Vintish cities shared many things with one another, yet were entirely different depending on exactly where they were located and what lord they paid homage to. Dunmont was not an extremely large city, but it was located on the Gurdia River—the western branch of the Thine—thus making it a city worth its weight in gold. It was a mere thirty leagues southeast of Garr, and paid its allegiance to the Merchant Lord, not directly to the king. Lord Idris moved through the crowded streets with an almost palpable annoyance. He brushed a man off of his coat, pushed a fat woman out of the way, and continued his trek to the northern end of the city. It was near Night’s First and the streets would be clearing shortly, making way for the darkness to fall upon the city. He needed to be ready by then. The stone walls were no more than fifteen feet high, and the mayor did not mind people coming and going—at least for now. It took him half of an hour to make it through the street markets and travelling carts, from the blacksmith district to the tailors, and finally the merchant’s quarters. The scenery constantly changed from damp wood and shoddy patrons, to polished stone and silk embellished wives and mistresses. Lord Idris had to admit that the smell had improved as well, though he didn’t mind the dank and putrid.
He smiled at a young girl and glanced back at the three men that followed him not twenty paces back. One of them flashed the slightest nod, acknowledgement of his duty, but the motion was gone as quickly as it had come. The foreign lord moved on through the streets until he saw a man in an expensive leather doublet with two figs splayed on his chest.
“Good day, sir. My name is Tyson Gailly, and I bring the mayor a message from the Merchant Lord, though I am quite embarrassed to say that I lost the slip that had my directions on it and I am dreadfully lost.” The lord’s voice sounded friendly, though slightly odd due to his accent.
The man smiled at him, not a hint of apprehension on his face. “Of course, Mayor Prichart lives at the top of the hill, the big house there.” He pointed and nodded his head. “If he isn’t there you will find him in the Stanchion, an inn not a block away. You can’t miss it, nor should you,” the man said with a wink.
Lord Idris bowed generously. “Thank you, kind sir. I am undoubtedly in your debt.”
The lord quickened his pace, cautiously checking around him as he moved. There was no alarm in the city, no impending doom from the news of the surrounding villages. They had used the news of Dunmont’s demise to strike fear into the villages located around the lower Gurdia, though they had yet to hit Dunmont. Destroying villages was simple, with no skill required, and little in the form of preparation was needed. Townsfolk were generally docile, and those that did fight back did not possess the means or the skill to properly defend themselves. A city, however, would be a different story entirely. Dunmont had a decent guard for a city of its size, with well-trained men and fairly uncorrupt motives. It had taken more than Lord Idris initially thought to buy out the second in command, whom was now on the fast track to being first in command. The main problem was the city gates. They were not large or impassable, but they were still fifteen feet of iron, and thus more than his small, seemingly inconspicuous band of thieves and murderers could handle without help. That was where the mayor came in.
Little was known about Mayor Prichart other than that he had a short fuse and a taste for young, seemingly innocent girls. Idris assumed that he would find the man at the Stanchion, and not his house due to the hour. The house would be easier to garner a private meeting with the mayor, but he was prepared to take the man regardless of where he was or what he was doing. Dunmont would fall, sooner rather than later, and the empire will blame their precious Lost Prince. Soon the tides will turn, Lord Idris thought with a blazing smile.
The Mayor’s manor was large, larger than he had anticipated. It had the structure of a small keep, the stone walls of a fortress. A long line of steps led up to the double mahogany doors and the walkway was lined with fruit trees and shrubs that were definitely not native to the area. The stone walls were built up with what he could only imagine as polished marble, giving the manor an odd shimmering effect that was easily distracting. When the lord glanced back, he was not surprised to find the three men gone and the street somewhat empty. He finished the climb to the top of the stairs and put a hard fist onto the large wooden door a number of times. It took only moments for the door to groan open and reveal a long, slender-faced, frail-framed man with long hair pulled into a pony tail and the wardrobe of what could only have made him the butler.
“Good day, sir. How can I help you?” The butler’s voice was pomp and prim, with just the right amount of accent to suggest northern education, alluding to an at least somewhat capable servant.
The lord gave his most elegant bow. “My name is Tyson Gailly. I am bringing a message from the Merchant Lord to Mayor Prichart, if I might steal a moment of his time?”
The butler eyed him curiously. “You can give the message to me and I will see that it is forwarded to the mayor,” was his counter.
“I am afraid it is a sensitive subject, the matter at hand.” He poured on the courtesies. “I was bid to give the letter to no one save the mayor, and I am afraid it is extremely important. I am prepared to wait if necessary.”
“Mayor Prichart is not decent at the moment,” he said with a frown. The butler looked him over again, and after a moment of thought, he finally cracked the door and waved him in. “Sit here in the foyer and I will tell the mayor of your visit. Try not to touch anything.”
Lord Idris followed the butler into the large foyer and closed the ground between the two in a split second. He grabbed the tall man’s hair and wrenched his head back, locking it in his grip to where he could look the man directly in the eyes. “Which room is the mayor’s?”
The butler gasped against the strain. “It is the head solar, top of the stairs, last door at the end of the hall!” He tried to say something else, but his voice was cut off by a gurgle of fluids. His legs fell out from under him and he crashed to the ground, hands wrapped around his own throat. Lord Idris looked down on the man as he writhed, struggling to get a breath, until his body fell limp on the floor and his eyes shot the ceiling death’s infamous stare.
Without wasting another moment, Lord Idris rushed up the large curved staircase to the third floor and moved straight down the long hallway. The manor was a scene of opulence, more a palace than a home, and he was certain that the mayor was much more than he pretended to be—or at least worth more to the Merchant Lord than was previously thought.
Lord Idris pushed the large solar doors open and stalked into the room. It was decorated much as the rest of the house, but looked like it had been thrown over more than once. The feather bed had been slashed open, dousing the room in a layer of white. Dressers stood on their sides, contents spilling out onto the marble floor. Despite the disarray of the room, it was the smell that told the lord that something was truly wrong. He moved through the room with cautious steps, curious as to what he might find. He made it most of the way around the room without much other than broken furniture and ripped tapestries until he could see on the opposite side of the bed. Lord Idris noticed the legs first, but it wasn’t until he moved closer that he noticed the shoulder-length hair and the blood covered breasts of the dead girl. She was young, probably not far from her first blood, and long dead. Her body had already drained most of the blood to the floor, and had already gone rigid and back soft again, which explained the smell.
“The mayor has his vices,” Lord Idris said with an expressionless gaze as he kneeled over the dead girl. “It seems you were not what he was looking for, darling. Or, perhaps you were exactly what he was looking for,” the lord corrected with smirk.
Behind him, a door swung open and an extremely large man spilled out of the doorway wrapped in a towel that barely covered his lower half. The fat man stopped, his chin shaking, his eyes narrowed at the intruder. “Who the hell are you?” he demanded.
The lord rose from where he was kneeling and walked slowly towards the fat man. “Mayor Prichart, I have heard tales of your specific…interests,” he said with a glance back at the dead girl. “I can honestly say that I am not surprised.”
The mayor clinched his jaw. “Who are you and what are you doing in my manor?”
“My name, Mayor Prichart, is Lord Idris Etal, and I am afraid that your services are needed.”
Mayor Prichart’s face blanched at the mention of his name. “My…my lord, I…why are you here?” he stammered, his demeanor shifting completely from a mayor in complete control of his city to a young boy who feared another lashing.
“The king sent me,” Lord Idris said with a smile as he moved closer to the mayor.
“For what purpose, if you don’t mind me asking?” His voice was beginning to shake. His legs wobbled and had to brace himself against the mantle to his right to keep from falling.
The lord shrugged as he looked into the Mayor’s eyes. The fingers of his mind crawled up the fat man’s spine, over his skull, and into his eyes until he grasped the man’s mind. There was no reason to speak any longer; the mayor could hear the lord’s thoughts, his very wishes.
“Your rule of this city has gone on long enough, Mayor. Your removal has been tasked to me by the king himself, but I am afraid you are of some use before you are dispatched.” The lord’s voice rang through the fat man’s head much like his own thoughts, but they were laced with something different, something sinister, and though the Mayor’s body had relaxed, his face slackened; his eyes remained the same—two wide holes of unfathomable fear.
Lord Idris moved around the fat man, ignoring the towel that had slumped to the ground. He grimaced at the sight of the man, at the enormous rolls of flesh that wrapped around his bones, around what was left of his soul. He stopped when he was in front of the mayor once more. “Get dressed, but nothing too fancy. We need to move, time is never our friend, Mayor Prichart.”
Without any show of acknowledgment, the mayor turned and moved to a large wardrobe on the other side of the room. He was dressed within minutes in a simple linen suit and what Lord Idris assumed was his normal walking cane. “I know you are wondering what is happening to you. It is all fairly simple. The Last Men of Evendai possessed many skills, glamour being one of them. It would seem like one of our most powerful skills, but that is where you would be wrong, Mayor.” Lord Idris moved out of the room then, the mayor in close tow. They walked through the large manor and out into the street. Darkness had already descended upon the walls of Dunmont, shrouding the city in a gloom spotted with torches and candles.
“Glamour, in fact, only works on the weak minded. Oh, it can catch a stronger mind off guard for a moment perhaps, but I have seen many students of magik fall because of their ill-seated faith in glamour.” The lord glanced back at his captive and smiled. “There are other arts that are much more…intriguing. There are men that can reach into your soul and discover your deepest fears. That doesn’t seem so bad though, does it? Except that they then use your fears to torture your mind until it cannot take any more. It simply…breaks. Oh yes, it certainly does kill you. The body cannot live without the mind.” Lord Idris continued the trek through the narrow streets of Dunmont. The Mayor was outwardly as normal and unassuming as always. He greeted those that were still out, and made interesting enough small talk with those that stopped to try. It was taking them longer to get to their destination, but Lord Idris new that there were worse things than being a little late.
“I am sure you have heard of Readers. Filthy creatures that lot, always out to steal everything away from you. I have known the Evendai to read, but never in the way these northerners do, and especially not to their own kind.” They reached the main guard house as the great torches atop the stone walls were being lit. Lord Idris followed behind the Mayor as they entered the small building. It was of simple design, nothing more than a rectangle encased in stone and built up as to have a second story that shot a ramp out to the top of the walls so that they could mount patrols from the building. There was a large table in the middle of the room, some bookcases and armaments. The room was filled with somewhere around twenty men, most of them already in their armor. They quieted at the sight of the two entering. The next shift was about to go on duty, Lord Idris gathered. They nodded quietly to the Mayor as he passed them by, leaving their peering eyes to dissect the odd Lord Idris as he followed.
“Bless the night, guardsmen,” he said with a convincing smile and a nod of his head. With a wave forward, Lord Idris followed his puppet through the large room and into a smaller one that sat off to the left. They pushed through the door and entered an office decorated with a hundred different types of blades. Off the far wall a man with peppered grey hair and a full length beard sat behind a small desk. He had on the same armor as the rest of the guards, but Idris knew that this was the man they were looking for.
“Mayor Prichart, pleasure to see you here,” the man said as he rose from his seat. He looked to Lord Idris then, his eyes curious. “And you as well, sir.”
The Mayor nodded at the pleasantries. “Yes, yes, don’t mind him,” he said with a dismissive wave at the lord. “Vickers, I want the eastern gate opened at once. I have a something arriving shortly that I would like to stay as inconspicuous as possible.”
“Sir?” Vickers began to question, obviously uncomfortable with leaving a gate unattended. “I do not understand. The gates ensure integrity within these walls. We have one of the safest cities in the realm because of our procedures.”
“I understand that, Vickers,” the Mayor shot back. “I am not asking your opinion on the matter, damnit. I want the gate opened and I want it done now. Pull your men off until I tell you otherwise.”
The bearded man looked at the Mayor incredulously, his eyes scanning from the fat man to the stranger lord, and back again. “I…Yes, sir. It will be done,” he finally said. “Collins!” he yelled out the door. A moment later a young man in a matching guard uniform ran in.
“Yes, Captain?” The boy could have been no more than sixteen years old.
“Ride to the eastern gate. Tell the men there to open it and head back here.” Not a sense of apprehension crossed Vickers’ voice as he laid out his orders.
Confusion crossed the boy’s face as well. “Leave the gate abandoned?”
“Asking me questions was not part of the damn order. Now go,” he barked. The boy nodded quickly and rushed out of the room. Vickers leveled his eyes back at the Mayor. “When this turns bad, don’t come looking to me to save your damn city.”
The Mayor shook his head, jiggling his chins as he spoke. “We are notched up in the middle of the bloody continent, a continent held by a single king. What the hell do you have to be afraid of, Vickers?”
“That…we may very well find out, sir,” Vickers said. His voice stood stern, wrapped with the disgust of the order he was given.
Without another word the Mayor turned and squeezed out of the room, Lord Idris close behind him. “My most honorable guards of Dunmont!” Mayor Prichart bellowed into the main room. “I have barrels of mead at the Stanchion ready to be cracked. They are for you men who give up so much so that we may be safe! The night is yours. Furlough for every man in this room by my order. Go, you fools, and have yourselves a drink!”
The room erupted into cheers as the Mayor outstretched his arms, a mad grin on his face. The guard house emptied almost immediately, scattering the excitement into the streets as they made their way to their promised mead.
“Thank you, Mayor, it will all be over soon.”
Hey everyone, thank you so much for stopping by and checking out the story. I will be posting a new chapter every Tuesday and Friday until the entire novel is on Wattpad. However, I would like to let everyone know that The Lost Prince is on Amazon. I am giving the book away for free on here, but if you loved the novel and feel like purchasing a copy, or gifting it to someone else, I cannot express how honored I would be.