Semos.

He searched the whole house and its surroundings. But instead of any signs of his mother’s or brother’s whereabouts, he came upon the corpses of his neighbors behind their house.

Full of desperation, he ran to the nearby home of Lucia where he discovered his friend sitting beside the corpse of her grandmother on the floor, sobbing heart-rendingly.

When Lucia raised her head, he could see her teardimmed eyes and wet cheeks. “My parents and sisters have disappeared,” she whined with a voice as tearful as yesterday’s rain.

Jalen sank to the ground and wept with her.

“What about your family?” Lucia asked after a while.

Jalen was unsure on what to tell her. His father was dead, and so was his uncle and his grandfather. And so far, he had not been able to find his mother and brother.

Most probably, Jalen’s face revealed his helplessness to Lucia who compressed her lips and stared at him with an extreme sadness in her eyes.

After a while, she and Jalen searched the rest of the village for the missing members of their families. But aside from death and devastation, only Seth was to be found.

He cowered full of tears in front of his home, beside the corpse of his father. The eerie silence suggested that besides the three of them there were no living souls left in their home village.

1

The sword hurtled through the air, towards his head. He saw the blood on the blade. His blood. He felt the pain in his left upper arm, right where the cold steel of his opponent had cut into his skin. His shield felt too heavy to lift it, and his side swing had missed. He knew he was going to die.

Suddenly, Paxton awoke from this old dream, with his muscles twitching as if his body was still in it. Half asleep, he sat up. When he realized where he was, he heaved a sigh of relief. This dream again. Why does it haunt me whenever I return to the West?

As ever, the dream had not shown him the end of the duel. And after so many years, he felt dead certain it never would. Not that he needed or wanted to see it as he would remember the sight of his dead opponent until the day of his own death. He sincerely hoped the one time he had seen the duel’s end would also be the last one as he glanced at the ceiling of his tent.

After he had gazed in abstraction for a while, he sighed. He knew from the past that trying to return to sleep after this dream would be a hopeless undertaking. So, he decided to don light clothes and inspect the camp.

A familiar sight greeted him without his tent. The largest watchtower in the entire realm rose into the star-spangled sky. The quarters on the ground level alone offered enough space for well over a dozen soldiers. Until mid-way between its top and the ground, stone stairs twisted around its exterior to continue their way afterwards within the walls. Once, there had been a massive door at the junction, but it was long gone. What remained, however, were plenty of arrow slits and murder holes. Such exquisite, but in the light of the tower’s location unnecessary, defensive works, along with its pure size, added to the profound mystery surrounding those walls.

Many people considered the tower to be a colossal victory monument. One that King Edward had been mysteriously obsessed by. Among other things, he had decreed that the watchtower should always be manned with at least a score of soldiers. When his grandson ascended the throne in the turbulent Three Kings Year, however, he shared the view of the Guardian Order that there were far more important tasks for soldiers than mindless guarding of the past. For this reason, the tower’s walls had not been manned or maintained since Edward’s death six-and-fifty years ago and had at the most provided makeshift shelter since then.

Paxton recalled how most impressive the watchtower had looked when he had laid eyes on it from afar for the first time. As he had come closer, though, consternation had displaced admiration. So much the more, he could not understand how the tower kept braving the infamous violent autumn storms of his home region year after year. But even though he had expected it to succumb to the ravages of time and lay in ruins for some time past, it always greeted him already from far away as if it wanted to taunt him. The watchtower’s builders must have built on more than trust, Paxton thought while glancing at the tower. It felt as if his old friend invited him to take one more view from above, perhaps truly for the very last time.

He regretted his decision to answer the tower’s call when he climbed the watchtower’s helical staircase with caution. He stayed close to the outer wall the entire time although he avoided backing against it if possible. How could I be that stupid. All this struggle to get on top of this old pile is something I am not going to miss when it is gone one day. I could have climbed the thrice as high guardians’ keep in the time it takes me to climb these breakneck stairs, he thought while eyeing the walls. Even in the faint light of the torches, he could clearly see the many crannies that ran through the masonry as rivers ran through lands. Unsurprisingly, the raw western weather had added plenty of them over the last decades.

When Paxton reached the top of the staircase, he breathed a faint sigh of relief. As commanded by him on the eve, two sentries kept the watch up here.

The one standing closest to Paxton was Will, who glanced at him over his right shoulder. “Ser Paxton, a wonderful and warm morrow to you!” Will welcomed him in his characteristic chesty voice while baring his scrappy teeth.

Warm it was indeed even though the sun had not risen yet. The weather differed greatly from the other times Paxton had been forced to make camp at the old watchtower. He recalled the howling icy wind and how the sun had hidden its face for days behind dark clouds eleven winters ago, on the journey following his guardian trials.

“Glad you made it up this death trap unscathed,” Will said. “Guess who was fortunate enough to get drawn for the last watch of the night.”

“There has to be a reason everyone in the order calls you Unlucky Will,” Paxton responded drily. Will laughed lustily at Paxton’s reply. His laugh would have made most people uneasy as it perfectly suited a drunken cutthroat who had just told his comrades how his last victim had peed himself before finally finishing his evil work. Will’s laugh added nicely to the sinister appearance his scrubby black beard and dark eyes gave him. He was a good soul, however. And his looks proved to be useful at times.

Paxton enjoyed the company of the old swashbuckler with his aged stud leather armor. Will was someone he would not like to miss at his side. He stepped beside Will to get a better look at the camp. Everything seemed in order.

He watched for a while how the sentries made their rounds. His gaze wandered thereafter to the plains towards the east. The lightening sky announced the dawn. Of all times of the day, he liked this one the most.

He gave his beloved swashbuckler a pat on the back, then he walked towards Will’s comrade for the night. As he came closer, he recognized the tiredness in the face of the young man who stood with crossed arms on the far side of the platform. “I hope our unlucky companion here did not complain too much about all and sundry during the night. Elsewise, you would be the real unlucky fellow here,” Paxton jested.

Will snorted with laughter, yet his comrade for the night remained tense. The faint smile playing upon the man’s lips failed to disguise his obvious discomfort. Mayhap, he thought the Guardian of the West had only come up here to scrutinize how well the sentries performed their duty.

“Not at all, my lord. It’s always good to have a veteran at your side as you can never know what could turn up during a watch,” the young man replied while keeping his eyes on the area to the southwest.

“I’d say better to be on top of this pile of rock than underneath it when it collapses,” Will jested.

His joke caused Paxton to bite his lip. I hope her grace did not overhear this remark. Bad enough she had insisted to take up quarters inside the tower. She has proven once yet again with her stubbornness that she is indeed the daughter of her father. Not that I ever doubted it, Paxton thought while folding his hands behind his back and looking Will’s comrade for the night over. The stubbly beard of his was red and he was quite young. So, most of his winters should still lay before him, should the gods be not as cruel as they were quite often. The surcoat he wore on top of his mail bore the sigil of House Abbinter: four crossed spears below a crown with five prongs on a field of gold. “What is your name, soldier?”

“Frenton, son of Clint, my lord,” the man answered and bowed his head.

Not only did the name sound familiar to Paxton because he knew Frenton’s father, but also because a childhood friend of his went by the same name. It was a common name in the West, although more among commoners. “Have you ever been to this region here, Frenton?”

“No, my lord. The only time I have been away from the Heartlands has been one year ago for the Cursed Tourney.”

Leaving home for the first time, and then this, Paxton thought. The so-called Cursed Tourney had not haunted his mind anymore for a while. At the Cursed Tourney, the king’s younger brother had died from a festered wound he had suffered during a joust with Lord Crowning’s firstborn son. The heir of Lord Crowning had died before the prince, though as he had suffered a fatal blow during the final joust of the tourney that was held in honor of his lord father. As Lord Crowning’s younger son had drowned eight years earlier, some folk held the belief that not just the tourney of House Crowning had been cursed by the gods.

Paxton breathed out loud. “It was a tragedy. Did you see the jousts with your own eyes?” As usual, he was curious to learn about the tourney as he himself had not been there.

“I saw how the lance splintered when it hit the helmet of Lord Crowning’s son. I did not see how the prince was injured on the previous day, though, as I was just fetching Ser Kayland’s horse at the time. I squired for him back then.”

“And helped him up after his encounter with Ser Harold in the melee. I heard Ser Harold gave Ser Kayland quite a good spank,” Will remarked. “If you think Ser Harold fights good with blunt weapons, you should’ve seen him six years ago with sharp ones. Together with our good friend Ser Paxton here, he gave the cold butts of the Northmen quite the strap when they came to these shores. Can’t blame them for not coming back after such a rubdown.”

“Unfortunately, enough of them are still visiting the northern shores,” Paxton said while looking at Will. “I hope you had other topics during the night than accursed tourneys or the Northmen. Did you take the opportunity and tell Frenton a little about the history of this place here, for example?”

“The inglorious history of this old pile gets pretty obvious to anyone who looks at it,” Will spoke his mind.

Paxton rolled his eyes. “As I figured,” he sighed and gazed at Frenton. “What do you see when you look around you, Frenton?”

Frenton looked disconcerted. He eyed the surroundings. “Villages- forests- the coast- rivers- valleys-,” were his hesitant words.

“What do all these things have in common?” Paxton asked.

Frenton appeared tense as he was searching for an answer.

Paxton did not blame him for not responding instantly. “You are looking down on all of them,” he declared and released Frenton from his agony. “And you would even do so without this watchtower which stands at the highest point of the ridge,” he added as he swung his left arm around in a wide arc. “At this very place, Magnus the Fool, the last of the old kings, took his final stand.”

“He wished he would’ve,” Will tossed in.

Paxton grinned and glanced at the old swashbuckler. “As you already know the story, you need not to listen, Will. So be a treasure and keep an eye out while I tell the rest of the story to our companion.” He looked at Frenton. “How much do you know about the battle that took place here?”

“I remember that Magnus owed his byname to the battle.”

“At least, thereafter unavoidable to call him a fool,” Paxton said. He pointed a finger to the east. “From these plains, Edward was approaching with an army approximately twice as big as the one of Magnus. Edward wanted to prevent Magnus from uniting with the fresh forces of Lord Elsworth that were a just few days away at all costs as both amies would have equal numbers afterwards. On this ridge, Magnus had the by far superior position and Edward did not have the time to go around the ridge. In addition, the ground as muddy from the hard rain of the past days. So, all Magnus had to do was wait. Apparently, he did not know as good as Will here that doing nothing is more often the right course than you would think. Even though Will is stretching this principle at times.”

His words made Will chuckle.

“In any event, Magnus the Fool did us all a big favor,” Paxton continued. “He did not bide and attacked Edward’s army at the very moment it arrived at the bottom of the ridge. It was beyond question an unexpected and brave move by Magnus, yet Edward’s troops were already in battle formation, and it was simply suicidal. After salvos of arrows had rained down on the attackers, the few who had survived until then were surrounded and slaughtered. Still, it took several hours until Magnus and his last men could be defeated as they fought with desperate courage. Despite the adverse circumstances, they took half of Edward’s army with them to the grave. Most notably Sirius, the last remaining tiger, caused major losses amongst Edward’s men. He had been the largest of all white tigers and kept on fighting even after Edward had pierced him with three spears. The fourth one sent him to the ground, however.” He glanced at the sigil of House Abbinter at Frenton’s surcoat.

“But why did Magnus give up such a superior position?” Frenton asked while looking through bright green eyes at Paxton.

Paxton shrugged his shoulders. “The only ones who could answer this question are dead.” He himself could only guess what madness had driven Magnus down the high ground when Edward’s army had arrived. “A myth tells that a mighty storm blew the fogs from the Misty Bay to the battlefield before the battle and that they clouded Magnus’ mind,” he told amused, with his arms crossed. “This caused him to lose control of two of the three tigers remaining to him. The beasts escaped and ran into the Forest of Fable,” Paxton told while glancing at the Forest of Fable.

He pressed his lips together. It was a majestic sight how the trees stretched along the coast until the Misty Bay to the north. Paxton wondered if Magnus had had a similar impression when he had viewed the surroundings before his last battle. “After Magnus had seen the tigers vanish, he lost his mind and charged down the hill, with his last tiger at his side and screaming as if he himself was a wild animal. So, there you have the answer to your question.”

The befuddled expression on Frenton’s face made him grin. The myth about the two vanished tigers was one of Paxton’s favorite tales and by far not the only one about the beasts. Many commoners believed until today that the offspring of the two tigers still lived in the dense Forest of Fable, feasting on unwary wanderers.

“Apart from myths, all we can say for certain is that Magnus’ madness ended a thousand-year-old dynasty at this place right here. Although the part about the mighty storm in those days may even be true, to a certain extent. As it happens, a few fishing boats stranded at the nearby shores the days after the battle, with no one on board. According to the word spreading quickly along the coast, not the winds were responsible for the fishermen’s misfortune, though, but the escaped tigers. Apparently, they went for a swim in the ocean to hunt innocent fishermen,” Paxton said, then he threw his head back. “It is needless to say that such things also had happened now and then without the help of wild beasts. And back then, without the Northmen raiding the coasts, such things could only have been the work of storms. But even in our days, there are still those who put the blame on the white tigers whenever people go missing on the sea or in the forest.” Paxton smirked. He himself consigned such tales where they belonged: into the realm of fable.

“So, all the other tigers had been slain before the final battle?” Frenton wanted to know.

“Just Sirius had survived the devastating fighting in the Heartlands. Most of his guards had shared the fate of the other beasts, though, and it became more and more difficult to tame Sirius. I assume you have heard about the men who tamed the beasts?” Paxton asked. He ignored Will’s following snorting.

“You mean the Dark Princes?”

“One of their names. They were also known as the Tiger Guard. The history of the guardians is closely linked with theirs. As you know, Edward founded the Guardian Order three-and-sixty years ago, during the first days of his rebellion. The warriors who had the honor to be named Edward’s guardians were those who had saved him from the dreaded Dark Princes. The name derived from the color of their armor and their royal descent. Until Edward’s rebellion, they had not been beaten in battle for a thousand years, and not a few had considered them as unbeatable, mayhap including even themselves.”

“The moment you think you’re unbeatable, you’re beatable,” Will said. “No one knows this better than our Ser Paxton here.”

Will’s comment made Paxton’s mind drift off to his earlier dream, but he could recover his thoughts after a moment.

“Even if the men of the Tiger Guard considered themselves as unbeatable, you could not blame them to think so. They received the finest weapons, armor, and training gold could buy. This and a deadly white tiger at their side made them feel quite confident. Naturally, the beast’s fur did not stay white for long during battles. Most red stains came not from its own blood, though. As you can imagine, the Dark Princes were not thrown into battle like common troops. They were saved for the right time. An attack by the Dark Princes was usually the defining moment in an undecided battle. If the enemy lines had withstood all earlier attacks and were worn down, the so-called Hour of the Tiger arrived. Unsurprisingly, enemy formations fell apart quickly after the Tiger Guard had hit them. And the beasts played a crucial part herein by tearing men and horses into pieces in front of everyone’s eyes, thereupon striking fear into the enemy’s lines and disorganizing them.”

Frenton visibly seemed to enjoy the history lesson. “My father has told me about the tigers. He said they had been trained not to attack the own troops.”

Paxton took a deep breath. »In a way, this is correct. Yet only the dark princes could keep them under control. Their number were more and more decimated over time, though, and in the end, they ended in smoke, together with the tigers and the line of the old kings. Edward was certain that this had been mainly owed to the guardians and kept them at his court to protect the realm against each and any other threat, like the Northmen. And at his command, this watchtower here was built as a symbol of vigilance after the final battle.”

Frenton seemed to be impressed with the whole story. He does not need to know the whole truth, Paxton thought.

“Looks more like a symbol of decay to me,” Will murmured.

“Time gnaws on everything,” Paxton said. Unfortunately, he added in his head while glancing at the cloudless sky. He did not want to imagine how warm it would get during the day, especially as he had gotten a good taste of the prevailing period of hot weather during the earlier days. Without doubt, the midday sun would grill him mercilessly in his pitch-black plate armor. In these days, I wished the Dark Princes would have been the Bright Princes. And thanks to her grace’s wheelhouse, I will be even longer out in the open where the sun can burn down on me.

When a flapping noise reached Paxton’s ears from above, he squinted up at the guardian banner flying in the wind. The King’s Eyes should better not drop their gaze, he thought as he looked at the coat of arms of the Guardian Order. It displayed five black eyes which formed a swordlike shape pointing downwards, on a field of white. The sword-like shape referred to the legendary sword Tigerheart of Edward the Savior which splintered into five pieces during the final battle against Magnus the Fool. Each eye on the banner symbolized one of the five guardians who protected the realm and watched over its people, with one guardian coming from each region of the kingdom. The guardians’ coat of arms was commonly known as The King’s Eyes. Paxton had heard this name the first time as a child in a berceuse his mother had sung to him when he could not sleep one night.

Under the King’s Eyes, one can sleep without concern.

White tigers and Dark Princes they fought long ago.

For both of them, there will be no return.

So have no fear and let the wind blow.

At the windy west coast, the sounds of the wind could often play tricks with a child’s mind. But the soft voice of Paxton’s mother had almost always been enough to sooth his mind and sing him to sleep. In the case of this sleeping song, however, things had been different. Paxton had refused to sleep and begged his mother to tell him everything about the underlying story. And she had done so. At the time, he would not have imagined in his wildest dreams he himself would one day become one of the King’s Eyes.

He heaved a sigh and averted his gaze from the banner. At the very moment he glanced at the valley to the south, the first rays of sunshine fell on apple tree fields, crop farms, quaint lakes, and small villages. The songs of the birds filled the air as they greeted the new day with their melodies.

Paxton went in his head through the names of the places he beheld and was relieved he still remembered them all. Once, he had been able to name every single location in the realm without the help of a map as such skill was a prerequisite to succeed in the guardian trials. Paxton would never ever forget the map Lord Trottenburg had presented him during his guardian trial. Until this day, he could not say whether the High Lord of the South had wanted to trap him or make it easy for him, albeit with questionable humor.

Either way, Lord Trottenburg was in general a master in keeping one in the dark about his thoughts. The late Guardian of the South Ser Worren had often urged Paxton to be always on his watch while dealing with Lord Trottenburg. “Never treat it lightly when you have to deal with Lord Trottenburg. Do not fall for his winning manner. Remember what Magnus’ blind trust in his High Lords has won him,” the old admonisher had warned more than once. As a commoner from the South, he had to know for sure that Lord Trottenburg talked out of both sides of his mouth.

With Ser Worren’s death, Paxton was the last remaining lowborn amongst the guardians. And the custom that commoners could rise high within the order, still acted as a thorn in the flesh of the realm’s nobility.

I hope it will just be for now that I am the only guardian of low birth, he hoped. As Paxton thought of his dead guardian brother, he stared at the coastline towards the west. Ser Worren’s sudden death had been a shock to everyone in the order, despite his advanced age. It still seemed impossible to imagine the order without him. Ever since Paxton became the Guardian of the Sword, Ser Worren had been the Guardian of the Word. As such, he had been the de facto leader of the Guardian Order, although the king still outranked every other member as Guardian of the Crown. Beyond all question, many things will change without the wise and cautious Ser Worren.

The noise of hasty steps on the stairs, followed by the clanging of metal on stone, accompanied by low curses, interrupted Paxton’s thoughts.

He held the belief he knew to whom the cursing voice belonged and glanced towards the staircase. His intuition got confirmed when he spotted Deacon.

“Good morrow, Ser Paxton,” his young squire said breathlessly while rubbing his right knee. A sheath with a dirk inside dangled at his girt. “Would you like to have herring for breakfast?” he asked and looked at Paxton with his shrewd brown eyes that were so alike the ones of his father.

Deacon was the fifth and youngest son of Lord Trottenburg, with no prospect of ever becoming High Lord of the South. Perhaps for this reason, his lord father had sent him to the Guardian Order, quite likely with the bearing in mind that one day, he would rise high. Whatever Lord Trottenburg’s plans could have been, Paxton guessed the lord would not be incredibly happy that his son squired for a lowborn.

“A good morrow, Deacon. Bread with hard cheese together with ale will suffice today,” Paxton answered.

“And try not to get wet for a change, so don’t fall into no barrel,” Will commented gruffly, garnished with a snigger.

Paxton indicated to his squire that he should just condone Will’s caustic remark. It hinted at his squire’s slip on the previous morning while he had been fetching water in a river. When he had returned in his soaking wet leather armor to the camp thereafter, the laugh had been on him. Yet, if the past were any sign, such a misfortune would not happen to him again in the near future. He was a good and diligent lad and learned his lessons from such misfortunes. And now that his clothes were dry again, he only had to cope with the wits.

“Do you wish to break your fast up here, Ser Paxton?” Deacon asked unperturbed. He apparently understood by now how to take Will’s jests in the right way.

“That may act as the final blow to this old pile,” Paxton japed. “So, I better break my fast in my tent. I will be there in a moment. Be more careful on the way down than you had been on the way up. These stairs are treacherous.”

Deacon bowed his head slightly. “I will prepare everything at once, my lord,” he said. An eye-blink later, he was already on his way down the stairs. Telling from the sound of his footsteps, he walked slower this time.

Paxton looked to the west and rubbed his face. Herring, gods no. I cannot take any more after the last days.

As a child, he had loved to eat herring. Winter, spring, summer, autumn, it had not mattered. The silver of the sea had always tasted good, and the ocean had been full of it. Yet, as the route from the capital had led along the Bay of Dreams, Paxton had been eating herring for too many days in a row by now. And he had had enough of it. It brought the fact home to him that he had changed even more since his last visit to his home region. His journey back then had been in the company of the king who had been full of anticipation to the birth of his second child. Paxton remembered King Henrik’s excitement well. The ruler of the realm had wished so much for a son and heir, but his wish had only been met for the blink of an eye. It had been a tragedy.

Paxton knew that Queen Illyvia was still devastated about her stillborn child. He had seen in it her eyes every day ever since they had left the capital. It made him even more uneasy in her presence than usual. Like her father Lord Elsworth, she obviously had no great sympathy for him. Whether it was because of his low birth or for different matters, he could not say. Normally, it would not matter to him as they rarely met in person.

Not just because of such reserved attitude to one another, Paxton would have preferred to travel without Queen Illyvia and her entourage. With just his own men and without her grace’s big wheelhouse, he could have reached Drycliffs considerably faster. It would have saved him precious time to prepare for his new task as Guardian of the Eyes. Under the current circumstances, he doubted he would have time for this at all before the guardian trials. And all because the queen wanted to attend a wedding Paxton could well do without.

Despite such troubles, Paxton was glad to escape the intrigues in the overcrowded capital for a while. The years in Saltriver had left their marks on his soul. I have missed the West, he thought and paused for a moment.

With a sigh, he averted his gaze from the ocean. On his way to the stairs, he gave Will an encouraging pat on the back. “Soon, this watch will be over for the both of you. And not to worry. There are many more to come,” he said with feigned sympathy.

“Good, I was worried for moment!” Will cat-called at Paxton who carefully walked down the staircase.

The sun showed its whole face while Paxton broke his fast in front of his tent. As the camp awoke, the noises surrounding him grew with each passing moment. When Paxton looked around, he spotted a few of his own men baiting horses. Closer to the watchtower, a pair of the queen’s guards attended a cooking fire. He also spotted two handmaidens of her grace, yet neither the queen herself nor the princess. It appeared as if both were still inside the tower.

Paxton assumed the two had to be awake by now as the flawed walls of the tower presumably could not hold back the growing noise of the camp very well. Not that a pavilion would have been any better in this instance although much safer. It was an enigma why Queen Illyvia trusted the old tower’s walls that much. Yet her grace possessed a mind on her own, as always. Despite Paxton’s vehement objections on the eve, she had taken up quarters inside the ground level of the watchtower.

“Rider approaching from the north!” Will yelled from above.

His sharp voice made Paxton cringe. He would not have been surprised if the two members of the royal family would be awake by now at the latest. As a long way lay still ahead until Drycliffs, Paxton would not have minded if this would indeed be the case. The earlier they could set out, the better. He wondered who was riding towards the camp.

When a palfrey was led to him after a while, he rose. Paxton recognized the horse’s rider at once. It was Alfred, one of Ser Harold’s men, who had fought at his side against the Northmen six years ago. His big blond beard and prominent nose were unmistakable. The sigil of House Noster, a white seagull, was embroidered on his brown doublet.

“Alfred, good to see you. What brings you here?”

“Ser Paxton, so good to see you,” Alfred said and bowed his head. “I was hoping it were you when I saw the guardian banner on top of the tower. There’s been a raid by the Northmen on a fishing village at the Misty Bay.”

Paxton was shocked. The Northmen have returned? And if they attacked poor fishermen, they had not come to collect ransom. “Which village did they raid, Alfred?”

“Edward’s Hill, m’lord.”

The one with the five statues. A village as old as the new kingdom. “How many villagers have fallen prey to the Northmen?”

“Around forty have been put to the sword,” Alfred answered sorrowful. “Three children have been the only ones who’ve been spared. All others have either been slain or taken captive by the Northmen.”

In other means, the village is history like my home village. Anger rose inside Paxton. “What steps have been taken so far by Ser Harold?” he asked, although he did not even know if Ser Harold was still at his castle. He expected him and his wife to be guests at the wedding between Lord Elsworth’s son and Lord Crowning’s daughter.

“A bird flew to Drycliffs to inform Lord Elsworth about the raid. Lady Noster sent me to report the raid to Ser Harold who’d left Castle Fogbird with his lady wife a few nights ago to attend the wedding of Lord Elsworth’s son. I hope to reach him before he arrives in Drycliffs.”

Mayhap, it is for the best if you would not reach him in time. It is always hard to predict what the hot-blooded Ser Harold will do. Paxton blew out the air from his lungs. It cannot be a coincidence that the Northmen returned to the western shores just now. They must know about the wedding and jumped at the opportunity. “How many men remain at Castle Fogbird?”

Alfred put his hands on top of each other while holding the reins. “A few, m’lord. We can’t do nothing and are desperate. Ser Harold took most of his men with him when he left with his lady wife. Everyone fears that more Northmen will come to plunder more villages. Not to speak of the scavengers in Edward’s Hill. There’re all over the place as I’ve heard.”

Alfred’s words made Paxton grind his teeth. Given the circumstances, doing nothing did not appear fit for a guardian to Paxton, and therefore he wanted to ride for the Misty Bay. His presence there would be an important sign even though it was rather symbolic. And if he went, he could also try to shed light upon the raid by talking to the surviving children or looking for possible leads in their village. He had a notion which Northmen clan could be responsible for the raid, but he required proof. “Are the three surviving children from Edward’s Hill in Castle Fogbird, Alfred?”

“Them were there when I left, m’lord.”

Paxton scratched his nose. “My thanks to you, Alfred. You should ride on to Drycliffs as you have been told. Should you see Lord Elsworth, inform him it will still take some time until his daughter and granddaughter arrive at his castle.”

“I will see to it, m’lord,” Alfred replied and bowed. He wheeled his horse around.

Paxton looked over his shoulder. “Deacon, pack what we need for a one-day ride and saddle our horses!” he shouted to his squire when he spotted him ten feet away.

“At once, Ser Paxton,” Deacon responded as Paxton’s gaze wandered in search of Flint over the camp. He spotted the red mane of the best reader of tracks he had ever met straight ahead. Flint sat cross-legged on the ground around fifty feet away from the watchtower and broke his fast. As ever, he wore light leather armor.

“A nice morrow, Ser Paxton!” Flint called out as Paxton approached him. “Prefer not to sit too close to this old masonry.” He pointed the hunting knife he held in his right hand at the tower while his ice-blue eyes were fixing Paxton. “Don’t want to be slain by Will or a loose merlon.”

With his hands on his hips and his elbows extending outward, Paxton stopped in front of Flint. “That would for a certainty be a pity. First and foremost because you would not have the pleasure to visit Lord Elsworth in such case,” he teased whereupon Flint contorted his furrowed face.

Paxton knew of his favorite scout’s distaste for any High Lord since the time he had found him in the dungeons of Lord Porriac, the High Lord of the East. “Finish up your meal later and find a man to replace Unlucky Will at the top of the tower! You two and Deacon are coming with me to Castle Fogbird. The rest of our men stays with the queen. Help Deacon to saddle the horses! We will head for the Misty Bay as soon as I have talked to her grace.”

“Sounds like Unlucky Will just became unluckier after such a long night up there,” Flint japed. His remark made Paxton smile briefly as he covered the distance to the watchtower with quick steps.

The two guards who stood in front of the entrance to the tower’s ground level stepped aside and bowed to him when he reached the small recess the walls formed at the entrance.

He knocked on the rotten double door. “Your grace, may I have a word with you?”

“I hope it’s important, Ser Paxton” the queen replied after a moment. Despite her low voice, every word was clearly hearable, almost as if there was no door between them.

“It is, your grace.”

He heard Queen Illyvia sighing. “Come in then,” she said.

Paxton pulled the rusted iron handle on the left door side with caution whereupon it opened creakingly. When he entered, her grace sat in one of two sling leather chairs in the middle of the big room. She wore a velvet green gown, and her long auburn hair was braided.

She looked at him with her beautiful turquoise eyes. While placing the pointer finger of her right hand over her lips, she indicated to him with her left hand to step closer. She pointed with her eyes at the mattress to her left, on which her daughter was sleeping.

Paxton asked himself how the princess could stay asleep the entire time while he was closing the door as silent as possible. It became darker at once. Just a handful of lid candles illuminated the room and here and there a little light shone through the cracks in the walls. Paxton waited for a moment, then he made two steps towards her majesty and bowed. “I am glad the tower did not bury you beneath it, your grace,” he whispered. “Did you sleep well?”

“I have slept worse in my life, Ser Paxton,” she answered moodily. Paxton guessed from the dark rings under her eyes that she had been awake for quite some time. “Yet it was not because of distrust in these walls. As I told you yesterday, trust gets rewarded. It does not mean I enjoyed sleeping inside this old tower, however.”

“Which is why I urged you on the eve to consider sleeping in your pavilion instead of this fleabag, your grace. It would have been much more comfortable. Most of all, though, I was worried about your safety.”

“At least, someone is,” she mumbled more to herself than to Paxton.

What does she mean by that? He pretended he had not heard it and looked at her with a straight face.

“I prefer to have walls around me,” she said and glossed over her last sentence. “And all the fleas that may have lived here once did either starve to death or drowned during the autumn.”

He grinned and played along. “Certainly, my queen,” he said and folded his hands. “But it may please you that, from here on, our route will lead along castles and towns more suitable to provide fitting accommodations for a queen and a princess. Unfortunately, due to our delay on the road yesterday, we had no other location as safe as this watchtower to turn to in this stretch of land.”

“I know that very well, Ser Paxton. You don’t have to lecture me on my own home province,” she snapped.

Paxton bit his lips. The queen had become more sensitive to words over the years. And once she was upset, one was walking on thin ice thereafter. “Certainly, your grace. My apologies. Truth be told, I did not come in here to lecture you. I am afraid I must leave for an urgent matter. Do not worry about your safety, though. I will only take three of my men with me.”

The queen gave him an uncomprehending look. “What sort of urgent matter do you speak of? Does it have to do with the rider that came this way?”