Guardian(Part IV): Revelation

Chapter 17: John

I did everything I could to help the Camnorish soldiers evacuate Auldrin, and by the next morning, every civilian we could save was out of the city before they were all killed. There were too many that didn't survive, though, as their capital city was reduced to ash. They were either torn to pieces by monsters or turned to ash by the flames that consumed Auldrin. I killed as many monsters as I could, but I still saw more civilians die than I would have wanted to. We boarded all of the survivors on transport aircraft and flew them to the city of Ymrion, which was on the border between Camnora and Chardan, and the only city other than Auldrin large enough to house so many refugees. The soldiers also managed to save King Heinrich and his family from dying with the rest of his city, and as thanks for my help, he pardoned every Guardian for fighting against his armies three years ago, and gave me a house in Ymrion. After a year of wandering the west, now, I couldn't turn it down. It was the first time in a long time I had a proper house, and I couldn't have been more grateful to the King for giving it to me. It was a small house, but since I was the only one living here, I didn't need a larger one. I flopped down on my bed and went right to sleep, even though it was midday. I woke up restless, though. There weren't very many Guardians left in the West, and Commander Jonas had ordered the remaining ones to stay out of danger as much as possible. The destruction in Auldrin made me think, though. I had power that I could use to save people, but I was supposed to stay out of as much danger as I could. That didn't mean not being a Guardian, though. I needed to get back out there. I put on my Sorcerer robes and was about to walk out my door when I heard a knock from the other side. I opened the door to find a squad of Camnorish soldiers standing outside with a General leading them.

"Good morning, Captain," the General greeted.

"Morning, General," I said.

"The King has a request," the General informed, handing me an envelope. "Your eyes only."

"What kind of request?" I wondered.

"I don't know," the General answered. "Like I said, your eyes only."

The General and his soldiers walked off. I went back inside to open the envelope and take the letter inside out. It had King Heinrich's seal stamped on the bottom, and a disturbing message to tell. The King seemed to be asking that I investigate the disappearance of a few of his soldiers that went to investigate ancient ruins to the west of Ymrion. The letter told me that these particular ruins had been of interest to Camnorish scholars for centuries, but anyone who had tried to see exactly what they are had never come back from them. During the Third Great War, Heinrich tried to garrison his soldiers in them. A thousand soldiers all disappeared one by one over the course of as many days for reasons unknown. The more recent disappearance was strange enough to not be a person's doing, so I was clear to investigate.

"Let's see what's going on," I whispered to myself. I took my snowmobile west, and I saw the ruins of a crumbling watchtower built from stone bricks at the top of a hill. It couldn't have been the ruins the King was talking about. It was too small. I drove to the top of the hill to see what was on the other side. In a valley on the other side of the hill was an enormous castle built from stone, lying in snow-covered ruins. That place had to be my objective. I drove towards its gate, and began to sense an aura of darkness hanging over the entire valley. A forest of barren trees was just in front of the drawbridge, but when I approached its edge, I realized that they weren't trees. They were long stakes, with skeletons impaled on them. I was certain that they weren't skeletons before they were impaled, but I at least hoped they weren't alive when they were. My snowmobile wouldn't fit through the stakes, so I climbed off of it to walk between them, towards the castle's drawbridge. I kept my eyes as low as possible so I wouldn't see the impaled corpses, but kept them high enough to see in front of me as I drew closer to the path leading to the drawbridge.