Chapter Twenty Four - The Butchery of Braxton Glen

Alder watched in shock at the scene before him. He was in the middle of a group of knights, fighting some Junior Knight for his life when they all stopped and the horses started to go nuts...

Then a figure appeared in the distance. He seemed familiar, but vanished in an instant... What followed was pure madness...

Bodies flew here and there as the robed man with his grey beard appeared here and there. Wherever he popped up blood flew and the knights crumpled into limp heaps. Even Alder with his heightened senses could not follow the speed of the figure... he was clearly a mage.

He turned and ran then. He didn't care what was happening to the Knights he just didn't want any part of it. That was his chance to escape, and he took it.

He ran through the trees and didn't look back. A part of him was far too afraid to look. Screams and the smell of blood and steel filled the air until it all mingled with the sound of the wood in the distance.

He was far gone, much further in the woods than he intended and very much lost. He kept the quick pace though, dodging around oak and elm, bush and thistle. At one point he even scared a family of deer grazing on some

grass... They ran scared... instinctually... Much as he did...

Then all at once he hit something solid ahead and fell backwards, landing in the dirt. He rubbed his forehead where a bump had already begun to form and looked up. He shuffled backwards in fear at first, seeing the beard and the frazzled hair, but then recognized the person.

"You... You are that old man from back then" Alder said, questioningly. The robed fellow laughed and looked Alder in the eye, his eyes that carried the same kindness and depth as they did then.

"I am far from old! Some might say I am 379 years young! But you got one thing right, I am the one who gave you that book... And you haven't disappointed!" He was cheerful and oddly had no blood on him, not a speck of dirt either despite the obvious bloodshed he had caused back with the knights...

"What do you want from me? Do you want to kill me like the other mage? To capture me?" Alder asked pointedly. There was no reason to be reserved. If this old man wanted to kill him he would, if he wanted to capture him there wasn't anything he could do...

"Aah.." the mage said, stroking his beard with a wrinkled hand, "Well how do i begin. Aah yes, from the beginning then? I won't kill you boy, no, I'm here to save you... I've been watching you... Aah, enough rambling let me tell you a story then..."

...

"Fifty years ago I had a friend. A good friend. We did everything together, we traveled the earth and the heavens, and faced many beasts and strong Mages alike.

Her name was Freida. A marvelous woman. Kind, and oh so wise. She was much younger than me and looked at me as a kind of master, although she was much more gifted than I.

I met her in the Kingdom of Strobor, on the banks of the River Pale.. She was in the midst of battle with a River Dragon. A young one mind you, but still a beast strong enough to destroy half a kingdom. And she held her own. She was an internal mage, of Phoenix blood I believe. You see we Mages guard our paths well, and rarely does a mage walk the same path as another, especially internal Mages...

I walked a different path than her but we helped each other... As I helped her then. We defeated the dragon and became close friends...

Our adventure began there... and would end not too far away from that riverbank... the accursed place.

She was by far a powerful mage, and talented yes, but when I say talented I mean moreso her mind... she was bright, intelligent, and more than anything craved knowledge like an alcoholic craves his next drink. Many days we wandered together, I following her light as he searched the world for more and more, to know the unknown...

She was mostly obsessed with a book she was writing, the one you have... that was her life's work, her driving motivation... And it would ultimately get her killed.

For in it she wrote treachery and defiled the mage's guild. The very technique went against the idea of a mage. It bred a sort of anti-mage if you will, and though she preached to the guild for them to accept it, to allow her research and to take on disciples... They abhorred her for it. They drove her out... She fled the guild and sought to continue her work outside...

And she did manage to get a few disciples, but none survived the technique you have learned boy. And the one that did was far too dangerous and cruel hearted... I killed him... I wasn't going to let her life's work fall to a vagrant...

I am not going to lie boy I would have killed you too if you had shown any hint of evil. But I could see then you were kind hearted, and have not entirely lost your kindness regardless of what you've gone through...

Anyway...

You see, she was hunted. We were hunted.. Back to the riverbank where she killed the dragon she stashed the book, in a safe spot guarded by magic and tunes alike.. she was a romantic in that regard. The place where she and I met would be the place she would die... We would die... for I was supposed to die with her that day, but she saved me... Concealing me behind layers of shrouding arrays. I watched behind an impenetrable barrier as the mage guild's arch Mages obliterated her. Burned her and struck her down with lightning... hit her with tidal waves and tempestuous winds... She died with a smile on her face, as if she was content...

But I cried then, and have long since fought the Mages guild... And then you came along.. And your talent brought you to my doorstep, which had been hidden from all for as long as I can recall. The fact you were so young and so talented I decided to gamble on you..."

"Wait.," Alder interrupted, he stood and looked angrily at the old mage, "why... why did you let them attack me? How could you let me go through all that? To live in the streets and lose a hand! To get chased out of town by Mages and lose my friends! Why!.. You could have done something!.. You could have helped me! Or my friends! Why didn't you?! I've almost died so many times since you have me this book! Not to mention how did they know I had it to begin with?!"

"Because I told them" the Old man said patiently, as if he was expecting Alder's reaction. "Look... All I did for you was not out of kindness, or any care for you... I did it for her.., You needed to be tested... That is the way of the technique you have... Not just physically but mentally, spiritually, emotionally... You need to be peerlessly strong and determined, and you are...

I told them... those wretched scholars and Mages about you and the book because I wanted them to hunt you, and test you... But I also wanted them to be afraid, to get revenge on them... They will be restless until you are dead boy, and that is good for you... It will keep you alive in the long run, trust me... Lifting stones and running laps won't prepare you for the future... Only combat. Only life and death on the line constantly...

Besides, if you didn't want to cultivate this technique you could have stopped, the book said so itself..."

Alder wasn't sure what to say. The old man had a point, it was his fault he chose to use the book in the first place. He could have sold it or given it away, burned it or tossed it to the wayside but he didn't... and still, he had a lot to thank from the book for giving him a future, for something to strive for...

"Anyway, I have saved you from those goons of the duke... Now you can come with me boy, and I will show you the way, or you can go back to your friends and live a life as a fugitive forever... I can tell you one thing that is certain. From three hundred years ago to now, only one thing has remained constant in this world of ours: power is everything... And you are on the road to have a lot of it..."

Alder nodded... He knew as much already. The way the world moved was clear. Those with power ruled while the weak got trampled on. He knew that a year ago when he began to train, and it drove him along, like a strong current pulling him down a river...

He couldn't go back... not to his friends or his past, not to his dead parents or his burned village, not to Grey Stone or the dark cell in the keep... He had to move forward... He had to get stronger to be able to hold onto everything he wanted in his life... Hell, even to just stay alive in the first place..

The old man turned and began to walk through the woods, and Alder followed behind, keeping his eyes locked forward.

He tried not to think about the knights, the bodies that lay far behind in the woods... The horses having long since abandoned their dead masters. The legend would begin there, from peasant to bard to king and back again... Of the Butchery of Braxton Glen and the Beginning of change in the kingdom... A change no one saw coming...