Futility of Being A Knight

A month has passed since the arena fight and it feels as if my progress has been stalled. I feel like I'm stronger than before, my handling of the blade definitely has improved. Yet I feel like I'm missing something. I've asked my roommates what I should do, but all they've said is keep training. I've heard about different fighting groups that happen at night and also the prospect of learning magic from some of the free roaming mages around the city. I suppose I should explain magic a bit, although I'm not entirely familiar with it and its concept.

So magic is a bunch of bullshit that mages pull out of their asses to save their hides in times of need. Every person is born with the ability to use magic but they can't, at least not until they train their body into using it. From books I've read back home, each person has an affinity to certain types of magic, these depend on the persons personality sometimes, and other times a person is blessed with a special type of magic.

When I was younger I thought that maybe I would become a mage, but I never had the chance to be taught to handle it. As whilst magic is a nice aspect given to us, it is highly volatile and there is numerous cases of children and adults dying due to magic reversal. Magic reversal basically is when the magic backfires and burns the body to a crisp, it is supposedly and long and painful death. So that's why I haven't really attempted to accomplish it.

Anyways I headed out one night in the aims to catch one of these underground fights. There was a chill in the air, the streets were completely empty with no light except the flickering of the torch I carried with me. My eyes quickly darted to check every alley I walked past to ensure my safety from thugs. I could probably beat them but I wasn't looking for a fight here, wasn't my job to at least. As I passed one of the alleys I saw a flickering light casting shadows against a house wall. I cautiously approached the alley, talking nervous pauses in my breathing to ensure that if it wasn't what I was looking for then at least I'd have a chance to escape without being noticed much.

The closer I got the louder the voices were, now this city is quite vast in size so the odds of people hailing from different countries are quite high. Yet these voices and accents were as if they were talking backwards to me, but yet it felt familiar, where had I heard such accents before? Then I recalled my time in the Protectorate...

The Protectorate is what I call it, to understand what it really is I'll need to explain it a little, so say 10 years ago the Holmfeld Empire conquered its neighbour of Drelvor. Drelvor was a peaceful country on its own, it barely took part in any wars from its written history since the royal family of Klemens took charge. They had sworn to become a disarmed nation, where they would strive to be a haven of peace for refugees of war.

They accomplished this by the time I was 6, and then a few months late my father left and went off to war. Holmfeld wanted to expand its borders and gain the valuable resources and gems that lay within Drelvor. It was a needless conflict in the eyes of many and other nations soon looked on at Holmfeld as a detestable empire. One that should be watched carefully. I've heard tales of what happened there, my father came home and boasted of how many of them he had killed and what he had done with the women and children. People say that many of the races that lived within Drelvor were wiped out in fear of insurrection.

I went to the Drelvor Protectorate a few years back, and when I arrived at the capital you could smell the burning corpses. These weren't casualties of war... they were citizens being butchered for their skin colour, their faith and their deformities. All I could do was smell and hear what was going on, I felt like I was watching a theatre production where all I could do was stand by and let it happen. There are nights where I can recall the same smell in the air of this city. I've often thought to myself what I could do in my future after becoming a knight. Do I work to bring equality to lands? Do I undermine my own oath and break from the Holmfeld Empire and push to overthrow its monarchy? Or do I sit and let it all happen even though I feel like I could do something about it...

These questions suddenly popped into my head as I approached the corner were the voice were, and then I could fully make out what I was hearing. A man was being held at knife point his voice trembled in fear, barely able to get the words out of his mouth without having to quickly take a sharp breath.

"Tomorrow, the emperor and his only heir will be going out for a hunt... that's all I know I swear..."

Then the sound you never forget when you first hear it, the sound of metal slicing flesh and the quick and sudden thud to the ground... The sound of death. I closed my eyes and held my breath as the voices slowly faded as they walked down the other side of the alley. I slowly came around the corner and approached the body, and as I looked down upon the corpse slowly oozing blood from its neck all I could think of was... Could I have saved this man?

I left the scene as my mind went numb, my body turned to willow, the constant sense of guilt and regret taking over me.

"I...I let a man die, how could I possibly let something like that happen? I'm training to become someone who protects these people, not training to watch them die..." as I slowly trudged back to my room.

As morning broke I awoke to alarm bells ringing. The Emperor and his heir. Were dead.