Sir Kendrick and the Castle of Bel Lione

by Chuck Black

  “Kendrick!” Winston shouted in despair at the ominous sight of the unknown warriors pouring through the gates.

  “Make way, Winston,” Kendrick shouted back as a smile spread across his face. “They are the King’s!”

  The ranks of the knights parted, and Bronwyn’s promised force of more than four hundred Silent Warriors charged straight through to engage the Shadow Warriors. The castle yard soon rang with the clash of swords from two diametrically opposed forces. Both were fighting for the souls of men and women—one to imprison them and one to free them. Bronwyn and Ra engaged in the middle of it all, and the sound of their swords seemed to resound above the rest.

  To Kendrick, the battle seemed to rage on forever. In the torchlight, he saw Ra disengage from Bronwyn and put two of his warriors against him instead. He didn’t understand why until he saw Ra making his way toward another. Kendrick desperately fought toward Landor, but Ra reached him first.

  The fury of Ra’s blows upon his former Vincero Knight was unlike anything Kendrick had ever seen, and Landor could only defend and retreat. His face was a mask of fear before the wrath of his former master.

  Kendrick was nearly to Landor when a Shadow Warrior engaged him and prevented him from coming to the aid of his friend.

  “You brought this to my castle!” he heard Ra say to Landor as he blasted blow after blow onto his sword. “No one betrays Lord Ra and lives—no one!” He made one more vicious cut that tore Landor’s sword from his grip and left him helpless.

  “No!” Kendrick screamed against the inevitable.

  Landor looked past Ra to Kendrick, but there was nothing Kendrick could do to stop Ra’s blade. It penetrated deep into Landor’s abdomen. Kendrick felt as though it pierced his own heart, and an unstoppable fury rose up in him. In two lightning cuts he fell the Shadow Warrior that was keeping him from the lord of the castle.

  Ra turned to engage Kendrick. “I find it difficult to believe that one such as you could bring such a battle to my castle,” he sneered.

  Kendrick did not honor him with a spoken response. He just launched a volley of furious blows, forcing a surprised Ra into retreat. Twice, Kendrick nearly landed a cut on the Shadow Warrior. Ra recovered with a vertical slice that Kendrick only partially thwarted, his shoulder armor deflecting the sword away from his head.

  Kendrick made an arcing cut across Ra’s body that he expected Ra to block. Ra stepped back instead, and the momentum of Kendrick’s sword carried him too far to the left to counter another vertical cut from Ra. Kendrick continued his turn until his back was to the Shadow Warrior and dropped to one knee. Knowing that Ra’s cut from above would be too powerful to stop, Kendrick grabbed the flat of his sword with his gauntleted left hand midway down the blade and held it directly above his head as one would a sparring stick. Ra’s blade crashed upon him, but Kendrick’s double-handed protection held firm.

  With one hand on his hilt and the other still grasping the flat of his blade, Kendrick immediately spun about on his knee and thrust with all of his might into the chest of Ra. The sword pierced the Shadow Warrior’s armor. Ra’s own sword fell to the ground. His eyes bulged out, and he glared at Kendrick, his face only inches away.

  “Impossible!” he gasped.

  “You forget,” Kendrick said, “I serve the Prince who makes all things possible—even the destruction of evil strongholds!” Kendrick withdrew his sword. Ra collapsed to the ground and gasped his last breath.

  A strange hush fell upon the castle. All fighting stopped, and all eyes turned upon Kendrick. He looked up at the faces of the combatants and knew the battle belonged to the Prince.

  “It is over—Ra is dead!” Kendrick shouted. “Lay down your weapons.”

  All around him, Kendrick heard the clink of swords slowly being dropped. Then he heard Landor cough. He ran to his fallen friend and knelt beside him.

  “Landor.” Kendrick gently lifted Landor’s head.

  Landor coughed again, and blood began to trickle from the corner of his mouth. Pain wrenched Kendrick’s heart, for he knew there was little he could do to stop the inevitable.

  “Bronwyn!” Kendrick shouted, hoping against hope that the Silent Warrior could help. Bronwyn came and knelt opposite him, then shook his head slowly.

  Landor grabbed Kendrick’s surcoat and pulled Kendrick close to him.

  “I must … tell you something …” He coughed once more and winced at the pain it brought him.

  “Be still, my friend,” Kendrick urged.

  “No … listen to me.” Landor inhaled with great effort. “I need one thing from you before I …” Landor closed his eyes and could not finish the sentence.

  Kendrick supported him with his left arm. “Anything, Landor, to my very life.” His vision blurred with unfallen tears.

  “I … need you to forgive me …” Landor coughed again. “Or kill me now.”

  Kendrick stared down in confusion, wondering if the pain had addled his friend’s thinking. “Landor, there is no offense to forgive,” he said. “You have twice saved my life and brought victory to this great battle. I owe you a great debt.”

  “You don’t … understand.” Landor fought for another breath. He shook his head from side to side as if to refuse Kendrick’s words. “It was … it was I … who killed your wife and young son.”

  Kendrick froze as his world slowly crumbled around him, the broken pieces of his life rearranging themselves into an image he never expected.

  Landor tightened his desperate grip on Kendrick again and pulled himself up to Kendrick with extreme effort. “I led the raid that day … I ordered my men to kill everyone and take your riches. But when I saw the … bodies … their blood upon the stone floor, I …”

  Kendrick turned his head away from Landor and clenched his jaw tightly. He wanted to cover his ears and pull away as his own memories of that day pounded down upon him again, but Landor would not let him go.

  “Lord Ra made me into a monster. All of the years of evil my hands brought to so many had eaten my soul to … nothingness. But on that day, I could no longer bear … the evil I had wrought.”

  More blood flowed from his lips, and he choked on it as he struggled for another breath. Then he seemed to rally a little as he told about that day.

  “I fell to my knees and wept beside them, knowing my soul would be condemned forever. I ran from Lord Ra and went to die in the desolate places of Arrethtrae. When you first came to me that day in the mountains, I thought the demons of my past had come to haunt me. Instead you brought the story of the Prince and of His forgiveness and great compassion. The truth of such a great love echoed in the well of sorrow I had dug for myself, and … I had to know more. In spite of my pain … your pain.”

  Landor paused, fighting for breath, his eyes glittering in the torchlight. “I would die a million deaths to bring back your wife and son. I thought perhaps if I could save your life or give my life for you that it would go away … but it remains …”

  He fell back, gasping, and reached for Kendrick’s hand, clenching it with white knuckles. “That is why I ask you to forgive me … that I might die in peace. Or else pierce me through with your sword that I might die with your pain.”

  Kendrick felt as though his own blood had emptied from his veins, and the weight of his own body seemed multiplied a hundredfold. He didn’t know how to respond or even what to believe.

  Landor’s grip on Kendrick’s arm began to loosen as the strength drained from him. He convulsed in pain, and his breathing became short and interrupted.

  Kendrick sat still, not daring to move. The vengeance he had craved in the past fought to rise within him, but the words of the Prince would not be moved from his mind or his heart. He stood in the fray of a warring heart. One side screamed for revenge … the other whispered mercy.

  Landor grabbed Kendrick’s hand, which was still wrapped around the hilt of his sword. “Quickly, Kendrick. There is time to execute your vengeance before death steals it from you!
I welcome the sting of death, for perhaps it will end the pain of my soul.”

  Kendrick turned back to look upon Landor, and his inner war ceased. He lifted his sword and laid the hilt upon Landor’s chest.

  “My sword belongs to the Prince—not to Lucius.” Kendrick released his grip on the sword and lifted Landor partly off the bloodstained ground beneath. “Be at peace, my friend,” he said softly. “I forgive you!”

  Landor’s eyes once again filled with tears, and his countenance became peaceful. With the last of his strength he reached up and touched Kendrick’s cheek. “If.” Landor coughed and strained for his words. “If I could live again and have a son, I would wish him to be you.”

  Landor’s hand fell to the ground. His eyes closed, and Kendrick felt his body relax.

  “Landor!” Kendrick lowered himself close to his friend.

  Landor opened his eyes partway. “The pain is gone, my son … for I believe.”

  His final breath came, and Kendrick gently lowered his body to the ground. He stayed beside his friend for a moment until he felt the steady hand of Duncan on his shoulder.

  “He rescued us each,” Duncan said quietly. “And now you have rescued him.”

  Kendrick stood and beheld a scene of victory and surrender.

  The battle of Bel Lione was over.

  SET THE CAPTIVES FREE!

  Some of the Silent Warriors set immediately to treating the wounds of Kendrick’s knights while Bronwyn and the rest of his men bound the Shadow Warriors and prepared to depart.

  “Where will you take them?” Kendrick asked Bronwyn.

  “There is a place prepared for them where they will not be able to influence Arrethtraens anymore … at least not for a long while.”

  The two men looked at each other for a moment.

  “Thank you, Bronwyn,” Kendrick finally said.

  The Silent Warrior’s lips slowly curved into a broad smile. Kendrick was stunned. He hadn’t thought this stern commander was capable of such a jovial expression.

  “No, Sir Kendrick, thank you!” Bronwyn nodded and turned to leave.

  He and his companions walked through the castle gates and disappeared once more into the realm of secrecy.

  Winston and Duncan appeared at Kendrick’s side. “The castle is secure. Three hundred twenty-three of Ra’s knights and guards and some other castle workers are under guard in the games arena. Sir Casimir is dead, but the other two Vincero Knights are being held separately as you asked.”

  Kendrick nodded. Uncertain about how to handle the Vincero Knights, he had determined they would be taken to Chessington for the council to decide their fate.

  “What now, sir?” Winston and Duncan waited for the next command.

  Kendrick’s eyes narrowed, and he turned his head toward the warrior guardhouse in the shadows at the back of the castle yard. “Now I fulfill my promise. Come!”

  Kendrick walked over to the assembly of guards and ordinary knights in the games arena. They had all been disarmed and forced to sit on the ground, guarded by eighty Knights of the Prince.

  Kendrick slowly paced back and forth in front of them, looking down into the eyes of men and women who had served Ra faithfully. Some defied his gaze, and others turned away. It was obvious they all feared him, for he had defeated the mighty Lord Ra in a sword fight.

  Kendrick drew his sword, and every captive man and woman there turned their eyes to him.

  “We do not take prisoners!” he shouted.

  Now even his own knights stood in silence. Duncan and Winston looked at Kendrick with great concern on their faces. A few of the captives cringed.

  Kendrick thought of the men and women who had been tormented, imprisoned, and killed in this dreadful place, and his countenance showed his great anger. He pointed to the Shadow Warriors’ guardhouse with his sword. “Who among you have entered that guardhouse?” he demanded.

  Silence was his only reply until one knight finally spoke.

  “It is not allowed,” he said.

  “Then who among you knows what lies beneath this great castle of pleasures and indulgences?” He gazed from face to face, looking for someone to answer, but no one did … or dared.

  He pointed his sword at the knight who had spoken last. “You. What lies beneath?”

  The knight looked at his fellow captives for a response of some sort and then looked back to Kendrick. “It is said to be an abandoned dungeon from the foundation of an older castle.”

  Kendrick stepped over other captives to reach the speaker. He held his sword as if to strike the man down. “Is that what you believe?”

  The knight winced. “I don’t know what to believe,” he said quietly.

  “Is that what you all believe?” Kendrick shouted to all of the captives. Fury was in his heart and in his tone. He walked back to the front of the captives.

  “Let me tell you the truth of Ra’s castle.” He pointed once again to the Shadow Warriors’ guardhouse. “Beneath that guardhouse is an entrance to a dungeon that holds hundreds, perhaps thousands, of your fellow countrymen. You have not been protecting the freedom of the region’s youth. You have been protecting Ra and his plots to imprison and destroy them!”

  There was a stir among the captives. Some looked shocked, some appeared rooted in disbelief.

  Kendrick grasped his sword by the blade near the hilt and turned it to show the captives the insignia of the King. “We do not take prisoners,” he repeated. “We set them free! We are going into the dungeon to release Ra’s prisoners. We have taken your weapons from you, and you are free to leave. But countless men and women will soon be coming up from Ra’s dungeons. They will need food, water, and care. If Ra has not blackened your heart completely, then I implore you to stay and help us reverse this horrid legacy by ministering to his victims.”

  Kendrick sheathed his sword and stood quietly before the sea of stunned faces.

  “The choice is yours,” Kendrick finally said and motioned for his men to dismiss the group. “Winston, take those who choose to stay along with sixty of our knights to the storehouse. Prepare food, water, and any other supplies you think we might need. Set up a second infirmary in the great hall.” He looked to the massive walls and towers of the castle once again. “This castle will now be a place of healing.”

  “Yes sir,” Winston replied and set out to do his duty.

  “Duncan, put thirty knights to guard the castle, and bring the rest that are able to the guardhouse. I’ll meet you there in just a moment.”

  Duncan saluted and began giving orders.

  Kendrick crossed the yard to the guardhouse and descended the stairwell to the dungeon. On the first level he found a small room that held the keys to the cells. He descended to the second level and navigated his way back through the labyrinth of tunnels lined with cells toward the secret passageway. The sound of his boots echoing through the hall was interrupted only by the moans of the prisoners.

  One man reached for him through his cell bars. “I have seen you before … you are not one of them! What is happening? Where are the guards?”

  Kendrick paused, hearing the hesitant plea of hope in his voice. “Be patient, sir,” he told him gently. “We have come to set you free.”

  The man’s arm slowly fell. “Truly?”

  “Truly! But there are so many. You must be patient.”

  The man sank to the floor and clung to the bars despondently, as if unable to believe. Kendrick proceeded down the corridor, but by the time he reached the next turn, the man was laughing and crying and shouting behind him. “Thank you, good sir … thank you!”

  Kendrick continued until he came to the cell whose occupant’s face and voice had not left his mind since he met her. At first the cell looked empty, and his heart sank. Had she survived six years in this torment only to die just before he came to free her?

  Please—no, he pleaded.

  “Teara?” he called, but there was no reply. The shadows were black near the back of the cell.
He sorted through the keys until he found one that fit. The clank of its opening echoed off the stone walls, and the hinges creaked so loudly that Kendrick wondered if the door had ever been opened.

  Kendrick walked to the dark corner of the cell and knelt down. He put his hand to the floor and felt the form of a frail bony body. He could not tell if she was yet alive. Her back was to him.

  “Teara!” he whispered, and put his arms beneath her. He carefully rolled her into his arms and carried her to the front of the cell where he could see her face.

  Very slowly, her eyelids lifted—and then opened wide.

  “You … you … came back for me.”

  Kendrick smiled, and his own eyes welled up. “Yes, Teara. I came back for you.”

  She put her thin arms around his neck, leaned into his chest, and began to sob. Kendrick carried her out of the cell and began his walk back to the stairwell. Other prisoners reached out, and their pleas for help multiplied with each cell he passed.

  “We’re coming back for you … all of you!” he shouted as he held Teara close.

  Kendrick carried Teara up to the guardhouse and into the castle yard. Everyone in the castle became silent as the reality of their purpose as Knights of the Prince materialized in that moment. The cheers started high on the walls and soon filled the whole castle. Teara looked up in wonder at the other knights and then to Kendrick.

  “You have saved me.” She looked at him as though he were a grand hero.

  “Not I, Teara. The Prince has saved you, just as He saved me from my prison.”

  She smiled and leaned back into his chest. Kendrick turned to his young protégé.

  “Sir Duncan, set them all free!”

  Duncan’s familiar grin spread wide. “Yes sir!”

  Word of the battle had spread quickly to the citizens of Bel Lione and the surrounding region. When the sounds of clashing swords and dying men ended, they came; they all came. Soon thousands of people lined the road, drawbridge, and courtyards of the castle, holding up lamps and torches in the winter darkness.