1 Chapter 01 : God Abandoned Me
On this dark and rainy day, a small contingent of two hundred knights was slowly walking, haggard and completely spent, almost on the verge of looking like lifeless corpses.
They hadn't slept in five days.
Every hour, if not every second, was a torture of not knowing when and where the next ambush would hit them. It was a kind of torture that no man could endure. After all, they had started the journey with a thousand men strong army...and now, only two hundred remained.
The man who led them was the first Prince of the Eralis empire, a twenty-six years old man named John Stewart. He knew that the king, his half-brother, was behind the ambushes he had been defending against for the last week and there was nothing he could do to stop it. He reckoned that sooner or later this contingent would be annihilated.
And on top of it all, his wife, Emily Stewart, and son, Silas Stewart, had been poisoned even before he left Aldhurst province a week ago and they were getting worse every day that passed without treatment. John didn't know if they could hold on until they reached the Misthaven province which was part of his territory. There, he could find physicians to take care of them.
"Just three days...please God...let us survive these three days and reach our home." John prayed for a safe return but it sounded more like a supplication.
Just then, he saw the two scouts he had sent scouting ahead making their way towards the contingent while urging their horses to gallop faster.
"This can't be good news." John Stewart had a bad premonition.
John whipped his horse which then galloped at breakneck speed to meet the two scouts in the distance.
"What news do you have for me?" Asked John once he reached them. Looking at them more closely, he found out that their faces were drained of blood from fear.
"This is bad, my lord. A five thousand men army is waiting for us at the exit of the underpass a day and half away from here.
From the news he recieved, John's heart almost stopped beating.
It was obvious that his half-brother wanted to exterminate him and leave no traces behind.
The underpass was the last checkpoint that his small army had to pass through in order to properly reach the Misthaven province. It was an underground passage under the mountain that was naturally formed from a dried out underground lake. It was the fastest way to reach his territory which was comprised of two provinces, the Goldland province and the Misthaven province, both situated at the east of the Eralis kingdom separated by the Eldridge mountain range from the rest of the kingdom.
"What to do? If we advance we die...if we stay we die of starvation after a few days...the underpass is the fastest way to leave this mountain range, if we take a detour, my wife and child won't be able to survive that long, and we do not even have enough rations for a detour of seven days." The severity of the situation hit him hard and he was at a loss of what to do.
Several minutes later, an order was given to stop marching and establish camp. The weary knights accepted the order like God given grace.
***
John Stewart sat next to his son and wife inside a carriage with a blank mind. Their skin had already turned purple and their breathing was barely noticeable. John didn't give them a day to live. He consoled himself in the fact that he would soon join them in the underworld.
"No. They don't deserve this...I don't deserve this... I've always been a good person distinguishing between right and wrong for as long as I can remember. I pray to the God of Light every night and whenever I can...why has he forsaken me...what have I done to deserve this?"
"My son...Silas...oh Silas... you're only five years old...you do not even know what sin is, yet you're paying for your father's sins."
The man cried like a newborn, releasing all the tension and helplessness he felt.
When his father, the previous king, Edward Stewart, died, John, as the eldest, should've been the one to inherit the throne but he had no such ambition. He envisioned another life for himself away from the capital's turbid air. Somehow, he felt that he wasn't safe even as a king. His own father was the prime example. Who could explain how a perfectly healthy man that was never sick for most of his life would drop dead from a common cold? Smelling that something was fishy and not wanting to be the next corpse with a crown on its head, he abandoned his Crown Prince title and then gave himself the two most unremarkable and isolated provinces and then left the capital with his family. His son had just turned two years old and he didn't want him to grow up without a father.
As he left the capital, he knew that the next in line to inherit the throne would be his half-brother, Jaden Stewart who always found a reason to bully him when they where kids and show dominance when they were adults. Deep down he always thought that his father's death was related to Jaden. And the best way to prove it was letting Jaden inherit the throne and if he survived long enough it would mean that that's what he was after in the first place and he would've killed John to get it as well.
And now, three years later, he had been invited to attend the King's birthday.
He had brought his son and wife and also close to a thousand knights to the Lyn capital of Aldhurst province.
It was then that Jaden ordered him to relinquish his two provinces.
John flatly refused.
It went downhill from there.
Emily and Silas were somehow poisoned and the kingdom's physicians couldn't cure them. Of course, John thought that they had recieved orders not to cure them. His only option was to bring them to his territory to cure them in the quickest way possible.
John and his family left the Lyn capital with his army, but as soon as they entered the Eldridge mountain range they met ambush after ambush dwindling their numbers.
Still sitting in the carriage, John had cried for so long and then stopped when he realized that crying had no effect on his dying family. It was just himself being too weak to accept the facts.
It was then that he heard a weak voice in his head: " Perhaps, I could be of some assistance... If you help me now, I can help you and your family live through this calamity."
"Who?... Who's there?...Oh no...have I now become crazy?..." John said with a hint of fear.
"Calm down... I'm as real as it gets." The voice was still weak as if its owner was about to die.
"Who...what are you?"John said trembling his fear increasing to a dangerous degree.
The voice seemed to give a weak laugh and then said: "Come to my dwelling. It's not far from where you are right now...about a day's march.
You better hurry up, your wife and son do not have that long to live. The longer you hesitate the closer to death they are."
It was at this time that a flame lit up inside John, melting all his fear and telling him that even if he had to sell his soul to a demon, he had to save his wife and son.
He stopped trembling and then asked: " Where can I find your esteemed self?"
"I just imprinted the location in your soul. Just follow your instincts and you'll get there...and do bring all your knights with you...my soul is famished."
