Greetings and salutations, ladies and gentlemen. It might not come as a surprise, but I’d been sort of waffling about what longer work to present in the Substack, and have finally landed on ‘The Chained One’, the 2013 sequel to ‘A Midwestern Yankee in King Ovin’s Court’. We’ll start slow here with the prologue, and I’ll try to consistently present the chapters in this space.
Now, let us begin!
Prologue
Screams pierced the darkened night air, hellish, guttural noises spreading like wildfire. Grasses slick with rain swayed in a wind birthed from a set of five blackened trees standing north of the warrior in a row, faint blue auras shining around their trunks. He held his blades out before him in a 'X', a shimmering white half-dome of power pressed between him and the powerful current of air coming from the trees.
Dressed in full plate combat armor, battered blue plates dented and scorched, the knight gritted his teeth along his snout. His appearance was that of a German Shepherd/human hybrid, one built with the frame of a man on the muscular end of athletic. His skills as a swordsman were unparalleled in all the realm of Ether. Yet his prowess as a kennin warrior, one of the dog-men of his world, was doing him no good. He couldn't get near his enemy.
The flatlands here in the southern stretches of Amermidst Kingdom had recently come under assault by forces unknown to the ruling court. Witness accounts came from citizens and Rangers both speaking of spectral creatures frightening everyone off or killing friends and loved ones, possibly new breeds of specters, the wild monsters that roamed the world of the faerie folken. The kennin warrior, Sir Daggeuro, had been charged with the task of taking a group of six of the kingdom's finest warriors, members of the Royal Guard, to investigate the reports.
He wasn't sure what they had discovered here, but magic from unseen foes had already killed two of his men. The remaining four knights all stood flanking him, their own defenses held out before them as the unnatural wind pounded at them from the trees. He looked to the knight closest on his left, Sir Gwellick, trying to ignore the ragged flap of scalp peeled back along the right side of the elf's head.
"Gwellick! Behind me, man," Sir Daggeuro shouted. The elven knight obeyed immediately, letting down his magical barrier once behind Daggeuro. "Scry the magic, figure out what it is that we may counter it!" The harpy shrieks redoubled, almost drowning out his voice. He risked a quick look over his shoulder, watching Gwellick move his hands in a spell casting.
"My lordship," someone to his right hollered. Daggeuro looked over to find, to his mounting horror, one of his fellow kennin knights, a man named Harwin with a Doberman's frame, gagging and struggling with a length of black iron chain wrapped about his throat. The chain stretched all the way to the trees, winding around the central trunk. The man who had called for him, a towering minotaur in combat chain mail named Sir Berl, was banging on the chain with his tulwar, the crescent moon-shaped blade rebounding off of the heavy links with no effect.
"Harwin!" Daggeuro let down part of his shield to trudge toward the other kennin knight, who had managed to take two steps backward, hauling on the chain. The High Knight Daggeuro, Lord of the Watch and high commander of the Royal Guard, signaled Berl before him. Minotaurs were blessed with a natural defense against some magical forces, a benefit balanced by being especially vulnerable to others. Berl was mostly immune to wind and fire magics, but water and earth spells could play hell with him.
Using Berl as a natural barrier, Daggeuro let his shield go entirely and raised one of his blades high. It was of purest white, glowing with a holy aura. The blade was known as Boon, a physical manifestation of sacred power. Its twin, held down at his side, Bane, was the equal of it, made of pure profane power. With a shout he swung down Boon upon the chain.
The blade bounced off like it was a common table knife.
"This cannot be," he rasped. The shrieks and wind abruptly died, bringing a silence only the Grim Reaper could take comfort from. All seven men looked at the trees, but only one still remained, the black chain about its trunk. The wyldlight spell that one of the other elven knights had cast winked out, darkness flooding in all about. Daggeuro could barely make out the tree.
Harwin grunted as he was suddenly yanked away through the air, the chain rattling as it wrapped around the tree's trunk. Something huge moved out in the unseen darkness, and as abruptly as the field had darkened, it filled with natural moonlight. There was no sign of the trees, of Harwin, or of the destructive spells Daggeuro's allies had cast at the trees. For all intents and purposes, it looked like nothing had happened there. If not for Harwin's disappearance and Gwellick's head wound, he never would have guessed anything had occurred.
It was high time to get back to the capital and report to King Ovin.