The Final Days of Springborough
Chapter 24: A Knight in the Village

Prince Thomas would always be hard-headed. He knew this, and he didn’t see it as a problem. It wasn’t really. Leaders were often headstrong, focusing on what they wanted to accomplish, or what they wanted accomplished. Nobody would ever accuse him of being soft, of being lazy, of not getting results. Nobody would daresay that Thomas wasn’t a doer, that he didn’t have what it took to rule. Prince Thomas was a young King, and all his father wanted to teach him was how to think before he acted. The other lesson was going to be how to take advice, but that was later in life, probably closer to when he was supposed to rule.

So, it should have been no surprise that Thomas would run into the woods without anybody to help him. He ran, jumping over downed trees, his feet ripping through vines, his hands swatting at low hanging branches in his way. Of course the Prince wouldn’t think twice about back-up, about his own safety if the safety of his sister was his primary concern. He knew when his parents found out, that he would be in trouble, and so he had the conversation with them beforehand to himself:

“Thomas, what were you thinking?!” Thomas said out loud in his father’s low voice.

“I was thinking Kyrstin was in trouble!” Thomas practiced. “I was thinking Kyrstin was in trouble…. I was thinking-… I wasn’t thinking. No, Dad. I wasn’t thinking. Kyrstin was in trouble, and I just went. I guess I just went mad, father. I didn’t know what to do. I just knew I had to save her, ya know?”

King Daniel would sigh. He’d look down, nodding his head absent-mindedly, trying to figure out the best recourse for his son. Would punishment teach him, or a true heart-to-heart? Thomas always preferred the heart-to-hearts. Punishment always made him angrier, made him vow never to not do the deed that got him punished again, but rather to not get caught next time. But, sitting down with his father and talking about life? Thomas would always remember those moments.

Hence why his first thought was of his father, and how he wished that the tall, imposing man was there when Thomas ran out from the brush onto a makeshift dirt road, speckled with hoof prints and horse droppings, Thomas had never seen such a sight, and for a moment, he thought he might have hit his head somewhere, and entered a dream state.

The road led both to Thomas’ right and to his left. To his right, it seemed it went over a small hill, and into a field where bonfires or cooking might happen. To his left, was a village. If the Prince guessed properly, it was the village of Fortis. And it was no surprise that while investigating his grandmother’s death, and his sister’s disappearance, he would come across the village of Fortis. He heard some despicable people lived in the village. Not all the inhabitants, but some. There had to be reason one would live this far from the Kingdom where laws and manners ruled the day (although the Prince had seen some despicable behavior in Springborough as well.)

Lightening peeled through the dark clouds of the sky and a loud crash of thunder shook the earth. Thomas began a quick trot toward the village, becoming very aware he was without his sword, or any weapon. He hoped he found the good people of Fortis before he found the bad, and that the good people were brave enough to be good in the face of bad.

The Village of Fortis was very brown. Haphazardly cut wood from trees was the primary building tool. All the building materials were probably used from what the inhabitants had cleared out to make the dirt road, and the clearing in the distance, and now little shamble houses and buildings lined what Thomas would call roads, but actually what looked more like an ill-planned clearing with random dwellings here and there. If the Prince were to draw a map of Fortis, it’d probably look like a geometric nightmare- a squarish-circle of space dotted with squares and rectangles every which way. In fact, coming from Springborough which only had one way-in, and with every building either facing east or west, Thomas had no idea how to begin his approach. He couldn’t even tell if he was behind buildings or in front of them, as they all seemed to have the same exact sides. Every side to every dwelling had a door and a window, neither of which had any Fortis people looking out from them.

The wind suddenly picked up, and at first, Thomas held his hand up in front of his face, protecting his eyes from the rain and anything kicked up in the wind, but suddenly the power of it grew, and Thomas was digging his boots into the mud to keep from being blown back. The young boy gritted his teeth as mud sprayed the front of him, and he howled, pushing the exhale of his breath out against the strong force of the storm. How could this wind be so strong? He asked himself, right before he was thrown ten feet through the air, as if something invisible had picked him up by the shoulders, a giant hawk perhaps with soft talons, grabbing him, lifting him, and then letting him go to see how far the wind would take him. Not very far as it turned out. Thomas fell ten feet from where he stood, but he fell hard, on his stomach, his face slamming into the soft mud. He pushed himself up, letting the mud and water fall from his cheeks and forehead. He opened his mouth, trying not to get any of the dirt inside it.

“We’re coming…”

A voice whispered in Thomas’ ear, and at first he thought a villager had found him. He tried to wipe mud from around his eyes, tried to make it safe to look about without blinding himself, but at first he just muddied things up more with his unclean hands. He felt around for a seemingly clear puddle, and with the help of the rain, cleared his eye sockets to get his sense of sight back.

“Who said that?” Thomas yelled. “Who’s there?!”

It didn’t answer. And as Thomas waited for a response, he didn’t hear a villager come up behind him. He had no time to react when the person threw a bag over his head, and picked the young Prince up, carrying him off to who knows where.