Age of Kings 1066

POV Rio

It had been a couple of weeks since my Mom had passed, and I was doing much better. Hatterene and Ralts stayed with me for most of that time. But I now felt much better, so they agreed to leave and come back tomorrow to make sure I would be fine. It was still hard to deal with her loss, but I knew that there was nothing I could have done and that obsessing over it would do nothing but harm me.

'But I shouldn't just repress it either. I need to process this.'

As I was thinking this, I suddenly heard something that made no sense.

"Horses? Here?"

I heard at least a dozen horses, and it sounded like all of them had armored men on them. But that made no sense, as from what I knew, no one entered the Lost Woods unless they had permission or were suicidal. Armies had tried to pass through it in the past, but they were annihilated by the time they even made it a 3rd of the way through. So, armored soldiers wouldn't come here. But what further confused me was the direction they were coming from.

'That direction should be the Village of Valenwood. But they don't have mounted soldiers, nor would the riders the do have such heavy armor.'

I decided to make some preparations just in case, but otherwise I waited to see who was coming here.

'I can't even say for sure they are here for me or even this house. They could be on their way to see Treebeard.'

I knew that was unlikely, as they would take the river if that were the case. It didn't take long for the soldiers to arrive, and they came to my front door and knocked. I contemplated not answering the door, but they changed that idea quickly.

"By order of the Duke, we are here to speak to the residents of this house. Please answer the door at once."

'The Duke? My Grand Uncle?'

I decided to open the door and see what they wanted.

"Hello."

"Ah, you must be the child who lives here. We have been ordered by the Duke to retrieve you," The Leader spoke.

"May I ask for what reason?"

"The Duke is calling all family members to the capital due to the death of the heir to the throne. A new successor will be chosen from the remaining members of the dynasty. You are one such selected member," He said.

"And what of my Mom?"

"Keira Draconis has dropped her claims to the throne and, as such, is disqualified. She will be compensated for your time by the Duke," he said, but I noted that he seemed a bit impatient.

"May I refuse these summons?"

"No, you are required to come with us. Or else it might be seen as an act of treason," he said with more force.

"I see, can you give me a moment to gather my things?"

"Are you not going to let us in?" Another soldier said.

"My house is far too small and dirty to accept honored representatives of the Duke."

"Fine, but hurry, we must not keep the Duke waiting," The leader spoke with some nervousness.

I closed the door and tried to figure out what to do.

'Those men remind me of those agents in my past life. My gut tells me not to trust them.'

Their story was suspicious. And the way they acted was strange. Furthermore, a dozen heavily armed and armored cavalrymen were excessive for just one person. I looked at the soldiers outside and saw something that finalized my decision not to go with them. They had started to surround the house. Now came the hard part of how to get out of here alive.

'I don't know invisibility yet, but I can create some illusions to make them chase. Then I will try and make my way to Hatterene.'

I was somewhat confident in my skills, but not against a dozen most likely well-trained and experienced killers. I was also just a 9-year-old child with not the greatest physique. Once I had decided on my plan, I made my first move. I created an illusory copy of myself and then had it flee via one of the windows.

(AN: The window doesn't have glass, but it is still a window. )

Once the copy left, I heard the soldiers give chase, but they left behind one member. That was why I had my next plan. A silent and deadly invention from the natives of South America. The Blowgun with a poisoned dart.

Fwip

"Ouch, damn insects. Huh, what is this..." He doesn't get to finish as he collapses to the ground. The poison was only meant to incapacitate them, as I trained using the weapon on the animals of the forest.

I leave the house and start heading to Hatterene's house as fast as I can, as I know they would break the illusion soon. It seemed I was right, as it was less than a minute later that I started to hear hoofbeats approaching. That was when I thankfully came across an old friend.

"Bambi!"

"Huh? Rio, what's wrong?" He asked.

"I need your help, bandits are chasing me. They are trying to kill me. Run as fast as you can and find Hatterene. I will head towards liar falls and try to lose them, but just in case I need help, she can hopefully arrive."

Bambi flicked his ears and heard the horses as well. He nodded and sprinted as fast as he could away. Bambi was a deer whom Ralts and I had befriended when he was only a deerling. He was very smart for his kind, so we would play together on occasion.

I didn't wait for Bambi to disappear before I started to run again. I specifically chose paths that would be hard for horses to follow. Forests were the natural enemy of cavalry. But despite my efforts, they were still catching up with me. I used a few more darts and took out two more men. They responded by shooting arrows at me. One of them hit my shoulder, but I gritted my teeth and kept going. Then I threw some potions that would create knockout gas. That removed 3 more. 3 more were launched from their horses because of the trees. The last three followed me on foot after the forest got too thick for horses. I was out of darts and potions, but I had one last item.

'Please work.'

I lit the fuse, then it dropped before jumping over a ledge for cover. The soldiers didn't see me drop it, so they kept approaching.

'3... 2... 1...'

I plugged my ears.

BOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!

Even with the distance and covering my ears, I had to use a healing spell to fix my hearing. I used this opportunity to remove the arrow and heal the wound. I didn't wait to see if it worked and kept running. I made it fairly far, but I was exhausted and used up most of my mana already in order to run farther. Combined with the fire magic, illusions, and last-minute potions, I was almost out of mana. And I noticed something very bad.

'That arrow was poisoned.'

I used the little mana I had left to reduce the poison, but I knew I needed more time to deal with it completely. Unfortunately, I heard something I was hoping wouldn't follow me.

"I finally found you, you little sh&*!" The leader soldier was a couple of trees away. His armor was damaged, but overall, he was still in decent enough shape.

"I have to admit you made me work far harder than any of the other demon spawn I had to dispatch, but it all ends here," He said with eyes filled with bloodlust.

His comment about Demon Spawn gave me an idea to stall for time.

"Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful. Luke 6:36. Surely you wouldn't strike down a follower of god. That would be a sin against the holy father."

My quoting of the bible makes him pause, if only for a second. Which means I was right. He was not from Concordia and was a Christian assassin.

"How dare you speak of the holy book! You and you kind have no right to speak the words of the lord." My words seem to have upset him, so I decided to double down.

"Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. Matthew 5:7."

"SILENCE! YOU DAMN HEATHEN!"

He seems on the verge of charging at me, but holds himself back if only barely.

"I see that you intend on killing me either way. Then can you grant a dying child his final request and answer a question?"

"Sure, why not? Not like you will live long enough to talk about it. I am sure Satan will not be shocked to see another one of your kind down there anyway," He speaks like I am already dead.

"Why must I die? Who has asked for it?"

"Tch. That's two, but I will be nice and answer your first question. You and your filthy bloodline are a stain on God's glorious Earth. We have killed almost all the other members of the Draconis Dynasty. You should be one of the last few. Once we deal with you, we will deal with your mother. A shame we can't burn either of you at the stake. I hear witches scream nicely when they are on fire," He says with a twisted smile.

"Sigh. I see. Then we should get this over with."

"You're right. I still need to get rid of that b%^*$ and then get rid of any evidence. Sigh. You really left me with a lot of work, you little monster," He said with unhidden disgust.

I get into a CQC stance, and he just looks at me and laughs, then he does as I predicted he would. He dropped his sword and approached me to beat me to death with his gauntlets. His first punch was to my face, but I dodged and tapped some pressure points. He just laughed.

"Hahaha, that almost tickled. Why don't you try hitting a little harder?" He taunted.

I kept my cool, and we exchanged a few more attacks each time I tapped a few spots here and there. I was getting exhausted, but I knew I had only a few more hits. He was getting frustrated and a bit suspicious. After another 2 taps, he managed to hit me in the stomach. I backed off a bit.

"Finally, you are one slippery bastard, but this ends here," he said with a smile.

"Indeed. But not in the way you expect."

"Oh, is that so? All you managed to do is tap me here and there," he mocked.

"Omae wa mou shindeiru."

"What?" he said in complete confusion. Then his chest and neck started to rapidly expand before bursting into a shower of bits of flesh and gore.

I managed to defeat him, but was unable even to stand anymore. I fell over and fell unconscious.

POV Hatterene

I was furious. Beyond furious. I wanted to go to that little village and massacre everyone there for what they did. But the only thing keeping me from doing that was helping Rio. 

'He better be okay when I get there or else.'

When I arrived at Liar Falls, I saw the blood everywhere, and my heart nearly stopped when I saw Rio on the ground, not moving. When I reached him, I saw he was breathing, but I could also tell he was ill.

'Mage's Bane! Those filthy humans!'

I had to rein in my rage when I saw that I was damaging the surroundings. I took a deep breath and then had some fairies take him to my house.

"I will be back. I need to deal with some filthy pests that have infected the forest."

Ralts and the Faires were shaking in terror, but I paid them no mind. I let Ralts take care of the poison as I knew she could handle it.

'No body hurts my family and lives to tell the tale.'

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Authors Note:

If anyone is curious, the technique Rio used on the Leader Knight was an application of Restoration Magic with his knowledge of human anatomy. Mage's Bane is a poison meant to be used on magic users that prevents mana regeneration and causes damage to the user. Since Rio reduced the amount, it won't be lethal, but it would likely keep him in a coma for a while if no one helped from outside. And even then, he will have to slowly heal the damage. This chapter is not meant to attack any group or anything, just basing this on old medieval culture combined with religious dogma. I don't think people would act this way nowadays, well, most people there will always be those bad apples in any group. Lastly, don't mess with a Hatterene; the Pokedex makes it clear they can be really scary. Until next time, Ciao.