Chapter 3. Corn on the Cobwebs
Trent sits on the dirt by some trees, thinking. He wants to get revenge, but he knows that there is just no feasible way. He's cooking some deer meat on a fire. He's daydreaming about when he used to play with Crusher, he would throw some rocks over the wall and into the water and Crusher would swim just to fetch them. Then he remembers a funny conversation he had with his dad when Crusher was still just a cub. His dad asked him: "Why that name? Crusher? Why not something scary and sinister like 'Killer' or Witch hound' or something?" And Trent remembers responding to him: "Remember what he used to do with those frogs that would sneak in our castle?" Then his dad inquired: "Well he'd kill them, of course!" And (at the time) Trent would laugh and tell him: "No but remember he would just calmly walk up to them and push his paws on them until they would squish! Goo would spill all over!" They would both laugh and then Trent's dad would suggest: "Oh right right! I say a good name would be squisher for him then!" And both of them would laugh together. The memories come and go every so often with Trent, and the worst ones would be his mother passing away. It's not that the memories of her were sad, it's BECAUSE the memories of her are of a wonderful mother that he hates the idea of her non being around anymore. She just became extremely ill and she warned everyone to stay away from a strange crop. It's unknown to this day what it was, but its effects are clear: death to any with such contact. Trent is currently finished eating and he is nodding in and out of consciousness. Trying his hardest to stay awake for he wants to see if there are hunters around or any more guards. Trent finds himself unwilling to keep his eyes open any longer and snores away sleeping. Now he feels a cold chilling sensation on his Adam's Apple... he opens his eyes and sees a man holding a sword to his throat! "TRAITOR!" Trent starts crawling backwards and puts his hands up as if to signal a surrender! Trent begins to beg: "Woah I can explain! Please don't do this, I was framed!" The man walks closer with his sword still extended straight forward and says: "Framed? By whom? Who else could have killed King Norman!" Trent takes a big breath and answers: "Marcus! He did it! He was mad that my father made me the next General and he also made a weapon for me to start distributing, I didn't do it! I would never!" And the man puts his sword away and quietly utters: "I believe you... King Marcus tried to hang me. I refused to follow his orders! He said some family was late on their mission and I told him there would be a delay with these damn storms! Wagons aren't perfect you know!? So he wanted to me arrest his family that was still home, I said how could you be such a monster! He put me in shackles the bastard! He has a whole new group of new knights who put the rope around my neck, and when they took my shackles off I noticed these new guys were amateurs, they didn't even finish making a complete knot so I quickly shook it off of me and just ran as fast as I could for the closest way out! Look I'm sorry I accused you, I had to make sure I could trust you. This new King Marcus is a horrible problem, he is!" Trent hears this and has a quiet sigh of relief. Trent asks the man: "Well you know my name, what's yours?" He answers: "I be Gorn, I was a knight in training under your father." Well, immediately after hearing this Trent's thought echoes out of his mouth simultaneously: "Are there any others? Others who are being mistreated under the new King who served my father?" Gorn closes his eyes and answers: "Unfortunately, yes and your not going to believe me but, they are all dead... DEAD! Died in vein, just like your father if I may so boldly declare. And when I say vein, I mean it, they died for something that couldn't have made any sense, to a REAL King! The faction of knights were on a mission to the Chapel at West Horn, and that was all it took to have them labels as traitors and killed." Trent immediately jumps up in the air after hearing this and becomes euphoric saying: "THATS ABSURD! Marcus KNOWS that my father has them go there! It's the place where there's the best water in all the land! We've had great business with them!" Gorn looks at the ground and quietly says: "I never knew that place was where we got the- but none the less he is betraying the people. It must be everything that your father did is what he is un-doing!" The men are enraged together, on the same wavelength. They start to walk down some grassy meadows.
After a long hour of traveling, they hear the trotting of some horsemen. Gorn pulls out his bow and climbs up a tree. Trent pulls out his sword and waits for the guards to get closer. The head horseman puts his hand up in a motion to signal the group to stop. The head horseman has on a big knight's helmet and pulls out a giant spiked war hammer. He makes demands towards Trent: "Shall you surrender now, no one needs to get blood on their hands! If you don't put your sword away, I will shove it down your throat and cook you for dinner, wicked one! What shall it be?" Trent holds the sword with two hands tightly, and starts to walk slowly backwards. Gorn is setting up his arrow between the branches of the 'y' shaped tree and fires an arrow to the back of the group! It went straight in the side of the guard-archer's throat and he dies dropping his bow! The head guard uses his momentum to charge and fling the war hammer on Trent. Trent makes a quick leap to the side, the guard pulls the hammer to the side and it knocks Trent on the ground! The head guard picks up his war hammer all the way up getting ready to crush Trent all the way to hell... then as another guard with a sword comes next to him, Trent kicks that guard's knee and he falls forward slightly while Trent pulls on his arm with the sword and maneuvers him towards the motion of the war hammer... it hits the guard's sword and shatters it half way down! The war hammer is being picked up and Trent rolls over to the side and sees an arrow from Gorn strike the guard with the broken sword in the arm piercing his skin all the way through. That guard goes into shock and bleeds heavily falling on the ground. Meanwhile, Trent grabs the shards of broken sword pieces and chucks them at the head guard. Some pieces bounce off of his armor while some cause cuts on his arms. Trent finally has a chance and he stands up, taunting the guard: "You really think that thing is going to stop me?! This sword has fought for my father's battles many times and your too dumb and blind to see that I was framed! Shame on you, heathen!" The guard pushes the war hammer forward as if he was in a joust, but Trent circles around him and grabs the top part of the war hammer and spins it, forcing the head guard holding it snap his wrist and he drops it! He screams in agony briefly. Trent holds him arms from behind him and kicks him very hard which puts him on the ground face first. "Say your last words!" Trent demands. He gets no answer, pulls back his sword and says: "That last scream will do then!" And punctures his vertebrae from behind him killing him! He turns around to see Gorn is fighting a guard surrounded by a couple of dead ones. Trent runs over and Gorn peaks at the corner of his eye, their two swords clash in mid air. Gorn grabs the guard's hand and Trent tackles the guard to the ground subduing him. Trent throws the guards sword and yells: "How many more are you? What is Marcus up to? Give me answers! Answers!" The guard can't look Trent in his eyes, he looks to the side and when Trent yells at him again he starts to speak: "I, have received more gold then I ever have working under your father! Go to hell and tell him I want back pay!" Trent harshly pulls of the guard's armor chest plate and throws it. Trent gets in position to stab him and yells: "I am going to rip your heart out and see how small it is!" The guard closes his eyes and Trent stabs him in the chest killing him. Gorn walks around collecting his arrows that had missed during combat. Trent tells Gorn: "Look, I found all of this gold in his pocket! He was telling the truth you know... yikes, this is worse than I thought! This means that Marcus IS paying his guards and knights way more than the budget could possibly allow! And with that bad water situation... Wow, the people have no idea what's coming, they won't be able to afford food, clothes, they'll get sick from the different water, they won't be able to buy better weapons and armor or to use the blacksmith's services... DAMN! This is a disaster! We MUST do something!" Gorn nods his head in agreement and they take all of the gold out of the dead guard's pockets. Now they jump up on their horses and head out for food.
A few hours pass by and Gorn makes his horse trot slowly. He spots some wildlife! He puts two arrows on his bow and pulls it back for about ten seconds... *Fling! Direct hit on the backside of a big deer! It starts to run off and the men make their horses hurry up. They sprint on the trail of the dying deer. Once they get there, Trent starts to make a fire and Gorn starts to skin the deer. The men begin to reminisce: "I really miss that corn your father used to serve us, oh my.... I also miss the way he would always seem to catch the biggest fish, remember that?! I could come up with a good catch 'bout the size of my bow and I'd get everyone to cheer for me, then in a few moments later your father would stun us all with a very big behemoth! Very delicious. I wish Marcus would be sleeping with those fish!" Gorn said. Trent looks at the fire long and hard as he speaks: "My dad wasn't just a King, or some guy, he was a fighter, a cook, a hunter, a blacksmith, I mean he was a whatever, anything! I have never seen a better fighter in my life... He used to train me when I was small and he would let me win once in awhile but, hell I knew better once I saw him engage in serious combat. He was so fast, so good at defense, I would watch him fight and get a cold rush down my arms and my spine being thankful that he is on my side. So fast! He knew he would only have to strike a few times to come up with a kill! He didn't believe in 'keep swinging until someone is down' or just keep clashing swords together, no no no! None of that, he truly was a one or two thrust- per battle believer! I've seen it! I've never seen anything like it." Trent said. Trent loves to look back but he gets upset with the situation of him being assassinated and he throws some rocks at the fire. Gorn takes a bite of the deer meat and says: "You know, he wasn't just a good fighter he could tell his opponent what mistake they were making. It's actually scary to me if I'm being honest. There was a battle going on right outside of the Eastern farms where these cattle farmers asked your father for their protection and he gladly insisted, didn't even ask them for gold or for goods or anything, he just helped them because he felt it was right! Anyways so he went with about ten of us or so and we had these cattle poachers surrounded and we could've just slaughtered them, then your dad asked for their leader, he came out with a heavy spiked-mace set, and then I couldn't believe what your father said! He pulled out a bag of gold and said 'fight me in a one on one duel, and if you kill me keep the bag, if you don't want to fight, I'll give you half and you are forever exiled from this land' and the guy started circling his mace around and around and your dad looked at him with full concentration only moving his head really... and as soon as the guy flung his mace your dad took a crazy fast side step, and rolled a few feet and stabbed him to death in one quick stroke! I was so amazed, then he made the other poachers be workers on those farms in exchange for not being locked up in the castle's prisons." Trent gets excited and says in return: "See, and that's what I mean, no other kings would have helped those farmers! It would've been a job that would only get done from a king's knights if those farmers gave him a lot of gold! Ugh! It sickens me! My dad was all about setting an example for the land of nothing less than good natured acts. I can only imagine what Marcus is doing... oh this is a horrible change for the world!" The men eat the rest of the deer and go to sleep on opposite sides of the fire.
They wake up and find their horses drinking water from a puddle. The men saddle up on the horses carrying their weapons and gold. As they head out to the town of Jurden, they soon find themselves on a water transport dock. They want to use it to get to the town of Jurden, but Gorn warns Trent that it may be better to save all of their gold for later. So the men jump in the lake and swim over to the boat! They brush up against it on the side. Gorn starts to climb slowly and he sees that there is a hole in the boat for storing large cannon balls. He points to Trent signaling him to move over as far as he can. Gorn waits for all of the passengers to get aboard and for it to launch. A few minutes later they feel the vibrations of the boat starting up! The boat starts and the anchor was pulled in by the crew. Once it just started to float away for just a few feet, Gorn opened up the hatch over the hole and it opens up. All of the cannon balls inside of it fall out and splash in the water below! They both are thinking the same thing: "I hope the timing was just right... so that no one on the boat noticed since it was a bumpy launch..." They eventually, slowly but surely, climb their way up and get inside the storage hole. Several hours pass and at last, they arrived at Jurden. They jump back in the water and swim for awhile to the side so they don't look suspicious as being the only passengers that are soaking wet. As they swim, Gorn becomes more and more nervous about being near King Cramshaw. The thought of being recognized is a scary thought.