The Chronicle

It was cold that day. Not a petty, dreary kind of cold either. The kind of cold that pierced through coat and cloak alike, and stung right to the bone. Hardly the kind of weather anyone would want to be out in. Which is why the streets were empty. Utterly deserted. The snow was just beginning to accumulate as it spiraled down from the shadowy sky. With the snow came the kind of peaceful hush that knows no equal. All sound was stifled under a blanket of peace.1

But with this peace came a brooding.2

With this silence came an unmistakable sense of dread. It was a sense of unescapable worry. 3

Had there been witches present, a timeless catchphrase might have been coined about approaching evil. But even the witches dared not venture out for long in that weather. 4

But there, trudging through the snow in nothing but torn trousers and a threadbare tunic, was a young man. Though severe malnutrition robbed him of the girth and strength of bearing that would have marked him, he was in fact fifteen years of age. His arms were wrapped tightly about himself. His face was covered in the accumulated grime that spoke of utter poverty. His lips moved, but no sound passed from them. He was delirious.5

And so he continued to trudge.6

The cold ate away at him, biting deep, tearing great chunks of his body heat away. His feet were losing warmth, circulation was slowing. He stumbled. And then again. But each time, he found his feet again.7

And trudged onward. 8

Towards what even his fevered mind recognized as his only hope for survival: the city. It loomed ahead of him, a promise of warmth. A chance of life. A hope for survival. 9

And as his breath became slower, as the blood in his veins began to move yet more sluggishly, he reached it.10

Chapter one:11

Ortuh the tavernmaster let loose a thunderous laugh. Like a trumpet that beckoned a cavalry charge, his laugh summoned up thunderous ranks of laughter from his patrons. The tavern was filled with guffaws and chuckles, hoots and screeches.12

When Ortuh laughed, everyone laughed. It was the unspoken rule. Uou laughed or you risked Ortuh's fury. And no one wanted to witness the hillman's fury. It was rumored, though never within his hearing, that he was the unfortunate result of a union between hillman and troll. He was a beast of a man. His head scratched the 7 foot ceiling. His arms were as big around as the supporting beams that dotted the room. And his ferocity was said to know no equal.13

So when Ortuh laughed, everyone laughed. It was the rule. It was never broken. 14

Except this day. The man in the corner remained auspiciously silent. His face was calm, severe. No hint of a smile danced upon it. And that was odd. But then again, everything about the man was odd. There, on the frontier, the people consisted of dark shades. Dark skin, darker hair. But this man was pale, porcelein white. And his hair wasn't dark. Rather, it was a brilliant shade of red that hung unfettered to the low of his back. And to add to the oddity, he wore a blue silk robe. Not remotely feminine, it was a dark shade of cobalt, with a single red dragon snaking across it. It buttoned up the front, from waist to neck. The sleeves were long, flaring out towards the end, engulfing the man's hands when he let it. It was slit from the waist down both front and back, revealing a pair of jet black pants beneath. 15

All-in-all, it was a garment that called to mind the swarthy, yellow skinned dragon tamers of the far south. The ones with tilted eyes, who were renwoned for their hand fighting, and taming of the fierce beasts like the one on the robe. But this man was not of the south. 16

Nor the east.17

Nor the west.18

Nor the north.19

He was a man of no origin. He had simply showed up. And after three weeks in the city, he was at Ortuh's pub, to play a game of dice. And so he played. Both winning, and losing, therefore doing neither. 20

Right up until this point. When Ortuh laughed drunkenly. 21

The cause of this fateful expulsion of air and glee from Ortuh was a young man. He was, judging by his appearance, a beggar. A poor homeless waif. He stumbled through the door, teeth chattering, yet still muttering madly, and stumbled over to the hearth. Until Henx, Ortuh's number two, and barkeep, laid a rod across his back. The boy screamed wordlessly and rolled into a ball.22

Henx smiled. Which was ghastly, considering the state of his dental health.
"You dinnae enjoy the fire without paying!" He screamed.23

The boy raised his head, eyes rolling about madly, lips moving. He said nothing, just looked at Henx.24

Henx allowed a full two seconds to respond before he slashed the oak rod across the boy's back again. The wordless scream this produced instantly brought every eye in the establishment to bear on the scene. The young man, rolling about on the floor in pain and terror. Henx smiling madly, lashing out again. And again.25

It was this scene that elicited Ortuh's laugh. This scene that brought the tavernmaster to the point of abandoning his game of dice. 26

And in the chaos and the laughter and the pain, no one noticed that the red haired man was no longer in the corner. 27

The boy rolled across the floor till he struck a wall, still wailing. Henx stalked towards him, shifting his grip to the end of the staff and raising it above his head. It was a setup for a blow that had the potential to cripple or kill. 28

Ortuh's laugh careened about the room, colliding with and bouncing off of walls and pillars, tables and chairs.29

The rod flashed downwards, blurring as its' speed increased. But it halted a spare inch away from the boy's screeching face with a flat sound of wood on steel. A blade had interposed itself between the rod and flesh. A long, narrow blade that stretched back to the hilt, which was fixed in the right hand of the red haired man. 30

And with that one noise, that single action, the bar was struck dumb. No one spoke, no one moved, everyone just stared at the red haired man, who had caught the full force of the blow on the very tip of an extended sword without wavering. He wasn't even looking at Henx. He was staring calmly at Ortuh. His eyes blazed with emerald flames.31

"Let the boy enjoy the fire. Ten minutes. Then he and I will walk out, and you'll have lost nothing."32

The words hung in the still air. No one spoke. The stares were now split between the slender man in blue and the hulking tavernmaster.33

And still no one spoke. The tension filled the air like smoke from the fire. Some wondered if maybe the flue had been blown shut, so thick was it in the air.34

Finally, a sound broke the silence like a glass. It was a rasping, slow chuckle. It was coming from Ortuh.35

"Joshua." He said, "You drew steel against my man."36

"Yes, and your man beat a sick boy. What is your point?"37

But Ortuh's point was not one to be spoken. It was one that could only be conveyed with action. He moved remarkably swiftly for his size, seizing a solid oak table and one-handedly slinging it across the room. But it didn't collide with Joshua. It collided with a wall. Because joshua was no longer where he had been. He was across the room, his swordtip resting on the floorplanks. A single, glistening drop of blood rolled off of the blade and pounded into the floor. It struck the floor in perfect unison with Henx's head, which was now liberated from its' body. The onlookers gasped. It was a speed the likes of which they had never witnessed. All they had seen was a blue blur and a flying table. 38

Joshua raised the sword, pointing it directly at Ortuh's face from across the room.39

"Ten minutes, and I'll spare both you, and your tavern."40

The next table also collided with a wall. Joshua had dodged around it. He sprinted across the room with perfect grace. Ten feet away from Ortuh, he surged upwards, spinning. He revolved one full time as he flew towards the hillman. The second time around, his leg flashed out. The shin bone collided with the side of Ortuh's neck with all the force of a charging bear. There was a crackling of bone as as Ortuh's head snapped sideways. His neck was broken, and the force had reverberated up and down his spine, breaking it in a score of other places. He was dead even before the force of the kick drove his body through a solid foot thick pine pillar, and the redwood bar. He was dead long before the rows of glass bottles of alchohol, shelved behind the bar, were driven into his flesh. 41

Ten minutes later, Joshua exited with the young man over his shoulder. He walked out into the cold, and left behind a group of terrified people who would never be quite sure what they saw.42

And so it began.43

44

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Joshua wove his way through back alleys and sidestreets for the better part of an hour. He avoided the main thouroughfares, working his way south, towards the inn, his wards, and safety.46

The snow wafted downwards, swirling on the eddies of the wind, headed left and right, north, and south, but inevitably down. And it was slowly beginning to accumulate, filling the streets, drifting against any object that stood still. And to make things even bleaker, the sun was finally sinking, the slopes and angles of the skyline slowly encroaching upon it, blotting it out, casting shadows across the ground, enveloping the street level in darkness.47

It was through this darkness and cold that Joshua continued to walk, the boy slung limply over his shoulder, snoring peacefully. And so Joshua walked onwards, glad, for the first time, to have worn boots. Finally, the loss in agility and speed was being paid off by the fact that snow was not soaking his feet. 48

And then he was at the inn. He turned into the back alley, hoping to avoid the crowded common room, the caucaphonous riot of packed humanity. The less people saw the boy, the better.49

Ten minutes saw the boy curled on a pile of blankets and cushions next to the stove in Joshua's room, the snoring having gone from merely peaceful to racous. A kettle began to whistle excitedly, singnifying its' desire to be removed from the hot stove. Joshua obliged, and poured the steaming water into a basin with a washcloth. He began to wash the grime from the boy's forehead. the layers of dirt and muck faded away, revealing a faint mark. 50

An ivy vine, a north star, and a scepter.51

Joshua leapt bac as though bitten by a snake. But then he fell to his knees, placed his head on the ground.52

And in a whisper so quiet only he could hear it:53

"Your Majesty..."54

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if one were to show the crest to most inhabitants of Deleriand, they would have responded with a puzzled expression, a muttering of ignorance. 56

But that was not always the way of things...