Tales of Winshaew — Chapter 1

Chapter One

Ackmar steadily threaded his way through the forest, climbing over fallen trees and rocks, and fording numerous fast-moving, ice-cold mountain streams. Anguish filled his heart while something else filled his mind: escape from Winshaew and the clutches of the evil Baron Shaevor. 

Ackmar had heard rumors – spoken only in hushed voices, with eyes constantly darting back and forth in search of any who might overhear – of another … a man who would come someday to defeat the dragon and set the people of Winshaew free. Known as the Light, he dwelt in another land, yet he was also here in this land of cold and darkness. Ackmar did not understand, could not understand, for his eyes were yet clouded by the evil one’s power, but despite this, he thought maybe, just maybe, it was truth.

The Light had followers; they were known as the Beth-El … “Those with whom the Maker walks.” The Beth-El were here and there, they were everywhere, they were nowhere. Some thought them only a fable; others swore they truly existed. They were, it was said, in this world, yet not of this world.

Ackmar had to know. If there truly was a group known as the Beth-El, he had to find them … and he had to find the Light of whom the rumors spoke.

Throughout the kingdom of Winshaew, Ackmar was known as “the Golden-haired” for he had long blond tresses pulled back and held together by a ring of silver. He was tall – taller than most in Winshaew – and saw the world through penetrating green eyes. Broad shoulders carried well the protective shirt of mail covered now by an ox hair tunic.

The warrior trudged through dense underbrush, thorns grabbing at his clothing, sometimes ripping gaping holes that allowed more of the cold wind to assail him. Now and then he would swing his mighty sword – forged in the fires of Wisset by artisans the likes of which the world has rarely seen – to clear a path through the nearly impenetrable thicket. Man and weapon had been virtually inseparable since Ackmar willingly pledged his life to the service of Baron Shaevor and took the oath of knighthood many years before. As the days progressed, the knight’s heart began to change.  He witnessed the Baron’s cruelty to the people of Winshaew and saw firsthand the evil that ran rampant throughout the kingdom.  He struggled within, bound by a blood oath to a cruel, heartless taskmaster, yet his inner being cried out for freedom from the life in which Shaevor entombed his people. Finally, he realized he had no choice but to search out a better life, a life filled with light. And then came the Lady Gwyneth’s imprisonment.

It had only been hours since the warrior marched up this same mountainside, his heavy boots crunching on theicy snow. The wind whipped his long blond hair as he held a hand up to shield his eyes from the driving snow.

There.

It was Winshaew, the city atop the highest peak of the mighty mountains that seemed to stretch forever in all directions. Although the sky was dull and gray – as it always seemed to be – Ackmar could make out the silhouette of the Great Cathedral beyond the city wall. He knew the palace sat just to the right, although he could not see it from here.

And that was his destination.

Today marked the end of life as he had known it, as a knight in the service of the evil Baron Shaevor, and the beginning of …

… something else.

Ackmar had no idea what lay ahead, but the Great Unknown now seemed preferable to the Present Anguish. Like all the other citizens of Winshaew, he watched the city fall deeper and deeper into an icy darkness that squeezed the very life out of hope itself. He witnessed Shaevor destroy what little good remained in this cold, forbidding place.

  And there was only one thing that made him return from exile in the mountain wilderness: The Lady Gwyneth.

She was his one and only love. Ackmar and Gwyneth had been friends since childhood, playing games and sharing secrets as children are wont to do. As they grew older, their friendship deepened, moving to a new, higher level until, as they approached adulthood, they realized that their friendship had become love. Gone were the days of silly songs and childish pranks, replaced by a love that was so passionate that Ackmar knew he would give up anything and everything for his lady love, including his own life. Gwyneth, the daughter of Lord Farwulf, lived a life of luxury within the castle; Ackmar, a knight in service to Baron Shaevor, spent many hours at the castle, enabling them to meet secretly on numerous occasions.

Ackmar and Gwyneth pledged themselves to each other, awaiting the day that they would be able to openly share their feelings. And then Shaevor grasped their dreams in his evil hand and dashed them upon the brutal rocks of reality.

Gwyneth had been imprisoned within the castle walls from which Ackmar was now banished. The love between the man and woman was not quite the secret they had believed, and word reached Shaevor of the pair’s feelings for each other. The Baron had seen Gwyneth, and enamored by her beauty, chose her to be his wife, because he desperately wanted a male child, an heir, to follow in his footsteps as regent of Winshaew. She refused and was imprisoned, while Ackmar was exiled from the castle on pain of death. Her rescue was always in his mind, but now appeared hopeless.

For months, Ackmar the Golden-Haired sought any bit of news concerning the fate of his beloved from those he happened upon along the mountain roads. Twice, he had entered the castle walls in an attempt to find and free Gwyneth. Both times was caught.

“Please, Ackmar,” pleaded Ely, a former comrade of Ackmar’s in the Knighthood and now a guard in the castle, on the first occasion. “You not only risk your life, you risk mine as well.” He smuggled his friend out of the palace in a wagon carrying trash to be thrown away outside the city walls. And now, today, for the second time Ackmar was caught, this time actually making his way into the dungeon itself, and the reprimand was more severe.

“You have saved my life several times on the field of battle,” Ely said, his face stern and his voice flat. “That, I will never forget. But now you test the bounds of my kinship with you. You violate your oath to the Baron and, by coming here, you ask me to violate mine. By the glory of the Great Cathedral, I swear that should you enter these gates a third time, your life will be forfeit by my very hands.” With that, he turned heel and stormed off, satisfied that his men would smuggle Ackmar out of the castle for the second – and last – time.

And now, Ackmar found himself wandering through the frozen forest, without hope, without friend, and without Gwyneth.

***

Baron Shaevor was angry. He sat on his splendid throne, a tall, ornate chair covered with silk pillows and encrusted with precious gems of every sort. Surrounded by his counselors and wise men, Shaevor glared at them while pounding the arms of his throne with balled fists. His face was red, with the veins and arteries on his neck sticking out as the blood hammered through them.

The Baron was as ugly on the outside as he was on the inside. He was tall and portly and walked with a slight limp. His hair grew in tufts here and there, and his eyes were devoid of any spark of life. A crooked mouth held several pointed teeth, stained with age.

The Baron’s heart was continually filled with evil, and he lived only to make the lives of others miserable. He regularly raised the taxes on the peasants, exacting more and more tribute from those least able to pay; he threw men, women, and even children into his squalid dungeon for the slightest of infractions; and he enslaved many to work in his castle or in the fields surrounding the walled city.

One of the many enslaved citizens was Belinda, a young woman captured by the Baron’s soldiers during one of their regular raids throughout the countryside. The daughter of Bekan, a wealthy merchant, and the wife of Cecil, the town’s miller, she spent her first few weeks of captivity crying for her husband, mother, father, and seven brothers and sisters – all of whom she feared she would never see again. As she slowly became accustomed to life in the castle, Belinda was assigned chores in order to earn her keep. First, she scrubbed the hard, cold, stone floors in the great hallways that connected the various rooms of the castle. Next, she was assigned to the laundry room, hand-washing the many sheets that were soiled nightly. Finally, Belinda was chosen to serve food to the Baron and his courtiers, a duty she was performing the day the Baron was having his temper tantrum.

“Swine! Fools!” The Baron’s face was red with rage and his eyes were bulging out. “Am I the only one around here with any sense? Must I be fated to rule this land surrounded by incompetents the likes of you? Is there not one among you who can find the woman for whom I search?” He waved his arm with a flourish, dismissing his courtiers, who scurried out of the throne room as quickly as they could. The Baron leaned back into the soft pillows of his throne and closed his eyes. A long, mournful sigh escaped his lips.

The Baron found himself in an uncomfortable position. He had been publicly humiliated by Lady Gwyneth, yet her beauty so enamored him that he would accept her even now as his wife … provided she exhibit the proper penitence. But Shaevor was a realist. He knew the chances of the beautiful Gwyneth ever willingly ruling by his side were slim.

And still he had no heir.

Belinda stood off to the side, holding a tray of undelivered food, afraid to move. Her eyes darted back and forth from the angry Baron to a nearby door, her closest means of escape. For agonizingly long moments, she kept perfectly still, debating her choices. She wanted nothing more than to run away from this dreaded man, but fear had frozen her where she stood. Finally, she took one short step toward the door… and in the process dropped a brass goblet, which hit the stone floor with a resounding clang that seemed to echo forever in the cavernous room.

The Baron’s eyes flew open. Peering into the darkness, he spied the girl who was once again frozen in place.

“Come here, wench,” Shaevor commanded, his thoughts returning to the present. “Come out of the shadows and let me see you.” Belinda began to slowly move, her heart pounding wildly in her chest.

“Yes, m’lord,” she softly replied, taking step after halting step, edging closer to the man she feared more than any other.

The Baron smiled, but it was a smile better suited to the face of a demon.  Seeing that, Belinda’s heart was gripped with fear.

***

Tourteaux, Bishop of Winshaew, sat behind the locked door, greedily counting the pieces of silver and gold piled atop his desk. A mug of frothy ale sat to the left of the coins.

“A fine haul! A fine haul!” laughed the short, fat, bald cleric as he once again began to count the booty, collected from the people of Winshaew as they made their weekly visit to the Great Cathedral near the castle. “Aye, praise be to you for your blessings.” He quickly crossed himself.

The Great Cathedral sat upon Winshaew’s highest peak, a majestic structure built of hand-hewn stone. A pair of august oak doors opened into the sanctuary, a mammoth arched room with row after row of wooden benches leading to an arcane dais where Tourteaux and others led the people of Winshaew in weekly worship. Stained glass windows depicting scenes from the kingdom’s past lined both sides.

Tourteaux had been Bishop of the Great Cathedral for many years now. He entered the priesthood as a young man, not because of any devotion to the Maker, but because he saw it as a means to power … intoxicating power.

The Bishop remembered well his first meeting with his predecessor. A young Tourteaux, even then exhibiting the propensity to carry extra weight, sat across the ancient table from Bresson. The older cleric eyed the younger warily … and sadly.

“No, no, no. It is the heart, Brother Tourteaux. The Maker looks at the heart. It is man who looks at outward appearances.” The bishop shook his head.

Tourteaux gritted his teeth as he leaned slightly forward, edging closer to Bresson. “I have studied the ways of the Great Cathedral,” he spit out. “I know the traditions. Do not think that you, because of your longer years, can tell me how to live my life or do my job. The Maker, blessed be his name, shall raise me up to heights of great glory from which I will dance on your ashes. It is time for the old to make way for the new. I say to you – brother – begone!” With this, Tourteaux cast his lot with the enemies of the Beth-El and the Maker.

Badgered throughout his ecclesiastic career by well-deserved accusations of dishonesty, Tourteaux nonetheless continued to climb the ladder of success, amassing a considerable fortune along the way. When Shaevor, during the early years of his rule, exiled the godly Bishop Bresson, Tourteaux was the natural choice to assume this important position.

The Bishop quaffed a long sip of ale, wiped the froth from his face with the sleeve of his robe, then belched. He noisily slid the coins into a metal strongbox and snapped the lock, securing his ill-gotten gain.

Tourteaux, his chubby cheeks giving him an almost cherubic appearance, crossed himself again and, with a mighty heave, lifted his bulk from the seat. He waddled to the door, glanced back once again at his strongbox filled with the people’s money, and headed home to the monastery, a huge smile upon his face.