This post was inspired by the Scholar and Scribe Community Invitational, to create a story in the heroic fantasy genre. You can read the original post HERE
The tale follows on from something I wrote quite a while ago - The Doom of Dabirri. It's not a direct sequel, more an additional tale in an over-arching story arc to provide "what's going on in the rest of the world" context in a Dungeons & Dragons campaign.
Image created by AI in NightCafe Studio
"Today is the day, my friends. With your lances and with the sword of my father we free our city and I reclaim my birthright !"
Prince Rizaban raised his scimitar with a flourish, the bright sun glinting off the curved magical blade.
The army cheered. Though they put their hearts into it, it was not a loud cheer. They were not a large army.
Prince Rizaban turned to the cloaked figure in the saddle of the pony next to him. "I couldn't have done this without you, my Lady. Thank you."
A year ago, Prince Rizaban had still been a boy. The memory of that nightmarish day would never leave him.
They'd heard rumours of undead, but far away in the southernmost part of the Sarassid Lands. Someone else's problem. Then with barely a day's warning, they were at the gates of Dabirri.
The city was a trading hub; the city wall low low and virtually decorative. The defenders were a handful of pretty but inexperienced Palace Guard and City Watch. They'd fought bravely enough but been overwhelmed within an hour. Mummies wrapped in sandy bandages and clattering skeleton warriors with bronze-tipped spears and curved-topped shields swarmed over the walls and slaughtered everyone they could find.
The screams would fill Rizaban's dreams for years.
The last sight he had of the palace that he called home was being bundled out by a squad of bodyguards as the enemy stormed the throneroom. His mother's face, eyes wide with shock and horror as a giant crocodile-headed demon ran her through from behind with a ten-foot spear. His father's head bouncing down the throne room steps, eyes still open.
The bodyguards had all died, holding back a tide of foes as Rizaban was lowered in a basket over the city wall.
He had wandered off into the desert, alone, in shock, and with nothing but the torn golden robes he stood up in.
Collapsing with grief and exhaustion as night fell, he woke to find himself lying on a blanket under the low canopy of a cloak propped on two sticks. Looking up into the tanned face of a young girl.
"Hi. I'm Zit," she'd said with a grin. A simple enough greeting. Disarming. But giving nothing away except her name.
She'd looked after him for a day, then given him supplies for a week and a compass. She'd told him how to find the way back to the River Driva and to head upstream, away from danger. Then she'd packed up camp and disappeared from his sight.
In the year since, Rizaban had grown up. He was no longer the palace-bound sulking teenage brat who was used to getting his way with a click of his fingers.
Now, he was every inch the warrior prince. Slender and handsome, all wiry muscle with not an ounce of fat on him, clad in glittering lamellar and mail armour with a tall spired turban-wrapped helmet on his head. His complexion had changed too, becoming tanned and even a little weathered. The start of a wispy beard, carefully trimmed, adorned his chin.
Behind him rode the small army he had raised. It was composed of refugees who had escaped the fall of Dabirri, and the younger sons of ex-patriate merchants. For a year, they'd skirmished with raiding parties of undead. Toughening up recruits and honing their skills.
Zit had been at his side for much of this time. She'd come and gone, going about her own business. But she always seemed to come back with the gold coins needed to fund and equip his small but growing army.
She was often quiet and withdrawn. Keeping to herself rather than walled off and grim. She'd deftly sidestepped a few fumbling teenage advances in the early days, but now the two were close comrades. It felt like more of a professional relationship, and Rizaban thought of her as a mentor and friend.
He knew his debt to her could never be repaid when she returned to the camp one day after one of her absences, bloody and exhausted, clutching a small rolled up rug.
"I went back to Dabirri. Bought you something," was all she said. Always a girl of few words. When he unrolled the rug, he saw what it was. Somehow, from the heart of the enemy dominion, she had managed to find and retrieve his father's scimitar, the magical blade that Rizaban had thought was lost forever.
The small army set off down the slope towards Dabirri. First at a gentle trot, but building up speed as they went. The gate hung open, and the place looked desolate. But there were stirrings of movement. Undead warriors being guided into activity to oppose them.
The trot turned to a canter, the canter to a charge. As the trumpets sounded for the final all-out gallop, Rizaban heard Zit shout out from just behind him.
"Remember what I taught you ! Forget the drones, cut off the head !"
Then they were through the gate. The torrent of horsemen swept away the few skeletal forms that had moved into Desertgate Square and plunged down the broad avenue towards Marketsquare and the palace.
At the head of the charge was Prince Rizaban, his father's blade carving a path through the living dead in front of them.
Behind the column of cavalry, skeletal and zombie forms swept in, led by ancient mummies, their sand coloured bandages studded with protective amulets. The small army was trapped, but they kept pushing forward.
It didn't take long to get to the palace. The majority of the army turned to face the solid mass that cut them off, while Rizaban, Zit and a few retainers dismounted and dashed up the steps.
Inside, the palace seemed empty. Sandy dust was everywhere, as if the building had been unused since the city fell. The small group dashed through wide corridors and open courtyards, until finally they reached the throneroom.
There, sat on his father's throne, was a terrible form. It had the body of a heavily muscled man, totally black as if carved of obsidian. But it's head was that of a jackal. Across it's lap it held a great bronze khopesh.
It grinned. The effect was unnatural; jackals aren't supposed to make those kinds of expression.
"I have been waiting for you, boy."
Image by Ольга Фоничева from Pixabay
Stepping up beside the prince, Zit spoke up. Clear and defiant, a very different tone to her normal one of bored laconic amusement.
"He's not a boy any longer, demon. You and yours made him into the man you see before you."
The monster raised itself languidly from the throne, swinging the khopesh ponderously onto one shoulder with one hand, and beckoning behind himself with the other.
It spoke with a sneer. "All I see is a frightened little boy, and every little boy needs it's mummy."
Another figure stepped out from behind the hulking demon. Mishalla El Kobatti, Rizaban's mother. She looked exactly as he remembered her. The kind smile, the grace and poise. Only the dark brownish-red stain on the front of her white robe gave the lie to her appearance.
Her voice, too, was as Rizaban remembered it. "Lay down that scimitar, my darling son. It's not yours, it belongs to your father. Lay it down, and we can be a family once more. Or use it to slay the treacherous she-devil next to you, free yourself from her spell."
Rizaban hesitated. Zit was right next to him, holding her breath. She didn't say a word; this was his decision.
Prince Rizaban bowed to his mother.
"Forgive me mother. I saw what I saw. You deserve peace."
Then he exploded into action. He plunged his father's blade through her heart. There was no resistance; the demon's spear thrust a year ago had seen to that. But she fell, turning to dust as she went down.
The jackal-headed demon acted almost as fast, swinging the heavy bronze khopesh down viciously in a cut at Rizaban's head. Through instinct and training, he raised the scimitar to parry, knowing that it was not the weapon to stop the mass of the blow aimed at him.
He felt the shock against the scimitar. Then... nothing. Followed by a resounding bell-like clang. The scimitar had proven it's magic. The khopesh was sheared in two, the long bronze blade flying off to strike the floor.
As the jackal head's mouth opened in surprise, Rizaban thrust his blade into the cavity and through the back of the demon's head.
It fell backwards, and outside the sound of battle instantly ceased. Without their demon leader to guide them, the undead became listless living corpses.
Prince Rizaban had proven he was a boy no more, and a prince no more. He was Dey of Dabirri. The hero who had saved the city, but now had the task of bringing it back to life and prosperity.