The Shadow of the Accursed Executioner

Chapter 14: The Black Ones

The squires tended to the fittings of the silver pauldrons, as King Rhentehl continues to stare into a sheen mirror from inside a black tent, stoic and fearless, his eyes wise and dim-blue. The squires layered his silver cloak which had concealed his left arm to the gauntlet, with no openings through his armour but of black paddings from the hinges of his arms, as his chestplate etched of the white symbol, the famous crown of the many protruding pikes, King Aragenn's crown.
For the stomping of silver sabatons then entered through the black tent, as the squires did not turn to look or not even from the whites of their eyes to see to the appearance of a silver knight, as he kneels before the king, equipped with his silver longsword and sheathed within a decorative scabbard.
"When would you like the garrison to move, your grace." The knight said.
"I have sent four sentries for the call." The king informed, as he continues to gaze within the mirror, examining his attire. "Let this be my son's most valuable lesson..."
"And the other one?"
"I will grant the signal." He replied, strong and certain, his voice cold beneath a thought of hope. "...And they will do it."
"..."
"Ready my horse." He requested to a squire, then one departed from the tent, as too the silver knight had vanish from the entrance.

Days Before the Raid of Pillagers: Zero

Down the black ladder was the end of a short climb, as Ayu had went first then Philani then myself. For at the bottom of the ladder was a small room toward a direction which had looked to be a small prison cell, which was cold and empty, but of a tin bucket and a coarse bed made of stripped hay and long sheets of cloth, the cell too smelling as foul as the age of a bygone body. As toward the other end of the metal ladder, the passage had descended with a flight of stairs into a silent mouth of dark, as I brought my candle against the wall to reveal an iron sconce with a torch, oiled and all, ready for flame.
"...A torch." I wondered. "Ayu, check the other wall."
"Hm, how convenient." He replied, revealing the second torch from another sconce on the wall, then lighting the torch with his candle, igniting his light like a beacon.
"Convenient? That means that...there really is something down here. Something to reveal..."
"Of course-but are you not excited? Well?!" He loudly remarked, smirking queer, lusting of curious intrigue to continue, as he steps down to the first tread of the stairs and holding Philani's hand.
"Come. It is time, Ghen." He insisted further.
"Just be careful." I advised, removing the torch off the sconce, then lighting it with the candle.
Then descending down a seemingly endless tread of hard steps, it, the descent was a chill against my skin through the air.
But now to see clearly with our torch-lit hands, the descent of the stairs had return to a levelled plain of ground within the passage.
For the flooding of our lights had revealed the rims of an entrance, leading into a large room as I step toward the entrance and to watch from my place, the torch now revealing the ends of two shelves, swelling with coarse-yellow papers from across their muddled lanes. But that did not stop Ayu as he entered through the room without a thought of concern.
"-Ayu." I called to him, his light now revealing both lanes of the brown shelves as Philani remains beside me with his candle.
"Brother. Please wait." He begged adoringly, his voice cherishing.
For I stayed beside the entrance of the room. As now the light from Ayu's torch had remain in place.
"Ah, well, this... this is... hm. How can I comprehend this?" He spoke distant, his voice smug.
"Just stay beside me, Philani." I said. Then, without a word, he swiped the palm of my hand with a firm grip.
Now to enter inside the room with the shelves piled of papers and of sealed books, there too had reside of four pillars beside each end of the shelves, as the light of my torch glowed through the long crevices of the shelves to reveal-
"N-No!" Begged Philani," P-Please!" Now his voice muffling as he turns away from the sight of the entire room, planting his face into my stomach.
But I continued along between the shelves to approach Ayu at the end of the black room, and wrapping my arm around Philani's head, as he continues to clutch his arms around my waist hugging me. Then approaching beside Ayu, as I looked beyond the pillar too, there he had loomed over a mound of skeletal remains. As which the skeletons were wearing black armour, their faces peering from their bone-hollow eyes and from within their raised visors, from of many varied designs of black knights' armours. As they too, the deceased knights, had each bear of a vague variation-of an arm or a leg, and along some faces too, were glowing black, which had looked like the part of a shadow's body, I thought, or perhaps-like the piece of a phantom or a black spirit.
"The curse..." He spoke low. Ayu kneeled before a mound of black knights. "It... really is the curse." He thought, dreading the sight, though intrigued. "I've...never seen it in person before."
"Their bodies." I thought. "Their arms and legs are glowing black...like they had appeared in those books. I don't understand."
Then Ayu released a faint sigh. "Nor do it, Ghen. However, yet," He assumed, "they...are all black knights, are they not?"
"Yes. Black knights. Executioners of the Realm." I answered, elaborating. "Black Executioners. Men whom once were Knights of the Realm, now whom serve high justice for the king." I said. "But...there must be at least a hundred bodies in this room."
"Eeek!" Squeaked Philani, keeping his face into the blackly sight of my stomach.
"Perhaps the black knights have been imprisoned here ever since the Founding, or even since the reign of King Aragenn. I mean-just look at all these various suits of armour! Ah, look! One even has the symbol of King Aragenn's crown." He gasped queer. "Incredible!"
"King Aragenn's sigil. The first black knight..." I said.
"Correct."
As Ayu brought his hand toward the husk of a corpse, with a whole arm of the curse hanging lifeless through a knight's armour, his hand now phasing through the corpse's shadowed limb.
"Ah. Hm. So it is true." He continued, retaining his hand within the black limb. "They say that when the curse appears, the original limb gets severed in its place, which then the new one, the curse, will appear instead. To become a part of you...evidently for a long time. Or perhaps even for eternity, judging from what we are seeing before us." He said. "For even now...they remain linked to the curse until bone."
"But your hand." I added grimly-astonished. "Your hand just-just the way it's able to pass through like that..."
"Passing through the black limb, the curse?" He replied with an endearing wonder, as he brought his hand away from the cursed limb, then to stand in his place as he brought his slender fingers to my face, now with the light of our torches facing off like two souls. "And now my hand shall become inflicted by this cuurrrrse!" He cried in remark.
"Don't touch me with that hand." I replied daily, and now with Philani so frightened that his back had begun to shiver.
"Ahahaha!" He laughed proud and queer. "It seems that the tomes were true. There really is no way to reach into the existence of a shadow's limb."
Then Ayu approaches a trunk between the shelves against the wall, revealed by the light of his torch, which was a small, curved container of wood shaped like a chest and patterned of iron paddings with a chequered design.
A trunk, which was ready for the brim to be revealed and to see inside.
"Elder brother." Begged Philani, his voice pouring, so frightened as he remains attached to me with his warm hug. "I-I am... afraid." He trembled. "I do not wish to see this place no more-"
"Oh, hush now, little brother." He interrupted, tiresome by his speech, as he turns to approach me and Philani.
"..."
"Now now, surely you have not forgotten already, little brother?"
Approaching to confront us strongly. And now Ayu did not smile nor smirk nor be giggly queer too.
"..."
"Surely you have not forgotten that...you too are a prince, or. Are you not?"
"..."
"I had told you, brother, that you must be brave, that you must face your fears." He said. "But now your little game shall come to an end. Because you are going to look at the remains of these dry corpses-"
"NOOO-!! PLEASE NO-OH, BROTHER!!" He cried in pain. "I don't like fighting-or blood or bad things!"
"...Nor do I, brother..." He said. For Ayu's voice were calm and brim of sympathy, as he wrapped his hands around Philani's wrists. "But in order for you to understand this world, you must first be exposed to the reality...-of this world!" He grunted, now pulling against Philani's left arm.
"NOOOOOOOOO!!!" He screamed with tears down his eyes and with a snotty nose-now as Ayu plucked his left arm from my body then to pull against the other-
But, I then placed my hand against Ayu's chest.
"Stop!" I demanded.
And he froze in place.
Now as Ayu brought his eyes down like he were teeming with shame, his silver hair now concealing his face, as Philani snapped back into my body, to resume crying like he had seen a ghost, his breath heavy and his nose droopy.
"That's enough, Ayu." I repeated, calm and assuring. "Please...he's only a boy. He doesn't need to see this." I begged lowly. "Not yet."
"Hm...hmhmhm." He giggled suddenly, etching a tone of arrogance, yet somewhat impressed. "Must I explain to you, Ghen...about the meaning of exposure?"
For Ayu began to caress my forearm with the tips of his pale fingers. Then he caressed up against my right bicep, now to feel my laboured muscles.
"Then let us forge an example..." He said, as Ayu begins to circle around me and examine my body. "You, are one of the few blacksmiths of the realm." He stated. "A fiery conjurer of the tools used to fight beyond the realm."
"......"
"But tell me... can a sword ever be the same after it has pierced or slashed into the skin of screaming men and women and children?" He questioned.
"..."
"No. The sword is exposed." He continued. "But eventually we shall grow old and die, as does the sword, which becomes old and dull and rusts too, perhaps.
"But they're not the same." I rebutted softly. "You're comparing humans and swords used for combat."
"Ah, but they both serve a purpose." He answered brightly. "...For when I become king, eventually Philani must become king as well. As that too is his purpose. He...must face the realities of this world as the future king one day, for the sake of the realm and its people." He said.
For Philani grew silent in his place (and still latching against my body) as Ayu returns to stand before me with his torch.
"Now, Ghen. You must help me, by removing Philani from the clutches of your body-"
"Nooooooo!" Then Philani whining, his voice wobbling again in fear. "Brotherrr-rr!" He moaned like a frightened girl, pressing his face into my stomach, deeper.
But a king too, he were to be some day, I thought.
It, to be inevitable as the next king, for the Andswall Royal Family, to be Ayu then Philani by realm's right.
For then I latched against Philani's gown of silk, now grabbing his arms but his fingers digging into the fabrics of my tunic, as I brought my left hand to his wrist.
"Philani..." I spoke faintly, a soothe, my face stoic and dark beneath the torch. "...I'm sorry."
For I released my hand from his wrist, to tickle against the pit of his arm then down his ribs. As now his hands shot away from the fabrics of my tunic along with Ayu releasing the grip of his torch, it, dropping to the ground.
But to release his torch, Ayu snatched Philani's arms then grabbed his body.
"Get my torch." He ordered, his face broad, yet be hidden of pain in his eyes.
For I obeyed Ayu as he binds Philani with his arms like a beast toying with his prey. Then he wrapped his right arm around Philani's neck as he tightly latched onto his silver hair with his left.
"Now listen to me!" He growled into his brother's ear. "You will look at the remains of these past executioners, who served our father then his father and his father before him."
But Philani continued to scream and cry as he stared with forced eyes into a pair of hollow sockets staring back from a mound of black armour and phantom limbs.
And he screamed.
And screamed.
To scream until his throat had begun to break.
"LOOK AT THEM!" He demanded with fury, now pulling against his hair further. "For one day, you shall have your very own black knight, a headsman for high justice, who will serve you too, as you become king after me!"
"NOOOOOOO!!!!!!!" He cried, as Philani shrilled with bursting tears, now streaking down to his neck and with snot slivering to his chin. "WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!" He continued. "BROTHERR PLEASE!!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAHAAAAAAAAAA!!!!! NO MOOOOOOOOOOOORE!!!!!!" He begged.
For his screams were like a shutting portal of harrowing demons, begging to leave their homes of madness and red blight from within the soul of his body.
"-I am showing you, little brother! For you will learn to see death as a king! To pass the sentence is a powerful ordeal in the realm! So we can rule our people for a betterment that none shall choose to oppose! For we shall become an even better realm-!" He said.
But, for Ayu's speech had come to an abrupt end, as Philani fell lifeless into his arms.
"Philani...!" I grieved. "He's-"
Then Ayu went down upon his knees with care. And now I hovered the torches above him and his brother to see them clear beneath the light.
"...He fainted." He said. "Ah," Now as Ayu realised with a smile and dreamy eyes, "I wonder how much he had heard of that."
"Surely there must to of been a more pleasant way to teach your brother about death, sacrifice, and ruling as a king." I said. "Because I think his screams will haunt me for the rest of my life."
"Haha."
"No. Truth beyond, each morning I think I'll leave a heap of brown beneath the sheets now." I expressed. "...Those screams were horrible."
Ayu's chuckle had fade quick. "Yes. No, of course, his screams were unpleasant."
Then he rose from his place with Philani in his arms.
"But threat not, he will grow from this experience." He said, his tone proud and queer. "After all, it were like this for me, as well."
"......"
"You should know...he is much tougher than he seems." As he rose from the ground with Philani, carrying him as if he had weighed as low as a feather. "But Philani...had always opposed conflict." He admitted. "He would always sit at the archives and read all the books about the world depicted by the Dragon Seekers and of various other topics. Then eventually when his mind had reached its burden of knowledge for the day, he would head outside to watch and play with the koi by the fountain."
He explained, now as he offered me to burden Philani from his grasp.
"Philani...has yet to leave the King's Court. His own home." He thought, his voice fragile and thoughtful, now as I accepted Philani into my arms and the torches exchanged. "On the day I turned seven, the King's Knight placed a sword in my hand, then began training me on the same day. Sir Eng had trained me for a whole year, each and every day. He trained me well. And from dawn until dusk." He smirked, now wondering. "Hmm...but I enjoyed it. Perhaps every breath of it."
"..."
"Then after my training I would have supper with father and Philani...then read and write, study each function of the realm, then play the organ in front of father until midnight." He said, rambling along, though he were gentle, cherishing his past. "But Philani did not receive his knighthood." He continued. "He did not train to fight. Instead, he was isolated. Bound within the inner-walls of the realm. Guarded by the sentries...day and night. Kept under watch by father."
"..."
"Kept under watch from the battlements...to do nothing but read of the horrible books which bear the inscribed sufferings of those before us. That is why he is so frail from even the thought of a joyful spar. That is why I forced his eyes upon the dead. He must see the realities of this world as an eventual king." He said.
For I continue to hold Philani in my arms as Ayu returns the torch to my hand. Now as Ayu searched throughout the rest of the room, his light glowing among all the faces of the black knights, which the bodies and their phantom limbs had laid as a mound of armoured skeletons from each corner of the room.
"Why was Philani really kept away from the rest of the realm?" I asked suddenly. "Why was he not granted knighthood? Because all the previous sons and daughters of the Royal Family were known as great warriors."
But then Ayu laid his hand against the spine of a coarse book, which displayed a dark-blue hue of scars and cracks across a blank, hard case.
"Yes. All were great protectors of the realm." He said. "But I simply do not know why father detains my little brother within the limits of the King's Court. I have asked him many times..." He confessed.
Then Ayu turns over the case of the book with care, now to see inside, to see stale pages which were as old as stains of yellow through the pages of the book and along black smudges. As the first page had shown of a single name and two titles.
"'Black Knight, Sir Orn Byka'. 'Executions, two-hundred and ninety-seven'." He read. "'Knight of the Realm, Sir Orn Byka'. 'Kill count, five-hundred and twenty-four'."
I looked down at the book with Ayu as he turns the next page. But he stared down at the page with a blank look, now beginning to skim through the pages until the end of the book, then to place it back within the shelves. For Ayu was silent as he clutched against the spine of another book-blank too, but inside written of another name, of another black knight, (and written as well as a silver knight).
"These are..." He thought, his face cold and confused, chilled by the sight of rotten pages-
"What do you see?" I questioned, eager to know.
"...These are...a recollection of all their killings... as Knights of the Realm, then as executioners." He expressed, then reaching for another book. "And it seems as though these pages are just briefly written reports on how they killed each of their enemies as Knights of the Realm then as black knights..."
"But all black knights were executioners." I said. "They were headsmen for the king and high justice. And there would only be one black knight of the realm at a time."
"Only one. One black knight, whom be the only one allowed to execute the guilty." He added. "Only one...until something would happen to you, which would precisely be this curse...which seemed to have manifested from within them. Then the king would imprison you here, until you would starve to death or die of thirst."
"You can't be certain about that." I urged.
"It is just a theory, Ghen, judging from what has happened here... To capture each knight then to secretly imprison them after the curse." He said. "For that means that, my family...has kept this literal accursed room of dead secret for a long time." He expressed, a grim sense of guilt filled his voice, as he returns another book of recollections within its place among the shelves. "But now it seems that we only have what remains inside that trunk, to know more about the curse, or anything else for that matter, perhaps."
And so we had went toward the chequered-iron trunk, as Ayu loomed down at the brim with his flame.
"Ayu...are you ready for this?" I called, bracing for the unknown. For Ayu went down onto his knees as he placed his fingers above the brim of the trunk.
"...So, this room is what you had wished to see all this time." I thought, then to confess to him. "But...whatever we see inside this trunk, I then hope to forget of this place. To forget about this horrid room and all it holds."
For Ayu remained in his place, and as still as stone, he were, with his hands resting against the lid of the trunk, now as he turns back to stare with his right eye.
"I understand." He smiled. "But I will be here to protect you, Ghen...if then, I suppose, whenever these bodies shall decide to rise from their graves, I will have to strike them down for you. Or is it the fear they bring to your mind? Then I shall do what I must to make you forget. Perhaps another kiss from me later?"
"Just get to it. Open the trunk."
"Then it is done." He replied happily, tapping the trunk with his fingers. "Then another kiss it shall be from me! But in the end...it shall end with a blissful fuck along the moment."
Now Ayu reveals the brim of the trunk, as Philani begins to softly squirm in my arms.
"...Oooh." He whined ill, opening his blue eyes, noticing the room then to stare into my eyes.
"Philani." I spoke calm. "How do you feel? Keep your eyes on me, for a little longer." I pleaded.
"W-We...are still here..." He slurred, dazed in his wake. "Here...this place, with all the dead people..." He mourned, but seemingly to have grown stronger, he, Philani, now accepting of the surrounding black knights.
"Yes." I answered, then lowering him to stand upon his own two feet. "You seem better." I added.
But Philani remained silent, as he approaches to sit and lay against the shelf, now resting his arms over his knees as he had brought them to his stomach, now tucked in like a ball and pondering silent within the dark like a lost pup.
Then I turned back to see Ayu with his eyes concealed by his silver hair, as he looked within the trunk with a stoic gaze, the lid raised whole, now as he held large sheets of pulp in his hands.
Which, the sheet of old paper had revealed of a depiction, I thought, as it were the depiction of a pale face, who wore a white crown with protruding spikes. And for the scribbled face had depict of two blue eyes like painted blobs, yet, for Ayu had held a heft of pulp in his hands, now as he reveals another sheet beneath.
Another depiction, revealing another face.
It, the same face, now with black eyes-I thought.
"Black eyes?" I wondered, as endless as beyond were the eyes from the pulp, as pure as the steep of dark.
"How adoring." He replied, undaunted. "Do you think so, too?"
Then Ayu revealed the next page with another depiction. But it too were another face, and, yet the same face.
For the next face had depict of the black eyes too, now with plots of black scribbles across its pale face. Then Ayu revealed the next sheet of pulp. Then it were another face, revealed, with whom were still wearing the crown, as each face had depict of additional black scribbles, as Ayu continues to unveil each sheet from his hands.
"What's happening to their faces?" I urged, a steepness of worry filled my eyes.
As he continues to unveil the next page of the depictions, the faces gaining darker and darker, with each filling of additional black scribbles than the last, and each still wearing the crown of King Aragenn.
Then as Ayu's hands had remain of two last pages, there it had shown of a final face.
For the final face, as I examined the sheet with Ayu, now like our souls were being sucked within the page, I thought.
For it, then to see, were a pure blank face.
A pure blank face, seemingly like it were the same face which were gradually erased-or to reveal throughout of an unveiling through each sheet, I thought, with King Aragenn's crown, (yet now to believe it were not King Aragenn's crown according to the depictions).
"The kings..." I gasped, realising. "Ayu, how many faces are there-?"
"Twenty-six." He replied with haste and annoyance. "I had begun counting as soon as I laid eyes upon the first sheet of pulp...with the face bearing blue eyes." He expressed.
But Ayu had looked to be fuming from within, his mouth quivering and his blue eyes steeped with evoke.
"What is this...? Really?" He questioned, his voice strained as his hands had begun to shake. "Did King Aragenn...-descend from some type of strange, black form?"
Then to calm Ayu I had grabbed his right hand. "But this is what you had wished to see." I said. "For over ten years you waited to get beneath the throne."
"I-It is just a little overwhelming, Ghen, when you see the evidence of your own eyes within something so cryptic." He rebutted, smiling, though his smile etched false from beneath his charm. As within he were stricken by the revelation of a discovery, and bewildered by the sight of his own blue eyes.
But then I hovered my flame over the final page.
For the final page, I thought, wondering at the strangeness of eerie ink drawn against a coarse yellow, to have displayed no face, but of the page depicting what had seemed to be an island.
An island, the page had shown, with a rising wall of stone and a black alcove beneath, and along the opposing end were overgrown roots like hung strings with desolant slopes, topped with endless trees and shrubs. As there too had stood of a strange figure at the highest point of the island's rising earth. A tall and vague figure drawn black, staring from within the page like the sighting of a malevolent entity.
"Hmph." Shook Ayu, though intrigued.
"Turn it over." I said, for I thought, believing for the page to reveal more.
Then to see beneath, the coarse pulp now reading of an inscription.