Army of the Cursed - War of the Last Day #1 [EXCERPT]

2. A Tour in Hell

Nardine had known that brawny veteran knight for a few years, but she never got a chance like this one to ask him the question that had bugged her mind since their first meeting.

"So, why do you hide your real name, Sir Blade?"

Mounting his destrier next to her armored warhorse, the towering knight scoffed, "What makes you think I would hide it, milady?"

Did he imagine she might give him a political answer? That man had no idea. "Because you committed a crime in your past and you wanted to escape from justice?"

He laughed. "That would be quite a tale indeed."

"Oh please. You want me to believe that your parents named you Blade the day you were born because they believed you would become a knight when you grew up?"

Sir Blade heaved a sigh, grinning. "Seems I cannot hide my secret from you anymore, milady. Blade is not my real name indeed. It's Blayd."

His sense of humor was worse than her cooking skills. But she hadn't insisted on taking him with her on her tour around Bermania because of his amusing company. "Sir Blade is a veteran commander whose insights would surely enlighten me, Mother." Nardine had said to her mother to justify her request. "Besides, what would you need your military advisor for these days? Anyway, I will let you keep your general." Lord Idwin; the Queen's General who had nothing serious to do in these times of peace.

"I will pretend I didn't hear your amazing jape, Sir Blayd."

"My parents were southerners, Lady Nardine. They named me after Blayd the Slayer, one of the folk heroes there. It was my brothers-in-arms in Ramos who changed my name to Blade."

Because they were ignorant of the glorious history of the South. "Is that why Father chose you to rescue his army in the battle of Kingsraid?"

Sir Blade allowed himself a wry himself. "I never asked him why me whenever he gave me a mission. But I know he was always confident that I would get the job done."

The job he was referring to was persuading the lords of Augarin and Lapond to put their differences with their king aside and send their troops as fast as possible to defend the capital of Bermania from the Rusakian invaders. Had it not been for the reinforcements Sir Blade had brought with him to the battlefield at the walls of Paril, her parents' reign would have ended before she was born. And who knows? I wouldn't have existed even.

"Still, I can't imagine how the Rusakians managed to reach that far one day? What happened to the great fortress of Karun? Or the castle of Subrel?"

Blade shook his head. "You have no idea how the civil war shattered our country. The garrison in Karun was too small to hold the fortress against the titanic Rusakian horde. Subrel?" he scoffed, "Subrel was an abandoned fort without a wall when the army of Rusakia marched harmlessly past it."

Nardine gazed over her shoulder at the fortress of Karun, which was still visible from this distance. "And that's why he wasted his coin and stone on a cursed fort at the Green Hills."

"The Kingsfort was supposed to be Paril's last line of defense. Your father insisted on building it so that he could repel the invaders—if they came—without waiting for the valorous Southerners to rescue the pearl of his kingdom."

Still a waste of gold and stone, Nardine reflected. And her mother had already squandered the kingdom's treasury on the Rusakian red mercury and the smiths of silver arrows. "Stone means nothing without arms to defend it."

Blade gave her a lopsided smile.

"What?" she asked.

"His Grace, may the Lord of Sky and Earth rest his soul in peace, used to say that."