Fall of the Kings by D.L. Gardner

Author:D.L. Gardner
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Epic Fantasy Saga, Saga, Epic fantasy
Publisher: D.L. Gardner
Published: 2021-07-09T00:00:00+00:00

A Hero’s Grave

A single guard stood on duty at the stables when Arell arrived. He carried a lantern and wore a gambeson of the king’s colors, and a three-cornered hat which he tipped as a greeting to him and Stormy.

“Good evening, Vasil,” he said with a slight bow.

“A fine evening, it is,” Arell agreed, impressed that the guards were so attentive at such an hour. He moved on, and Stormy followed until they came to the groom who had put up their horses earlier. The stable worker stopped in the breezeway and, with a puzzled expression, bowed.

“You need your horse again, Vasil?”

“No, you’re fine. I simply left something in the barn a few days ago,” Arell replied with a smile.

“You may need this then.” The groom handed Arell his lantern. Arell nodded a thank you, and the groom bowed and walked away.

The strong smell of horse overwhelmed the stabling, which housed more than a hundred riding animals in this wing, while the coach horses had their own quarters across the way. It wasn’t a horse that Arell was looking for, though, and he had lied to the groom, for he wasn’t returning to retrieve something he forgot. He walked to the tool shed and removed two shovels.

“Be thinking of a song, Stormy. One that your brother would have liked.”

“We’re goin’ to bury him ourselves?”

“We’re going to find the loveliest resting place anyone in the Potamian kingdom would want. And you get to choose the spot.”

Stormy wiped his face with his arm and looked away. Arell respectfully turned aside, all too familiar with grief.

“It hurts, I know, Stormy. Losing someone close to you whom you’ve known all your life. It’s difficult saying goodbye.” Arell had his hand on Stormy’s shoulder and the other held the shovel that rested on his own. As they hiked out of the barn under the night sky, his thoughts were on his father’s grave overlooking the Sea of Nisi.

“But the best thing you can do for your soul and for your brother’s spirit is to give him the resting place he deserves. It will be an act of completion for you.”

Stormy walked quietly, but Arell felt his body relax as they followed the horse trail away from the castle grounds in the forest.

“I never thought I could stand to bury my father, but once I had, peace returned to me.”

They trekked through the woods for a good half hour until they came to the edge of the woods and a steep decline which rolled over foothills into the prairie. Stormy drew his breath and stared at the mountains in the distance. Arell stopped and leaned on his shovel. Mount Ream and Casda de Moor glowed in the moonlight, and the grasslands between them and the mountain ranges glistened with dew.

“Here’s a better place than any,” Stormy said. “Rory would have been in awe.”

The soil was soft, dark, rich, and easy to shovel. Stormy joined Arell and they worked well into the night. When they had dug

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