The Legend of Kent

By Joann Pepple-Monte

Mysterious rumors have originated in the Kent mountains after a horrendous battle. No one dares revive the Kent name and legends without first taking into consideration his own life. The Kent name has been stamped into oblivion, and only a mysterious recluse dares bring it back into public view. Is the new Kent master as horrible a creature as rumors purport him to be? It is up to a mysterious young lady to discover the truth. Will she discover the mystery behind the curse of Kent or will the same ancient feud as has taken so many lives before take her life as well?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Apr 27, 2011
• ISBN: 9781462861422

Joann Pepple-Monte

Joann Monte never believed she would be writing stories for audiences. Though she began telling stories for her friends and siblings as a child, this shy, quiet girl hated writing and dreaded writing assignments throughout elementary and high school. Though her sister wrote extensively and had short stories published in various publications, Joann focused on telling stories to children and friends—usually with some sort of moral truth illustrated throughout the plot. In 2007, the stories were first written to be shared among college friends. Today, there are over forty stories in the Monte collection.

Book preview

Prologue

A YOUNG MAN fled desperately up the mountainside as twenty or so mounted men pursued him. The rockiness of the pathway slowed the horses, but the riders were obviously set on taking their quarry. They steadily gained ground on their victim, and the first rider to come close enough to the hunted man forced him down to the ground under his horse. The horse reared skittishly in response and the rider fell backward unto the rocks below, but the other men of the party ignored the fallen body of their comrade and surrounded the young Kent nobleman with swords drawn and ready.

Kill him! came the fierce command, and Briant swords were instantly thrust downward with deadly accuracy to take their vengeance on their master’s enemies.

You cannot do this! We have surrendered! shouted the hunted young nobleman desperately as the swords found their mark in his body, and the master of the Briants laughed angrily.

Your cries are futile, young master, he said disdainfully to his enemy’s dying son. There is no one alive to defend you!

There was no response as the wounded nobleman struggled to draw his breath, and Sir Briant angrily turned away to look back toward the southwest.

My lands, he said proudly. The house of Kent is finished—there will never be another to carry on the cursed name!

There was a barely audible retort from the dying nobleman, and Briant turned angrily to his men.

What did he say?

‘Nor any Briants either,’ Sir—that is what he said, said one of loyal Briant men, and the Briant master scowled darkly as he looked at his silent men.

What nonsense! Do you believe him?

No, sir, but they are a strong house, came the hesitant reply, and Sir Briant laughed angrily.

They are dead, he said angrily. Do you think a Kent master will punish you now? I will accept blame for it. Come, I cannot rest till the house is destroyed!

The lifeless body of the Kent nobleman lay quietly on the open ground of the hillside as the Briant men rode back down the mountain toward the west. The night had become early morning, but only the bravest of songbirds dared let their voices be heard in the horrible silence. To the west, there was the sound of more bloodshed. The Battle of Kent had only begun.

*     *     *

There was a sound of screaming and terrified wailing coming from the burning house, and the little boy hidden away in the garden cried softly as the flames and smoke rose higher and higher till the screaming eventually faded away into a horrible silence. Clouds of smoke billowed over his head from the burning household, and the wind was blowing the stinging soot directly into his face till he could hardly breathe. He cried for his mother, but she did not come, and his nursemaid would not have been a comfort in the present situation.

He was pitifully dirty and neglected, and no one took note of him as the Briant men smashed and desecrated anything remaining from the Kent household. He could not have been more than five, and his quiet manner of crying did not immediately attract the attention of his enemies. There was seemingly nothing of value in the garden, and the soldiers barely glanced toward it as they went about their duty.

There had been some sort of battle during the night, but the boy did not know how or why it had come about. His father and brothers had left him, and in their place had come horrible strangers that were set on destroying everything in sight. The house had been set afire with all the Kent servants and guardsmen trapped inside, and no one had helped them, even as their screaming rose high up toward heaven. The Briant men were merciless, and only those who had fled beforehand survived the raid.

What is this? said one of the Briant men, suddenly catching sight of the boy, and the boy cowered back into his hiding place as the Briant men approached him.

A Kent! shouted one of the men in alarm as he came close enough to see the child hidden amongst the rosebushes, and other soldiers came quickly at the sound of alarm.

It is only a child, said one of the men in pity, and the others looked at him in terrified horror.

What fools! cried the Briant master, angrily as he caught sight of his men standing helplessly around the Kent child. You should have burned him with the house! Do you mean to destroy me by leaving a witness? Kill him! Kill him! Instantly!

There was a rising in tenor in the Briant master’s voice as he said it, and his frightened men took hold of whatever was nearby and began to beat the child to death with it. The boy squealed in terror and dropped to the ground, covering his face and head, but the blows quickly stopped any resistance from the youngest son of Kent. His broken body lay bleeding on the open ground of the Kent garden as the Briant men remounted their horses, and Sir Briant looked down on it with merciless satisfaction.

Take him to the plains, he said in a controlled tone. The Kent men will bury him among their dead, and we will be free. The rain is coming, and soon there will be no sign of what was done here.

The men of the band were strangely quiet, and their master turned on them with a vengeance.

Are you afraid of a Kent curse! he demanded angrily. It is no greater crime to kill a man than a child! You are acquitted by your master—now go bury the dead! The Kents are gone, and their name will be forgotten in the course of time. The dead do not accuse the living!

The men obediently lifted the youngest son of Kent’s body from the pool of blood and set it on one of the horses to be taken to the scene of the battle while their master rode off to settle matters and secure his estate.

We will be charged with this, whispered one man in a frightened tone from the back of the group, and the others turned to glare at him angrily.

Only the Kent masters are dead, continued the frightened man in a fearful whisper. The men of Kent will see the body in the plains and know what is done! We are dead men—all of us!

You fool! said another man angrily. You mean to frighten all of us. What sort of man would dare defy our master?

There was no reply to his question, and the men wearily turned to do their master’s bidding. Behind them, the empty house of Kent smoldered in ruins.

A Legend Begins

THE PASSING OF time often distorts facts and stories in the minds of people, and the story of the Battle between the Leading Houses was no exception. It was immediately turned into a moral tale for children, with the powerful duke of Briant valiantly defending his household against a malicious band of Kent marauders who had come to steal his land and murder his sons. It was, of course, true that both the sons of Briant had died in the battle, but the Briant household lived on with fresh hope as Sir Briant and his wife had welcomed a third child into their household shortly after the battle.

There was more to the tragic story, however, than the storytellers cared to mention. The Lady Briant had died giving birth to the child, making the poor, motherless infant Sir Briant’s only heir and hope for the future. It was a tragic circumstance to befall any house, and the fact that it followed so closely after the tragedies of the Battle of the Leading Houses made it all the more pitiful.

Sir Briant had immediately sent his son away to be raised in a safer area, and most of the nation’s observers said he was a wise man for doing so. The Kent menace was an ever present threat even with the masters of the household dead, and the only heir of Briant was a coveted target for Kent vengeance. The Briant boy would have to attain the status of a Kent master via incontestable means if the loyal Kent men were ever to give up their vow of vengeance against him and accept him as a legitimate nobleman. As the nation knew all too well, the feud was written in blood, and since embittered men are not the sort to give up easily, the infant son of Briant was better left hidden away till he was of age to defend his own honor and position.

There were, of course, malicious rumors that accused Sir Briant of cowardice in sending his son away, and some went so far as to say there was something about the child or his birth that Sir Briant did not want known. Sir Briant refused to comment on the decision or explain himself, and his vague answers in regards to his son’s health made some men wonder if there were not some strange disqualifying trait about Briant’s unknown son that would exclude him from taking his rightful place in court. Over time, the rumors faded into oblivion, but many men were still curious to see what sort of young man would appear in court to claim Sir Briant’s rights and privileges.

In the meanwhile, the Kent lands lay in ruins, unclaimed for a full ten years while the kingdom waited for the law to free the lands of the old Kent dominion. The law allowed only a legitimate heir of Kent lineage to take possession of them for ten years after their desertion, and though there was no known Kent heir still living to reclaim them, the king could not legally take possession of the property or give it to another man before the years were fully passed. Of course, the king could not leave such an expansive and valuable property unattended for longer than necessary, and he quickly offered the deserted title, lands, and estate to any nobleman of his own country who was willing to redeem it with purified gold or silver.

As one might suspect, however, many of the native noblemen wanted nothing to do with the former Kent lands or title. It was a rich land with many loyal people, but it was cursed with the stain of a sinister and bloody past that few men wanted a part in. Hundreds of men had died in the battle, and most noblemen’s estates did not have enough men or soldiers to compare with what had been lost by the Kents in one night. Those that occupied the Kent lands were seemingly doomed to a violent death, and fewer and fewer men were interested in claiming the cursed lands as the Duke of Briant himself suddenly appeared in court the day of the land’s reclaiming.

Strangely enough however, it was not the Briant master that took possession of the Kent estate and title. Instead, it was an unknown boy—not yet old enough to stand in court of his own accord—who received the title and the massive estate that was attached to it as a gift from his adopted patrons. The price paid for the estate was tremendously high, and the whole court was shocked that such a quiet, unobtrusive gentleman as the boy’s patron would have dared to buy such an expensive and dangerous gift as that of the Kent estate and title.

No one knew how, why, or where the boy had come from before he entered the king’s court, but no one dared ask either. There was no record of his birth, and the king’s books contained no lineage of his parents, yet he suddenly appeared in court as a young man under the protection of Sir Monte, who already had an impressive estate of his own to bequeath to a son. Incontestably, the new Kent master was the wealthiest man in the nation, but it was not his wealth or patronage that immortalized him among the people. Instead, it was his strange manner and something of his appearance.

Few of the common men actually claimed to have seen him, but there were reliable sources that slowly leaked out the more generic details of his horrible existence. His face and hands were distorted and grotesque so as to be almost inhuman in form—more like claws and a lion’s face, and his voice had an ominous quality to it that sent chills to the very depths of his victims’ souls. Even the former Kent servants, who had so boldly proclaimed that they would accept no master but a native-born son of Kent, dared not say anything as their new master took up his position as Duke of Kent. They were said to live in mortal terror of him—not daring to have contact with the outside world and carefully patrolling their borders to keep ignorant trespassers out of the tyrannical duke’s way.

Over time, more and more rumors came up and spread throughout the countryside regarding the master of the Kent estate. Some said he was an outcast magician who had used his magical powers for evil for so long that he had been cursed with the affliction of a beast-like appearance in order to warn others of his dark and sinister soul. Others said he was a cruel, hard-hearted master who had been attacked by a desperate servant, resulting in the horrific scars. The kindest of people said the Kent master had been born in such