The Forgotten - Chapter 1

PART  I

Outlawed & Despised

Chapter 1.

  The sun was setting on that cold winter night.  Darkness came and filled the small town near the main city of Derrell.  The small town was a place that the city of Derrell desperately tried to distance itself from, or pretend it never existed.  No matter how hard the city tried, the small town was known as ‘the small town near the city of Derrell’.  The town had a name, but not one that many could remember so it fell into disuse.

As the good citizens of the town scurried home the true owners emerged.  Murderers, assassins, slavers, cut-throats, whores, burglars, and those who committed crimes for which there were yet no names, all emerged from their safe havens.  Every night the town became their playground, and they played some very nasty games.

  Two tall men confidently riding bay horses emerged from the forest edging the small disgusting town in the Derrell province.  The repugnant little town was their destination.  Night had settled and a full moon lit the disused woodcutters track ahead of them.  They were tired, but not unwary.  Their heavy woollen cloaks hid chainmail and long cavalry swords that were belted to each man’s waist by a wide, thick, leather belt, the only thing robust enough to carry the weight of the heavy swords.  Their clothes were all of the same dark hue.

Wavy black hair hung loose around the face of one man and his dark, piercing, blue eyes glittered with irritation.  He was young but his weathered face made him appear older than his 27 years of age, and that face was set in a grim scowl.  The other man, appearing only slightly younger, had hair that was a dark blond and his face was creased with a small smile that constantly tugged in the corners of his mouth.  His own pale blue eyes were glittering with boyish mirth.

The first man let out a grunt as the second surveyed their dark surroundings.

“You’re very quiet tonight,” the man with the black hair mentioned darkly to his lighter companion, his voice deep and smooth.

The man with the lighter hair shrugged.  “What’s there to talk about?  We get the girl.  Go home.  Then everything starts.  Until then all we can do is wait.”   His face split into a grin with scarcely concealed excitement.  “We’re nearly there, Sigwulf my friend,” the man added, his own voice holding a rich timbre.

Sigwulf grunted again.

“You’re a pessimist, do you know that?”  The blonde man told his friend.

“I much rather prefer the term realist, Vance.  Always expect the worst in people, then you can be happily surprised on the odd occasion Human nature reverses and a person does something nice just because they can.  Moments like that are like a forgiving ex-spouse, whores with hearts of gold or a Tooth Fairy.  Just because you never see one does not mean they do not exist.”

“Did you know that you have absolutely no faith in the Human race, what so ever?”

“Intimately.”

Vance rolled his eyes and gave another short laugh.  “Why I like you I sometimes have no idea, but by the gods there is no better friend.”

Sigwulf made no reply.  He tended to keep his emotions tightly controlled and seldom did they escape.  Vance was one of the few people who knew how passionate the emotions of his friend was, and that passion made Sigwulf’s struggle to control himself all the more difficult, it was also the reason why he always seemed distant to people.  Of course this mysterious side of him made him irresistible to women and drove many women wild to pursue him which caused the private man no end of problems.  Such games once even came close to destroying him, thus he began to treat women as no more than a pleasurable past time.  Sigwulf would ensure they would ask him for attention for two reasons.  One reason was so that the women would know there was no emotional attachment from his behalf, and the other reason was that Sigwulf received an ego boost, not that he needed one.

Vance was another matter.  Everyone loved him simply because he was happy.  Orphaned at a young age Vance grew up in the same streets as Sigwulf, yet its harshness never seemed to touch him as deeply as it did most, including is oldest and boyhood friend, Sigwulf.  Vance was also one of the few people Sigwulf himself counted as a friend and that in itself was an unprecedented feat, at least until a second man managed, somehow, to impress the abstruse man, but that is another story.

“It’s nearly over,” Vance breathed with wonderment.  “It’s so close that I can almost taste it.”

“Something you ate perhaps?  Give it a moment and the feeling should pass.”

“Damn you, Sigwulf.  It will soon be all over.  It’s now 120 years further on from the promise and we’re nearly there.  Can’t I just enjoy that fact?”

“Of course you can,” Sigwulf replied.  “Just not too often or in front of me.  That way I can avoid you those seizers of wistfulness and think of you as a mostly normal person.”

Vance let that pass.  “What will you do, once things are back to normal I mean?”

Sigwulf grunted.  “I’m a solider.  This is my life and no new world order of righteousness is about to change that or stop the fighting.  I’ll go where I’m ordered, fight when I’m ordered then die when I’m ordered, assuming I can find some bastard able to beat me.”

“I pity the poor bugger.  I reckon that it’ll probably be a battle to mutual extinction.  But me, I want a girl.  A pretty blonde so we can have pretty blonde children.”

“You want the comfy life huh?”

“Yes and no.  But a happy wife means a happy life.  She can raise the kids and keep the house while I’ll go out and earn the bacon she cooks every night for my supper.”

Sigwulf gave another grunt.  “Good luck selling that to any normal woman.  These days while one or two might say ‘oh yes please, my Lord who owns me’, the rest may just tell you what to go and do with yourself.”

“Mrs Bellmar’s Women’s Etiquette classes my friend, her top student is a young pretty blonde who is just 18 years of age.”

“Not Janine again, surely?”  Sigwulf asked with disgust.  “That tart?  She has less brains than a dim-witted goldfish, as some of the men we both know can testify to the fact.”

Vance shrugged with a grin.  “You don’t need to be smart to cook my supper.  Experience is not necessarily a bad thing either.  She does have a talent or two.”

“You’ve been there?  Already?  Honestly Vance, I thought you had standards.”

Vance was still grinning.  “Jealous much?”

“Hardly.  I’m still gagging from her last offer.”

Just because Sigwulf was asked, did not mean he agreed to all offered liaisons.

Vance gave another of his quick laughs.  “You’re too picky, my friend.”

“I’ll take picky.”

“And gloomy.”

“I’ll take gloomy.”

“Cold.  Distant.  Dark.”

Sigwulf agreed.

“Oh yes, and bad with horses.”  Vance grinned.

Sigwulf growled at his friend.  “You tried for several months to train your horse to do what took my Kann only weeks to learn.”

“Smart horse you have there.”

“Cocky bastard.”

“Yes, yes I am my friend.  Now, do you want to enter the gate of this disgusting little town we used to call home first, or shall I?”

  As they approached the northern gate of the town two damp, hissing torches illuminated the crumbling stone archway and decaying wooden gates.  Shoddy wooden houses crowded the stone wall with their second story decks looming precariously over the street below.  To the south of the town were the homes of the rich, powerful and corrupt.  The further north you moved, away from the centre of the town’s influential and important, the cheaper the houses became.  The northern gate marked the homes of the poor, weak and corrupt.  Only those near the middle of the town and market place were the closest you could get to decent people, if you can call fraudsters, petty criminals, thugs for hire and illegal brothels decent.  To the east was the ocean, and the lazy locals now used that as a natural barrier rather than rebuilding the dilapidated stone seawall that enclosed the extensive sale yards and holding pens of the annual Slave Auctions.  Seafaring barbarians however, found it no barrier but a perfect landing place for their longships, then proceeded to raid the town every few years, or whenever they became bored and wanted an easy battle with often a rich bounty attached as a happy bonus.  This town was a sewer that reeked of money as it was the home of the Kalthar Slave Auctions, a yearly event.  The next auctions were due to start tomorrow morning.

A sewer indeed, but a wealthy one.

  The pair entered through the decaying town gates, unchallenged, and rode their horses towards the seediest part of the town that was not far away.  On their way they passed a small stage where inept actors were putting on a play for the poor and the criminal, providing customers for youthful pickpockets who were swiftly working the crowd.  The pair glanced at the stage to see what the play was.  If they were in a town they might as well see what was current news was being portrayed this week.  Unfortunately, this was not a current event the actors were portraying.  This play was describing an event in history that occurred over 120 years earlier.

A weasel-like appearing actor, who wearing black armour and a scowl, dramatically slew another actor who was wearing a crown to the boo’s and hisses of the crowd.

“I am a Galadon Knight,” the knight actor shouted.  “I hate the monarchy and murdered the good King Katrall for I am evil.  I steal your heirs and gold.”

Another actor wearing red robes walked onto the stage.  He was dressed as a Priest of Kalash.

“Murderer,” the Priest declared.  “You killed our beloved King Katrall ordained by Alorien himself.”

Yes,” the knight replied.  “And I enjoyed it, for Galadon Knights enjoy defilement.  We enjoy the sacrifice of virgins.”

The crowd hissed.

“We enjoy drinking the blood of our dead.”

The crowd gasped with disgust.

“And yes, we Galadon Knights, Royal Bodyguards of the monarchy, enjoyed killing that same monarchy for we are evil and hate everything that is not, including our King.”

“You despised men have confessed your crimes and are sentenced to death,” the Priest cursed all Galadon Knights, then proceeded to stab the ‘knight’ with his gold painted, cardboard, dagger to the cheers of the small crowd.  “I declare all Galadon Knights outlawed and disbanded, for they are evil and we despise them.”

One person in the crowd, unsteadily drunk, began a slurring denunciation of the knights and the rest of the crowd joined in.

“Death to the despised.  Death to the murderers.  Death to the Knights.”

Sigwulf grunted sourly and nudged his horse into a walk again with Vance beside him as the actors bowed before the crowd that were still chanting their slogans of disgust for the long vanished militant order and applauding the mediocre actors.

  Both men were quiet as Vance rode confidently while Sigwulf watched the shadows around them with suspicion and caution.  The fetid stench of sewerage and rotting rubbish filled their noses with its familiar reek.  The sounds of steel shod horse hooves were loud to their ears and echoed as the pair threaded their way through the maze of damp alleyways until they found the house they wanted.  Dismounting, Sigwulf warned his horse not to stray, and suggested he let no one encourage the large war horse to stray either.  The dark bay stallion snorted as though daring any to try, and cocked one hind hoof to rest on its tip.  Vance tied his reins to a post and patted the proud neck of his own stallion who snapped his teeth inches from the blonde man’s ear.  Vance let out a soft laugh.

The stallions were picked for their aggressiveness and were then bred for war where the hostile tendencies were trained, focused and enhanced for both the horse and the rider.  Vance stroked the velvety nose of his mount, narrowly missing the snapping teeth once again before turning and nodding curtly to his companion.

The men could hear sounds akin to a large party muted by the door that was their goal.  Vance, drawing his short sword with the hint of a steely rasp and hiding it within the folds of his cape ready to be used at a moments notice, quietly opened the wooden door in front of them only to be assaulted by the full force of the noise and the stomach churning smell that was a mix of stale beer, sweat, blood, garbage and vomit.

  Whores were laughing raucously as various men made lewd comments to them.  An impromptu fight was going on in one corner of the vast, crowded room while others made bets on the outcome.  Others were dancing the latest stately steps of a popular waltz to a band of poor musicians sawing on their instruments with a noticeable lack of finesse in the imitation of a nightmare.  Not a few were admiring the two new men with appraising eyes on their clothing and weaponry.  A stocky man with a long scar crossing his face and replacing the place were an eye should have been with a puckered, angry flap of flesh, approached the pair with arrogance.

“Weapons.  Clothing.  Money.  Now.”  The orders were spoken in a tone that said no one had ever denied this evil appearing man anything he had ever demanded.

The room fell silent, anticipation dripping from every criminal present.

Sigwulf gave a small smile, his piercing eyes glittering dangerously.  “Make me,” he said, his tone soft but one people strained to hear.  There was a challenge in that silky purr.

The evil man smiled and drew his rust splotched sword just in time to see his own guts spill onto the trash and debris strewn, muddy floor.  Sigwulf wiped his bloodied sword blade on the shoulder of the would-be thief who slumped to the floor, clutching at his own bloody, purple, entrails that slipped with loops and coils through his feebly grasping fingers.  The dark haired man then looked about the room, daring anyone else to challenge him.  People looked away and the nightmarish spectacle of music, dancing, talking, laughing and fighting continued.

“Your turn, Vance.”  Sigwulf instructed his blonde companion.

Vance nodded as he forced and shouldered his way through the crowd to another rotting door at the far end of the room.

A large man in blood stained clothing holding a huge and equally blood stained cleaver barred their way.

“Cull is expecting us,” Vance told the guard.

“Weapons,” he grunted.

Vance glanced at his companion and nodded.  The two men passed their swords to the guard.

“They had all better be returned hilt first,” Vance growled.

The guard opened the door for them and ushered the pair through.