13/01/2016
#7 A Journey of a thousand miles.
They say a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Olyver Thornton was taking that step; for the sake of his and his fellow counntrymen's life.
Olyver was a complicated man, but in essense, he believed in simple things. He believed that heroes were forged in the fires of hardship. He had worked too long to see it all gone.
He always knew that Aaron would be the lord's favourite and obvious suitor for the throne. But somewhere deep in his heart, Olyver believed in that he could be a better ruler than Aaron. You could call it ambition, but he was ambitious with a cause. There was famine in the lordship's land, which none of the lords, including Aaron Yates, knew anything about. They were either being ignorant or reluctant to solve the problems of the low-ridden.
Olyver believed that some day, if not today, those low down will be the ones to dictate what happens. Of course this was a very unpopular opinion in his classes, so he was wise to keep his thoughts to himself.
From the looming castle of the forest, Castle White, Olyver embarked on the long journey westward past the great lake to Miegam.
He had to leave when he knew the revolts were coming. Either he acted then, or he let the castle fall into chaos.
***
Amongst the sound of stone clanking above, Aaron entered the dungeons of Castle White where two survivors from the attack were tied down to a pole. "Tell me now", he said, "how did a tribe of woodsmen manage to break into a castle with no seige equipment? Who was helping you?"
One of the woodsmen was stunned into silence. He tried to speak, but the words just wouldn't come out. He cried out loud. Aaron could make the words "Gendrik", "God", "food" and "water". "No help there", he thought.
The other one was hellbent on saving his life, and his friend's. He said, "M'lord! We never meant for this to happen! We didn't have food! We were hungry and foolish! Please forgive us!"
A calm Aaron faced him.
"Tell me how the walls were breached".
"We don't know! Gendrik kept a secret from us! We think someone on the inside opened the gates! When we neared the castle, weird balls of fire smashed on to the walls, giving us the surprise".
"Oh you're a creative one, aren't you? Balls of fire?! What's next? Snowballs?"
"M'lord! I do not know the forces behind this! Gendrik assured us that it was the gaia fighting for us!"
Aaron grew tired of all this. He spat in the ground and turned around wearily. He needed sleep. He hadn't slept in three days. "Lock 'em up", he told the guard as he left. He had just taken the step. There was a journey ahead.
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[To be continued]
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Created by The Feathers. Modelled in Trimble SketchUp, rendered using iRender nXt and touched with Photoshop. Castle White: The Beginning is being written and created by Muthu Kumar. ;)
