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]

Well, I've come back to this much later than I would have hoped. I've been rather busy with, well, computer problems mostly. In fact, I had hoped to post this earlier today, but everyone else keeps distracting me with their own great stories!

Acadian Thank you. During my this story's short hiatus, I've been thinking about the voyage and have changed my original plans. I'm going to cut down on the number of chapters set at sea. So Lucius will be back on dry land by chapter nine, ten at the latest. Then I can maybe have him reach Chorrol and he can start his new life as a [blank]. I'm not going to spoil it.

Grits Your welcome. I had thought about drawing Tamriel by hand (well, by mouse), but my MS Paint skills can only stretch so far! I think I'll be including more maps in future.

McBadgere Thanks. I never really liked the idea of magic in TES being cast through speaking. I had always preffered hand shapes, I think it makes more sense in some ways. When under water, for example, how can a mage speak to cast a spell?


Chapter Six: Mundane

A thick fog had descended over Northpoint as the Necrom Burning entered port. It took only a few hours to unload a few crates and take some more goods and supplies onboard. Lucius watched from the forecastle as a group of men and women in leather armour walked down the gangplank and off the ship.

"Thank the Nine those lot are gone." said Karrod's uncle, Daron. "Maybe now I'll finally be able to get some sleep." To illustrate his point, the Redguard yawned.

"I would not count on it. Look, there are Nords coming on board now. We will not have any rest because of their carousing." Xeeta, Zoot's mother said.
To be sure, a trio of tall, burly Nords pounded up onto the ship, axes and swords at their waists.

A few moments later, a tall man in a red surcoat emblazoned with a golden lion over a shining chain mail hauberk came aboard. He had a large kite shield in his left arm with the same lion on a red field and a long sword at his hip. His garb looked a lot like many of the knights Lucius saw at Oxcross Borough, except for the lion.

The rest of him was quite unremarkable. No scars, short close cropped brown hair, average height. Nothing at all distinctive.

"Do you think he will teach us how to use a sword?" Karrod whispered to Lucius.

"You have more important things to learn about than how to swing a piece of metal around Karrod." Argentil said. He always seemed to hear even the quietest of whispers. "I had been planning to teach you some conjuration later, but maybe we can just leave that and you can bash each other's heads in with a mace hmm?"

Mere minutes after the ship left port, Karrod, Lucius, Zoot, Hyna and Katie (Karrod's twin sister) found themselves in a well lit cabin.

"Take a seat children. Your parents have asked me to teach you about some more mundane subjects." A sly smile crossed the Altmer's face, Zoot leapt up from his seat and ran to the door.

"Not so fast." Argentil cast a spell at the door, causing it to slam shut and lock. Zoot futilely cast an open spell at it, but to no avail.

"Sit down Xuthaleel." The Argonian reluctantly took a seat at a long table, next to Hyna.

"Today, I am going to teach you about history. Your parents have already informed me that you all know how to count and read." He looked at Lucius at the last word.

"Now, in the beginning, there was only Aubris. Chaos. From this chaos, the cosmos are formed by Anu and Padomay…"

Two hours later, Lucius was still sitting in his seat with his head supported by his hand, Argentil was still prattling on.

"In the one hundred and forty third year of the first era, King Harald, the thirteenth of Ysgramor's line, united the northen regions of Tamriel and founded the Kingdom of Skyrim."
Lucius stopped listening for a few minutes, focusing his attention on the blank piece of paper in front of him. He began tearing pieces off, rolling them up and flicking them at Hyna the Bosmer in front of him. He had just scored a direct hit on her freakishly large ears when he realised that Argentil was staring at him.

"Are you quite finished Lucius?" Without waiting for an answer he continued on. "The Empress Alessia, in an effort to please both her subjects, who had adopted the religion of their Ayleid overlords, and her Nordic allies, founded the religion of the Eight Divines. An intricate fusion of the traditional Nordic and Aldmeri pantheons." The Altmer paused to look around, his students were quite clearly bored and tired.

"I shall allow you a short break, you are free to leave for now. When we return, we shall continue with the history of the Alessian Empire." He dispelled to spell he had cast on the door.

Immediately, the 'class' jumped to their feet and fled from the room, scattering across the ship in their hope of finding somewhere to hide from their 'tutor.'

"Quick, to the cargo hold, he will never find us there." Karrod seemed terrified at the prospect of returning to Argentil and his history lesson. Karrod, Hyna and Lucius both ran down to the very bottom of the ship, Zoot opted to make himself invisible and simply stand by the door of the 'classroom' while Katie opted to run to the top deck, Lucius didn't know where exactly.

Minutes later, Lucius found himself crouching inside a barrel half full of apples, holding his breath as Argentil stalked the floor around him. He heard the mage breathing heavily, standing over the barrel. The tingle of magicka filled the air.

"I've found all three of you." He lifted the lid of the barrel and Lucius looked up at him and grinned. The Altmer simply grunted.
He moved over to a crate and kicked it, causing one of it's six sides to fall off, revealing Karrod to be rolled up into a ball, hands over his eyes.
"That only works one way Karrod."
He moved over to a sack, picked it up and upended it. A little yellow haired Bosmer fell out and landed with a thud, green leaves scattered across the floor.

"That's all five of you accounted for, now we can continue with our lesson." The Altmer seemed pleased with himself, his expression changed from satisfaction and smugness to concern and bemusement, however as he examined the leaves which were surrounding Hyna.

"Those are Blackwood Swamp Pads, Hyna." He shook his head. "You're going to come out with quite a nasty rash."

Sure enough, by the time they were back at the class room, Hyna's skin had become a pinkish colour and she was scratching her hands and face wildly, much to everyone else's amusement.

They ended the day with accounts from the War of Righteousness and promises of lessons, about the history of Morrowind all the way from the prophet Veloth up to the present, to be had the next day. A fact which frustrated Lucius to no end.



This post has been edited by TheBrume: Jan 22 2012, 12:32 PM