The Knight and the Peasant [FIRST DRAFT]

Chapter 34

The fire raged. Bright red, yellow, and orange. It danced and swirled into the sky. It started shy, like a pretty maid on her wedding night, but it had broken free of its chains and now it consumed everything in its path. People ran from the flames, but still, they clung like a desperate lover, never letting go. In its wake, ashes were left. It got into Salvador's ears, eyes, nose, and mouths. Choking him, drowning him in ash.

Then the storm came. It raged, howled, and screaming. It doused out the flames in an instant, bringing some short relief to Salvador. But the storm kept raging with more and more ferocity. His relief fell away in an instant when the winds began tearing up the ground.

The wind. It sung a sweet and beautiful song, one that promised peace, prosperity, and life, but in reality it tore up the ripped through the earth, crushed cities, and tore through kingdoms. All whilst singing its beautiful song. Lightning came down from the sky almost like rain, striking those who dared stand too tall. And then ice swept from the north, and a battle between wind, ice, and lightning ensued.

Somehow, over the screaming ferocity of the storm, he heard whispered words. They said to him, "The walls are crumbling. The end is starting. The storm is coming. The walls are crumbling. The end is starting. The storm is coming. The walls are crumbling. The end is starting. The storm is coming."

"The storm?" Salvador cried out. "What storm?"

"The walls are crumbling..."

"Who are you? What is happening?" he cried, louder and louder, hoping to be heard over the storm, the battle, but his words were simply ripped away from him the second they left his throat.

"The storm..."

The sky split open then, with a slim heavenly light beaming down. As the split got wider, so did the light. Salvador looked up but found himself blinded; his eyes began to burn with a fury he had never felt before.

"... crumbling..."

And the ground sundered and broke, ripping apart with a sound that echoed faintly of the crushing of bones and the screaming of those he knew. The wind and the storm were nothing now. For the tendrils of darkness reached up from the core of the earth and grabbed blindly to grab ahold of anything to lift itself up, to the light. But the light came down, ready for a fight. The light came down to penetrate the darkness.

And yet when Light and Darkness met, neither side won out. The two sides clashed and dissipated. All that was left in the aftermath was hazy... gray.

And then he woke up.

The rolling seas of the Caraíbes slowly gave way to white-colored sand beaches patched with small clusters of palm trees. Further to the south, a castle rose up in the distance, formidable yet beautiful. It was in the regular Sersalvonian style, grand arched buildings and sweeping windows with towers a hundred feet high tipped with sharp points painted in a morning blue. Rivièrra. Even from on the ship, he thought he could feel the cool breeze coming off of the Corriende, the river which he had spent his childhood living on. Salvador knew this land. If you went north on land, you'd be traversing rugged hills that gave away to a small plain just before you reached Sapinsville. Just ahead of their ships, Rivièrrian warships pulled up close to their caravel and hailed them.

"Who passes?" called the captain of the other ship, speaking the Merchant Tongue.

"Refugees!" Stephanie called out in Carabaí. "We come from Grenaserrat!"

"Grenaserrat? The Evrúopeans have been there for nigh on a month!"

"Indeed! There was a rebellion in the slave fields. A battle. We seized the chance to escape."