Prince of Dragons

Chapter 16 - On knights and warriors

A/N: Again, it's been a while since I've uploaded this. I'm sorry, I'm a pretty busy person. Anyway, I hope you'll enjoy the new chapter.

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"I... I didn't call myself a knight!" Maréin stammered. "You must have misheard!" 

Arwund chuckled. "You really are a bad liar, Maréin." He sat down on the edge of a table and crossed his arms. "So, what are you? You say you're a knight, and yet you don't have a sword. You're immune to dragon's fever. You're capable of turning sword hilts stone cold and controlling people's actions with your mind." 

The woman on the bed sat up and looked a bit afraid now. 

"It's not control," Maréin said. "It's... more mental persuasion than control." 

"Yes, that's a very nice way to put it, but in practice, it's mind control," Arwund said. 

Maréin sighed. "Alright. I'll tell you. But you mustn't let Enorwin know. He'd be... shocked." 

"Why would he be?" Arwund asked. "The guy's obsessed with knights and chivalry, almost to an unhealthy level." 

"That's precisely the reason," Maréin said. "What I'm going to tell you will change the way you view history. Radically." 

"So what?" Arwund said nonchalantly. "History's over. It doesn't matter anymore." 

"It matters more than you think," Maréin said, and the woman looked away. The wanderer leaned back in his chair. "You believe knights to be humans, don't you?" he asked Arwund. 

"I do," Arwund said, unsure where this was going. 

"Well, they - we - aren't," Maréin said. "That is, we original knights aren't. We're a separate race, humanoid in appearance, but inwardly as different from humans as the dragons. As you have seen before, we have certain powers. The dragons' powers are mostly physical; our powers are mostly mental." 

"But knights are warriors," Arwund stated. "You don't exactly fit that bill." 

Maréin smiled. His expression radiated a kind of sadness. "Warriors, yes. That's how we've come to be seen. But most of us favour peace: we're more diplomats than soldiers, more peacemakers than people of conflict." 

"How is that possible?" Arwund asked, surprised. "I mean, that violent, dragon-slaying reputation probably didn't come out of nowhere." 

"It didn't," Maréin said. "You know what the thing was with us knights? We disliked combat, but that didn't make us weak or cowardly. On the contrary, quite often it was us who dared to stand up to defend the weak, albeit through nonviolent means. We gained a reputation of bravery, you see. But in general, it was the humans who turned our kind of bravery into courage in battle. And many of the dragons went along with this new concept of courage. All of a sudden, the idea of looking at both sides of the story instead of fighting was seen as weak, instead of brave. And the perfect example of this kind of behaviour was a strongly distorted version of the original knight." 

"Wow," Arwund said. "I have to say I didn't see that one coming." 

"Me neither," the woman on the bed admitted. 

"So what about Lannhil?" Arwund asked, curious. "What was he like?" 

"Only the people who knew him could tell you that," Maréin said. 

"And you, Maréin, are some famous Southlands knight?" Arwund asked. 

"Well, I don't want to brag, but I'm fairly famous in the Middle Lands as well, though it's quite possible you've never heard the name," Maréin said, smiling.