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Kaiiyden -> Tales of a Dragon Rider (7/15/2015 20:18:12)
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CHAPTER 1
I opened my eyes to hear " Kaiyne! Get up your father is looking for you , your late again!" Slowly but forcefully I got out of bed and walked to my mother.
She looked at me with a worried mom look saying "Son your father wont tolerate this for much longer, he said you would take over the meat hut it is your duty to the village."
Knowing that she was only saying that to get me up I just said what I normally say " I know mother I'm sorry i just couldn't stop dreaming last night ."
For the past few months ever since I came of age to join the Kings army I have been longing to leave but no recruiters had come through the village lately. " I'll go there right away mother I promise."
She looked at me with her stern brown eyes, " This is the last straw if your late again he wont allow you to come back home." I shrugged my shoulders and walked out of the house almost slipping on the mud floor. We lived in an old barn the village built years back at the start of the war. Originally it was to store weapons for our honest kings cause. King Ognimost was a good man trying to take lands for his people to live a better life but his army's were full of farmers and hunters, only a few true soldiers remained loyal to our King.
Walking down the dirt path to town I saw vultures eating what was left of dead horses from the army. Our Kingdom was struggling under the Shadow Kings empire. They killed everything they saw and ate what normal humans would have buried. It was a few miles till I would get to my fathers shop so I had time to think and dream like I did every day. Imagining myself riding a stallion with a longsword in hand at the front lines of King Ognimost's army winning battles for my people . That was the life I wanted. The life of a knight, not a damned meat cutter. My father had never held any kind of blade but a butcher knife his entire life. He couldn't and wouldn't understand my dreams. He only cared about getting to work and getting to bed , anything outside of that was of no concern to him.
The sun was beating down worse than yesterday. This summer had been a long and miserably hot one. Horses couldn't make journeys due to the lack of water since the Shadow King had cut most of our water supplies off with his foul water beast, Hydras I think they called them. Huge Sea snakes eating anything not bearing the Shadow Kings mark. Life had been rough these past four summers ever since King Ognimost refused to swear fealty to the Dark One as we called The Shadow king now. Many people said bad things drunk on whiskey and whine. I knew they were just upset with the way life was going now , children hungry and livestock dying but what could we do about it but sit by and watch? That's what my father would say from behind his counter.
Coming into the village I could see all the small shacks built out of tree limbs and mud some fancier than others. My fathers meat shack was near the far wood line on the other side of the villa. It wasn't anything special just a hut with a counter and hiding spot in the ground for yesterdays catch .There was a large creek that ran close to the villa in the woods , a few years ago my father and I had dug a trench running in a horseshoe pattern from the creek to his shop and back to the creek. It kept the meats cold enough to last until they were cleaned or bought. People waved at me as I walked by , some turned their heads. Thanks to my father I wasn't the most popular twenty year old in town . He had told the village last winter that I wanted to leave and join the Kings Army to fight for our freedom. That would have been all well and fine if he hadn't added in the part where I was the only person in town besides himself who knew the difference between cursed meat and pure meat . The Shadow Kings Necromancers had gone throughout Sheniras Plains and mountains from one coast to the other cursing the animals and vegetation right after King Ognimost refused his Orders to bow down . A lot of people didn't figure out until it was to late and the dark mark started to appear. Once it covered your chest and back you were a slave to the Dark Ones will . They say your soul dies when it takes over but no one really knows, the cursed rarely do anything but scream and kill.
Passing by the center of the village where we kept a huge bonfire going year round I saw Jennifer and Vlad preparing a huge boar one of the hunters had killed two suns ago. They were brother and sister and almost creepily identical to. Both about a head shorter than myself with red hair and green eyes , only two years younger than myself they had been in the village all there lives same as me . We got along rather well I had always had a small thing for Jennifer but lately no one had any time to show any kind of feelings but fear. I almost waived at them but they seemed to be focusing a great deal on the pig and I was still thinking about how deeply I wanted to leave this nowhere village so I just kept walking.
Nearly at the meat hut I couldn't help thinking to myself "Why can you just train someone else on the difference in the meats old man." Allmost as if my words had summoned him my father walked out of the shack stained with blood from meat and started in on me.
"Damnit boy where you been, I've had three deer come in and two of the hunters are raring to get back home they been out fer days now" he said with his usual I'm gonna whip you good after were done working tone. Even though he hadn't been able to whip me since I was ten. We both mirrored each other, black hair and crimson eyes , tall and sturdy with almost the same expressions to.
Running my hand through my hair I tried to cover for sleeping in. " Sorry father I was walking down the path an saw a cursed rabbit on the edge of the wood an I went to kill it but it got away from me."
He looked at me for a second then smacked me clean across the head before yelling at me, "You know just as well as I do you ain't gonna find a cursed nothin right here on the edge , they don't like the open where it ain't dark . Now get in there and cut up that deer I been working on I need to go over to Henry's and get a new blade."
He grumbled and walked off.Henry was the blacksmith here in the village, he had been here for nearly ten years now and was a pretty accomplished blacksmith. He didn't have any family and stayed drunk half the time but he was good at what he did.
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