Knights of the Atrocity (closed)

Chapter One

"Let your hardships hone your soul and let your fortunes heal their soul.  M.W."

Hardin Woodwrell sleepily repeated the quote in his head, as he did often throughout every day, a promise made to himself to commit to memory the only shred of information he had ever received from a mother he never knew.  His most treasured possession was the faded and torn scrap of parchment written by the hand of M.W., his mother, Maelyndas Woodwrell.       

He continued on his way to his dreaded job,  down the overgrown path that snaked behind the city stables, quickening his pace past the lingering stench and bickering stable hands.  He picked his way through a muddy patch and plodded forward on his death march, a prisoner escorted to the gallows by the sentinel oaks that towered over him on either side.  He was startled out of his early morning stupor with a sudden feeling that someone was watching him. He stopped, took a few steps back toward the keep and the safety of his room, then craned his neck to peer over the high oaklic brush to his left, looking for some sign of imminent ambush.

Green ferns up the trail swayed slightly, as a Copper Agkist slithered across the trail, crossed into the deep undergrowth and made its way toward Krickenton Creek.  

Had he sensed the approaching snake or was somebody still watching him?

He shook off the eerie feeling and finally found himself in the shadows of a heavily leafed bush at the edge of the opening opposite the clerk's entrance to the Chancellery of Finance.  He wiped the sweat from his brow, looked left and right, then scurried into the courtyard. 

When he was halfway across the cobbled stones, the door to the Chancellery opened and out sauntered Stiiwe Ossunheff and Lantisford Wredboar. 

"Well, well. Look what we have here, if it isn't the little low bred scum who thinks he's gonna have a play at workin' for the Chancellery," said Stiiwe. 

Hardin squinted into the morning glare that had just crested over the Chancellery roof and began to cower away from the older boys' approach.  The two  glanced around the mostly deserted inner courtyard and noted that the few hurrying about were not the type to interrupt the business of the son and nephew of the Chancellor. 

They had tormented Hardin every day for the past month, his body a canvas covered with deep purple blotches, surrounded by splashings of reddish browns and fading greenish yellows.

He backed away, tried to avoid their grasp and found his mind retreating into a deeply recessed void.

Stiiwe cocked his arm back and clenched his fist. 

The first blow glanced off Hardin's left cheek. The second landed flush on his right temple, sending him cascading to the stones. He rolled onto his side and tried to focus, but only caught a glimpse of leering, rabid faces looking down on him.  His thin arm trembled as he struggled to prop himself up. 

A heavy boot connected below his ribs and his lungs ached for air.  He doubled over and cried out in a subhuman, guttural way, dizzying darkness swirled against the day's early light.

The next blow rained down before he could fully recover. A boot tip splayed his jaw with a sickening crack; a splitting maul slicing through finely aged oak. He pawed at the sticky wetness that clouded his vision and grabbed at the unbearable pain.  

Somehow he began to gather his legs beneath him. One leg straightened and the other began to follow, but as he started to rise a wicked blow to the back of his knee sent him sprawling again. Sneering, hateful faces resurfaced and fell back away, murky apparitions hanging at the edge of his failing sight.  The cacophony of mockery and laughter reached a crescendo just as a boot to his temple brought much welcomed darkness.