The Keeper's Children

A/N: Do NOT steal my work, or you will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. 

Otherwise, enjoy my novel! :)

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PROLOGUE:  THE CHILD

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Godfrey cantered back and forth on his warhorse in front of all of his knights and soldiers, his own chain mail and metal armor clinking with a form of restlessness. 

“They have invaded our lands, raped our women, killed our children. They have violated our people and dishonored our king! We will throw these Ice Demons a nasty blow this day! For tonight they will have wished that they had never settled this land! We will provide no quarter. No mercy. No pity. Only death!”

All three hundred men raised their fists in the air in impending victory and gave a large war cry. Godfrey grinned at his men’s voracity and gave the motion for them to move out. Godfrey began at a strong gallop as all of the men followed him, leaving the cobble stoned courtyard through the raised portcullis and out into the countryside of Eskillian.

Not but a year ago a strange group of people settled in the dark, twisted forest of Næglesthorne. A breed of people who were anything but human. Many called them demons, but their names were the Ice Lurkers. They were pale, thin, and had an ill look about them, as if something evil lurked in their wild eyes, for their eyes were the most unnerving site Godfrey or any other had ever seen. Their irises were a white stringed ice along with a wheel of cerulean blue around the most outer portion of the iris. 

However, as odd as they might be, they took the form of humans. They dressed in odd fashions. They wore simple, thin animal skins but no bulky furs. Even in the dead of winter, when blizzards threatened to freeze people in their homes, they continued to wear those clothes as if the winter winds didn’t even nip them. That is how they came to be known as the Ice Lurkers. 

The people of Ekillian normally gave the Ice Lurkers a wide berth and would go out of their way so they would not cross paths with them. However, that was all about to end.  About six months ago two Lurkers came into the village. They carried nothing with them but the clothes on their backs. It was a bright summer day, but just as the Ice Lurkers walked into the small village, a frost coated the village. Children went running for their homes, the drying linens on the line were frozen stiff, and the men lit braziers. Families huddled together in their small homes, leaving the Lurkers to make their way through the village. Mothers and children watched through cracked doors, while the men of the village gathered their weapons and blocked the street. 

There were roughly twenty men facing the two Lurkers. Words were exchanged and the strangers were told that they must leave. The Ice Lurkers said nothing, and once the men made threatening advances, that was when they found out how seriously outnumbered they were. The Ice Lurkers took a single step back and their shoulders scrunched up in a threatening position like a cat. The men advanced even further, their swords, daggers, hammers, and pitch-forks all at the ready. 

Without anymore hesitation, one of the Lurkers lunged forward quick as a whip, knocked his dagger clean out of his hand, and gave another swift blow to the stomach and then the head, before the man even had time to blink. Immediately, the men began crowding around the strangers, jabbing at them with their weapons, but it was as if their weapons could do nothing to harm them. One by one, each man dropped to the ground, either dead or unconscious by the hands of these two Lurkers. 

After a few scant minutes, none were left standing other than the Ice Lurkers. They looked down at the wreckage that they had wrought, turned away and left the village the same way that they had entered. No one ever knew what they had originally wanted, and nor did they ask.

Godfrey had always thought it was odd, but he never asked questions either. He didn’t trust them. They were foreigners. They weren’t even human. They needed to leave. His drive was renewed as he allowed the series of events to play over in his mind’s eye. 

His heart began punching to a steady, heavy beat along with the horses hooves as he led the army to the forest of Næglesthorne. Soon, the edge of the wood was in sight, and Godfrey could just make out the pale forms of the Lurkers half hidden behind the large twisted trunks of the trees.