The Word of a Knight

By David Morgan

He is from the land of Odassy, she is from the land of the Dark Elves. When age old prejudices and hostilities threaten to tear their love apart, the word of a Knight has far reaching consequences no one can foresee.

• Language: English
• Publisher: David Morgan
• Release date: Sep 18, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301796458

David Morgan

David Morgan is an editor and journalist who has written for the ‘Los Angeles Times’, ‘New York Newsday’, ‘The Hollywood Reporter’, ‘Sight and Sound’ and ‘Empire’, amongst many others. He worked with Terry Gilliam on the interactive laserdiscs of Brazil and ‘The Adventures of Baron Munchausen’.

Book preview

The Word of a Knight

By David Morgan

Copyright 2012 David Morgan

Smashwords Edition

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Acknowledgements

I wish to gratefully acknowledge the help and hard work of my two editors during the creation of this book. The first, my wife, Kathryn Morgan, whose insight and patience was so invaluable. She is also the inspiration for everything I do and is the love of my life. The second person is my sister-in-law, Esther Welch, who corrected this work as much as my wife, and also gave me invaluable insight and expertise. To you two ladies, I am eternally grateful. At their suggestion, there is a list of pronunciation at the end of this book.

Chapter 1

The two horses flicked their tails at the annoying flies that buzzed them as the wagon they pulled bounced and trundled down the trail, leaving a long plume of dust in its path. The sun had only showed itself an hour before but the air was already hot, the driver absent mindedly wiping sweat from his face. The heat and the sweat did not trouble him, his mind preoccupied with thoughts of his arrival in Trallwyn, still two hours away. He was anxious to reach his destination, but at the same time he felt his stomach churning and when he held out his hand, palm open, his fingers trembled. Nerves, he thought. The dryness of his mouth he put down to the heat, but that was probably nerves also. He smiled to himself.

He was tall, with unkempt blond hair cut short. His blue eyes looked out of a face tanned by sun and fire, and a small scar below his lower lip added character to a strong jaw line. He was smiling because he was thirty years old but he was acting like a youngster.

He had been travelling back and forth on this same route for three years ever since his father had been unable to accompany him. Duncan, as a young lad, helped in his father’s armory with the little things like cleaning the tools and sweeping the floor. As he got older his father taught him the qualities of a good sword. The different types of metals, how pounding the steel a certain way could make the blade stronger or weaker and how a fire a few degrees hotter or colder could ruin a fine edge.

He took great satisfaction in showing his son how to use the weapons they made and why the balance of sword or dagger was important. The other sides of the business, buying and selling and custom crafting came later. Duncan had a natural feel for the metal, knowing instinctively when and where the blade needed special attention for that all important balance. Decorating the finished sword was a big part of the business too, and his father would have to stop Duncan working the scrolling into handles of lowly swords and daggers.

Save the intricacies for the special customers, his father would say, smiling, secretly proud at the skill his son displayed.

His father would take him on trips delivering, selling and buying. Duncan liked the repartee, the back and forth banter. He learned as much on the road as he did in the workshop, different people and ideas opening his mind to new techniques. As his father grew older Duncan took over the road trips and he continued to travel the same route his father had traveled for thirty years.

Chapter 2

The metal glowed, casting Frederick’s face into stark relief as the blade was brought out of the fire and placed on the anvil. Sparks flew as he hammered it into shape. Again, the metal was inserted into the fire, was retrieved and worked upon. This happened numerous times until Frederick was satisfied. Then he passed it onto his daughter.

She was a Drw; she had the ability to inscribe the symbols and sigils into the blades and mouth the words that made them part of the metal itself. It was not a skill that could be learned; one either had the power or one did not. The origin was lost in the distant past and some thought it obsolete, saying it was just tradition, a superstition. Katrine did not. She took it seriously, performing the skill with respectful deference to the past.

She finished inscribing some intricate sigils on the sword and as she mouthed the words the sigils glowed momentarily and fused with the metal of the blade. Afterwards, she went outside for some air. She was really outside hoping to catch a glimpse of Duncan as he was due to arrive in Trallwyn that day.

Katrine knew she should not be nervous, but she was. She held her hand out in front of her, fingers extended, and saw them trembling. She felt the same trembling in her stomach. Butterflies she thought, that is what Duncan would call it and she smiled.

She realized it was not nerves that made her tremble but anticipation. Her friends would tease her about Duncan, but she had not told them. Her mother would warn her about the dangers and give her a lecture about boys, but Katrine had not told her either. Her father would be sharpening one of the swords he had made while talking to Duncan, if he knew, but he did not. Nobody knew, not even Mayar, her best friend. There was nothing to say, just a crush of a young female on a young male. It happens all the time.

But this was the Land of the Dark Elves, and Duncan was not a Dark Elf. Although the Dark Elves traded and exchanged ideas, both commercial and medicinal with the Kingdom of Odassy, they had always held Odassyans in low esteem, thinking them wayward children who needed another thousand years to mature.

A characteristic of the Dark Elves was height, all being 6’ 5" or taller. Another characteristic was a longer lifespan. Katrine was fifty years of age, which was the equivalent of about thirty Odassyan years. Her long black hair was done in a braid and hung down her back reaching her waist. The sharp lines of her cheekbones, chin and forehead, which was a feature of all Dark Elves, accentuated her black eyes giving her an almost ethereal beauty. Her neck high tunic hung down to her ankles, covering her completely, hiding the trews she wore underneath; no skirts for her.

Katrine was proficient in all the many types of swords and daggers they made, and also the bow and arrow. It was discovered that females adapted better to the bow than the males, and Katrine preferred the bow over the cumbersome sword. Her father attributed Katrine’s expertise with the weapons to her love of music. Love of music taught her rhythm, balance and timing; she had all three in abundance. Of course, she was not the only female warrior with these abilities, but she was her father’s only daughter, so he was a little biased. Katrine was no longer a military person; she had served her ten years. Now she helped her father run his workshop and sell the weapons they manufactured there.

Her black eyes smoldered in anticipation as she continued to look down the street hoping for her first sight of Duncan.

Chapter 3

The horses snorted in the heat as Duncan spied the Tower that marked the center of Trallwyn in the distance. Trallwyn was a white walled-in city, with battlements running the length of the wall. In the center was a Tower that housed the Regional Council Chambers of the