The Champion's Squire E-Book

Elana A. Mugdan

• Herausgeber: Shivnath Productions
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 113

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

When the residents of Indrath Whitestone are attacked by a deadly drachvold, it falls to kitchen boy Rael to escape the beast’s watch and seek help from the soldiers of the Imperial Guard.
Enter Gavin Swiftwind – the only guardsman brave (or dumb) enough to leap at such a dangerous chance for glory. Spurred on by the promise of a beautiful Lady’s hand in marriage, Gavin accompanies Rael on an epic quest to defeat the vile monster and save the people of Whitestone.
But that’s easier said than done, for in the magical world of Allentria, there are perils at every turn…and it turns out there’s more to Rael than meets the eye. Gavin and Rael must learn to work together if they wish to emerge victorious from a journey that will never be forgotten.

Leseprobe

THE CHAMPION’S SQUIRE

Copyright © Elana A. Mugdan 2016; Artwork & Maps by atelierMUSE

The right of Elana A. Mugdan to be identified as the sole overview author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means – graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or information storage and retrieval systems – without the prior written permission of the publisher.

THE CHAMPION’S SQUIRE A Novella from the Allentria Chronicles

This book is a work of fiction.

www.allentria.com

Table Of Contents

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

CHAPTER ONE

THE DAY THE DRACHVOLD ATTACKED started out like any other. The Lady Lyselle wasn’t one for the outdoors, but her older sister Syrene had—after much badgering and use of rude words—convinced her to take a ride through the forest that nestled against the back of Indrath Whitestone’s cliffs.

As they made their way down the woodland path, the Lady Lyselle waved to the people toiling in the trees, offering words of encouragement and allowing them to gaze upon her lovely face, replete with a straight nose, creamy tan skin, and glittering hazel-green eyes.

Syrene was as obnoxious as always and challenged one of her servants to a magical duel. Of all the terrible, un-ladylike things.

The Lady Lyselle, as a proper noblewoman, refused to have anything to do with magic. She dutifully studied her needlepoint and dancing, and shied away at the prospect of using her powers. Syrene was her polar opposite: she was invested in making a spectacle of herself by constantly demonstrating her uncouth wielding abilities.

As they rode further into the forest, Syrene strayed from the path.

“Syrene, why must you put me through this?” the Lady Lyselle asked, trying to keep pace with her sister. “If you attempt to make me use my magic again, I shall scream loudly enough for the guards to hear, and they will come rescue me.”

“Oh, give it a rest. I just want to show you what I’ve been working on. Maybe I can knock some sense into you.”

The Lady Lyselle didn’t like Syrene’s choice of words; usually it wasn’t sense that was knocked into her, but rocks or mud. Syrene loved using earthmagic, but she lacked control.

Syrene jumped from her white mare and commenced with her wielding. The Lady Lyselle dismounted and sat upon a bed of emerald moss to watch the show. Syrene created flowers with her magic and unearthed a huge egg-shaped pearl. The Lady Lyselle placed it in her satchel as a keepsake.

After a while, the Lady Lyselle grew bored. She was ready to return to the castle, for she’d had quite enough of the outdoors by that time, when Syrene dislodged a boulder from the side of a hill.

There were many small bluffs scattered throughout the forest near Whitestone, though none were as grand as the huge, pale cliffs upon which the castle was built. This particular cliff was small, but the boulder Syrene dislodged was large enough to throw the Lady Lyselle into hysterics.

“Calm down, Lyselle,” said Syrene. “It’s fine.”

But at that precise moment, a drachvold poked its ugly head over the top of the cliff, glaring at them with baleful yellow eyes. It opened its toothless mouth and hissed.

For the first time in her loud, outspoken life, Syrene was speechless. The Lady Lyselle didn’t have time to appreciate this, because the drachvold shrieked and flapped its bat-like wings, and spit a gob of its acidic stomach fluids at them.

With cries of panic, the girls raced to their horses and mounted up. Both steeds bolted to the safety of the castle.

“Don’t look back,” Syrene called to her sister, wielding a clump of dirt and rocks at the drachvold, which was following them. It spat acid at the debris, neutralizing the attack.

They burst from the trees and raced toward the gates of Indrath Whitestone. The Lady Lyselle galloped into the inner courtyard, and she tumbled gracefully into the arms of her servants. Syrene skidded to a halt by the castle’s entrance and waved the last of the woodworkers inside, then grabbed an ancient lever and gave it a good wrench. With a rusty shriek, the heavy, wrought-iron portcullis slammed shut.

The drachvold hovered just outside, leering at them. Its malevolent slitted eyes roved over each of the humans. When its gaze fell upon the Lady Lyselle, it was all she could do not to faint.

“It has come for me,” she cried, her slender body shivering at the thought. “It shall take me to its lair and devour me!”

“We cannot allow our Lady to come to any harm,” declared one of the younger guards.

“Men, at your ready,” commanded the captain. “Wield on my mark.”

The Whitestone guards—a pathetic force of six—lined up by the portcullis and attempted to wield against the monster. It merely flew out of their range, high over the castle, circling round and round.

And there it stayed. Whenever an occupant of Whitestone tried to leave, the drachvold appeared, screeching and howling. It often spat at the walls, creating unsightly burns and holes in the flagstones. No one could escape, and though the magic wielders in the kitchens could grow roots and vegetables, there was only so long that the Lady Lyselle could survive on such a bland diet.

“Father, we must do something,” the Lady Lyselle implored one evening, after a week of being cooped up.

“My dear, there is naught we can do,” her father replied, taking her dainty hands in his old, gnarled ones and shaking his head, which was topped with a tuft of white hair.

“We could fight,” Syrene suggested bluntly.

“Syrene, our magic is useless against this monster. It battles us with a vengeance. Only the metal of the gate and walls keeps it from destroying our home. We must thank our lucky stars that our family was able to afford magically reinforced Galantrian iron.”

“Then send someone for help.”

“How would you suggest we do that, when it guards the entrance to Whitestone day and night?”

“Send someone small, unnoticeable—one of the kitchen boys, perhaps—to sneak out when it’s not looking. I’ve a few loyal servants who’d be willing to do it.”

“How positively dreadful, Syrene,” the Lady Lyselle gasped, appalled. “Have you no thought for the welfare of our staff?”

To her credit, Syrene looked ashamed of herself.

“Besides, if you keep sending kitchen boys out to their certain deaths, who shall grow food for us in our time of need?”

“I knew it,” snapped Syrene. “You don’t care about them. If we weren’t supposed to have gone on that tour of the kingdom looking for suitors, you wouldn’t even care that we’re all trapped here, you pampered little—”

“Syrene, enough,” their father interrupted before Syrene had the chance to get nasty. Her temper tantrums had been known to make the Lady Lyselle upset for sometimes minutes on end.

“The protective spells around Whitestone will keep us safe, but for how much longer, I cannot say. You are right when you say that we need help, but the closest town is Nuiid, and that is a five-day ride. Besides, I can think of no one who’d risk their life to escape. But I have a better idea—we shall send the messenger doves across the kingdom with cries for help.”

“Who would help us?” asked the Lady Lyselle. “Indrath Whitestone is a small estate, and facing a drachvold is a deadly business. How will we attract proper warriors to our cause?”

“With a proper reward, of course,” their father replied.

“We have nothing to offer,” Syrene reminded them, ray of sunshine that she was.

“Certainly we do. My child, you have seen nineteen years, and it’s long past time for you to be married. And darling Lyselle, though you have only seen fifteen years, many brave warriors and wielders would gladly put their lives in peril if they heard you were seeking a husband.”

The Lady Lyselle clapped her hands together, envisioning a brave warrior coming to save her. Syrene, however, looked furious.

“You’d offer me up as bait?”

“As a reward, dear one,” their father clarified hastily. “Per the law of the Smarlands, the eldest must be wed first, to receive the dowry and inheritance due to her. We turn to you, Syrene. The fate of Whitestone rests upon your shoulders.”

The Lady Lyselle felt her happiness evaporate.

“Father, what about me?”

“Lyselle, the warriors who arrive to deliver us will spread word of your loveliness throughout the Empire. I vow that you shall have a wealthy husband before the snows come.”

“But you’re sending out birds saying that Syrene is the reward for our freedom from that wretched monster?”

“Yes.”

The Lady Lyselle put her hands over her heart in a gesture of anguish. “We’re doomed.”

Her father and Syrene left after that, since the Lady Lyselle had not been feeling well, and also since Syrene had shouted and cursed and done a number of rude things for which she was now being punished.

The Lady Lyselle sat by her window and watched the drachvold make its rounds. The crops were brown and weedy from neglect, since none of the farmhands could go outside. The livestock paddock was all but empty. The drachvold had helped itself to Whitestone’s store of sheep, cattle, and swine.

If her father worded the messages correctly then warriors would come, warriors who were handsome and brave and wealthy. They would whisk her away to someplace grand, where she would be treated like a proper princess. All that remained was to wait.

But when the Lady Lyselle realized she would have to wait for someone fool enough to seek her sister’s hand in marriage, she despaired.

She would be waiting a very long time.

CHAPTER TWO

Lord Sero Notari Wierrain, Commander-General of the Imperial Guard, was the first to see the boy stagger into the cobblestone courtyard by the barracks. He wasn’t as young as most runaways. Children desperate to escape their families and prove themselves warriors were generally found in the range of ten to fifteen years; this youth looked a bit older.

“Taris,” said Weirrain, snapping his fingers. Taris, the head groom of the Imperial stables, was at his side in a heartbeat. “Find out what the boy’s story is.”

Taris nodded his grizzled head and stalked out to meet the boy. Weirrain watched from a distance, preferring to stay in the shade of the barracks’ overhang rather than go out into the scalding sun.

“Who’re you?” Taris asked the boy gruffly, snatching up his horse’s reigns. “How’d you get in here?”

The boy’s round face darkened with a scowl. “Give me those,” he said, snatching the reigns back. “I haven’t come to join the Guard, if that’s what you’re wondering. I’ve come to speak to whomever is in charge, because I’m in need of help.”

Though he sounded well-educated, the boy was dressed like a servant. And though he looked older, and was solidly built, his voice still had the high-pitched timbre of adolescence.

“Now you see here, you bratty peasant—”

“Taris, be kind to our young guest,” Weirrain reprimanded, deigning to approach. He excused the groom with a slight nod of his head. Taris stumped off, muttering under his breath about poor manners and shooting a sour glare over his shoulder at them.

“My lord,” said the boy, turning to Weirrain, “thank you. I must speak to the person in charge here.”

“That would be me,” said Weirrain. “Commander-General Sero Weirrain, of House Notari. Who are you, and what is your business with me?”

“Lord Weirrain!” The boy threw himself into an awkward bow, his tangled black hair falling over his dirty face. “My name is—is Rael Grayrock. You won’t have heard of me. I’m only a humble kitchen boy, but I come on orders from my masters, the rulers of Indrath Whitestone.”

“Whitestone,” Weirrain repeated, trying to remember his geography. “In the central Smarlands. Not a very large estate, am I right?”

“Um, no, my lord,” the boy admitted, flushing a dull red beneath the grime of his travels. “I come with urgent news: there’s a drachvold attacking Whitestone, and it is letting no one in or out. We’re under siege, and we don’t know how much longer we can last.”

“If this drachvold is letting no one out,” Weirrain put in smoothly, “how is it you’ve come to be here, boy?”

“I, um . . . well, I left upon orders from my mistress, the Lady Syrene,” he explained, blushing still further. “I risked my life to exit the castle and evade the drachvold, but I managed it.”

Ah, thought Weirrain, he’s enamored of his lady. Dreaming of glory, no doubt.

“This is a tragic tale indeed,” Weirrain said aloud. “But how does it concern me?”

“The Lady Syrene sent me with a message, a plea for help. We need a strong warrior to kill the drachvold. In return for his services, the warrior who saves us will be given half our estate, as well as . . .” The youth swallowed, then forced himself to go on: “As well as the Lady Syrene’s hand in marriage.”

“Hm,” said Weirrain, stroking his neatly-trimmed beard. “It seems the Lord of Whitestone is killing two birds with one rock: he frees his lands from the drachvold and marries off his daughter, relieving himself of that responsibility.”

“The Lady Syrene is—! I mean, yes my lord. It would seem so.”

“Nonetheless, it’s a generous offer. Many warriors would leap at this chance.”

“Really?” The boy looked astonished.