Take My Heart...: Dark Ages - Fantasy (Dark Gods & Tainted Souls Book 3) by julius schenk Page B

They were massive weapons, useless for fighting in a group, best for the lone fighter against many. Very typically northern.
    One of the men stepped forward. Seth recognized his face, as one of the hundreds of men he’d trained with during his two years at Bloodcrest.
    “The duke would see you boy, you’re not meant to be here,” the man said simply.
    He stood behind Seth and shoved him roughly in the back, the other drew his blade and they pointed Seth towards the Keep. He could fight them but what was the point, they were already dead, but he wasn’t.
    Seth walked through the township and was shocked by how small it all was. Bloodcrest, once the big city in his mind now just a tiny collection of muddy streets and ill made trading stalls off rotting and unpainted wood. The whole town would fit inside the Pellota spice district. As Seth walked he looked to the side. Some stalls were filled with people and others empty. One was a weapons trader Seth remembered buying his first sword from. A very dented and nicked thing over a hundred years old if it was a day and not in a good way. It had cost him all his father had given him. He couldn’t come before the duke with the carved wooden thing he’d practiced with.
    Seth stepped forward the trader and the man smiled at him shaking his hand, he was a flat faced man, fat and jovial, born to be a trader.
    “Well met young Seth, how’s your father,” he said.
    “Not here I hope,” Seth said back, feeling the cold of the man’s hand, he had a large stab wound in his chest. His shirt was ripped showing the gaping and bloodless wound.
    The man looked down at it. “I know, fucking thieves, well anyway I’ve got something for you.”
    The man walked from the counter and opening a long chest pulled out a long heavy broadsword placed on the counter before him. It was a fine weapon, sharp and well made, with the Bloodcrest symbol etched in the hilt.
    “I’ll trade you for your Pellosi toothpicks, you will be laughed at if you carry those noble weapons around here,” he said.
    Seth looked at the sword and could tell it was worth a lot more than his current ones. They could be noble’s weapons but this had the look of a king’s sword, the man also spoke truly. Seth pulled free his rapier and dagger and gave them to the man. He undid his belt and passed him the hilts as well. Seth strapped the large blade across his back and the once familiar weight of one felt good.
    The trader smiled. “A good price?” he asked.
    “A little too good for me I feel,” he said back.
    “Well I have some shit to make up for it seems, now off you go, don’t keep the duke waiting.”
    Seth was shoved again by the guards and kept moving. Soon they were at the large wooden gates of the Keep. There was only a handful of guards and the people in the town were even fewer. Seth had no idea how this worked, did people come here once they died just to keep living out their same old boring lives in death? It seemed fairly bleak.
    He was shoved once again inside the Keep. Seth walked towards where he knew the duke would be. The main room held a huge fireplace and table. Many men would sit around it. Thains and Carls of the duke. To have a seat at that table was a thing of pride. Once again the room seemed small. He saw the duke as he approached. The man still looked fearsome. He was Northern through and through. Furs against the cold, strong bear arms and a simple metal circlet on his head. The man smiled as Seth entered.
    Seth walked calmly in front of him and bowed, this was the man who had trained him and given him a purpose.
    “Well met, my lord, good to see you, in a way,” Seth said.
    “True enough boy, surely good to see a friendly face and less good to know I’m dead, but I died well, fighting which is good for a duke, quite hard to achieve these days,” he said with a laugh.
    “I’ve only been gone a year,” Seth said.
    “A lot happens in a year as you well know,” he said, then