Beyond The Wall

By Wil Clayton

At the southern edge of the world sits a kingdom in the swamp. In its capital of Hallow’s Keep sits a tower, inside a young princess, Orleena, awaits the return of the father she has never met. The war is done and the peace is secured. Now, with her father’s homecoming Orleena will be free to finally leave her tower and when she does she will learn of her city, her people and her family.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wil Clayton
• Release date: Apr 1, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310274053

Book preview

Beyond The Wall

Wil Clayton

Long Shadows on a Wide Plain series

Copyright 2015 Wil Clayton

License

This e-book in licensed for your personnel use only. It may be redistributed to other people as long as the following criteria is met:

this e-book remains unmodified

there is no monetary reward, direct or indirect, associated with the redistribution

For a license to redistribute this work in a way that differs from the one provided please contact the owner at the website given below.

Contact the owner at: http://www.wilclayton.com

Pay What It’s Worth

This is a ‘Pay What It’s Worth’ book.

Please pay what it’s worth at: http://www.wilclayton.com/worth.

Even though you have downloaded this e-book for free it is not a free book. Rather, it is a book you can enjoy and after finding the value in this book you can pay what you think it is worth at my website http://www.wilclayton.com/worth.

You decide how much this e-book is worth $1, $10, $100, whatever you feel is fair for what you find within these electronic pages.

Also, you can sign up for my newsletter, subscribe to the RSS feed, give feedback or see my other updates at: http://www.wilclayton.com/

Thank you,

Wil Clayton

Chapter 1

The walls of the Royal Keep burnt red in the dawning light. Orleena looked out her window still wrapped in her light pearl nightgown. The smell of the newly blossoming flowers wafted up from the garden below, filling her room with the sweet smell of spring.

She had been unable to find a comfortable place to lie in her large feather bed, so Orleena had pulled herself from it and sat upon the cool sill of her bedroom window and watched the moon march across the sky.

Her father was coming home today and she was to meet him for the first time. Orleena’s five year old mind panicked at the thought of the stranger. What would he look like? Would he like her? Why did he come home now? But most of all she thought, did he still blame her?

Tears had burst forth when Orleena was told of the homecoming by her guardian, Da Raloff, who had then immediately and harshly told Orleena to hush and that it was no way for a princess to act. She choked back the emotion until she was excused. Once alone in her room she let the emotions take over her again.

The Royal Keep stood large and strong against the purple sky. It was the home of her brother who hated her. It was because of her brother that she had not been allowed to leave her family’s tower.

Her father had left her five years ago, after cursing her for killing Mother. This was what a young hand maiden had once told her when no one else was around to hear.

Orleena had run to Da Raloff crying over the words of the hand maiden. Da Raloff did not say a word, simply found the offending hand maiden and physically threw her from the tower. Then, when the maiden had vanished beyond the tower gate, howling as she went, Da Raloff had turned to Orleena and told her never to listen to such stories and that no one loved her more then her father.

There was no reason for Orleena to doubt Da Raloff, except if her father loved her so much, why did he not return and take her from the tower. Why did he did he stay away when her brother threatened her? Orleena did not have the answer, but as the sun rose she knew the answer would soon come and that made her want to her lock door and never open it again. She did not want to learn that the whispers that floated in the halls were true.

Orleena’s uncle, was the only family she knew. Uncle would come to play when he had time away from his duty running the city. Whenever she asked about her father, her brother or when she would be allowed to leave to tower, he always replied the same.

Be a good girl and do as Da Raloff tells.

And she did, not because she was told to, but because Orleena loved and respected Da Raloff more than any other person she knew, the only one who had ever watched over her and made sure she was safe.

The sun peaked above the high walls that surrounded the city of Hallow’s Keep. Orleena looked down at the small crypt in which her mother slept. This was the time when she would usually wake and put on her clothes before heading to lay a rose on her tomb, but Da Raloff said she must stay in her room today until her father came for her. And so she did.

In the night, Orleena’s obedience was tested more than once, she would look from the window and plotted a path through the city to the gate, she could easily hide from her father in the swamp. But the the idea of leaving her tower became as terrifying as the spectre of her father. The tower and the gardens that surrounded it were all she had known in her short life and she did not know what waited beyond.

All she could do was pull her doll, Elena, close and I try to quiet the fear that came to her.

Orleena’s doll was a pristine, clay doll with deep orange skin, a neat dress and decorated small red and blue ribbons, a gift from Mother who had told Da Raloff to give it too her when she was four. When she received the doll on her birthday she had wanted to call her Helena after the fearless dragon slayer and goddess of the west, but her Nan had rebuked her, telling her that naming a doll after a goddess was blasphemous and Nan would not hear for it.

Orleena had stomped off to Da Raloff in protest, demanding a new Nan that was not so difficult, but Da Raloff would also not listen to Orleena. Instead telling Orleena to listen to the wise words and respect the gods and their power.

Orleena, furious, stormed out of the room slamming the door behind her. Doll in hand, she stomped up to Nan and grumbled the her doll’s name was going to Elena and she did not want hear anything else about it. Nan laughed and approved with a smile.

The hand maidens knocked at the door softly. Orleena didn’t want help dressing today and turned them away. She then went to her towering pine closet and opened it. She pulled a stool from the corner and climbed up, finding her day clothes tucked neatly in the draws. From within she took her leather pants and her soft yellow tunic with her clan’s insignia, a white-silver willow tree. After dressing, Orleena, very precisely, folded the night gown into a square and placed it in its correct draw, then picked up the stool and moved it back to its corner where it belonged and closed the closet.

Orleena sat in front of the mirror of the large dressing table and took the ornate, wood and pearl comb, given to her by her Uncle during the last year’s Night of the White Faces festival. The comb pushed through her long, brown, wavy hair that fell just below her shoulders, catching on the occasional knot. Orleena looked into her mirror, blotches sat under her wide green eyes. She wondered for a moment if her father had brown hair or green eyes. Uncle had black, straight hair, so she guessed that her father would have the same.

Orleena tighten the green ribbons sown into the sleeves of her tunic and then pushed the cuffs up, causing them to billow outwards. She then took the wreath of white flowers and twigs she had woven two days before and place in onto her head.

The ritual of getting dressed had calmed her mind for a time, but now that it was done and the fear came again. Tears welled in her eyes, but she held them back, she did not want cry again, she had cried enough.

Orleena took a final look in her mirror and, content with what she saw, went back to her window. The sun was now high above the walls and washed over the city. The waters of the swamp sparkled between the islands of stone and dirt that the crooked buildings of Hallow’s Keep sprung from.

The sun rose just little bit further when she saw him walking up the path that led to the tower, he had black hair, like her uncle, that specked in the light, cut short. Her father was dressed head to toe in polished, silver armour. The front inscribed with a willow tree, on the armour the tree was painted black as was the tradition for the armour of the Hallow Clan. Uncle had visited once in an similar set of armour after a thanksgiving festival for the returned soldiers. She had asked that day, when would her father return, but Uncle would not say.

Now her father had come home and he was walking through her garden towards her tower, limping slightly as he approached, his right leg refused to bend fully.

As he approached he nodded to the guards at the gate and then looked