Falling With

Midnight (Chapter Two)

Trayl wandered purposefully. They’d gotten their rooms at the inn and the other two had decided to call it a night.

Trayl wasn’t ready to let the city off so easily.

He’d come here to make changes, to bring back the honor and duty that the knights had once stood for, and he couldn’t do that while he was asleep. He would enter the army soon enough, and streak his way to the knights, but he saw no reason to wait for that before he started acting like a knight, so rather than sleep, he’d grabbed his sword and started patrolling the streets.

He kept the blade under his cloak, well aware of the laws against carrying a sword within the city limits, but too aware of the number of vagrants who ignored those laws to leave it behind. It wasn’t long before he found himself outside of a simple tailor’s, the clothing within clearly designed for the less well-to-do of Vartha. A pair of large men with dirty hair and clothes each had a dagger out, one against the shopkeeper’s neck, one miming slashing motions on the clothing hanging around the small place.

Trayl ground his teeth together, walking into the store calmly. The thug holding the shopkeeper spoke first, turning his short blade to point towards the newcomer.

“Hey, this place is temporarily closed fer business, pal. Beat it.”

The other was less tactful. “Yeah, ‘fore we beat you!”

The tall blond stopped moving, then flung his cloak aside and throwing his sheathe at the man holding the shopkeeper, striking him in the forehead and sending him to the ground with a cry. The second barely had a chance to look confused before Trayl’s sword had slapped him with the flat of it’s blade on the temple, knocking him to the ground with only a thin cut where the edge of the blade had been.

Trayl grinned and turned to the old man who owned the place, only to feel a weak fist punch him in the gut. The tall man took a step back, more out of surprise then pain, looking at the ungrateful shopkeeper incredulously. He held back the initial roar he felt, but still spoke loudly. “Are you mad? They had blades out and against your throat!”

The man didn’t back down though, pointing at the bodies on the floor. “Now they’re never coming back unless it’s for me head. I’m gonna have ta get protection from someone else now, and the other gangs are as like to actually slit me throat as ta gimme the time I need ta pay em.”

Trayl blinked for a second, studying the man closely for the first time. This man wasn’t old, he was perhaps in his late twenties, maybe thirty at most. He seemed tired, far more so than a man his age had any right to be, and the lines in his face seemed even more pronounced as his anger faded.

“I know you were trying ta help, but next time, don’t. The folks here need more than a bit of gallantry and swordplay.”

The blond man turned, looking over the wares. They were of poor materials, but well-constructed, sturdy. He turned back to find the shopkeeper already dragging the first thug over to the room in the back, laying him in the only bed in the building, likely the one that the man must sleep in himself.

“Just go. They’re decent enough, they’ll not harm me on account of your foolishness. Just go.”

Trayl walked from the store, collecting his sheathe as he went and concealing his sword again. Something very serious was wrong here when saving a man only doomed them further. He was almost sorry he’d tried.

His steps brought him back to the inn, his sword feeling much heavier. The quiet footsteps following him went unnoticed amongst the noise in his head.