Paladin - the path north volume one

Chapter 20

Tar'vid looked aghast at the remains of his right arm, using his left hand to feel over the stump. He couldn't hear what the Elf was saying... he was too focused upon his missing arm. He felt tears welling up in his eyes, he was useless now, all he'd ever been good at was fighting... now, what was he?

"Tar'vid... Tar'vid?" the Elf asked. "Have you heard anything I've said to you?"

"My... my arm, what did you do?" he asked, though he was starting to surge with anger at this injustice.

"WHAT. DID. YOU. DO. TO. ME!" he screamed in rage, everyone around him shrinking back at his fury, unsure what to do with him. All except the Elf, who stood perfectly still before him.

"Your arm was unfortunate, had you not tried to kill the King perhaps you would still have it," the Elf said calmly.

Tar'vid remembered back to the siege, remembering a spear piercing his arm and the pain that followed, he still thought he could feel his arm until he looked down to the empty space. Tar'vid had thought his death inevitable and with that, he had tried to end the battle right there. Clearly, it hadn't worked, yet here he was minus an arm... his sword arm.

"What happened then?" he asked, feeling a lucid calmness fall over him.

"The man you killed, we removed his head and placed your helmet on it. To your troops, one severed head looks much like any other I figured," the King said in response, Tar'vid noticed he still kept a safe distance away.

"As your life started to slip away I sealed your mind inside a Grail crystal. The King's healers saved your life, but the arm was too damaged and had to be removed," the Elf explained in his usual calm voice.

"But why, why not just kill me, or lock me away?" he asked, forgetting he couldn't gesticulate with the stump of his arm.

"Because you are required, were you not, your life would have been expunged years ago. As to why I kept your mind sealed away, that is easily explained... your blade, Torgard, had we not handed it over, your allies would have doubted your death, especially without a body. Whilst sealed away your blade could not find you, and whilst here you were sheltered from the demon cloud that swept the land only hours ago" the Elf said, walking around him in a slow circle.

"Demon cloud?" Tar'vid asked he thought such things a mere creation to frighten the common folk back home.

"Yes, they tear through the dimensional barrier every few hundred years, seeking out weak hosts to inhabit... it's how they are born," the Elf explained stopping behind him. "It's ultimately what killed your Saints, and by their deaths, your whole order. The Paladins are finished..."

Tar'vid couldn't believe him, wouldn't... but, the looks upon the faces of the other Paladins changed his mind. His life had collapsed around him in a matter of minutes, perhaps it would have been kinder to let him die. Tar'vid looked around the chamber properly for the first time. It was lavishly finished, gold gilded figures on the walls of Elves and dragons, Minotaurs, and Orcs... behind him, larger than life were the Saints, along with the companions present at the last battle for the Blooming, all of them now long dead. The rest of the chamber stood littered with cages and bedrolls, fires and stacks of boxes, he spotted Tar'gon, his former rival unmistakable, even with his long beard.

"Why keep us alive then, when more powerful Paladins have perished?" Tar'vid asked finally. "And what is your name Elf?"

The Elf smiled, perhaps the first sign of emotion to have crossed his face. "I am Korgan, a Mage from the order of seeing, though I no longer associate with them. As to why you seven are still alive, as I said before Tar'vid, you are required. The others, dumb luck, I suppose. Now, I'm sure the King has plans for you... as for myself I have business southwards, I will, however, see you before you leave in the spring."