Edwin

A scream echoed through the silent night. It was like that one, single, scream had broken the dam that had kept the sound from escaping and now that it was gone, the noise was uncontrollable. All of the sudden a great “BOOM!” resounded through the palace and shook the entire kingdom. The crackling and roaring sounds of a fire began to get louder in my ears as the flames rushed through the halls.

“You must run Prince Edwin! Quickly! Before the fire reaches here!” yelled one of the palace guards. He instructed me to climb out of the window and that he would follow me soon. As I climbed out of the window and down the rope that had been lowered I could hear the sounds of a fierce battle. Swords clashing, ringing, almost singing, as they were once again allowed to spill the blood that they so craved. I ran to the gates but I was met by an unfamiliar man in unfamiliar clothing.

He said to me, “You are the fourth prince? Prince Edwin, correct?” I nodded in reply. “What would you choose,” he asked, “when given the choice of rotting away the rest of you days in prison with your family, or, becoming a knight to protect a kingdom?”

I thought for a moment, then said, “But isn't it obvious? Why would I stay in jail when I could protect people? To protect people is a great honor. At least, that is what I believe. What do you believe Mister?” He looked at me for a moment, apparently stunned. And then he began to laugh.

“I guess it is obvious isn’t it! Well put young prince, well put…” he replied. At that time I had no idea that man was the one who instigated the coup that killed my father and put the rest of my family behind bars. Or that what I had said that night, would forever change my fate.

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“Edwin! EDWIN!” there was a fierce knocking at my door in the barracks. “Edwin! The Lieutenant will have my head if I don’t get you down to his office in ten minutes! You have a request!”

“Understood.” I replied. I got out of bed and got dressed. I opened the door and grabbed my swords from their place next to the door. I made my way to the Lieutenant’s Office.

“You requested to see me? Lieutenant Anderson?” I asked as I knocked on the door of his office.

“Yes. Enter,” he replied and I did as he said.

“Edwin…” he began, “How old are you?”

“18 years old sir,” I replied, unsure as to why he was asking this.

“And how long have you been training as a knight here?” he asked.

“7 years sir,” I replied, still unsure to his reasoning.

“Good, you’ll do just fine then,” he said and beckoned me towards his desk to hand me a piece of paper with a red, wax, seal. I read the official looking document and it said, “The Ashfell Royal Family hereby decrees that all barracks, if at all possible, must send one or more knights that meet the following requirements, under 25 years old, and with 5 or more years of training at his barracks, to participate in a tournament in the Royal Capital on June 18th of this year.” I realized that I fit into those requirements and that the date on the document was three days from now, the amount of time it would take to travel to the Royal Capital.

“Sir, you don’t mean…” I began but he cut me off.

“Yes, you are perfectly capable of participating in such a tournament and maybe even winning. You have trained with us for 7 years and you have progress significantly during that time. I think it’s high time that you got to test your skills on some fresh and new opponents,” he replied simply and made it clear that he had faith in me.

“Thank you for your kind words sir,” I said and bowed with gratitude.

“You will leave in two hours. Make your preparations and meet the carriage by the gates. It will take you straight to the Royal Capital.”

“Yes sir,” I bowed and walked out the door. I was excited to finally be able to test my skills. And the Lieutenant had never showed any faith in me before then. I prepared my things and left for the Royal Capital.

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When I arrived, I did as the note instructed and made my way to the colosseum in the center of town. When I arrived at my destination I was asked my name and age, as well as what barracks I was from. When I answered the man who asked looked away from the papers he was writing on and checking.

“So it wasn’t just a rumour,” he said to himself as he observed me, and then said something under his breath that he thought I couldn’t hear, “so the infamous ‘Fallen Prince’ knight will be participating after all.” I pretended I hadn’t heard that and moved on when he said I could and told me what to do. I was instructed to grab a number and head to a room labeled with my number and block indicated on the slip of paper and wait there with my weapons. In the room I saw a tournament tracker board set up. It was a single elimination 32 person tournament bracket set up with a block A, B, C, and D. I was in block B according to my slip of paper. My number was B8. It looked like the Block A finalist and the Block B finalist would face off against each other in a semi-final and so would the Block C and D finalists. The winners of those would go on to face each other to decide the overall winner. If I was going to win I would have to fight in 6 matches.

As I was thinking about this someone called in the hallway, “All participants please gather within the arena for an announcement made by the sponsor of the event! And leave your weapons!” Me and the others followed instructions and all 32 of the participants gathered in the arena. As we entered the crowd of spectators cheered and roared. Then someone with a white glove on the balcony raised their hand for silence and the cheering stopped. I didn’t understand why until the figure stepped into view. The crowd had stopped cheering because they were shocked, stunned, that the princess of the kingdom herself had come to watch the tournament. She’s the sponsor of the event? I thought to myself.

I had never seen the princess before. She had long, crimson, hair, with stormy grey eyes. She was slender and didn’t seem to be too tall or short. A man came up to her on the balcony and tried to hand her a slip of paper but she pushed it away.

“Loyal citizens,” said the princess, “as you likely know, I am Princess Rose Ashfell of the New Kingdom,” it was a ridiculous thing to say because anyone who didn’t know who she was must have been living with a pack of Kyber Wolves their whole life. “I have come here to make a request of these young knights, I am here today to select a Royal Knight to serve as my protector and as my aid. I regret to inform you that my father, the king, is terribly ill. As it seems, I may be the ruler of this kingdom far sooner than we expected,” the crowd gasped at the news of the king. They must have kept it secret for a long time for his illness to get so bad. And she clearly wasn’t supposed to be saying it even now because one of the men on the balcony started freaking out for a second before she sent him a look.

“I will be watching every match over the course of today and tomorrow to select a knight that I see fit to be my Royal Knight. The names of the knights will remain anonymous so there will be no prejudice whatsoever in the selection. I wish you all the best of luck,” the princess finished with a bow towards the knights and walked back to her seat on the balcony.

Me and the rest of the knights were sent back to our rooms to wait and told we would be called up for our matches. It didn’t take very long until I was called for my first match. My opponent was about the same size and age as me as far as I could tell. None of the knights were allowed to wear armor for any of the matches. I saw he wielded what looked like a steel greatsword.

The referee stepped up between us and started to tell us the rules of the match. “Alright B7 and B8, here are the rules for the match. Rule #1, you are not allowed to kill your opponent. Rule #2 you are allowed to bruise and cut your opponent, just no life threatening injuries. Rule #3 you are not allowed to punch or kick your opponent without a weapon; any weapons with the exception of ones with poison are allowed. The match is over once the referee has declared you or your opponent unable to continue the match. You are unable to continue the match if you are unconscious or if you are unable to attack. Are these clear and agreeable?” the referee looked at both of us and we nodded.

“Alright,” the referee backed up and raised his hand to give the signal to start, “ready!” he put his and down, “Begin!”

I drew my dual swords and hit my opponent’s greatsword head on using a crossblock. We both jumped back and then ran at each other again. He raised his sword up above his head and tried to swing it down on me but I blocked with my swords. Greatswords are too predictable. I thought as I blocked. The next time he swung his sword down I only blocked with one sword and used the butt of the other to hit him hard in the abdomen. This caused him to lose his grip on his sword with the wind knocked out of him and I caught his sword as it fell.

“The winner is B8! B7 has lost his sword and is unconcious,” announced the referee. The crowd cheered and I exited the arena. 1 battle down, 5 more to go… I thought. I went back to my waiting room and saw that the tournament board had been updated while I had been gone to show the results of the first round’s matches.

For my next matches my opponents were so easy all I needed to do was take away their weapons. The crowd wasn’t very pleased at my progress.; due to the fact that it didn’t take me as long to finish the fights, unlike other contestants. But It didn’t matter what they thought. Because I was going to win and give it my all. I didn’t want to show off all of my skills until I needed them. My opponents up until the final were so easy there was no point in trying to knock them out.

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End Episode 1 of Part 1