Joseph Dragonn

Knight´s Bridge: The Awakening

Episode One: Dream Weaver

Beyond the dark and deep valleys of Grandurë, over the golden hills of Rendig, and through the shadows of Narenea Forest, an elegant castle, none like any other, stands tall and proud within the Knights Bridge. Here lives the prosperous Kingdom of Gallöran. A city so wondrous and magnificent, its trumpets are heard from all around the land.

Travelers far and wide drive their carriages and pen wagons miles past its borders, just to claim that they have seen the Great City. Many merchants set shop on its structural grounds, becoming wealthy and sly to the teeth. Treacherous devils could sell you a pin of hay for the very clothes on your back. Here is where a penny will buy you nothing but glory and fame amongst the outlanders. Some call the Great City the City of Untold Riches, while others call it the Wealth of the Land. True the Kingdom of Gallöran is very prestigious, but nothing in the kingdom can match its knight-bound chivalry.

Wars have been fought, with many in number, only to see the enemy befall to its end days. Knightly-hood is more prestigious here than the shine of a golden coin. To find adventure and gain the name of Knight is what draws in weary travelers. Fathers of fathers and sons of sons, a lineage of heroes that never ends lies within these walls. A breed said by many outlanders to be unruly on the battlefield and the very bricks in the wall. No army can outlast nor defeat a Gallöran Knight. To face such an opponent is a risk that only a jest could make an ass from.

Jest or no jest, a William could easily stand toe to toe with an enemy fierce enough to scare you bald. William Pendragon is a scrawny lily loaf, which could barely lift a branch of a tree. He is a messenger to the Knights Bridge halftime, and apprentice of the blacksmith on Blackenhouse Lane other times. Although he is a sapling and lacks a bit of tone, William lives for adventure and willingly bears even the hardest of quandaries.

“Just a chip off the ol’ block you are Will.” Says a man nearly as old as a grandfather clock, with slightly a bit more hair than most, not to mention the overtone he carries upon his arms and chest. This is uncle Vern, a fire-eyed farmer and blacksmith, caring only for his work and work only. “I dare say you prettied up them irons like a ton of wood today.” William is leaning out the window of a patched village home, dreaming like dreamers do, hoping for a name in the shimmers above the nightly sky. “You must stop staring at those blasted stars boy. Petty dreams never come true anymore, even ask my grandfather Wilbur.” Wilbur was a farmer and tanner, dreamer of working hard to earn your place in the stars. Except his grandson forgot those dreams after he lost his leg in the Wars of Tripidum. Little is known about Wilbur except for his dreams.

“I think I’ll become a Gallöran Knight some day sir…” William pauses for a brief moment to stare at the pearls in the sky one last time, before the shutters are slammed in his face.
“Now you listen here boy, the only thing you will become is a stable hand, and even that is far gone, heh,” uncle Vern just pumps his chest out and spits into a bucket on the other side of the room. Will just turns around with a disgusted look on his face and heads to a creaky, old, wooden table to eat his dinner.
“Why don’t you just eat that there grub and head on up stairs? You got stables to clean in tha’ morning.” Will sits down to eat, watching his uncle Vern eat chicken bones clean before it reaches his mouth. Just like two pigs in a trough.
“What ever happened to the old uncle I knew?” Will knew perfectly well how he lost his uncle. He just wished that it didn’t have to be that way. He wanted the real uncle Vern back.
“Why you asking me such foolish questions?” Vern looks at Will with his grizzly face, eyes piercing like stones. Uncle Vern never took a liking to questioning his past, let alone obvious questions that need no answering.
“You used to be a dreamer, what ever happened to that?” Vern looks at Will with a death gaze, face reddened in disgust, edged towards relinquishing his young nephew’s life with a hand noose.
“Keep being a dream weaver kid, and you’ll end up just like Wilbur, dead.” Such a soft tone, it just pierced Will’s mind like an arrow, breath taken away slowly. Will knew there was a storm breaking loose within his uncle Vern, best he didn’t stir it up anymore. Uncle Vern’s eye of the storm was a good sign that told you death was well on its way. “Now go to bed. Before I make you clean horses’ shit for a month.” With that faltering moment in Will’s life, he left his loss of his uncle behind. Maybe he was a dream weaver, but he wouldn’t step back one pace from reaching mount glory. With or without his uncle’s consent, he would follow the path he carved from sweat and blood.

Todos los derechos pertenecen a su autor. Ha sido publicado en e-Stories.org a solicitud de Joseph Dragonn.
Publicado en e-Stories.org el 10.03.2010.

 
 

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