Fire of Magic (Soul of Magic Book 4)

TEN

The Silverstone; one of the most precious things in the Barren lands. In fact, it was the most precious thing in the entirety of the region; and also what contributed immensely to Warlord Landon's rise to the power he now enjoyed.

Truth be told, the silverstone was neither really a silver nor a stone; just a metal that had been condensed over the years in such a way that it feels rough to the touch like a stone and shiningly grey like a silver.

The birth of the silverstone and its importance was actually made possible by the everlasting feud between the Barren landers and the outsiders, most especially the Kingdoms. As it was no secret, majority of the people settled in the Barren lands were those who had escaped from their previous lives. Some of them had fled from judgment, others from debt; and there were those whose belongings had been stripped away from them as a result of judgment, or debt, or any other thing. All in all, they were all individuals who were in desperate need of a fresh start.

But as fresh their start was going to be, the fact still remained that they all needed to engage in trade of food and wares in order to survive; and this could only be done with the currencies coming from the kingdoms outside of the Barren lands.

Unfortunately, this circumstance caused a lot of trouble for the new settlers as the outside realm didn’t want any of their gold or things of the like to find its way into the Barren lands where they believed was filled with the condemned of the world. So, they declined and that made trade almost impossible for them. It forced the Barren landers to resort to raids and skirmishes on the outside realm to get what they needed but even that which they were able to gather was meagre in comparison to their needs. And so, seeing that they were never going to survive with the outlook of things, they decided to find something else that could replace the currencies of the realm; the Silverstone.

But silverstones were so rare that they could only be found in one place in the whole of the realm; a secluded mountain that had long ago being the home to a violent volcano, a reason which was said to be why it had the precious metals in the first place. The conflict over the possession of this obviously important mountain resulted in a great war among the high and mighty of the Barren lands and they fought with everything they had to own it.

Years upon years of ownership and dispossession by various warlords happened before it finally fell to Landon who had kept it ever since. With the strength of his loyal men who later grew to become an enormous army, the warlord was able to defend his mountain and build for himself a formidable fortress in it; the Silvermount as it was called.

Unfortunately, Landon himself was now faced with a problem which was different from all he'd ever faced in his fifty-five years of existence; a problem with the name of the Knight. In all honesty, since the emergence of the mysterious swordsman, the warlord's grey hair had turned even greyer with all the trouble the former had caused; and they didn't seem to be letting up any time soon.

However, contrary to what might be thought, it wasn't the rebellions that the Knight was inciting that had gotten Landon on the edge. Sure, he would have rather loved it if those low-class, authority-despising, earth-smelling settlers knew their places; but even if they were all to band as one and march against him, the truth would always remain that they would never be able to touch him as long as he remained within the walls of the formidable fortress Silvermount.

But it also happened that the thing the warlord was most fond of after the silverstones wasn't protected like he was; and that was how the Knight was doing his damage.

Thing is, Landon had sent out the most skillful and capable of his captains on a quest in search of something; a thing that would have been most crucial in the realisation of a dream he had had ever since he first tasted power. But out of all them, only one returned with the answer he was looking for in the guise of four chests; and not just the chests themselves but the things contained within them.

Just as he had thought that victory was on his side, the Knight came onto the scene with the open promise of defending those whom he had supposedly been terrorising. But the truth was that the mysterious swordsman wasn’t exactly concerned about the people of the settlements, as the warlord himself soon realized; he was actually interested in the chests. Every time the Knight had led his men against his, he always managed to steal one of the chests from the battlefield.

When it got to the time that only one chest remained in his possession, presumably the most important of the four, Landon commanded his men to disguise it among the other more mundane possessions of his and bring it with them back to the fortress at once. But the Knight was already lying  in wait with an ambush; using the fight to take away the last of the chests and leaving the warlord in defeat and the despair he was now feeling.

Just then, the great double doors of the fortress opened and Landon snapped out of his thoughts of depression to see a man walk into his throne room. The man was dressed in a black fur winter cloak with the hood raised up, snowflakes dropping onto the granite floor with every step he took towards the stone throne that the warlord was sitting on. Five guards trailed him immediately with their spears at the ready as he walked but it was obvious that the man was the predator and they were the prey. A mysterious aura surrounded him, causing even the powerful warlord to shiver with a feeling that had little to do with cold.

"You asked to see me, my lord?" he said as he reached the stairs leading up to the throne, looking up from under his hood to reveal eyes as black as midnight and cold as the winter that raged outside the fortress' wall.

"Yes, I did," Landon replied, adjusting himself on his seat so as to maintain his air of superiority. "I need you to deal with a problem for me."

"The Knight, isn't it?" he said, not giving the warlord any indication as to how he knew. "He really must be giving you quite the sleepless nights if you called to me for help."

"So, are you going to help me or not?" Landon wasn’t in the mood to be mocked; even if the mocker was the man in front of him.

“I’ll help.” The man smiled. "For the right fee of course."

The warlord threw a purse at the man which he caught and opened it; his smile molding into a full-on satisfied grin when he saw the Silverstone contents. "Tell me where to find this Knight," he said after a while, "and I'll make him go away."

"I heard he's travelling to the incending creek," Landon informed him.

"Well then, my lord," the man replied, a predatory smile full of promises on his face as he spoke, "If the Knight is going to the incending creek, then the incending creek is where I'll be waiting."