The Tale of Rex

The warriors of the day were not entirely sure of the certainty of magicians and sorcerers. These beings could produce a flash from black powder, it was true, but this had little effect against a sword. Others, it was also known, dealt with tubes and burners and cast their magic from within a room called a lab.

King Elric was a warrior. So when he looked down from his tower to see a lone figure in robes standing in an open field below him, he thought the whole thing was mad, ridiculous. Along the top of the castle’s inner wall he could see more than his archers forming and pointing at the figure and laughing at the nonsense of it.

As he listened, King Elric could not help turning to his advisors in a manner that asked: What is this?

"Hear me! Release the nephew of the King of Sylphan unharmed and save yourselves. I am a powerful sorcerer. Rex is my name! If you do not comply immediately, I will destroy you."

There were three types of men serving under Elric. The first broke out in raucous laughter from the end of those words, like drunken barbarians who have just tossed aside an unworthy wench. The second is afraid, superstitious. To them a word is a pox- they are the ones the first laugh at. Lastly stand those men who stand ready, neither making light of, nor fearing, the unknown, but ready to meet it altogether whatever it may hold.

As King Elric looked among his men from high above this was what he saw. He looked again at the lone figure, old and defenseless, and again thought how incredible the situation was. What to do? Send one man at a time? And what if this was a master swordsman waiting to cut down his men one at a time- what an insult! But to send more than two or three seemed to him ridiculous as did the notion of ignoring the man. How boastfully he jests at a King!

So King Elric did the noble thing- he rested the responsibility on Raswald, one of his advisors. With a nod from the king, Raswald turned and hurried down the spiraling stair, arriving at the bottom amidst a group of swordsmen.

"Guilliere, Romaire, Pellien- assemble a group of men and ride to this Rex. Meet him with steel!"

So the three became eight, the eight twenty, and the twenty turned to fifty as anyone whom the group passed slowly picked up his arms and jovially awaited the meeting with their lone visitor. As they mounted up at the gate, there was laughter and mockery. The power of numbers made them drunk along with the talk of what they would do to humiliate and punish this docile fool who dared to question them.

"Boustiere, what say we take his clothes and hang him up in the town of Saiensien?"

"Shave ‘em we will! Tarred and feathered!"

"The irons with lashings on the hour, before we send back his bones as a sign of Elric!"

"He’ll serve us mead and open his mouth to our spittle when we command!"

There should be no question as to their confidence. The land around the castle was wide open for two miles around, with a forest on one side, a river on another. And all these were watched so well that no more than two or three men could make passage without the King’s benefit. So there could be no ambush.

Some feared the traveler was an out cast with the plague or leprosy. There were other thoughts as well, but none more strong enough to hold the drawbridge’s descent and the mob’s rush to greet the man.

King Elric watched intently from the moment he heard the drawbridge creak.

When he saw the amount of force employed he almost laughed. How silly it looked- a dragon sent to fetch a spider. Noticing this, too, were his advisors and clergy, so King Elric threw in a timely yawn and they all easily and casually looked on from the fort.

Then what he saw was horrible.

This man Rex tore through his legion like they were leaves blown by the wind. As he stood with his hands thrust forth before him, it seemed as if some powerful force had shoved the head of the legion to either side, splitting it in two, throwing men and horses like nothing, and continuing to the end of the pack until every man and creature was on the ground, dead. Along each side of this sorcerer lay a row of dead men, to the horror and shock of all who watched. For a moment, Elric was frozen as he saw Rex's two glowing eyes look right up at him, as angry and murderous as anything he ever saw.