Forbidden unity

The stench of war

 The sun was bright as it peaked over the horizon of the fresh green grass around the city of Argon. 

Arguyas stood on the high deck of the castle he was raised in and looked over the kingdom that he one day would rule over. 

The walls around the castle were high, well over 300 feet high and made of a strong white stone with pillars of smelted iron on the inside of the stone to hold the wall sturdy. The castle itself was made of the same white stone. It stood over 800 feet high and had over 300 rooms on the inside. 

The dining hall could hold well over 3,000 people and the great hall could hold every patron of the castle and city. 

In a word you could say that the castle was rather large. 

The inside of the walls, and almost 80 leagues outside of the castle was green and crawling with life,  trees and plants. It was what made the castle so beautiful. 

But outside of that greenery was a large valley. Nothing grew there. 

The trees and grass were always dead and had a permanent red hue to them from the endless gallons of blood spilled across them. This was where the wars were fought. It was said, by the more superstitious, that the valley was cursed. Anyone who ventured into the valley on their own would feel a great weariness and sadness befall them, and ultimately be driven into a mad rage, and swiftly end themselves.  

This valley was soon named the valley of tears. 

For many tears were shed whenever anyone entered and never returned. The moans and screams of the dead could be heard across the city from dusk until dawn every day. 

Not only the cries of grown men, warriors, kings, princes and gladiator, but the screams of innocent twelve year old boys. Arguyas hated those most. For no child so young should be plunged into a war. 

The twelve year old's in every kingdom were thrown into war as fill in soldiers when numbers grew to small and loss of the war was feared. 

None of them had any prior training with any sort of weapon. So many were sent in simply to be killed, and as a last hope for victory. 

Arguyas shuddered as he listened to the wails of the damned that echoed from that valley every night. The same wails that seeped in through his open bedroom window every night since he could remember. The same wails that continuously haunted his dreams. 

He hated war. Everything about it. People thrown into a field with weapons and iron suits, to fight for a man who cowardly sat on his thrown and waited to hear weather or not his kingdom had fallen. The people never mattered. So what if thousands had just died. All that matters is weather or not you still possess your land and goods right? 

At least that's all Arguyas had ever known. His father never fought for his kingdom or his people. He sat there and waited for the news while everyone he had sent off were being slain in the name of king Argol. 

Arguyas was to fight this war today in his fathers name. But he wouldn't be fighting it for his coward of a father. He would be fighting it in the legacies of all the men who died fighting for that name, and for all the citizens of Argon. He would be fighting with nobility, not obedience. For in Arguyas eyes it was better to fight for a noble cause, then to fight in pursuit of material treasures. 

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Allura held rule over her kingdom. 

A war was waged against her kingdom by the very same king who waged many wars before with nothing more in mind than gold and land. A king who waged wars, so he could see and smell the blood as it flowed over the once peaceful land.