Traitorous Kin

The scream was what awakened Winthrey.

He had been kissing Ellie, the silk seamstress, getting all hot inside, and all of a sudden she started screaming, and then he opened his eyes and realized that Ellie was just a dream, but the shrieking was not. There was no doubt to what creature was causing it. It was unquestionably human. The screeching was going on for a few seconds before it started to trail off, as if somebody was leading the screamer away down a long tunnel.

He had no idea where the screaming had come from, the castle was huge, and he himself hadn’t yet explored all the rooms, and he had been living there for 15 years. A frigid, icy dread seeped into him, and he had the desire to smother himself with his covers, to try to flush out that cold.

Where was his father’s guards? He should have heard them swarming across the hallways, with their big bulky boots slamming over the floors within seconds of the outcry. Certainly Helix, his father’s best swordsman, would not sit back to wait to see what would become of it. Something was terribly wrong here, and the fact that the castle seemed to lack all protection it once had made everything worse.

As quietly as possible, he edged out of bed until his bare feet met with the freezing stone floor. Although it was entering spring, their castle lay in the northern half of the country, and it would be a while yet before warm weather showed itself at night. Bundled up in his covers, he moved across the dark room to his door. After unlatching it, he inched it open.

All the torches in the hallway were still lit(the torches were Helix’s order, not his father’s), so he could see everything clearly. But there was nothing to see. There was nobody out there. There was no threatening menace, no trail of blood staining the stone floors from a tortured being. Everything was normal.

But he had heard the scream, and that definitely wasn’t normal.

All right, he had played his part in all this, now it was time to close the door and go back to bed. Close his eyes and pretend that he had never heard anything. He was about to do just that when a memory sparked of something he had learned a few days before.

Over the years, he had been trained by many of the fighters who were loyal to his father, but his favorite teacher had always been Helix.

Helix, the one man his father had ever looked up to. The man who could be kind and stern both at the same time, a man you grew to trust in a matter of moments after hearing him speak. A person who nobody would dare raise a fist to, in fear of his life.

Winthrey had been walking back from his history lesson when he had met up with the fighter on one of the castle’s trails. That day, his instructor had told him of John Carroll, who had rushed into battle without thinking and had been beheaded by a speeding horseman. Winthrey had told Helix of this, and had remarked how stupid the man had been.

" Stupid," Helix had said. He let the word role over his tongue as if he was trying to taste it. He walked on in thought for a few seconds before he said, " yes, some people might say that what that man did was stupid. Who knows? maybe they’re right. Anybody who rushes into a dangerous situation that could get them killed isn’t the most intelligent person who has walked the Earth. But do you see this?" He tapped the shinning medal on his breast, which announced his rank. Winthrey’s father had given it to him years before he had been born. " I got this because I was the stupidest fighter in your father’s legion." He had walked off then, leaving Winthrey to ponder over what he had said.