Forgotten Tales

Chapter One: Purpose

A note before I begin -- this is a work in process! I'll be revisiting it more than once. Feel free to show it to a friend if you enjoy this little snippet! 

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The howls of wolves arose the fallen form of a shackled man, his eyes peering up, focused directly on the brightly shining moon. His stomach growled, assaulting him with many a notion of his hunger. His head rang with pain, blood trailing from a gash upon the right side of his head. Upon his back, a ragged shirt had collected the dew from dirt that he laid upon.

"Mathias, get up." The voice was quiet, but it was certainly there, resounding through the empty chasm that currently served as Mathias' ringing head. He winced lightly, hand reaching towards the gash to see how bad the wound truly was. Come to find out, the bleeding was profound -- he also found the exhaustion that had fallen over him was near unbearable, despite his recent state of unconsciousness.

"Now, Mathias! Rise!" The voice wasn't quiet this time, having a completely different volume that it recently held. It certainly startled Mathias, doing just what was necessary -- raising him from the depths of his conscious. A grunt sounded from his parted lips, his head's ringing only worsening.

Mathias' eyes opened, scanning where he currently was -- a cramped cage. It was nighttime, surely, for that moon burned with a fierce power. About him, a handful of tents were pitched, fumes of smoke thick in the air. A fire was definitely lit somewhere near him.

Clanks of armour brought Mathias from his scans, a silhouette of a humanoid figure carved in shadows casted by a dancing flambeaux. Within a moment, the figure was no longer shrouded by the thick night's shadows, fully revealed through the alit wax's flames. A knight that bore a distinct sigil, that of an eagle resting upon an ebon stone monolith.

"You're up. Good." His gruff voice sounded, keys dangling in the hand that wasn't captivated with a flaming torch. The knight looked upon Mathias with a distinct shine of pity lodged deep within the depths of his irises; his voice just as degrading as that shine. No matter that shine, Mathias stirred once more, eyes half open.

"Get up," the voice issued another command, his left foot launching forth to deliver a kick at the cage, keys dangling in his left hand all the more. Upon the command, a greatness grew in the torch held by his right hand, flame jumping in tenfold. This frightened the knight that now had a stone grip on it little, but he certainly flinched. "Up!"

Mathias groaned, vision blocked by wetness in his blazing orbs. Another groan brought him to his feet, audible cracks echoing from each joint as he moved. His greatly weakened hands grasped upon the bars that served as his prison, holding him up right. "W-Who are you...?"

The knight offered hardly a response, instead driving the keys forth, unlocking the cage and rushing away, leaving a greatly beaten Mathias all by himself, the howls of wolves only greatening in the silence that served as a typical night in the lands that he resided in. "...what happened?" he asked himself, for he was the only person around to hear.