Demonheim

chapter 6

Roy's Past...

The sun was a merciless assbugger in the sky, beating down and not giving a shit if men were being cooked on the field. Roy stopped to wipe the sweat off his brow, pitchfork in one hand.
The other slaves were toiling away their lives just like him, Bren The Bean, the newest addition to their group, looked on the verge of collapse but still pushed on valiantly.
All that was left was a guard carrying a whip to complete the image but instead they had a supervisor who carried a sword so as to give them the impression that they weren't actually slaves of the vassal lord Nutter. This was the state of most denizens of Thorntown, everyone was indebted to Lord Nutter and had to pay in one way or another, theirs was slavery on the farm, shovelling hay all bloody day.
There was some commotion as a preppy young noble, given away by his expensive looking clothing and that universal noble assbugger cocksure grin, marched into the field flanked on either side by an armoured guard, a sword that looked to flashy to have been used in actual battle was belted to his hip and he kept the hand on pummel to draw extra attention to it.
"Which one of you goes by the name Roy?!" He called over the field.
All the men went back to work immediately, except Roy who remained standing. He sighed.
"That would be me"
One of the men working, a tall brute they had nicknamed Tiny gave him a worried look.
His casual attitude and lack of reverence in the presence of nobles  worried more than a few but to Roy they were just human, though richer and stupider, they were only humans still.
The young noble looked shocked for a moment before he stumped his way up to Roy who stared down his nose at the shorter boy, he looked no more than nineteen summers old.
"You!" He spat venomously, "you're the one who defiled lady Yvette!"
There was a moment of silence before laughter rang amongst the men in the field. Roy joined in as well, throwing his head back and letting out a bark of laughter much to the boy's annoyance. The noble's face reddened with rage and embarrassment.
"You dare to laugh in the face of my betrothed's indignity at your hands?!" The boy ranted.
"Listen, Lady Yvette was defiled a hundred men ago" Roy replied honestly, everyone knew Yvette was a whore, there were more men on the field who had seen her innerchambers than there wasn't, that's counting the old and the ugly.
Yvette would open her legs to any handsome or even plain looking travelers that passed through the village, she'd also taken a shine to contest winners and winning the latest jousting contest had put Roy on her radar.
"Good sir, I'd advice you to take what you can and run like the rest of us. Yvette isn't ready to be any man's woman"
The boy's face reddened even further, Roy could've sworn he saw smoke. The noble drew his sword, Roy had no doubt he'd been waiting to do that since he walked into the field.
"I, Alevian Ganavwich, will not let such slanderous words go unpunished! Draw you weapon peasant, for tainting Lady Y...."
And Roy slammed the butt of the pitchfork into his face. He fell on his behind with a yelp of pain and sputtered angrily.
The guards drew their weapons as the rushed forward.
"By interfering in the duel you would be soiling the noble lord's honour" Roy warned smugly as he backed away.
"What do you know about honour peasant?"
The guard on the left spat as he thrust his sword forward in an attempt to gut the boy.
Roy parried with contemptuous ease despite wielding a farm tool against a warrior's blade,
"you're a peasant too so you shouldn't have to ask!" He retorted.
The other guard circled him, Roy put on a confident front but he knew he was in trouble. He was not properly armed and the guards were moved like they had battle experience, coupled with their armour, he wasn't confident that he could take them both at the same time.
"Stop!" Alevian shrieked, "I will dispose this miscreant myself"
The guards were hesitant at the dilemma, would they admit to the noble that Roy was far more skilled despite being about the same age? It would be considered an insult seeing as the noble seemed excessively confident in his obviously subpar swordsmanship and overrall battle prowess.
"Back away from him!" Alevian raged as he glared and advanced on Roy. This time more cautious than before.
Roy spun the pitchfork. It wasn't much of a weapon but it had the advantage of a better range. Not that it would do much good seeing as he obviously couldn't kill the petulant noble boy.
Alevian lunged, Roy sidestepped and parried with the handle of the pitchfork. His booted feet dove into Alevian's rib. The boy staggered and gasped, taking much too long to regain his footing. If this was a real duel he would be dead already.
The noble swung the blade haphazardly but Roy parried the clumsy strikes with ease as they danced around each other.
He smiled, watching the noble pant as he exhausted himself. 'This is just too easy' he thought, too early though as something jabbed into his lower back causing agony to exploded across all over his senses.
He grunted to keep himself from squealing and dropped on one knee, pain lancing all over him.
"I told you to stay out of the fight!" Alevian scolded the guard who had stabbed him from behind but the relief in his eyes was evident.
"Sorry M'lord" he said unapologetically as he wiped Roy's blood off the tip of his blade.
Roy tried to stand but the agony was too much. He dropped on his sides as his vision swam.
He grit his teeth, casting a glare at the guard.
"What do you know about honour?" He rasped, putting as much hate as he could into the words.
"That's enough!" The supervisor called, finally deeming to intervene. "What is going on here?!"
The rest of the noise faded to a murmur as consciousness fled Roy.
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He woke up in the dungeon, his wound had been crudely sown shut and bandaged with dirty gauze. He hoped it wouldn't get infected. He was lying on a pile of straw, a singular torch burned in the scounce mounted on the wall outside the cell.
Trying to move sent a jolt of pain through him, he decided it was probably best to lay there and wish the pain away but the respite was short-lived as the guards came to fetch him.
He was presented before the Vassal Lord's court.
It was a choreographed affair, Yvette kept a straight face, looking every bit like the innocent maiden she certainly wasn't. The court found him guilty of soiling the noble girl's chastity and his punishment was execution. Roy was already plotting his escape before the King's councilman, coincidentally present during the trial, took pity on him and suggested that he would be of much greater value in the king's army.
Roy wasn't sad to hear that, Thorntown was such a shitty place that being forced into the army was a blessing as long as it got him out of there. He would be rid of the stupid Vassal lord and his whore of a daughter and he would get the opportunity to kill the guard who stabbed him in the back later on.
And so came his exile, a victim of political bullshit. He silently prayed that none of the children Yvette bore during her marriage to Alevian would be his. He seemed just like the type of foolish man who fell victim to such.
Time as a soldier didn't turn out to be as bad as he had expected. His skills with weapons helped him rise in ranks and in a few years he achieved fame that made bards spin foolish tales of how he was the illegitimate son of a great nobleman. None willing to believe that a boy without a lick of nobleblood had bested the greatest warriors in the Berrion.
He became a popular hero in the king's court and Yvette turned out to not be the only noblewoman whose chastity he had tainted, there were many more to come and there was at least one noble lord somewhere raising a child he thought was his own that looked suspiciously like Roy.
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Hey there it's Sentinel! Next chapter is coming up soon, please vote and leave a comment, tell me what you think.