A Knight Without Fear Or Blame, A story about a knight. But you don't find out he becomes a knight Options

[TheBrume]

The topic description was supposed to say: But you don't find out he becomes a knight until about a quarter of the way through.
And I was most disappointed to discover these forums do not cater to my favorite font. Plantagenet Cherokee

Well, I've decided to try my hand at fan fiction. I shall start my fan fiction career (the size of which will depend entirely on your first impressions of my first chapter) with a story which I've been playing around with in my head a while now.

'A Knight Without Fear or Blame' is the title. I think it was Khalid ibn al-Walid first said that or maybe it was Saladin. It was one of them, but I'm rambling now.
Anyway, this story will be about an Imperial from a certain village and he… well, I don't want to spoil the story for you. I plan on stretching it out for as long as possible without killing any entertainment value it has (I'll let you decide if it has any or not) across multiple paragraphs, chapters and acts (though I think 'act' is more of a term used in drama, rather than stories but I digress).
Also, the main character 'Lucius Andronicu' (kudos if you get the referance) originally started out as 'Titus Saepio.'

Oh, and I pride myself on my grammar, spelling. But, my keyboard seems to live in order to spite me so please point out any typos.

P.S Please bear in mind I am a complete amateur at writing anything creative, poetry, prose or whatever. So be kind. But not too kind. Just don't be merciless.

At that, let's get this show on the road.
I present to you, a poor excuse of a prologue and a better (I hope) excuse for a first chapter.

A Knight Without Fear Or Blame

Prologue:

It was a clear and cold evening. The last of the suns rays had long since disappeared in the west and the people of Grimdale Moor slept soundly in their beds, blissfully unaware of the approaching threat. From the west, an Orcish war band approached, their war chief was hungry for blood and loot. To a larger, better defended town, such a band would pose no threat whatsoever. But although Grimdale Moor was town of reasonable size, the local Knights of the Hour had left their chapterhouse and gone to fight in the King's Army, leaving only a small band of the weak, incompetent or those disliked by the chapter master behind to defend the town. Grimdale Moor was an easy target to any marauding warband.


Chapter One: A Night of Grief

Lucius Andronicus awoke with a start to the sound of steel clanging on steel, wood splintering, horses whinnying, fire roaring and people screaming. Orange flames illuminated his bedroom and smoke from his neighbours burning house seeped in through the window. He quickly rose from his bed and got himself dressed, fear overtook his nine year old mind, as he did so he could hear the clash of steel grow louder, accompanied by savage cries.
As the boy pulled on his dark green cloak, the noise stopped and a broad shouldered figure burst into his room, wielding a sword. Fear quickly overtook the boy, only for that fear to be washed away as orange flames illuminated his father's face. Lucius recognised the sword, it was a long, hand and a half sword. Steel, made from Wrothgarian iron, the best in Tamriel Father had always said. He had been mending the hilt for some Knight from Wayrest who didn't trust the smiths of that city. The pommel was the head of a bear, the seal of the untrusting knight's family.

"Lucius." He said simply, a look of relief on his face, the body of a great big green Orc lay behind him, it's face covered by Father's cloak. Lucius had seen dead bodies before, despite his young age of nine. Orcs often raided the village, but never in such great numbers, and there had always been soldiers of Wayrest garrisoning the village. But now the soldiers were no more, the King had drawn them away to fight some war with Daggerfall over some distant island. But boys of nine did not concern themselves with such things, boys of nine busied themselves with climbing trees, fishing, playing tricks on the local mages and playing games with other boys of nine.
"Come, we have to leave." He said, suddenly growing more anxious as more vicious war cries were heard.
"But where?" Lucius asked as he grabbed his sling and a small bag of smooth pebbles he had collected from the nearby stream.
"Chorrol." Father said sharply as he grabbed Titus' arm and dragged him from his room. "My brother stays there, he will take us in and I'm sure they have need of blacksmiths there." The house was a blur to Lucius as he was pulled through it. It was all he could do to keep his short legs moving at a pace that would not have him dragged along the hard wooden floors. From what he did see however, Father had killed at least two other Orcs judging from the large green hunks of flesh found by the door of the kitchen.

Upon reaching the small, two storied house's door, Father set Lucius down and drew his knightly honoured user sword again. "Stay close to me Titus. Don't run off and stay away from the flames, we make for the stables." The village had a stables on it's outskirts. Or rather, the Knight of the Hour chapterhouse had a stables and their Altmeri commander was good enough to allow the people of the village to stable their horses. For a small fee. So kind-hearted of him, particularly after the village's own stables had burned down in a suspicious fire and the stable hand had been murdered. Lucius had often heard such talk as the village women washed their clothing and linens at the lake while he and his friends played Kick the Mudcrab.

Father cautiously pulled the heavy Wrothgarian Pine door open and peered outside, Lucius caught a glimpse of a Legion Destrier, a man in bronze coloured Armour mounted atop it, slashing his sword at the Orcs who surrounded him and his steed, armed with swords, one or two with spears. They were kept at bay by the horseman's sword and the horse's hooves, it looked like more than one Orc had been foolish enough to move to the rear of the animal. The man was Samuel deBrume, the second in command of the Legion garrison at Oxvale Borough, to the south west. A kind man who was visiting the town for unknown reasons. He had often saved the villagers from extortion by the corrupt Order of the Hour, much to the chagrin of that order.

"Stay here, Lucius." His Father rushed to help the man, he slashed his sword across the back of the nearest Orc, attracting the attention of two others.
Lucius placed a smooth white stone in his sling and swung it around his head for a few moments before releasing it and sending the projectile hurtling towards a bulky Orc armed with a long halberd. The stone struck the Orc in the side of the head and sent the beast down to the ground, dead. An excellent shot.
Father said nothing about not using my sling.
He had never killed an Orc, though it didn't feel any different to killing a rabbit or that hawk.
All animals are the same anyway I suppose.

By the time Lucius had downed another two Orcs, the small skirmish was over and a total of twelve bodies lay at the feet of the warhorse. Thankfully, neither Titus' father nor Samuel deBrume was one of them.
"You have my thanks, Caius," Lucius had rarely heard his father called by his first name. Most called him 'Andronicus' or 'blacksmith'. Even Mother had called him 'darling' rather than Caius, "You should leave this village," the soldier looked to Lucius and smiled, though it was difficult to see in the dim light. "I shall escort you to the-" he was interrupted by war cries sounding the approach of yet more Orcs. "Go Caius, take your son, I shall deal with these beasts." At that, he was off, charging his bay Destrier into the green mass. Father wasted no time in heeding the man's words.
"Come Lucius!" He called, Lucius ran after him. Not even looking to see if the Legionary was still alive.

"You did well, son." He puffed as they approached the gates of the corral. The stable itself was burning and the horses were frightened by the flames, several had jumped over the fence and fled into the distance. Lysa, Father's white mare was still there however, being saddled by another villager.
"Hey! Stop! That's my horse," Father drew his sword and entered the pen.
"Try and stop me fool. I was here first." He in turn picked an axe from the ground and moved towards Father, crossing the corral and passing near the stable itself, there was a tremendous crash and part of the stable building came down on top of the man and those horses who were still stood too close. Lysa, thankfully was not one of them.
Wordlessly, Father mounted the horse and pulled Lucius up to sit in front of him. They galloped off on the road leading south-west. The flames of their former home illuminating their path.

Lucius said nothing, sobbing silently for all he had lost. He even thought he heard his father crying on a few occasions. But that was impossible, Father never cried, not when he hit his hand with a hammer while repairing the Chapel roof, not when he cut himself while working. Never.
But they had nothing. No clothes, no home, no food. Nothing but the shirts on their back, Lucius' sling, Father's sword and their horse. They would never reach Chorrol with what they had with them. They had to go to Wayrest

*******

Addendum (well, I think this is what an addendum is anyway): The story starts in the year 412 of the third era, late Sun's Dusk (November). There will be a date in every update from chapter eight onwards.


This post has been edited by TheBrume: Jan 31 2012, 09:43 PM

[TheBrume]

Acadian
Thanks. I originally had another chapter in the forest before they reach Oxcross. But I decided to cut i, nothing much happened in it anyway.
And I'm already reading a few of the other stories here. Buffy is one of them, I just haven't caught up yet and I son't want to be posting a comment about what happened thirty episodes ago.

King Coin
Thank you for your support.

Thomas Kaira
I did consider doing a Daggerfall story. But I haven't played enough of that game.
You know, Lucius was originally going to be from a village in Hammerfell after the Oblivion Crisis.

Grits
Thank you for your praise.

I'm sorry if it seems like I'm rushing through the plot a little, but I'm eager for Lucius to reach Chorrol (maybe his dad will get there too) so I can get on with the "main" story. There's still at least 7-12 chapters (after these next two) before he gets there though.


Chapter Three: Wayrest

The carriage drew to a stop before the gates with a whinny of protest from one of the horses. It was sitting in the middle of the road, which caused more than a few insults to be thrown at the driver as mule drawn carts carrying barrels of mead, bales of hay or baskets of apples were forced to go around.

"This is as far as I take you I'm 'fraid." said the plump Redguard as he opened the door of the carriage. Lucius quickly jumped out and took a look at the city. Despite the rockiness of the journey, Lucius had gotten plenty of rest in the two days they had been travelling and now he was eager to stretch his legs.

The huge, wooden gates towered above everything, mighty towers of grey stone flanked them and Lucius could make out guardsmen peering through the crenels of the walls.

Wayrest. Jewel of High Rock, only Daggerfall came close and Wayrest surpassed that lesser city by a wide margin. Lucius had never seen walls or gates so large, he had never seen a city so huge and he had never seen so many people, horses, carts, donkeys, mules, carriages or pigeons. So much stone! Near all of the buildings in Grimdale Moor had been built from wood, except Father's workshop, the chapel and the Mages Guild. Even Oxcross Borough which was, until now, the grandest city Lucius' nine year old eyes had set themselves upon had been crafted mostly of wood, with it's walls and the Mayoral Palace being the only stone buildings he had seen.

Father dismounted after Lucius, though with some difficulty. He grunted and fell to one knee, his cane spinning away from him. A wave of panic washed over Lucius for a few moments. It vanished as the driver helped Father to his feet and brought him his cane.

"Thank you." He grunted. Lucius' attention was brought to his father's bandages. They were changing colour, crimson spread lazily across the white. Both Father and the driver seemed to ignore it.

"We'll be going now. Thanks again." Father said, more clearly this time. "Come Lucius." He hobbled along, gripping his cane so tight his knuckles were white.
A short guardsman, perhaps only a half-dozen years older than Lucius ran past them up towards the carriage driver.
"What business do you have in Wayrest?" His steel helmet fell down over his eyes, causing him to be adjusting it constantly.
Lucius ignored the heated conversation which followed as he passed through the city gates.
The first of his senses to be affected was sight. A long street stretched out before him, tall stone buildings on either side. There were hundreds of pigeons perched on rooftops and statues (the latter being coated in white). The people were everywhere, men pushing wheel barrows down the road, women were hanging out of some of the windows, calling down to passers-by about things which Lucius didn't quite understand, most of it seemed to concern hay or straw. He assumed that all the women had horses which needed to be fed. Some of them also seemed to want to roll down a hill.

There were children running about the streets, brandishing swords with guards chasing them and confiscating the weapons. That meant that it was 20th of Sun's Dusk. Warrior's Day. All of the smiths and armourers of Tamriel would sell their wares at half price. It suddenly struck him how warm it had been these last few days, unseasonably so.

Lucius had never seen so many people before. People of all races, doing many different things. Imperials caroused with Khajiit. Dunmer loitered with Redguards. Altmer yelled at Argonians. Imperials joked with Bosmer. All this activity produced noise, the second of Lucius' senses to be affected by Wayrest.

It was so loud. The city streets rang with the sounds of small skirmishes. Angry guardsmen and injured boys. Donkeys brayed and horses neighed. There was so much shouting. People hawking their wares, whatever they may have been. To passers-by. Bards were singing on street corners, their songs added to the many hundreds of sounds which assaulted Lucius' ears. He clamped his hands over his ears to drown out the noise.

The third thing which struck him was the smell. The smell was foul. Sewage, sweat, horses, smoke and gods know what else polluted the air. It made Lucius gag and retch. He unclamped his ears and pinched his nose. The sound returned but it was preferable to the smell.

He heard his Father speaking, but the words were drowned out by the rest of the city. Lucius simply followed his father, gingerly sidestepping the steaming brown piles which littered the road. The traversed the main street and after several minutes of walking, they came across a market square. Lucius unpinched his nose and many much more pleasant aromas entered up his nostrils.
Ash yams, Kwama eggs and hackle-lo from Morrowind. Ginger, pepper and aniseed from Elsweyr. Mangoes, pineapples and limes from Valenwood. Lucius had smelled these things only a few times before. Trading caravans would come through Grimdale Moor once a year.

The square still had the same level of noise as the city gates. But it was a different kind of loud. Much less savage, much easier on Lucius' ears.
And the market looked spectacular. It was clean. The buildings here were of a lighter shade of grey. Not the darker shaded, brown stained grey which had been common at the gate. There were stalls everywhere. Merchants clad in velvet, samite, cotton and silk manned the stalls in the centre. While poorer traders manned the outer stalls. In the very centre stood a large fountain and a statue of a regal looking man clad in fine robes. He had a large, four sided stone hanging on his neck by a chain.

There were large, colourful banners and many bolts of cloth and silk. There were strange beasts in cages. Most of which frightened Lucius.
One creature was called a 'Scamp' (Lucius knew this as there was a sign above the cage announcing so), it looked incredibly vicious, it's hands, feet, head and torso were bald, yet it's legs were covered in black hair. The beast looked incredibly angry, it smashed it's fists against the bars and tried to claw at passers-by. It even cast a spell at the merchant who was selling it. Yet the fireball failed to pass through the bars, it fizzed futilely against an invisible shield.

There were also large, flabby, white things with no arms or legs. They dragged themselves along on large fins. They had a large hole instead of a mouth and they made strange honking noises at each other.
There were huge, white bears. Enormous, striped orange cats. Big creatures with a leathery skin which looked like a walking mouth.
Lucius stared at all the fantastic animals as he held onto his father's cloak so he wouldn't get lost.

Much to Lucius' dismay, they eventually left the market and he found himself gaping, not at scamps or bears, but at a huge… thing. It was enormous, it stretched out to the east as far as the eye could see. It was big and blue and wet. The sea.

They were at the waterfront. Here, instead of pigeons, there were white birds. They screeched and squawked at each other and they swooped down to snatch fish from skiffs and barrels. All along the docks, there were dozens of ships of many shapes and sizes. Small, single masted vessels with statues of half naked woman and mermaids on the front.
Large, double masted ships with many rows of oars and colourful sails.
Warships, double masted with many banks of oars and large vicious looking bronze rams on the front.

Despite all of those ships, Lucius still found himself fascinated with the sea and he was most disappointed when he found himself staring at a white wooden door instead. He snapped his head to the side and found himself in a quiet inn. There were only a few people around and all of them were better dressed than the shirtless, shoeless sailors out on the wharf.
"Why are we here?" Lucius asked his father, tugging on his cloak.
"I am going to get us onto a ship." He replied, without turning.



Chapter Three-point-One: The Beginnings of A Lengthy Voyage

"Anvil eh? 'Fraid not friend. I don't go to Anvil. My route is north around Skyrim to Morrowind and back. There's still plenty o' money to be had over there, even with the East Empire Company crawling all over the goods. And there's none to be had in Cyrodiil, not these days. Only worth goin' fer the wines o' Skingrad. And with all the trouble the Psjiics been causin even that ain't worth the risk. " The captain was a huge man, with a head full of thick, long, brown, slightly greasy hair, a huge shaggy beard and very hairy arms. Lucius had never seen anyone who fit the saying "Bear of a Man" quite so well. "You could try old Fervala there though," he pointed to a white haired Dunmer woman sitting at a table in the corner of the room. "I've heard her crew sayin' she's goin' to Cyrodiil, Gods know why." He gave a huge grin, more than a few of his brown teeth were missing. The sight sickened Lucius.
"Thank you sir." Father spluttered in between violent coughing.

He had seemed to have caught a cold on their journey here, they had sold their horse at Oxcross Borough and gotten a carriage to Wayrest, courtesies of Sir Gwendyn of the Knights of the Rose. Father was clearly quite ill, yet they did not have the money for the Chapel healer. Not if they wanted to get to Cyrodiil without starving to death. Or eating well and not reaching Cyrodiil at all.
The old captain merely raised his tankard and smiled again, though this time with a concerned look on his face.

"Excuse me, Dark Elf." Father said, coughing again. "Would we perhaps be able to barter passage on your ship? We make for Anvil."

"Anvil? Don't know about that. Not with them Psjiics about." She spat onto the floor and took a swig of her drink. "I'm goin' round the continent and up the Niben, not that your young mind knows about that sort of thing eh boy?" she smiled at Lucius with perfect white teeth, a refreshing change from the Bear's brown grin. "Bravil is my heading, you'd never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy in all the Empire, but there's a good sized dockyard with lots o' traders. I'm going north ways around Skyrim, Morrowind" she spat in his bucket at the mention of his homeland, "Black Marsh" she spat again, "then up the Niben as I say. You won't catch any merchant with all his dogs barking going into the Abeccean, not with them Psjiics causing all that trouble."

Lucius and his father had heard smatterings of news concerning the Psjiics of Sumerset, apparently they have been "causing trouble," trouble in the form of creating storms and teleporting ships to the bottom of the sea. The Imperial Navy had been called in to deal with it but things looked to be turning violent rather quickly and merchant seamen avoided that area now.

"It'll take about five months, weather, Gods and Imperial Navy permitting, to get to Bravil. A long journey, but my ship is one of the fastest ever to grace these seas I tell you. You'd have to suffer up to eight months on any other ship at this dock. I'd charge you eighty Septims each for a hammock and board. Bear in mind that's more than fair. I could put six crates of goods in the space you take up. I'm offering you that 'cause I like you." Fervala grinned, showing off her perfect white teeth again.

Father accepted the offer, paid the captain and the next day, they boarded the ship named 'Necrom Burning,' named for Fervala's least favourite city. The ship set off on a cool Sundas morning, heading south by south west, towards the port of Sentinel, never straying out of sight of land.


This post has been edited by TheBrume: Oct 16 2011, 10:46 AM