The Eight Walls of Rogar: An Epic Fantasy Adventure Series! (The Lost Kingdoms of Laotswend Trilogy--Book One) by William Woodward Page A

a thousand years Rogar had shielded the lands east of it from invasion, and now, once again, the Lost One was reaching his great arms across the Waste to test her might, preparing to lay siege to that which was supposed to be impregnable.  Perhaps he knew her strength was wavering.  Perhaps he knew her king was old.
    Laris cursed the fates for doing this to him.  Why couldn’t this have happened twenty-five years ago , he thought, while I was still in my prime?   He smiled bitterly.  The question answered itself.  It hadn’t happened because he had still been in his prime.  At seventy-two, his grandfather had been stouter than most men at forty.  Laris knew he had not inherited this magical fortitude, and the shame he felt was great.  The most he could hope for was to die without making a mockery of himself, to bear the weight of his armor with dignity before being struck down.
    Shortly before Laris’ birth, his father was brutally slaughtered.  After falling from his horse during one of his frequent hunts, he had been impaled through the chest by the pointed tusk of a six-hundred-pound boar.  The indignity of this was not lost on Laris, nor was the tragic irony.  To end like that after having survived so many battles seemed…unjust, to say the least.  They had found him with his back propped against a tree, the hilt of his sword clutched to his chest, the boar dead at his feet.  How he had managed to kill the thing before he had died was anyone’s guess.  “That was just the sort of man he was,” people were fond of saying, which may have also accounted for his expression.  To his credit, instead of his face being drawn with anger, regret, or even pain, he looked merely chagrined, and even somewhat amused.  That was just the sort of man he was.
    The king rubbed his aching neck.  After his father’s death, the responsibility of raising him had fallen to his mother and grandfather, the latter of whom had died while Laris was still just a boy.  The king remembered him well.  He had been a stern taskmaster, but quick to give praise when praise was due.  To a boy of six, he had seemed a grand figure indeed—towering above ordinary men, an almost mythical figure with long silver hair and piercing blue eyes, eyes that seemed capable of staring directly into a man’s soul.  His grandfather’s skill in battle had been unmatched, the stuff of which legends were made.  His sword had been like judgment on the field, a striking snake that never missed.  He was the fiercest king Rogar had ever known, a man whose valor had ignited a passion in his people that still burned today.
    In appearance, Laris was almost identical to his grandfather.  He feared, however, that his legacy would be far different.  Laris Danodren IX, the king who let Rogar fall.   He pounded his fist against the stone armrest.  Stop it! he chided.  You weak old fool!   You disgrace his memory!
    He sighed deeply and peered about the room, the decor of which--save the throne of course--had not changed in his lifetime.  Thick tapestries hung against the stone walls, each displaying a different period in history, depicting in vivid color the many victories his ancestors had enjoyed.  A suit of armor, complete with shield and weaponry, stood beneath each tapestry--their designs improving over the centuries, becoming more refined as Rogar’s population grew.  Every day they were meticulously polished, until not a speck of dust remained, until they glowed with past glory, standing as silent tributes to the victories above.
    Halfway up each eighty-foot-high wall, positioned for defense rather than aesthetics, were four narrow windows.  A shaft of sunlight angled through the western window, shone upon the silvery helm of one of the more elaborate suits of armor, and reflected straight into Laris’ eyes.  He sighed again and slumped further into his throne.  He would have preferred bare stone and