The Shadow of the Accursed Executioner

Chapter 13: Burn the Night

Flames arched across the night as two jesters in red and gold breeches juggled torch-flames across each end of the near-glinting cobblestone streets. As another two jesters juggled across another flaming arc, then another pair arching between another, and another, the streets appearing as long lanes of fiery half-rings across the paths of the public square. For the men and women of low sat along with their families across the grassy plain and beneath the trees as some even walked beneath the arcs, delighted and impressed by the immense skill of the fire jesters. As most men and women but all the children to see in the sector, had took part in the Festival of Dragon's identity as the face of dragons long ago, white, blue and green, orange and red masks, depicting the face of dragons, were displayed across the sector along with many stranger yet eccentric combinations of coloured masks.
I passed between the fire jesters with Ayu as we approached into a crowd of people, passing another jester who juggled leather balls then to pass beside a band of bards performing with the travellers who drummed in tune with the bards. For there too were a fluffy, white dragon roaming about as kids screamed and laughed, begging to pat the creature as if it were a real dragon, (but a real dragon to be, the children were to scream endless). For its eyes were big and beady and its snout protruded longly and passive, the dragon now wrapping its wings around a group of joyful children.
"Me next! Me next!" Begged Ayu, as he flailed his hands about then rushed toward the fluffy dragon.
And I followed along in Ayu's trail as I spotted Kiah sitting in the grass with two young boys before her, sparring together with wooden swords.
As she were in her black gown and black veil (her favourite colour as always to be black), as she too wore the mask of a black dragon with two large horns, as each horn forming like bundles of thick, grey roots.
"Kiah," I called out from beneath the pink mask, "It's awfully strange to see a lord with little company in a crowd." I remarked.
"Huh?!" Kiah replied. "Heavens, heavens!" She groaned, raising her mask. "I cannot not even begin to figure out who's talking to me with all these hidden faces!" She said.
Then I passed beside the sparring boys, to sit beside Kiah in the grass, sitting before the large stage, though further away than the many.
Then I raised my pink mask.
"Well well..." She said, "I see the pacifist has made himself even more vibrant than ever."
"Well well, I see the grey horns at least suits your wisdom as 'Kiah, The Black Dragon'." I replied.
"Oh, please, the black dragon is a symbol of power." She rebutted. "They say that the black dragon has a flame which burns nearly as bright as the Dragon of Light, itself."
And the two boys continued to spar together before Kiah's sight. They struck swiftly and strongly as their stances had remain unbroken. For one of the boys were taller and stronger than the other, as he covered much ground against the smaller boy who backed further and further away.
"Come on, Harshel!" -Shouted Kiah. "Hit him back!"
"They're quite good." I said.
"Yes yes." Kiah replied daily. "Harshel here, is the son of a knight..."
Then the smaller boy, Harshel, screamed at the larger boy as he began to swing through the air-maddened with pride and rage, screaming along with another reckless strike then another.
"Son of a knight...being beaten by a supposed 'low' peasant boy." She added. "Alright boys, that's enough."
But Harshel continued to strike at the air before the large boy, now raising the hard wood of the sword toward his face.
"AAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!"
"Oh, for the love of mercy."
For he, the larger boy, had struck at Harshel's shoulder, now dropping his sword, he, then laid into the culms of the grass, squirming, his face reddened and his eyes streaked of tears down his face.
Agony.
"You little piss-pots!" She scolded. "What did I say? Spar, not kill each other. Go on then, Borsin, get him up. Help up the poor noble boy! Go on, see that his wounds are sawn to."
But the larger boy, Borsin, froze in place with his eyes, now guilt-ridden.
"Now!" She growled-
Which Borsin flinched from her spearing voice, obeying her, as he trots through the crowd with Harshel beneath his arm, as he heads for the physician's home.
"And that will be it for the physician. He'll have his hands full now, even on a night like this."
"He'll be furious if he sees the fire jesters, I reckon."
"Do not even begin, you." Kiah replied, a vague smirk pinned her old cheeks. "But I do think they're awfully skilled with those torches. It's the only reason why I'm sitting here to be honest. But I also want to be away from that wreckage of a stage, too."
"What's wrong with the stage?"
"You should know." She implied, a tone of dread etched her throat. "The acting, the stories. Too dramatic for my taste."
Then I watched Ayu carry the fluffy dragon in his arms like his own, (though there certainly had hid of a small man within that suit).
"What on earth is he doing to that poor man?" Kiah wondered. "The prince surely is a mad one."
I turned my eyes to Kiah-surprised. "How did you know it was him?"
"The attire, the quilted jacket beneath his vacant armour. The sword on his back." She added.
"..."
"A knight always keeps at least one sword on him at all times. And he is after all, the only knight within the Capital of the Realm right now-"
"Ho ho! Ho ho, woah!" Approached a man with a jug of ale, with two small horns of a dragon aligned above the handle of the jug, splashing a spit of ale from the brim as he dropped into the culms of the grass. "Well, if it isn't Ghen, the blacksmith of the realm."
For it is was On'ser, a merchant, a trader of furs who flowed the blood of the traveller people, his skin a shade of dark from his father mixed with his white mother, a citizen of the realm. As once a month, On'ser ventures beyond the wall until the fall of day to return with mostly meats and the pelts of wolves, rabbits, beavers and foxes from the forests, (though we would occasionally return with the rabbits alive to breed for a supply of meat). And he himself, had always wore the pelt of a wolf around his shoulders with his brown tunic and black, blood-stained boots.
"On'ser." I remarked. "I have always wondered, do you hunt with the ale in your left hand or your right?"
"Bwahahahaha!" He snorted along with a humble wheeze. "Precisely why I use javelins instead of a bow to hunt, my friend." As On'ser's eyes glowed from his black beard. "The ale makes me faster-Waahehehe! Makes me...stronger!" He gravelled in joy.
Then he took another gulp of his ale.
"You really shouldn't be drinking while hunting, On'ser." Kiah said, her face stern. "Even if your acclaimed ale were brewed by the Bee of Light, itself, you certainly won't survive against a band of Pillagers if they let alone see you."
"Kiah, On'ser has been known to land many hits with his javelin from at least eighty metres." I said.
"Dropped 'em all dead, with only one blow." On'ser added. "With ale. Ninety metres."
"No, On'ser, what I mean to say is, is that if it comes down to it, would you kill another man?"
"I kill animals, my lord, not men. But from what I hear about the Pillagers, is that I'll end up striking down an animal, regardless."
On'ser took another drink from his ale.
"Then you know what to do..." Kiah agreed, vaguely, then she lowered her mask, concealing herself back as the face of a black dragon. "Now if you'll excuse me, I need to check on those little scoundrels." Her voice muffling through the mask, as she slogs her way back up toward the cobblestone street.
Then On'ser rose from his place, then to sit beside me, folding his legs as he stares at a fluffy dragon returning on its feet.
"Where's your mask, On'ser?" I asked.
"Got horns." He said, raising his jug. "Besides, I'm already a dragon, my friend-Geehehehehe!"
"..."
"But...I've actually come to check up on the progress of my dear love. My second wife." On'ser hinted.
"Ah. The elaborate sword." I said. "Then I can tell you this much for certain. Your sword is no longer on the waiting list. In fact, the architectural stage is complete."
Then On'ser rose from his place in the grass, his face now a gaping smile.
"I knew it! I heard you had a long waiting list but here it is, the sword is finally ready to be made! This calls for another drink!" He said, chugging the remainder of his ale- "UUURRRRRRRP!!" Then he belched from his mouth with a deep rumble. Then he raised his empty jug of protruding horns. "To the best blacksmith in the realm-NO! To the best blacksmith...in the whole entire world!!" As he shot his right arm into the air with his jug. "Fuck the Knight-smith!" He added.
For I smirked down into the culms of the grass, nodding at On'ser in wonder as he continues to dance in excitement.
"Why do you even need such an impractical sword? A blue and gold sword with the shape of a diamond fuller above the hilt. All that extra weight..." I thought.
"Ah, well, to be truthful." He dropped back into the grass. "When I go hunting, I venture ten miles toward the north. Why the north? More rabbits, more wolves." He answered. "But when I journey there to hunt, then to return to keep the nobles and peasants warm with all these new wares, I then hear about these animalistic men and women outside the realm. The things they do... The things they do to women. You start to believe it."
"..."
"But I've yet to see these 'unruly' Pillagers. Even after all these years hunting...gathering, sometimes fishing."
"That's because their presence is known toward the east." I said.
"Aye." Agreed On'ser, staring down at his empty jug. "But to answer your wonders about the blue and gold sword, Ghen. I thought blue would be the colour of magic. And, as it too being the colour of dragon's eyes, but. Could you imagine? What the Pillagers would think if they saw a blue and gold sword on hand?"
"They'll think you're mad."
"Then I'll show 'em madness, Gahaa!" On'ser prided. "I'll shout some magic words-some...amali amali-this, is the sword which holds the lightning bolts of the Shadowmen, THE FIRE OF ALL DRAGONS, and the sun from the chosen beings of light!"
"As long as you're standing in the sun." I remarked.
"Now, to consume all manner of light," He continued, "the manifestation of magic is complete... For this, will be the sword to protect me."
"And when they discover that the sword has no power, then what?"
"Then I'll climb the tallest tree like those fancy silver knights. I'll...just be sure to bring more javelins on my next hunt."
"And ale." I smiled.
"However," He continued, "there was something else I saw in the north." Something...unusual." He said, staring off into a feared wonder, now as no joyfulness flowed from On'ser's wishful eyes. Then he wrapped his hands around his empty jug, and hunched over from a seeming thought. "N-No." He said.
"..."
"No, it...was unnatural. It had seemed...impossible."
"Tell me, On'ser." I said. "Nothing seems to frighten you. You've even ventured up the north at night-"
"Not anymore." He asserted hastily. "Not anymore..." He repeated now in comfort. "The night just blinds me, that's all. I hunt dawn till dusk. Never again another night."
"Tell me. Tell me what you saw."
Then On'ser shot his eyes into mine.
"I saw the bones of a deer standing on its hind legs. I saw the neck of a deer extended by these black stems which wriggled and squirmed from within. And I saw the black stems wriggling from its back like a nest, too. But the deer had moved like a human." On'ser expressed, his brown face now etched with a chill of past terror. "Stomping...like a human. As both its front legs were bone... The thing even dropped toward me with a fist through the ground."
"A human's will within a deer..." I wondered.
"Yes!" On'ser rose from the grass. "Something like that. Of some kind... Maybe all animals have this monstrous form within them. But if I were see it again, I'll know to climb the tallest tree there is."
Then On'ser's wife had appeared beside him, who were a small and pale, pretty lady, along with a white flower tucked within her long, blond hair. As On'ser had given his final farewells for me along with his wife for the night, they headed off for the next sector, passing beneath the trusted fire jesters then to vanish through a crowd, to explore the rest of the celebrated sectors of the night.
And a moment had pass.
And Ayu were nowhere to be seen within a crowd of imitating dragons.
But then a woman had appeared (for a moment) across the stage, wearing a gold suit with scales and golden wings and a crown, a helmet shaped like a bowl with a nose-guard, with many horns which had formed the crown to be, of many horns circling her helmet like the horns of many demons.
Then two hands had appeared, resting against my shoulders.
"You at least remember the Dragon Keeper, hm?" He spoke playfully-appearing beside me then to lay in the culms with his mask.
"Ayu." I said, relieved by his appearance. "No. I remember."
"Hm." He scoffed queerly, his eyes shut, laying in the culms.
"You're going to miss the story, Ayu."
"Then so be it..." He replied. "They were using the King's Court to rehearse this story for months. With permission, of course."
"Under whom?"
"Under mine." He smirked. "Therefore, I know how this story ends." He said, amused. "Regardless, my friend...enjoy." His eyes now shut. "For after this, we shall head for the palace."