Preview

PREVIEW OF ARTHUR LIONSWORTH AND THE CALL OF EXCALIBUR:

"My lord you are not safe here," I said bowing my head with respect.

"Lance, what you are talking about is nonsensical! You really expect me to believe that a child is the cause for the downfall of the west?"

My heart was racing. We had no time to be arguing. The archbishop needed to alert the village to escape from the looming threat, before it got here.

I picked up my head and kneeled down as I grabbed the left hand of the archbishop and kissed it.

"Please I beg you, sire… the child is a sorcerer of the devil, and has slain hundreds. He destroyed Bordeaux in a matter of minutes with his sorcery."

My body was shaking with anxiety. It had not even been 3 days since I had seen the child rip through my home village like it was nothing. My hands were trembling in their grip of the archbishop's elderly hand.

He looked at me pitifully and said, "Do not let the devil misguide you. We are in a time of great revolution as we spread our faith to those who are lost. We have never been stronger and more in control."

"You are descending into madness. Your nonsense about this child with the powers of the devil is simply nothing but utter rubbish. Knights please guide Lance over here to our city's dungeon," the archbishop said as he turned to wave his hand at Knights by his side.

The Knights in their shining silver armor, easily overwhelmed me as they forcefully carried me out of the archbishop's church. I thrashed and resisted as they dragged me out, but it was to no avail. I knew we were all going to die soon. Nothing was going to stop the wrath of the child.

After dragging me through the streets of Langon, the knights threw me in a dirty cell in the village's underground dungeon on top of the hard cobblestone floor. The cell was gray and cracked in multitudes of areas, smelling of rat and vermin. A gate lowered from the crevice of the cell's roof by the knights as they turned a wheel of chains clockwise. The gate closed with a heavy thud, and dust erupted from the ground where the spikes met the holes. The knights marched off as they went to check on the cells of the other prisoners that they kept here, leaving me to a state of complete and utter abasement.

Almost immediately, tears came to my eyes as I recalled the horror of what had happened days ago. That day started like any other, with me serving the morning and afternoon patrol duty. As I walked the perimeter of the city, I remember the screams. The screams. They were so loud, so fierce as they erupted from the heart of the village. The other patrol officers and I had dropped positions as we went to investigate the source of the sound.

As we ran along the village's stone walkways, and got closer to the scene of horror, more screams filled the village as smoke had risen into the air and fire was set to the buildings. People ran for their lives as their faces had said it all. Hell had reached the village of Bordeaux, and we were never escaping it.

And then I saw him. In the center of all the chaos and fire stood a slender child that couldn't be older than the age of 10, with black hair and even darker eyes. He was surrounded in a blood red aura, as his hands danced around with various projectiles and streams of color that erupted from his movement. Buildings were exploding with fire, people were turning into dust all around him, and knights were being slain left and right as they challenged the child with their swords but were brutally slain by his magic.

The patrol to my left, Louis, unsheathed his sword and charged the child from behind as he was occupied with the knights in front of him. He had not even moved 5 meters before the child turned around and lifted him up into the air with a swift movement of his hand. Louis screamed as his face was in unbearable pain, but the child was not looking at him. He was looking at me.

His cold, black eyes seemed to emit their own fire, and to my horror his lips parted into a wide and cruel smile. I will never forget the look on his face, as his eyes penetrated the walls of my soul. I was paralyzed in fear, as the gaze of the child had seemingly taken control over my free will. Just when I thought he would wave his hands and end my life, an arrow had pierced through the chest of the child and he dropped his gaze to the arrowhead that had erected from his chest.

Louis fell from the high height of which he was held, and his body cracked as it fell on the hard stone pavement. My spell of shock ended and I rushed to his aid kneeling down beside him.

"Leave me," he muttered through his heavy breathing.

"Louis, I can't leave you here to die. You need the help of a doctor."

As he was about to respond, he turned his head towards the child in horror. Curious, I also looked toward the direction of the child I had expected to be dead on the floor. Words cannot describe the fear that crept along my back as I saw the child stand and take out the arrow from his chest.

The red aura that surrounded the child intensified, and he screamed as he lifted the archer that had shot him in the air and turned him into nothing but ashes.

"You need to warn the other villages," Louis said with a painful grunt.

"You will not be able to save me, just save yourself and save the other villages from the wrath of the devil. Tell them of what happened here, tell them about the child of Orthez."

Everything that happened afterwards was a blur. I remember running and taking a horse from a cabin as I rode away from the chaos of Bordeaux. As I looked behind from a far distance, I remember the flames that were visible and the smoke that had filled the sky. The screams were still audible, and just as frightening.

The tears came rolling down, as I rolled on the hard floor of the cell. Nothing was going to stop the inevitable from happening. The image of the child's smile haunted me, and I couldn't get it out of my head. His eyes seemed to tell me the message that no matter where I went or what I did, he was coming to kill me and everyone else.

We should have heeded the rumors that were circulating about the fall of Orthez. It circulated around that a boy had escaped from their dungeons, and was a dark sorcerer that was seeking vengeance. People spoke about how supposedly his parents were Muslims that were hiding from the persecution of the kingdom, and were killed in front of his eyes.

People laughed and used the story as a means to discipline their kids and keep them in fear with made up folk tales. But no one took it seriously. How could we? A child with powers of sorcery was essentially blasphemy to believe in. The kingdom's knights and soldiers were conquering the lands of the infidels, and people couldn't be more blind to the monsters that they were making as a result.

The archbishop and everyone else had no way of believing me, and the hopelessness of the situation was consuming me. It felt like I was trying to yell and scream, but my mouth was sewn shut. It was all for naught.

Eventually, I would tire myself into sleep where I was plagued with nightmares of my home's destruction and the scene of the child smiling as he pierced my soul. However this time, I couldn't run in the dream. The child was pulling me closer to him, as he kept that same devilish and evil smile. Once I was within a meter of his blood red aura, he looked at me with his empty, black eyes and said "It's too late, I'm already here."

With that final image of the nightmare, I was awoken with the sound of a loud boom outside of the cell. The boom had shaken the walls of the whole dungeon, with dust falling from the ceiling.

Panic immediately seeped its way into my bloodstream, and I started screaming.

"LET ME OUT! WE DON'T HAVE TIME HE IS COMING," I kept yelling.

But I knew this was already the beginning of the end. Running footsteps were audible as a plethora of dungeon guards ran in front of my cell, all armed with bows and longswords.

I tried to get the attention of the guards running by, but all disregarded my plea for help. After the final few guards of the dungeon had run out, the screams outside began to be audible.

He was here.

There was nothing to be done now.

It was far too late.

As my mind spiraled into madness and buried my face into the floor, a prisoner of grey long hair had started to lift the gate of my cell. I glanced up from the ground, and he said "Now that all the guards are gone, we should be able to escape easier."

We ran up the spiral staircase that took us out of the dungeon. As we ascended the flight of slabs, audible grunts and screams got louder. Once we could see the outside of the village, we were met with an image of true anarchy.

Fire had consumed the roofs of all visible buildings, bodies were piled all along the stone grounds, and few guards were still standing as they were no longer trying to fight but rather trying to run.

They didn't get very far as large red projectiles had impaled them into the ground. The prisoner and I moved behind windows as we saw the child with his blood red aura stalking the last few remaining guards.

When they realized they had nowhere to run, they got down on their knees and begged for mercy from the child. The red aura of the child dimmed away, and it seemed as if he was going to spare the soldiers as he walked away from them. But just as the soldiers were getting up, the child cruelly turned around and waved his hand sending red beams of energy that vaporized them where they stood.

That's when he turned towards the dungeon. It was almost as if he sensed my presence, and that was reaffirmed with great horror as the child met my gaze when I was looking out the window. The hair on my back spiked up, as chills travelled across my whole body. It felt like in that moment, my soul had truly been sucked away.

I started to run as fast as humanly possible to the other side of the dungeon to find an exit from the building, but to my dismay I realized there was only one way in and one way out of the dungeon. The prisoner who had broken me out had come to the same conclusion, so he decided to arm himself with a spear that was hanging on the walls.

With our backs to a wall, we had nowhere to go. I was accepting death.

Minutes seemed to go by, as the only audible sounds were the ashes of the torches that illuminated the dungeon. The suspense was too much for me to bear, and I prayed that perhaps the child had left us to live.

Then, all of a sudden, the torches of the hallway went out and the building was pitch black. My arms started to spasm in fear, as my legs were starting to feel heavy. Across the hallway, the child's red aura appeared to illuminate the heavy darkness.

The aura started to get closer.

10 meters.

8 meters.

6 meters.

Then abruptly, the prisoner next to me screamed a battle cry and charged the aura. It was not long before I felt the remnants of the dust that he was turned into.

I fell to my knees, and I begged like I never had before.

"PLEASE SPARE ME! I DON'T KNOW WHAT WE DID WRONG," I screamed, buckled over.

Then the torches miraculously lit up again, and the red silhouette of the child was replaced with his actual slender figure. He was now an arm's length away from me, standing over my hunched figure with that same cruel smile that he had once before.

"Don't be afraid Lance," the child said as his hands filled with red.

I took my last breath in as I closed my eyes.

Death was inevitable.

Death was here.

"Farewell Lance."

Red filled my vision, and all sensations died away. One name seemed to fill my mind.

Morain.