Keepers of the Realm

Prologue

"Move your arse, old man" a voice from behind bellowed. "The sun sets fast this time a year, finish up quick, I wanted you rested for watch duty tonight".

Daryn sighed as he planted his shovel into the ground and out again, slinging the heaps of cracked, dry sandstone over his shoulder.

Daryn was weary. "What a damned fool i am, taking orders from some halfwit at the edge of the world" he though to himself.

Daryn found life as a sell sword degrading. He was raised by men who fought and died for a leader they believed in, not for the man who paid them the most. But he was far away from that life, in a foreign land, and if he ever hoped to return home, he'd have to get through the siege.

As the sun set over the Lorey camp, Daryn dropped his shovel and walked back to his tent, setting a log down outside and reigniting his campfire. A dozen men had been lost to the cold the night before, so he made sure to keep close to the flames. Assetie was a vast and unforgiving land, with lush tropical forests covering the northern coast, and a vast, scorching desert stretching from east to west in the south. Daryn, unfortunately, found himself in the latter.

"The days are hot and the nights frosty. But that's where a man goes if he needs the coin" he remembered his old mentor, Ser Barrin telling him.

Footsteps crunched on the ground behind Daryn as he sat perched over the fire.

"Still awake?" Asked Juree, a short, lean man and native of Assetie who Daryn had come to befriend.

"I don't like this" Daryn told Juree, his chin against his neck from the cold. "They have just under eighty men in that castle, yet the scouts say they counted over two thousand just before we arrived".

Juree took a seat opposite Daryn and warmed his hands by the fire. "Saboteurs sealed all the tunnels in and out of that castle weeks ago, they'd be bloody good diggers if they managed to get two thousand men out that castle with not one of ours spotting them!"

Daryn scrunched his face. "Dead then?" He mumbled.

"Eh, that's what I'd wager. Lorey armies been harassing their supply lines all year, must be eating each other by now".

Daryn grinned yet Jurees words gave him no comfort. Daryn wasn't often prone to fear and worry like most others, but he spent many long hours of his childhood with old, scholarly men reading about the Gescaii, as all highborn children did.

"They're formidable fighters, and have some of the best commanders in the known world, how is it two thousand men are commanded to hold a castle knowing they don't have enough provisions to last a week? Daryn pondered.

The Lorey camp was falling quiet as the men returned to their tents for the night, although drunken men shouting and brawling could be heard in the distance, however faint.

"Why don't you get some sleep?" Juree asked. "I'll speak to the commander, I'm sure he'll let me cover your watch tonight?".

Daryn wondered for a moment if perhaps his uneasiness was showing, but knew he'd be better off with a full nights sleep should the situation worsen.

"Thank you, Juree" Daryn said, patting him on his shoulder as he stood and walked to his tent.

Juree was the only friend Daryn had amongst his sellsword colleagues. The other men would never respect him. They earned their skills from years of blood and sweat, most of them in the slave pits as children. Daryn however was trained in a castle, by a knight. He was better than all of them, a renowned swordsman throughout the Kingdom, before he disgraced himself and fled his homeland.