Fall of an Empire: Leon, I

The beginning of my story on the Kingdoms of Mare, told from the POV of the Prince of Westervell, Leon West. Have only written three chapters on him, and the hiatus will continue indefinitely; it's the cursed writer's block!

But anyway...

I

LEON

LEON WEST, like any other fifteen year-old young man, must do his duties. As the Crown Prince of the Kingdom of Westervell and heir to the castle at River’s Bend, however, Leon’s duties were to the realm and to his noble house.

His duty today was alongside his father. Several months ago, his father, King Arvin, had decided and commanded that he was old enough to be taken on a campaign to the East, along with them came ten thousand brave soldiers of the West and a thousand Western cavalry.

Leon was quite an ordinary young man; tall, sporting an unruly dark brown hair, so dark that it was almost charcoal. Beside that, there was a proud, tanned face lit by emerald green eyes, befit of the men as well as women of House West.

He wore a plain steel plate with a green cloak on his back, which fluttered as he broke his black stallion into a trot to catch up with his father at the head of the marching column.

The army marched in a narrow line along the winding roads that cut through the mountainscape surrounding them which is the Divide: the barrier between the eastern parts of the Kingdoms from the western. To their far right, the peak of Mount Mare, the tallest peak in the Lands could be seen through the clouds, behind hills and other lesser mountains, and behind the hundred meter canyon that span right beside the road, covered by a thick mist. To their left, a craggy cliff reached for the sky, the peak of its mountain encased by a veil of fog that also diffused the afternoon sunlight.

The army around Leon was a sight to behold; the ten thousand best fighters from the First Legion Vindex of the Kingdom of Westervell; the pride of the nation and the one that takes no command other than the Throne. The heavy infantry, arranged in ten cohorts as were the legions of the empire of old, were clad in shining steel plate armor, and above them, standards fluttered in the cold mountain winds, flying the red-and-green colors below the golden lion standard of House West. Along with them are the kingdom’s longbowmen, and at the very back came the mules that hauled huge siege equipments, disassembled for transport, their timber creaking as their wagon wheels dragged them along the rocky, gravelly path, along with the long, winding baggage train that carried the army’s provisions for the month.

The path was narrow and exhausting for the army—as if marching with full armor and equipment was not enough—rough stone cut into the mountain sides, the path bumpy and steep, though if luck arises they would find a patch of paved valley road on their way. Some of them were quite broad, able to fit ten knights riding abreast, but in some parts very narrow and quite crumbly, so that only three men can pass at a time. More than that, the height made the air cold in the steel armor. There should have been a safer, and much easier approach around the Divide, up north at the Traitor’s Pass right beside the sea; but to reach that road, the men would have to pass by the Grand City of Mare.

Mare—Once the Golden City and capital of the Empire, only rubbles, that’s what’s left of it. Since its sack almost a century ago, the shroud of darkness still encased the city, and who knows what devils live inside. Leon knew, a thousand kilometers to the North, somewhere among the sea of mountains, lay the dark clouds that will forever shadow the smoldering ruins.

Those days were all but stories to Leon, born in the recent, turbulent times. He heard them by his late mother in bed while he was young; as they were told by the wanderers and meisters, as they were chronicled by the the bards and the minstrels, the times where there were no quarrels between the Men of the Plains, where the Emperor on the Dragonbone Throne ensures peace. Even his father, scarred by numerous battles wars, only knew this from the surviving knights from his father's court, and refused to answer much to it.

What Leon knew was that Mare and the Emperor that sat there was the only thing that kept the whole empire together. It bonded the three kingdoms of Westervell, Newlane, and Hart, supported their campaigns and made fair trade with them, and together they expanded and subjugated the barbarians and infidels over the running rivers to the east and west, over the sand dunes and steppes to the south, and over the rocky mountains and forests of the Great Divide as well as the Eastern Ridge.

That is, until the rebellion started. The King of Hart managed to unite the Three Kingdoms of the Plains against the Emperor in Mare. When the siege of Mare ended with the interruption by Darkness itself, turmoil ensued and after years, civil war took place—this very war Leon is riding his horse in.

The current King of Newlane, Gallio of house Alynson, ambitious as his father, declared war on the severely weakened kingdom of Hart, that has lost its entire army and never did recover from the rebellion; but Newlane was weak as well, everyone knew. Only then, ten years after the first blood, Arvin West decided that it was best to join the war on Newlane’s side.    
    

Which led to the moment—King Gallio has decided that it is ripe for the time to invade the heart of their enemy, the seat of power at the castle Stormheart. King Arvin, as an ally, had been called to arms and he himself volunteered that he will lead the legion of knights and levies and bannermen he dispatched, and he brought along Leon will as the first taste of war he will ever know.

Leon caught sight of his father at the very front, the warrior king above his white stallion. The forty year old was talking to the general that was riding beside him in a great grey warhorse, the commander of the whole army. Leon saw his father nodding to some suggestion, and glanced back, and at the sight of Leon he smiled, beckoning him to join at his side.

King Arvin West looked precisely like Leon, only an older and burlier, albeit a slightly little shorter version of him. He looked magnificent in his silver-adorned gilded steel plate armor; a red cape dangling in his left shoulder blazoned with the golden lion, moving along with the wind and his horse's sway. A simple crown, a silver band with gold ornaments, fit snugly in his broad brow, and framed his face together with the brown beard streaked with white.  “Father,” said Leon as he reached his father’s side and reined his horse, “How is war? I never understand it.”

King Arvin smiled. “Well, my young prince, you have still a million things to know about how the world works. War is just another little part in the everyday dealings of a king.”

“As your father's the king, my Prince, that’s his dealing, then.” said General Anto West, the man that had talked to the king moments ago, pulling his horse to Leon’s other side. The general’s nickname, the Longsword, came from his experience in a slew of battles with King Arvin, and he had lost none, thanks to his expertise with the weapon that now stands as his name. As the best warrior in the realm, he was also a close friend of Arvin and his Marshal, also being his younger brother by two years. “By the hells, war’s the only thing standing between you and power over the Empire.”

“Mare is forever gone, Anto, and our father along in its rubble.” commented the King. “Never remind me that.”

“But there—we see that with one power gone, the other must claim its place. What, are we just going to bow to King Gallio’s plea?”

“But so, why do we take sides with King Gallio, father?” asked Leon.

King Arvin took his time to think, scratching his short beard as he usually does while pondering on a matter. “The decisions of a king, my son. These are the decisions I made, and after me, you will make them too. As a king, you will have to see to the needs of your people, and what are the most beneficial for them. It will not be easy, it never was and never will be.”

“Heh,” muttered Anto. “Must be some thing King Gallio promised you, Brother. Else we would have stayed neutral, as we usually do.”

King Arvin scowled, earning a moment’s frightened glance from the General, but he shrugged the remark off.

“Then why did we stay neutral, father? It is the only thing standing between us and control,” again asked Leon. “How come Westervell got the smallest share of wars in the history of our Lands, for a thousand years?”

“I rule by one goal, and one goal only, I say to you,” answered King Arvin, his green eyes staring directly at Leon’s. “The people must come first, always. Since long ago our noble House ruled the lands to the West, and only by that goal that we pass down to each heir we have managed to keep our rule for so long—longer than any one of the other kingdoms, even the Empire itself." King Arvin reached out and put his hand on Leon's shoulder, and declared, "So now I pass this goal also to you, Leon of River's Bend, son of the West.”

Leon nodded, smiling at the honor, while he pondered deeply on his father’s words for a short while, for in time, it will be his turn to lead his people. Deep was his thoughts, it felt an eternity in his head. The host marched for an hour, and after that another hour and another after that, without antyhing of interest to Leon happening, besides one occasion of a man almost crushed by a boulder, as the cliffside seemingly became ever so steep and rocky and crumbly, even to become overhanging at one point, shading the heads of some fortunate soldiers for a moment from the blazing sun.

-o-

All the time, Leon was still on his horse’s back, his backside was still becoming accustomed to the hours-long march on horse, and the cramps still reached his thighs and his arms were growing stiff and tired. His father, uncle, and numerous centurions yelled commands each every while.

Then, the yell of one soldier behind him brought him back to the world from his long, boring ponder.

“DRAGON!”

General Anto looked to the skies above and scoffed, “Bah, I see no dragon—”

“Get down, everyone, down, I tell you,” ordered King Arvin sternly. His order was immediately passed, and as the drill is in the Legion when somebody yells dragon, a storm of metal clanking was heard as every soldier crouched down on his knee in the rocky road, which was mercifully quite wide on that point. Everyone readied his weapon, be it a spear or a sword, and put his shield above his head. The knights on horseback quickly dismounted, fell to his knee, and held the reins of their whimpering horses tight, weapons in the other hand.

Leon held his stallion’s reins tight as a blacksmith’s tongs. He saw to his left, his father the King is already behind his horse, calm in his eyes, but sternly barking commands and whispering encouragements. General Anto was gone; he seem to have seen the dragon, but he indeed had no fear of them, for he had rode for the very back of the line, giving out orders while others were taking cover. However, fear overcame Leon, making him unable to move for a moment's time. While the air was seemingly becoming ever frostier, the dampness of the mist covered his skin and it made his sweat profusely, droplets streaming from his brow. Most probably, the fear also made him sweat, as he could be fried in a matter of seconds from now.

Still, out of the flash of curiosity that suddenly overcame him, he managed to crane his neck above the saddle to look at the direction of the canyon.

Just then he saw it, the grey dragon—no, wyvern, seeing from the two legs the creature has, as opposed to a four-legged dragon, that is coming straight at the column. It was quite small for a wild dragon, only as big as a small house, probably a juvenile. Its wings stretched and buffeted, removing the thin wisp of fog around it; though it was still concealed well, as the grey colors blended well enough with the surrounding rocky mountainscape and the dull mist.

The wyvern was, he saw, magnificent.

He never saw one in the wild, probably because of his confinement in the castle of River’s Bend. Moreover, the dragons preferred to live in the mountains.

The great libraries of River’s Bend held many books and scrolls, of which many of them Leon had read in his studies. Among them are the yellowing tomes and records about dragons; the winged menaces that terrorized the lands. However, since the dawn of warfare, the kingdoms had always tamed and rode dragons into battle.

Westervell used theirs in their Airborne Legion, some small wyverns and larger dragons used to breathe fire from the sky, training their formation above the capital city of Riverside, clearly seen from the high position of River’s Bend just at the outskirts of it. Every day, some dragons usually come to the castle itself, bearing gifts, important messages, and visitors.

But none of them were as massive as this wild adolescent wyvern; none with wings this large, able to wholly envelop a trebuchet—and that beast was coming straight for them, fangs bared…

It was still coming for the legion, closer and closer still.

Come. A voice came out of nowhere, loud and clear in his ears.

“What?” Leon whispered to a soldier that is crouching behind his horse beside him, a young man he recalled the name as Cray. He looked at Leon, but immediately looked down as he did before, not going anywhere.

At the front lines, front, a horse whimpered and clopped its hooves loudly, causing other horses to join in its discomfort. Leon can also hear the shallow breaths of fear by the knight beside him, and everything seemed to be slowing to a stop, but what happened next came so fast it was a blur to Leon.

“Archers! Fire at will!” came orders from somewhere in the back of the line, his uncle, perhaps, or maybe a captain. He must have ordered his unit of archers to fire flaming arrows, as the drill is when a dragon comes too close. Instantly, hundreds of arrows whizzed past the heads of the front lines, its flames licking the black scales, narrowly missing the wyvern, while several others making its mark on the beast’s scales.

A moment after, another volley was fired, this time, more hit the great wyvern. It lurched and screamed, but small, puny arrows were never going to hurt past the thick scales of any grown dragon.

Two volleys were enough—as it always do—the juvenile wyvern roared at the column with the last of its dignity, spraying hot red flames at the lines, which thankfully did not quite reach the men, and, defeated, it took its wings and turned, for the dragon must have thought the onslaught was too much for a quick lunch; the legion has proved itself as a worthy dragon by sending a rain of fire. Leon could see, as the dragon posed its flank, a deep gash upon its long snout, mark from a battle long ago fought, a lighter pinkish white upon its grey scales.

The archers still tensed for a minute before finally the captain commanded at ease. The men pulled up from their crouch, and the knights returned to their horses, and soon they returned to their previous marching speed—slow as a turtle, but better as to stopping and becoming meals for a dragon.

“A valley wyvern,” said King Arvin when they had returned to their horses and walked at the head of the column. “You don’t see one too often these days.”

“Where there is a valley wyvern,” said General Anto, who had returned to the front, “There is always a valley.” He turned his great warhorse to face the marching column and yelled at the soldiers behind, “Men! Take heart of this event! Our valley is nearby. The gods above be praised—they sent the dragon to let us know that our time of victory has come!”

The column cheered in thunderous voice at the general’s speech, raising their weapons high in the air, and flying the red and green colors on the standards of Westervell.

“Our valley is near, up front. There, we will stay the night,” explained King Arvin to Leon. “Now, come on, we still have a long day in front of us.”

Leon caught up and called his father, and said to him, “Back when the dragon came, I heard someone very loudly yelled ‘Come’.”

His uncle came beside him and answered, “Must have been the wind.”

“The mountain winds are known to play queer tricks on our ears,” agreed the King.

Leon finally answered, “I guess you’re right,” and then followed close behind his father, the legion of Westervell tailed after them, its morale at the peak, and thus they pushed merrily to the descending fog, the commands and rhythms from the General carried over the entire line by the gusting winds.

Finished on 11 July 2015.