Kingsblade

Chapter 1 - Children of the Night

[ Y E A R   4 ,   T H E   F I R S T   A G E ]

One thousand years earlier

THERE WAS A CONSTANT WAR between them: the cobblestone and the king. He, the king who hated socks. It, the unabashed thief of all good things.

Things like warm feet.

King Éoran Karanor remembered this when he woke with a start and pushed himself out of bed and into consciousness in one smooth movement. He grumbled a curse as the cobblestone floor sucked the warmth from his bare feet.

"Could you not be more like a blanket, hmmm?"

It was a teeny tiny thing to ask, Éoran had expressed to the indifferent and decidedly not alive stones many times. He and the cobbles by the hearth were on marginally better terms, but he could not be sure if this were because he had inspired change or if they had adapted their style of thievery, settling for stealing away the warmth of the fire instead of his feet.

Ah, the terrible ambiguities and complexities of war, he thought, narrowing his eyes at the cobblestones glowing in the firelight.

He often consulted with his war council, the rowdy herd of castle wards whom Éoran had decided needed something to focus their boundless energies.

They were the wild bunch of not-unlovable misfits with whom he shared his castle, and they were as unruly as they were loud. Éoran could only compare their unending concert of discord to the song--if it could even be called that--of the gentle giants who lived in the jungles of Mombacho. 

What were they called? Very unnatural dog-like things with the massive floppy ears and strange, long noses, he thought, trying to picture the word he had scribbled in his travel journal many winters before. 

Eel-lee-fonts. Yes, that was what the man had said. What a strange word, he thought. 

He liked to practice it when he got bored. He would roll it around on his tongue just to feel the fullness of its embrace.

Upon entering the buzzing dining room, he would remark, "Esteemed councilmembers, I am ready to hear your proposals for the forward front against the cobblestones." 

He would stand, unblinking as he took a long sip of steaming ginger tea until silence fell over the dining room. His rowdy wards cowed into silence. He would hear no petitions of compromise, either, especially those with socks involved.

"That would be admitting defeat!" he would cry in indignation.

Éoran knew full well: only fools answered the madness of children with the rationality of adults. That was why adults always lost. No, he matched them with an even greater madness that inspired them into obedience, and it worked beautifully. The children always laughed, and it was the laughter that lifted them above the real tragic and eternal wars that marked their lives.