Chapter 6

After getting off the couch the first thing I noticed was the buildings looked so much more fancy compared to the buildings of my village. They were made of a mixture of black stone and wood which had been painted red. It was done so that the wood made a pavilion along the two sides of the street. This way it looked like if it rained the people had somewhere to walk in and they would be dry. Then on the roofs, there were tiles. These are things we did not have back home. All there was, was just straw roofs, not even the richest people back home had tiles on their rooftops. Then as I noticed earlier the actual houses had black stone walls. I couldn't see into the houses but I assumed that it had a similar style as the outside of the house. The road which I was standing on was a mixture of cobbled and paved stone depending on what part of the road you were on. It looked brand new as there were no cracks or dirt on them.

"You going to let me get down Adoh or are you just going to stand there and carry on gawking at the city. This isn't even the best part. You should see the castle or the main street. It looks so beautiful. I could show you if you want before getting the next coach I need to get?" He looked at me smiling, I don't think he realised it would be probably nicer to go without his mouth that doesn't stop talking.

"I think it would be better if I go alone, I have to find a friend of my father first so I have a place to stay. But thank you for the offering." He looked sad for a moment before his smile came back. "So this is goodbye. I have a feeling we will see each other again, but it will be stuttering at your power. Anyway, goodbye Adoh."

"Goodbye Lars, I wish you luck with your studies at the tower." I then walked to where my bag was stored. After getting it out of the coach I grabbed the leather pouch I had inside of it. I looked inside it to see how much they had given me. There were two black coins in there. I froze, they had given me two black dragon coins.

These were worth twenty gold dragons between them. Which was two hundred silver dragons, so two thousand bronze dragons. That's more than four years worth of money my family could make altogether. This was insane money, with this I could live like a king back home.

After making sure the money was safe, I left the point where the coach had stopped and headed into the city itself proper. There were so many people. They all looked different as well. Some were in red, others were in blue, there were greens, yellows, white and so many more I couldn't see them. After a few minutes, I realised the people were looking at me as they walked past. I could vaguely hear some things they were saying, "Look at him, he must be from the country with how he is looking at everything."

"He smells, do they not have baths in the country."

"Who let a peasant into our glorious city."

After hearing a few of the comments I stopped gawking and looked down at the floor feeling like I was worthless and that I didn't deserve to be there. Then I heard a faint sound of horse hooves. Then a loud noise of a trumpet. Everyone cleared the road at that instant. Not going what was going on I followed the others onto the side of the street.

Then the sound of horses got louder and louder. Then some people in armour came round the corner. They looked so strong and powerful. Their armour was in the duke's colour of black and red. Each one had different weapons but each seemed like they could use them with ease. I heard some whisper behind me that they were the dragon knights. These were part of the elite military order of the duke. Each one was personally selected and had gone through some of the toughest training and battles imaginable. If I could these were the people I would like to be. The strongest soldier. Have people look up to me in awe and not call me names. I wanted to be a dragon knight.

Once they had gone I decided that I should finally find where my father's lived. So I started walking down all the streets I could, trying to find him. After I had given up and was sitting on a stone bench a little boy came up to me. "Are you lost, sir?"

"Yeah I am, I can't find my father's friend's house. It says he lives in the inferno district and that his house is number sixteen. I can't even find the district." I sighed and then felt even more depressed than I already was at not being able to find his house.

The boy looked at me then smiled, "I know where that is if you would follow me." I got up and started to follow the kid around the streets. It felt like a maze to me. Also, a smell was beginning to cover the area. I couldn't quite work out where I had smelt it before. Also, the houses around me seemed to be getting more dirty and rundown the further we walked. "Are you sure this is the way?" The boy looked at me "Of course it is sir, we are nearly there."

I nodded at his word. I followed him for a few more minutes. He stopped on one really dirty road. It smelt worse than the other streets as well. The boy turned around and looked at me. "You really are a dumb country bumkin. You must be rich as well wanting to go to the inferno district. Boss, come out, he is just a fat pig."

All around me out of the tattered buildings which looking at them again didn't deserve to be called buildings. There were around eleven men in total. They all were basically wearing rags, the colour on them had dimmed, they mostly had frayed ends. This was all except for one man who didn't look as poor. His clothes looked newer but not brand new as they had a couple of stains of some kind of drink on them. He also looked more healthy compared to the others. 'He must be the boss.' I thought to myself.

He looked at me for a minute before picking up a damaged rusted dagger from the floor. Then he pointed at me and opened his mouth showing his yellow teeth. "Why did you just hand over your money boy, then you get to keep your pretty life."

I looked around for anything to hold at least to give me a weapon as I didn't think that they would let me live after I had given away my money. Seeing me looking around and not replying the gang boss's face morphed into a sadistic smile.

"Seems like you want death then...get him, lads."

Then a yell echoed into the streets as some armed guards rushed in with their swords drawn. All of the gang members' faces changed into one of fear straight away. The boss yelled out one word, "RUN!" But by then it was already too late as the guards were upon them.

The first two weren't even able to resist as the swords of the guards went straight through their bodies causing blood to spurt out over the mud-filled ground. Seeing their fellow gang members die they grabbed some rocks and tried to fight back, but what could rocks do to the armoured guards. Those eight were cut down where they stood without being able to offer any resistance at all. Their bodies just flopped down onto the ground with blood leaking out of the various killing sword moves that they had sustained.

This meant that all that was left was the boss. He lifted his dagger looking like he was going to attempt to fight back, at that moment he threw the dagger at the guards and turned to run almost simultaneously. The dagger was caught by one of the guards as it was about to hit the gap between his armour. With that dagger, he threw it back to the running gang boss. With a thud, it embedded itself in the back of the feeling boss's skull killing him instantly.

At that moment the boy who hadn't noticed disappeared reappeared in front of one of the guards. "So will you give me my tip for showing you where they were ambushing people?" The guard just snorted and with hesitation lifted his sword then cut the boys head clean off.

"You think I deal with backstabbers." I watched the boys head roll around on the floor as the light dimmed in his eyes. Once it had completely dimmed I looked at the guards.

"Thank you for saving me, sirs."

The guard after taking off his helmet gave me a slight smile. "It's no problem, it is our job to protect the citizens from thugs like these after all. They usually lure in newcomers to the city who get lost, so we would be happy to show you the way to where you would like to go."

Happy at the guard's generosity, I told him where my dad's friend lived. They then began to lead me away from the site of the slaughter. Just before we left the run-down street I looked back remembering this event and swearing to myself I would not be put in such a position again. As we walked by various streets I noticed that the guards began to relax more as we left the rundown area of the city almost like there was something there that they feared themselves, which in my mind after seeing their display of power should be impossible.

I gulped at the thought of what could scare such strong men as these.

Around ten minutes later of walking in near silence we had arrived outside a house. The lead guard turned to me and gave me a slight salute before walking off. Looking at the outside of my dad's friends house it looked extravagant. The material seemed to be much more expensive than the buildings that I first saw although it was in the same design. I thought to myself as I went to knock on the door that my dad's friend must certainly be wealthy.