Fire Of Magic

Prologue

Running through the corridors of the great castle, all that Oswald could see around him was the chaos that the war had brought upon his glorious kingdom, a war that had plagued the realm in its entirety.

For many years, he had successfully done all he could do to protect his kingdom from suffering the same destructive fate that every other established state in the realm had suffered, but unfortunately, the king seemed to have run out of luck. There was just no escaping one's fate, especially if its handler was him, the Conqueror.

In actuality, there was really not much that was known about the so-called Conqueror, except that no army, no matter how mighty, could stand against him. Those who had come against him described him as a flame that sweeps in, burns everything in his path, and leaves nothing but the tales of his wrathful destruction in his wake.

Looking around him at that moment, Oswald contemplated that perhaps he should have negotiated a surrender with the Conqueror. But the truth be told, even if he had been advised to do just that, he wouldn't have been able to go through with it. He had never been a man to surrender, not even to a power that was said to be beyond his own.

And that was why being the last king of the realm, as he had become in just a few months since the beginning of the Conqueror's conquest, had decided to send a message to every one of his soldiers all over the realm, calling them to come and fight for their kingdom in what he termed the battle of battles. He even hired mercenaries and swordsmen from every nook and cranny of the world to help, drawing them to him with the promise of valour, alongside a whole lot of golds that is.

But as fate would have it, even with what was almost undoubtedly the mightiest army in the realm at his disposal, Oswald was unable to defeat the Conqueror, a failure that meant that the flame was going to sweep through all that he and his ancestors had built, just as it had swept through the others before him.

Just then, Oswald arrived at his destination; a previously beautiful part of the castle that had become desolate in the light of everyone's hasty escape as they realised that the battle was lost, exactly as he suspected it would.

He walked to a room at the long end of the hallway and pushing open the double doors, he entered to see a boy of about six years old who looked very much like him, except a lot more scared.

                                  "Father!", shouted the boy as he saw who it was that had entered into the room, dropping the dagger he had previously been clutching to his chest to go hug him, "I'm scared".

                                      "I know, my sweet Edmund, I know", he replied, holding the boy very tightly to his chest, "And it's all because I wasn't powerful enough to protect you from it, forgive me".

                                       "But what is it, father?", the boy asked again.

                                       "Fire, my son", he replied as he looked at the window where a loud horn was blowing as the sky turned fiery red, almost as if in preparation of what was to come, "The fire of magic".